i know nothing

Give some thought to all the people who have achieved something great, only to quickly fade into obscurity. I’m sure you can think of a few, whether they’re entertainers or business people or athletes. 

In my career I’ve coached many “successful” people who came to me because their lives had gone flat, and they had become uninspired and tepid. What happened? For many of them, they got comfortable. For years, they had pushed their comfort zones to get where they wanted to be. But as soon as they chose certainty over uncertainty, they stopped achieving. They hit the wall.

Why does it happen? Because when you’ve accomplished one of your goals, when you’re rich and successful, the future naturally seems a little more certain. I’m sure we’d all feel a little more secure with a million bucks or so in the bank.

But that mindset shift is exactly what creates the environment for our ultimate undoing. When we’re no longer uncertain about money, the desire – the need even – to pursue it recedes. When we’re no longer uncertain about success, our ambition can blunt or mellow. We get to wallow in our bloated illusion of certainty. Eventually we get to do that thing called “settle.” We settle for certainty. 

That’s the kind of power that uncertainty has in our lives. It can make us or break us. It can make us rich or make us poor. It can be the key to our success or drive us in the other direction. 

For many people, it ends up being both. 

The funny thing is, no matter how much you chase certainty, you’ll never really be able to hold it or retain it. That’s because it doesn’t exist. The universe will always send us little reminders of its chaos and power, and no one is exempt from the prompting. 

Nothing is certain. You could go to sleep tonight and never wake up. You could get in your car and never make it to work. Certainty is a complete illusion. Voodoo.

Some of you might find this terrible to think about, but it’s true. No matter how hard we may try, we can never predict exactly what life will bring. Our plans will falter at some point eventually. 

By running from uncertainty in search of certainty, we’re actually rejecting the one thing in life that is guaranteed in favor of something that’s nothing more than a fantasy. 

“All I know,” Socrates once said, “is that I know nothing.” Many wise people understand this. In fact, they owe their wisdom to that very realization – that they don’t actually know a damn thing.

Because when we think we know everything, we inadvertently turn ourselves away from the unknown and, by default, whole new realms of success. The person who accepts how unpredictable and uncertain life is has no choice but to embrace it.

They’re not afraid of the uncertain; it’s just a part of life. They don’t seek out certainty because they know it doesn’t really exist. They are also the kind of people who are aware of and open to the real magic and miracles of life and what can be accomplished.

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself: Get out of your head and into your life by Gary John Bishop. Harper One. 2017. p.103-106

fear driven vs. hope driven

Dean Ornish, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, decided to reframe the underlying mind-set beneath the patients’ narratives. He wanted to change it from “If I behave this way, I won’t die” (fear driven) to “If I behave this way, my life will be filled with joy” (hope driven). In his words, “Telling people who are lonely and depressed that they’re going to live longer if they quit smoking or change their diet and lifestyle is not that motivating. Who wants to live longer when you’re in chronic emotional pain?” How much better would they feel, he thought, if they could enjoy the pleasures of daily life without suffering any pain or discomfort? In his experiment, 77 percent of his patients managed to make permanent changes in their lifestyles, compared with a normal success rate of 10 percent.

"Getting personal about change," by Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger. McKinsey Quarterly. August 21, 2019. 

root-cause mind-sets

Mind-sets ingrained by past management practices remain ingrained far beyond the existence of the practices that formed them, even when new management practices have been put in place.

Here are three business examples that underscore the perils of ignoring this lesson. Example one: a bank that identified how its high performers succeeded in cross-selling decided to roll out a change program with support scripts and good profiling questions for the other bankers to use—and was dismayed to find that these moves had a negligible impact on sales. A second example: a telco introduced a dramatically simplified process and rating system for performance reviews only to find that its leaders still avoided delivering tough messages. Finally: a manufacturer invested hundreds of millions in a knowledge-management technology platform meant to discourage hoarding and encourage collaboration—only to declare, several months later, that the system had been a complete failure.

In all these examples, the companies did a good job of recognizing the behavioral change needed to achieve the desired goals. Yet they didn’t take the time, or use the tools available, to understand why smart, hard-working, and well-intentioned employees continued to behave as before.

