Any project that is going to motivate you to keep at it has to challenge your sense of what's possible. Give yourself room for half-measures and shortcuts and you'll almost certainly find an excuse to use them.
That's why your mission and your standards have to be higher, purer and more difficult to achieve than other people's if you're going to do better, be better and make more of a difference.
Easy is boring, anyway.
Real success is achieving what you weren't sure you could.
Roy
Wednesday 24 April 2013
Wednesday 10 April 2013
Synergy - When It All Falls Into Place
When things start falling into place so that each 'thing' supports every other thing in some way, or when you start to notice a common theme in the disparate things you're involved with, when things (and people) start to come together, that's synergy.
You can't really force synergy. Yes, you can look for 'congruence' in what you do, but that's really about consciously cutting your workload by being consistent and repurposing what you do to get the maximum mileage out of it.
Synergy seems to happen more by accident. Or at least, we don't consciously seek it out - but then, the brain is a mysterious thing.
So when you look at your client list, friends list or your interests, can you spot a theme? Interests can be wide-ranging at first glance and yet somehow...
With our client list and ongoing projects we're starting to notice a definite theme. Mainly, it's people and science. Particularly the science of people, from diet to behaviour (more closely linked than we usually realise), taking in motivation, self-esteem, goals and ambitions, 'mentality' and psychiatric and physical health.
And all these subjects involve equipping ourselves with the right tools and understanding how to use the tools we've got. That's why one of our most recent clients struck such an obvious chord with both of us. After all, what could be a better fit with everything we've done recently than the 'Human Toolbox'?
Lindy Wheeler is fascinating, caring and, above all, knowledgeable about the human mind and brain and the 'human tools' we all have within us to change the way we think and act and so transform the results we can achieve. Her workshop on 27th April is a 'must-attend' event if you're at all interested in human potential, and especially your own!
Meanwhile, have a think about what you've been drawn towards recently and what seems to be falling into place in your life, work and career. If you've been wondering what to do with the rest of your life (or the next episode of it), you might well find a clue right there.
Maybe go with the flow for a while...
Roy
You can't really force synergy. Yes, you can look for 'congruence' in what you do, but that's really about consciously cutting your workload by being consistent and repurposing what you do to get the maximum mileage out of it.
Synergy seems to happen more by accident. Or at least, we don't consciously seek it out - but then, the brain is a mysterious thing.
So when you look at your client list, friends list or your interests, can you spot a theme? Interests can be wide-ranging at first glance and yet somehow...
With our client list and ongoing projects we're starting to notice a definite theme. Mainly, it's people and science. Particularly the science of people, from diet to behaviour (more closely linked than we usually realise), taking in motivation, self-esteem, goals and ambitions, 'mentality' and psychiatric and physical health.
And all these subjects involve equipping ourselves with the right tools and understanding how to use the tools we've got. That's why one of our most recent clients struck such an obvious chord with both of us. After all, what could be a better fit with everything we've done recently than the 'Human Toolbox'?
Lindy Wheeler is fascinating, caring and, above all, knowledgeable about the human mind and brain and the 'human tools' we all have within us to change the way we think and act and so transform the results we can achieve. Her workshop on 27th April is a 'must-attend' event if you're at all interested in human potential, and especially your own!
Meanwhile, have a think about what you've been drawn towards recently and what seems to be falling into place in your life, work and career. If you've been wondering what to do with the rest of your life (or the next episode of it), you might well find a clue right there.
Maybe go with the flow for a while...
Roy
Friday 5 April 2013
Western Science? There's No Such Thing (and why that matters)
"Western Science" is one of those lazy phrases we use almost without thinking. We mean medicine, particle physics, biology, astronomy and more, but we lump it all together as 'western science'.
But science is no more western than it is Martian. It's science. It's science that North Koreans use to build nuclear reactors, and it's science that Japanese use to build communication satellites. How far east to you want to go and still call it 'the west'?
