Category: Everything else

If you ever find yourself disappointed because of a short term result, it is worth asking yourself one question – are you playing the short game or the long game?

In the short game, the result definitely matters. It probably influences other inter-related results and it gives you reason for frustration, disappointment, and, in some cases, anger. You want things to just work out and you hate any unexpected obstacles. In the short game, you want to postpone anything painful and difficult to after the “end.”

But, of course, there is no “end.” (well, philosophically speaking, until there is…)

When you play the long game, you learn very quickly that this stuff isn’t worth your time. Your only focus is around what you are learning from these experiences. That’s how you improve your process, upgrade your skills, and avoid making similar mistakes.

So, if you feel like you are either avoiding inevitable pain, sensing negative stress, disappointment, frustration, and anger in yourself, it is probably worth taking a step back and asking yourself why you are playing the short game. Perhaps it is because your environment thinks in terms of earnings reports, fund raising rounds, semester exams, or month-end targets. It doesn’t have to be how you think.

And, ironically, thinking short-term is a great example of sacrificing effectiveness for the sake of efficiency. Playing the short game inevitably invites negative emotions when things don’t go as per plan (and, let’s face it, the odds that things don’t go as per plan is 100%).  And, negative emotions are a guaranteed waste of time.

So, play the long game. This is one of those situations where there is a better way. And this is it.

When I think about some of the best players across sports, I am struck by how much they seem to control time. Whether it is Lionel Messi or Roger Federer, top players always seem to play like they have all the time in the world.

I am reminded of a quote from an interview with financial author William Berstein. He said –“The less you do, the more creative you are.  Show me a person who works 70 or 80 hours a week and I’ll show you a person who’s never had an original thought in their life because you just don’t have the time to have them.”

It is a great thought.

If you find yourself running through your days with no time to reflect, eat, exercise or sleep, there is a good chance there is something really wrong.

And, as William Henry Davis would say – “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”

Great conversation is scarce. There are many impediments to it and, chief among them as the stakes go high, is the fear of failure (“What if I say something stupid?”).

It is easier to talk about the weather because –
1. It is nearly always too hot, too cold, too humid, or too dry. And occasionally, it is just perfect and makes us wonder how long it will last.
2. We can’t be wrong about the weather. It is out there for everyone to see.

I am not a fan of discussions around the weather. And, every once in a while when I feel the group might be open to changing the tone of the conversation, I ask one question – “What is something cool you learned in the past few week(s)?”

And, it works. I typically volunteer to get the ball rolling (thank you, dear blog, for always allowing me to be prepared). And, the conversation that follows is nearly always inspiring. That’s because we all have incredible insights about ourselves, our environments, and our lives sitting inside us. And, when we bring them out in the form of what we learnt, we invite others to build on what we’ve learnt and make the insight even more powerful. The other positive part is that focusing on what we learnt versus what happened to us means we can move the conversation from people and events to ideas. And, given we’re always one great idea from transforming ourselves, it never hurts to raise the bar.

So, if you’re wondering how to inspire great conversation, I hope you think about the “What is something cool you learned..” question.

If saying yes means showing up late and disheveled, being physically present but mentally elsewhere, or being anything but your best self, say no.

It is better to disappoint someone by saying you won’t be able to do it justice than to give 50%. Half measures don’t help anyone.

Saying no also means you care – about your effect on people’s energy and happines, about making sure you don’t get in the way of the success of the project you are saying no to, and about everyone else who is actually looking forward to having a great evening.

When you’re in, be in.

PS: Don’t say yes when you want to say no.

I woke up this morning sensing dread.

I recognized my foe – the resistance.

I had been second guessing myself a bit yesterday afternoon on a few things and needed to deal with them today. I should have known he would be around this morning. The resistance had done what it does best – taken hold of those doubts and converted them to fear. He thrives on ambiguity.

“Stay in bed.” – the fear said.
As I stirred, a second voice asked a valid question – “What is it that you are afraid of?”