At the bank, for instance, two seemingly good but ultimately performance-limiting mind-sets accounted for the failure of the new sales-stimulation tools and training. The first was “my job is to give the customers what they want”; the second, “I should follow the Golden Rule and treat my customers as I would like to be treated.” At the telco, employees had a deep-seated, reasonable-sounding belief that “criticism damages relationships.” At the manufacturing company, people had an underlying conviction that “around here, information is power, and good leaders are powerful leaders.”

The upshot? By looking at—and acting on—only observable behavior, company leaders overlooked its underlying root causes. Consequently, the change efforts of all three organizations led to disappointment.

Once the root-cause mind-sets are identified, the next step is to reframe those beliefs and thereby expand the range of reasonable behavioral choices employees make, day in and day out. That creates the caterpillar-to-butterfly effect described earlier. Would different beliefs, for example, have inspired expanded and better-informed behavioral choices for average-performing bankers? If so, which beliefs? Suppose they believed that their job—indeed, the way they add value for others—was to “help customers fully understand their needs” rather than “giving customers what they want.” Also, what if instead of applying the “Golden Rule,” bankers applied the “Platinum Rule”: treating others as they (rather than bankers) want to be treated.

And what if the telco executives, in their performance-management discussions, had believed that “honesty—combined with respect—doesn’t damage relationships; in fact, it is essential to building strong ones”? And what if the manufacturing managers had thought that “sharing information rather than hoarding is the best way to magnify power”? Had they believed that, the company very likely wouldn’t have needed an expensive (and ultimately futile) knowledge-management system to help employees reach out to one another and share best practices.

Beneath each of the reframes described above, it’s important to note, lies a deeper shift in worldview. For example, moving from the giving-customers-what-they-want mind-set to helping them fully understand what they really need reflects a move from subordinate to peer. Recognizing that honesty builds rather than destroys relationships reflects a shift from victimhood to mastery. And choosing to believe that power is expanded by sharing information, not that hoarding information is power, focuses on abundance, not scarcity.

"Getting personal about change," by Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger. McKinsey Quarterly. August 21, 2019. 

after reading over 200 self-improvement books

After reading over 200 self-improvement books over the past thirty years I have determined all self-improvement and success come down to five keystone lessons that all other principles rest upon.

1. Mindset determines your success.
2. Goals create the map to your success.
3. Modeling shows what leads to success. 
4. Systems create the path to your success. 
5. Perseverance makes you successful.

...To succeed in life, you must develop a positive and growth-oriented mindset that allows you to overcome challenges and learn from your mistakes. You should set realistic and achievable goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. You must create a system of processes, routines, and habits that help you consistently and efficiently move closer to achieving your goals. Finally, you must cultivate the habit of perseverance, which enables you to keep going even when things get tough and never give up on your goals. This is what 200 self-help books will teach you.

Steve Burns

I Read 200 Self-Improvement Books To Learn These 5 Lessons. New Trader U. March 12, 2023. 

change your mindset

 

frame your story

There’s no way you can give a good talk unless you have something worth talking about. Conceptualizing and framing what you want to say is the most vital part of preparation.

We all know that humans are wired to listen to stories, and metaphors abound for the narrative structures that work best to engage people. When I think about compelling presentations, I think about taking an audience on a journey. A successful talk is a little miracle—people see the world differently afterward.

Chris Anderson

"How to Give a Killer Presentation: Lessons from TED," Harvard Business Review. June 2013

I read books

You can become an expert in just about anything if you read enough books on the subject. If you don't believe me, ask Elon Musk. Whenever anyone asks him how he learned to build space-traveling rockets, this is his three-word answer: "I read books...."

Want to read your way to success yourself? Begin with a growth mindset -- the belief that your abilities are not fixed in stone but can change over time, and that you can expand and change them if you're willing to put in the effort....

And finally, put that expertise to the test. Dan Coyle, who's written several bestselling books about what makes some individuals, and some teams, more successful than others, recommends spending 30 percent of your time learning and 70 percent testing your newfound knowledge. So, to cement your expertise, test your own knowledge, preferably by trying things out in the real world.