The point is, this is lazy language, and lazy language leads to lazy thinking. Like labelling every unemployed person a benefit scrounger, or every wealthy person a selfish bastard, it just doesn't do justice to the truth. We make similar assumptions about customers, clients, our staff and our bosses.
We all fall into the cliche trap, probably every day. But when we allow ourselves to carry on with lazy, untested untruths, we do ourselves and everyone else a disservice.
The next time you think about anything important - that's anything that matters to you - ask yourself what assumptions you're making that come from lazy thinking and cliched language - and then ask yourself how this affects the decisions you make.
It's not always easy to think, really think, from first principles, especially when we're being bombarded with cliches and stereotypes, but brave, clear thinking is the only way you'll build a brave new world - either for yourself or for the rest of us.
Roy
But science is no more western than it is Martian. It's science. It's science that North Koreans use to build nuclear reactors, and it's science that Japanese use to build communication satellites. How far east to you want to go and still call it 'the west'?
The point is, this is lazy language, and lazy language leads to lazy thinking. Like labelling every unemployed person a benefit scrounger, or every wealthy person a selfish bastard, it just doesn't do justice to the truth. We make similar assumptions about customers, clients, our staff and our bosses.
We all fall into the cliche trap, probably every day. But when we allow ourselves to carry on with lazy, untested untruths, we do ourselves and everyone else a disservice.
The next time you think about anything important - that's anything that matters to you - ask yourself what assumptions you're making that come from lazy thinking and cliched language - and then ask yourself how this affects the decisions you make.
It's not always easy to think, really think, from first principles, especially when we're being bombarded with cliches and stereotypes, but brave, clear thinking is the only way you'll build a brave new world - either for yourself or for the rest of us.
Roy
Monday 1 April 2013
Really Brave or Merely Fearless?
Are the people who do the amazing, deliver the extraordinary or accomplish the seemingly impossible different in some fundamental way from the rest of humanity?
That's a question I often ponder, especially when I read the advice of coaches and self-helpers (the ones who have achieved great things) and successful entrepreneurs, who say, in effect, that "Anyone can do it".
The ones who really have 'done it' often seem unaware of the essential difference that marks them out as special, or at least unusual.
I'm not sure there's a word to define this difference, actually, but 'fearlessness' is the closest I can get. Fearlessness meaning 'lack of fear', rather than 'courage' or 'bravery'. If you're not afraid you have no need to be brave, whereas most people are only too aware of the dangers - real and imagined.
But what if you're not like them and you do feel afraid? What if you still want to go ahead and do the difficult thing? Then you need to be very brave, or you need to learn the trick that those danger junkies seem to have learned without trying.
Turn fear into excitement. In Susan Jeffers' immortal words: "Feel the fear and do it anyway", by feeling your fear in a new way, as an energising force, like an actor taking to the stage. Use it to fight, not for flight.
Welcome your fear as a part of your journey, an experience that's as unique to you as the rest of your journey. Because, when you own your fear, it can't own you.
Roy
That's a question I often ponder, especially when I read the advice of coaches and self-helpers (the ones who have achieved great things) and successful entrepreneurs, who say, in effect, that "Anyone can do it".
The ones who really have 'done it' often seem unaware of the essential difference that marks them out as special, or at least unusual.
I'm not sure there's a word to define this difference, actually, but 'fearlessness' is the closest I can get. Fearlessness meaning 'lack of fear', rather than 'courage' or 'bravery'. If you're not afraid you have no need to be brave, whereas most people are only too aware of the dangers - real and imagined.
But what if you're not like them and you do feel afraid? What if you still want to go ahead and do the difficult thing? Then you need to be very brave, or you need to learn the trick that those danger junkies seem to have learned without trying.
Turn fear into excitement. In Susan Jeffers' immortal words: "Feel the fear and do it anyway", by feeling your fear in a new way, as an energising force, like an actor taking to the stage. Use it to fight, not for flight.
Welcome your fear as a part of your journey, an experience that's as unique to you as the rest of your journey. Because, when you own your fear, it can't own you.
Roy
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