As I was listening in on this conversation, I realized I had no idea. Cue – time to get started on the morning routine. The morning routine is a fantastic tool for bringing things into perspective as I have a set bunch of tasks I do no matter what. As I stood brushing my teeth, I wondered how the resistance had managed to get to me this morning. I couldn’t even remember the last such morning encounter – I’ve worked hard to keep him away. That’s when I realized – I’d just gone to bed last night with all the doubts in my head. I hadn’t taken a moment to jot them down and put together a plan to work through them today.

So, I finally got to doing that. Now that I have a plan, I can feel that slipping away along with the resistance.

They had left me with a gift – 3 great learnings –
1. As Master Yoda would say – “Named your fear must be, before banish it you can.” Write down what scares you. And, don’t worry – it is normal to feel fear and dread every once a while. It generally feels worse than it really is.
2. Plan tomorrow’s work today. Sometimes, we underestimate the subconscious work our mind does. Even if you had a peaceful night of sleep, worries can tend to magnify if you file them as worries just before you head to bed.
3. A plan doesn’t solve anything, of course. You still have to work through them. I’ve got Ode to Joy playing as I get ready to take on the day. I wasn’t looking for a solution. I was just looking for a nudge.. and that’s what I’ve gotten.

Here’s to getting things done today!

A lot of leadership literature emphasizes the importance of in-depth personal feedback – the kind that focuses on you as a person vs. the kind that focuses on work you did. On first glance, it makes sense. It helps to know when you are rubbing people the wrong way from time to time and to course-correct.

There is, however, a problem. Most feedback sucks. And that’s not because of feedback givers. It’s just really hard to give good feedback. Our feedback on someone else’s personality and behavior is colored heavily by our biases, our insecurities and our views of the world. And, it tends to often neglect a real understanding of the other person while assuming there is such a thing as a well-rounded person.

You’ve seen this happen – either in your interpersonal interactions or in your companies. Consultants often make this mistake – they give advice without really understanding the client’s context. And new CEO’s attempt cultural transformations too soon.

The underlying problem is exactly the same – I call it ‘change without understanding.’ This idea has some interesting implications on how we approach personal growth.

First, a growth mindset is great. But, I’d argue it needs to be applied with an understanding of context. Carol Dweck’s research on fixed mindset and growth mindset has made waves over the past few years. Carol’s research demonstrated that we can change more about ourselves than society would like us to believe. And that’s true. If we’re open enough for instance, we can learn anything we want. And, as someone who writes about learning and getting better every day, it would be hypocritical not to agree. I agree with Carol but, and yes, there is a but, I’d like to play devil’s advocate.

While we are definitely influenced by our environment, there is no denying that we also have an intrinsic nature. Most parents who have two or more kids are generally quick to admit that nature is a huge part of what makes a person. Kids have natural instincts and they gravitate towards those instincts. As we grow up, we often lose touch with these instincts and our authentic selves. And, while it is true that we can learn anything we want, some things come a lot easier to us than others. Deliberate practice researchers make a compelling argument about the link between childhood practice and talent. They say talent is ‘overrated’. That is also true. We often put undue weight onto natural talent but it would be foolish to say it doesn’t exist. Our authentic self is primed to be extraordinary at something. Some know it when they’re young (“I always knew I’d be a …”) while, for others, it is a journey that involves many years of training before they stumble onto that realization. Luckily, both the journey of finding what we’re extraordinary at and the journey of using that to make the world better are both incredibly rewarding.

So, my first assertion would be that our focus shouldn’t be on learning and understanding all those things we aren’t good at. There are millions of things we can better at. The question worth asking is – what can I be extraordinary at?

Second, the ‘what can I be extraordinary at?’ question is different from the more existential ‘what am I meant to do?/what is my passion?’ because it has a focus on skills.

Over time, we begin to understand the sort of activities we gravitate towards. Some of us are naturally skilled at detail oriented tasks while others are not. Some of us have a high appetite for risk while others don’t. The key here is to go back to the authentic self idea; to understand what we might be outstanding at, we need to really understand ourselves. And, understanding ourselves requires us to test our own approach and thinking and follow these experiments up with time for reflection.