That's what Musk did when he began building rockets, several of which crashed or went off-course before he and his team figured out how to fly them reliably. This summer, NASA trusted SpaceX rockets to send astronauts into space from the U.S. for the first time in nine years. It's a huge achievement, and it all began with a big stack of borrowed textbooks. 

Minda Zetlin

"In Just 3 Words, Elon Musk Explained How You Can Become Expert at Anything (Even Rocket Science)," Inc. Oct. 31, 2020

4 communication approaches

Effective communications: a combination of four approaches:

1. Leaders who have to tell and retell a story over and over again should remind themselves to approach it with a “beginners’ mind” – and not lose sight of what it’s like to tell and hear the story for the first time. As Alan G. Lafley, former CEO of P&G notes, “Excruciating repetition and clarity are important – employees have so many things going on in the operation of their daily business that they don’t always take the time to stop, think, and internalize.” Paolo Scaroni, who has led three Italian public companies through major change as CEO of Techint, Enel, and Eni, agrees as he indicates the key to successful communications is “repeat, repeat, and repeat… throughout the organization.”

2. Ensure the message sticks by coining and relentlessly repeating language that is simple and memorable. Consider Walmart’s “10-foot rule,” which reminds frontline employees of the company’s customer service aspiration: whenever you are within 10 feet of a customer, look them in the eye, smile, and ask how you can help.  At Microsoft, at the end of every meeting the question is called as to, “Was that a growth mindset or a fixed mindset meeting?” This acts not just as a reminder of the desired shift, but also prompts the act of continuous learning that a growth mindset is meant to manifest. As Willie Walsh, former CEO of British Airways, explains, “The simpler the message, the easier it is to deliver. The simpler the message, the more likely it is to be consistent. The simpler the message, the easier it is to control and manage the communication.”

The language not used can be just as powerful as that which is. When Australian telecommunications and media company Telstra wanted to improve internal collaboration, it banned people from using the word “they” in conversations about other teams and unites to remind employees to work as one organization. Posters proclaiming, “no ‘they’,” like the one below appeared everywhere, and people started to call attention to references to “they” and “them” even in casual conversations.

3. Move from “telling” to “asking.” This has the benefit of also leveraging the “lottery ticket” effect to build ownership. With this technique, even chance conversations can be put to good use. At Emerson Electric, CEO David Farr makes a point of asking virtually everyone he encounters the same four questions: “How do you make a difference?” (to find out whether people are aligned on the company’s direction); “What improvement ideas are you working on?” (to emphasize execution edge health recipe); “When did you last get coaching from your boss?” (to probe on the people development management practice); and “Who is the enemy?” (emphasizing collaboration – the right answer is to name a competitor and not some other department!). This sends a clear message that these issues matter. If employees don’t have good answers for you right at the moment, you can bet they will when they are asked next time. 

4. Ensure the story doesn’t just come from leaders and instead is reinforced through as many channels as possible: speech, print, online, actions, symbols, rituals, and so on. Using multiple channels reinforces the consistent message…. The most progressive two-way communications programs take what’s known as a “transmedia” approach – not just telling the same story through multiple channels but telling different aspects of the story through different channels that all add up to the integrated picture in ways that otherwise wouldn’t be possible to build. 

Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger

Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large-Scale Change. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2019

the correct attitude of mind

Until the mid-1950s, the four-minute mile was regarded as beyond human achievement. Even medical journals judged it unattainable. Yet, in May 1954, a medical student named Roger Bannister smashed through the barrier with a time of 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. In his memoir, Bannister explained he did what was once thought impossible by spending as much time conditioning his mind as his body. He wrote, “The mental approach is all-important… energy can be harnessed by the correct attitude of mind.”

What is perhaps more amazing is that two months later, the four-minute barrier was broken again, by Australian John Landy. Within three years, 16 runners had followed suit. So, what happened here? Was it a sudden spurt in human evolution? A new super-race or genetically engineered runners? Of course not. It was the same physical equipment, but with a different mindset: one that said. “This can be done.” No doubt there are some “four-minute mile”-like mindsets sitting beneath the behaviors you see in your organization that, if broken trough, will unlock a whole new level of performance in a similar manner to Bannister's effect on the running community. 

Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger

Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large-Scale Change. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2019