This was the opener from a client a few years ago, and not an unusual one I might add.
They were a leader in a large tech company who was very capable but an interesting side to them was that they would raise their eyes and smile any time I brought up the mental side of business.
The smile was a little bit like one you might get from an experienced business head talking to a more junior one.
This guy was American and in his words:
“Shane, we invented mindset and the inner game.”
Now while that could easily be challenged, I understood his point, and so we primarily focused on what I call the ‘outer game’ challenges and made great progress on his top goals.
One of the biggest blocks to innovation in business and personal reinvention is what is called ‘perspective blindness’.
This is where you’re so ingrained in your own paradigm, your own perspective and point of view that you don’t have a willingness to listen to anyone else’s opinion or viewpoint.
I remember the first time I saw a James Bond movie.
It was watching Dr. No on TV at home in Kilkenny as a child and myself and my brother Mark became immediate fans – subsequently tormenting my parents with our antics in the home to ‘save the world’.
A key part of us buying into Ian Fleming’s world was of course Sean Connery.
And today is one such day. It’s a bank holiday in Ireland and I’m feeling like limiting my writing. I watch out for poems that strike a chord and this one below by Brazilian writer, Martha Medeiros, hits the mark on many levels.
A surprising amount of leaders I know enjoy poetry and for 1 minute of your time, this particular one has a high return on investment, if you’re open.
I love it when serendipity happens. It’s a reminder to me that we’re in a big universe that is unfolding in its own way, with many connected things I can’t see.
In my experience, when you try to achieve something great or important to you, there is something inside you that rises up.
I call it the ‘Inner Procrastinator’, and it’s usually a deadly quiet assassin of great results and a better life. It’s also incredibly clever and subtle, presenting you with super excuses to avoid what you know, deep down, you want to do.
There are lots of challenges in business and life. Maybe even more now because of the pandemic.
But perhaps the biggest problem of all is this: taking ourselves too seriously.
We may not have everything the way ‘we want’ right now but if we step back and look with fresh eyes, we have a lot that’s right. Our family puppy has reminded me to keep that point in perspective.
I wasn’t in the good books with TLJ (The Lovely Judy) or the kids over the weekend.
Our house alarm has been broken for several weeks and as a result, we had fallen out of the habit of setting it every night. But it was fixed recently and I decided on Saturday night to set it.
I’m usually the first up in our home, and because of the lack of habit, I walked into the kitchen without dis-arming the alarm.
The reality is that no-one can control how things unfold. And certainly, it seems that the entire world is getting a lesson in this right now.
Things going wrong is another way of saying “I don’t like this”. And because we feel what we think, that is the start of how stress and misery is caused. But, while we can’t control how the world unfolds, we can control our response to it.
I’m lucky in that I’m a fan and practitioner of acting, a love I inherited from my mother. One of my earliest memories as a child is sitting in a theatre hall in Kilkenny, watching her and her fellow actors rehearse their upcoming shows.
6 years ago my mother, Mary, asked myself and my siblings to come to the family home in Kilkenny, without our families.
My father had been ill and had recently endured several operations, so we feared the worst.
When we arrived, they told us that Dad (Jim), had been told to get his affairs in order because he only had a few weeks to live. As you can imagine, that was a very emotional weekend. And the following weeks were challenging as we waited.