Can others help us understand ourselves? Absolutely. But, they require context, insight, and an ability to get over themselves (a great parenting books describes this as ‘parenting from wholeness, not from wounds). This doesn’t mean people never have useful insights. All feedback has some percentage of useful content. It’s just not that efficient to keep decoding feedback because we also tend to over weight the negative and underweight the positive.

Third, change occurs when there is a want for change. And, I’d argue that we have an internal compass that knows what we need to do. We just need to drown out the noise and listen to ourselves. I know this sounds philosophical. But, think about times when you’ve had difficulty choosing between two choices – you’ve likely figured it out for yourself anyway (and then asked for opinions to confirm your point of view!).

That, I think, is what great feedback is about. When done right, it just points the receiver in the direction they want to go. That’s why it is so hard to get right. I mess this up all the time. Great feedback isn’t about answers – it is about questions.

I had a wise friend who didn’t believe in giving feedback. Instead, he’d spend a lot of time describing observations he’d made and then working hard to understand what drove me to do what I did. In doing so, he worked to understand what drove me and what my assumptions were in the situation. And, when he felt he understood the situation, he’d go on to have a conversation with me about it and ask more questions to make me think about what I’d consider my best response in such a situation (i.e. what my best/future self would like to do). This was a tiring process. But, what he did was incredibly effective – he dug deep into various situations to understand me and understand what I was having difficulty with. Then, he’d ask me where I think I should go and give me the confidence to walk through the process.

I never understood it then. I see it now. It is ridiculously easy to give someone feedback – if they’re quiet, ask them to speak more, if they’re energetic, ask them to calm down, etc..

So, here’s to feedback v2.0 – understanding the person before suggesting any change. And, you know what I’ve found on the rare occasions I’ve managed to do that.. sometimes, just the act of seeking to understand brings us to the realization that the other person doesn’t really need feedback.  We don’t need people attempting to be perfect and well-rounded. It’s the edges that make life interesting..

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An additional note – I’m not sure I’ve done justice to this idea. After a lot of thinking, I thought I’d get to writing it anyway. I’m hoping it comes through!

I rarely do two posts a day and very rarely do any reblogs. Seth’s blog is a happy exception to these general rules. His post today was so good that I just had to share it with all of you. I realize it’ll be a second read for many of you but I think it is worth it.

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One list highlights the lucky breaks, the advantages, the good feedback, your trusted network. It talks about the accident of being born in the right time and the right place, your health, your freedom. It features your education, your connection to the marketplace and just about every nice thing someone has said about you in the last week or month.

The other list is the flipside. It contains the obstacles you’ve got to deal with regularly, the defects in your family situation, the criticisms your work has received lately. It is a list of people who have better luck than you and moments you’ve been shafted and misunderstood.
The thing is, at every juncture, during every crisis, in every moment of doubt, you have a choice. You will pull out one (virtual) list or the other. You’ll read and reread it, and rely on it to decide how to proceed.

Up to you.

There is one time in the day that is critical to your productivity. If you are lucky, there might be two. This is the time when you get a lot done without any interruptions. And, you know what time I’m talking about. If you don’t, find your key productive time!

I find that, for most people, this time falls early in the morning. Some of the most successful people I know go to great lengths to protect this time because the rest of the day can just whiz by quickly with meetings and other urgent interruptions.

It is is worth thinking intentionally about your schedule so you get this time for yourself. Sleep early. Resist the temptation to work late at the end of a long day as you’ll get all that you need to get done in half the time when you wake up fresh. Avoid snoozing your alarm – instead, do something that wakes you up – I look through my news feeds and email as a way of making sure my brain wakes up (I tried not doing that but ended up going right back to sleep – I guess I still don’t have the discipline to just wake up and get to work).

It is one of those simple ideas that is hard to execute consistently – find the time in the day when you are most productive and likely to be interrupted least. Construct a schedule around it. And, make sure you get that time for yourself every day. Little habits like this make a big difference over the course of a long period of time.

The more we get done, the happier we are. We owe it to ourselves for our own happiness..