Smelling Flowers

Through the pandemic, I have gotten a lot more reflective. I'm not suggesting I've climbed that mountain or executed the billion dollar idea that has made me rich beyond my wildest dreams, but it has given me pause about a lot of things about life. I did make a career significant career shift which turned out well but I haven't ordered the Bugatti just yet. I can honestly say my mind is clearer or at the very least more inquisitive than it has been in years. It has given pause to whether I'm utilizing my time well. 

I was running late for a client meeting last week and found myself getting angry at the audacity of other drivers being on the road slowing me down. Then I took a deep breath and laughed out loud. By myself in my car. If the roads had been clear, I may have made it to my destination four minutes earlier. 

Take a breath

It's those moments where I seem to be taking a longer pause to discover what really is important. Countless books have been written about being present now and not fretting so much about the past or future. If we could only be more like my cat. She does not worry that she purred wrong yesterday or that she's sleeping on my good sweater. She just lives in the moment. 

We spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about stuff we can't change, won't happen, or has happened. Why do we do that? It usually works out and even if it isn't exactly how we envisioned it would turn out, it's fine. 

Did nothin'

The Sunday before last, I got up early, had a coffee, read some news, had a nap, got up, had some breakfast, watched a Formula 1 race, had a nap, watched a show, made some dinner, watched another show, went to bed. And you know what? The sun came up the next day. Nothing terrible happened because I took a day off.

I think it's been accredited to the great philosopher Confucius who apparently said; "Life is simple; we choose to make it complicated." So I was four minutes late for my appointment. As it turned out, my client was 15 minutes late. We laughed about it over a spectacular cup of coffee.  

Cherishing every moment remains excellent advice.

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Forward Steps Back

I was thinking about a situation that happened a couple of years ago that sucked. Life moved on but I still think about it. I've asked numerous people if they have events they relive in their heads over and over again. The answer is almost always yes because most of us do. But why is that?

I'm not suggesting we don't relive happy memories, but the challenges seem to cut deeper for some reason. Is it perhaps because we are still learning a lesson? I know this, the more we try and not think about those events, the more we think about them. If I was to ask you to not think about an orange elephant riding a motorcycle – good luck getting that image out of your head!

Beware of the Lizard Brain

I'd consider myself a fairly smart dude, so why can't I just tell myself to stop letting something that has already happened, which I cannot change, continue to bug me? It has to do with the part of the limbic system in our brains that is in charge of fight, flight, feed, fear, or freeze. It is our survival mechanism which decides what we do next if we are experiencing stress. It's why we can't seem to get started on the project even though we know the deadline looms.

If we have a situation, current or past, real or imagined, it will react immediately. If we are experiencing or have experienced pain, it will focus solely on that moment. When I think of that event, it's as if I am reliving it over and over again. 

Negative vs Positive

Perhaps this is more prevalent in Western culture, but we seem to do it more often when remembering negative situations over joyous ones. Do we think we don't deserve joy and need to pay for pain? I'm obviously not a psychologist but I think there's something to that. Our frontal lobe is in charge of reasoning, motor skills, higher level cognition, and expressive language. So our complicated brain starts to fight with itself. 

I've started an exercise and like most when you begin, I'm terrible at it, but I'm trying to think of five positive things in my life or events that have happened whenever a negative thought or memory crosses my mind. When I can do it successfully, it actually works. So perhaps you can try it if you can't seem to get past a negative event in your past.

I wonder how the elephant balances on that motorcycle? 

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What About Now?

Have you ever been in a situation where you have to tackle a new task or refine an idea or meet a deadline but been unsure where to begin? That’s obviously rhetorical because we all have but the trick is how we successfully get out of that first key step to move forward.

It’s often been said leadership is about results but those results have to begin with an idea that must be advanced and refined before we can deliver it. But how much think time do we allow in our day to even get any of done? Our biggest hurdle is often us and in our inability to get started.

Ideas to get us moving forward.

Inspiration can often be unexpected. Recently, I was renewing my passport and while leaving the office I looked at my old one that had been with me for every flight, hotel, packed bag, cancelled flight, security check, delayed flight, and journey since 2007. Five years of fun, adventures, stress, bad food, opportunities, laughs, setbacks, great meals, and new friends.

How could a passport renewal create such a rush of memories? Perhaps it’s why we have pictures that trigger the emotion we felt at the time they were taken. It's not good to feel your best is behind you, but lessons and memories are part the deal.

Memories not Mementos

No matter what expertise we deploy, we can’t change the past. But it can teach us and remind us. It can clear a path to what could work in the future. Think about how you can apply that lesson to your leadership journey.

It’s the people who touch our lives and the experiences we most recap and recall. That booklet filed with paper reminded me to get back in touch with a few friends, remember good times, and think of lessons learned which weren't pleasant at the time but were necessary to reach the next milestone.

We need to give the past the respect it deserves, but on our way to the future, we can't forget to enjoy the now.
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Mom's Wisdom

On the night before I left for college, my mom said: "I'm so proud of you. Enjoy this time as you are going out into the world and as much as I'd love to help you never make mistakes, you will make lots of them. I can teach you not to make the same ones I made, but you'll make news ones all on our own."

That talk has carried me through some rough times and mom still helps me with her wisdom. But what is in a mistake? You spent too much on that dinner; you took that relationship too far when you knew it was over; you took that gig you knew you didn't really want; you trusted that person you know was lying to you.

Time's wisdom

The key element to any mistake is time and more importantly time after the event. I'm not referring to those decisions we make when when we know right at that moment we aren't making the right call. This is about that relationship, job, or experience that we endured because we decided with all the evidence we had at the time.

I don't know about you, but I've spent far too much of my life regretting stuff I can't change. Then again, those mistakes can often push us to where we need to go and the doorway was the so-called misstep we made in the past.

Let's live for today not yesterday.
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Perspective

Inspiration can often be unexpected. Recently, I was renewing my passport and while leaving the office I looked at my old one that had been with me for every flight, hotel, packed bag, cancelled flight, security check, delayed flight, and journey since 2007. Five years of fun, adventures, stress, bad food, opportunities, laughs, setbacks, great meals, and new friends.

How could a passport renewal create such a rush of memories? Perhaps it’s why we have pictures that trigger the emotion we felt at the time they were taken. It's not good to feel your best is behind you, but lessons and memories are part the deal.

Memories not Mementos

No matter what expertise we deploy, we can’t change the past. But it can teach us and remind us. It can clear a path to what could work in the future. Think about how you can apply that lesson to your leadership journey.

It’s the people who touch our lives and the experiences we most recap and recall. That booklet filed with paper reminded me to get back in touch with a few friends, remember good times, and think of lessons learned which weren't pleasant at the time but were necessary to reach the next milestone.

We need to give the past the respect it deserves, but on our way to the future, we can't forget to enjoy the now.

Kneale Mann

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Are You Committed to Your Future Self?

We all know we’re going to die. We all know, if we live long enough, we will get old. We make decisions every day which will affect our future. Daniel Goldstein explains how our decisions today will affect our tomorrow. What decisions will you make today in your life, your business and your leadership of others?

Daniel explains our struggle between our present and future 


Kneale Mann

visual credit: TED | Daniel Goldstein