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Could you fail 39 times?

Would you give up on the 39th AttemptI learnt recently that WD-40 stands for “Water Displacement 40”. The 40 means it was his 40th attempt at developing the product.

The  inventor Norm Larsen had tried 39 times to find a way to displace water to stop rusting in the aerospace industry.

When he finally succeeded on his 40th attempt he created a product that has far more uses that just the problem he was seeking to solve.

WD-40 would not exist if he & his team of three had given up on their 31st attempt.

I love that each time I use this product, the name itself, will be a reminder that sometimes failure upon failure is needed before success can occur.

Leaders are NOT readers

Leaders are NOT readersYou’ve heard the saying “Leaders are readers.”

I no longer believe that is true!

That’s because just reading for reading’s sake is not a healthy leadership trait.

Great leaders are educators.

Meaning, they are always learning.

And always teaching.

They do this by reading, for certain! They are also podcast listeners; video watchers; conference attenders and intellectually curious.

Leaders learn wide, across many topics. This stops narrow-mindedness and gives them the ability to point the people they lead in the right direction.

Leaders also learn deep, digging into a few topics in detail. Which gives them the wisdom and experience to radically change how they lead.

People don’t want to follow a leader with empty knowledge.

People want to follow leaders with wisdom.

Experience.

And knowledge.

Great leaders are great learners and therefore great educators.

Are you learning wide & deep to become the leader you need to be?

 

 

 


Footnote worth remembering: The saying “leaders are readers” was coined in the 1800s when reading was about the only option for learning.

Living with slightly embarrassing

Should we kill perfectionism?We no longer live in a world where everyone feels the need to always strive for perfection.

As a leader and self-diagnosed perfectionist this poses some big challenges.

  • There are no perfect decisions; more time, does not equal more right. In fact, the sooner you decide, the sooner you move forward and learn.
  • There is no perfect design; as everyone has different tastes and opinions.
  • There is no perfect strategy; as all plans change as they encounter the real issues in the marketplace.

In the startup and knowledge economy I’ve come to understand that perfect is the enemy of speed. Which is why at coHired, our company-wide number one priority includes the phrase “deliver a slightly embarrassing product”.

Slightly embarrassing means that we collectively kill perfectionism, knowing that the best path to perfect is by delivering the imperfect and learning from it.

If you’re a struggling perfectionist like me, here’s a tip:

I’m learning to break my perfectionist tendency by giving the work I would normally try to ‘perfect’ to someone else. It’s almost guaranteed they won’t do it the way I would, which means it won’t be my kind of ‘perfect’, but it almost always is great enough to move forward.

How to get promoted!

“What did you do to get promoted?” she asked, hoping for a leadership gem.  “I got lucky” I said, knowing it wasn’t the whole answer.

I had just been sharing about the period of my life where I went from being a courier to a senior manager in New Zealand’s largest courier company over a five-year period.

To be honest ‘luck’ played its part. I joined when the company was growing exponentially and promotions created spaces. But luck alone doesn’t account for it. There were a bunch of other people who didn’t get promoted.

I believe I was promoted because I locked on to an axiom early on in my career;

Do all of my job and half of my boss’s

Doing ‘all of my job’ stopped by boss having to jump in and do it for me. [Note: If your boss is doing some of your job, fix that first. Not cool!]

Doing ‘half of my boss’s job’ meant I was learning outside my existing roles and helping my boss. When opportunity popped up, I was a logical choice.

Trying to do one and a half jobs, doesn’t mean I worked 1 1/2 times harder. It is hard work, but it also taught me to lead my teams better and focus on what was important.

“Do all of my job and half of my boss’s job,” clearly won’t work in every setting. But maybe it’s worth a try.

Nowadays being a CEO/Founder it’s a lot harder to do my boss’s job, but my focus remains largely the same. I need to ‘Do my job and half of my future job.’

If I want to the organisations I lead to have a global impact, the leader I am today is not sufficient for the future.

How to rewire your brain

How to rewire your brainMy neighbour’s bach (holiday home) sits on the sand dunes a short distance from the beach. The walking track from the bach to the beach sort of dog-legs through the sand dunes. It doubles back, and makes the walk longer than it could be. But while the path is longer, it is considerably easier and faster than trying to force a new path where one doesn’t exist.

Which is how our brains function.

Over the years we form habits, good and bad, that create neuro-pathways in our minds. These paths make it faster and easier to do things and they eventually become habitual. They become automatic. And the more you use the path, the faster and easier it becomes.

Which is why it is so hard to break old habits. Because the path already exists and has become the default pathway. New habits, like trying to make a new track to the beach, means creating a new path which takes an incredible amount of hard work.

But, you can create new paths. You just need to walk the new track over and over again.

That’s great news!

Our brains are plastic.

Our behaviours are changeable.

You

can

change!

Recently I was making my morning cup of tea and without thinking I added sugar. I haven’t had sugar in my tea for years, but while my mind was somewhere else, my brain chose the old neuro-pathway.

My brain spotted the mistake before I added water, and it reminded me how established the old paths are.

When we are trying to break old, lifelong behaviours, often they will pop up when we least expect it.

That’s OK.

It takes a long time for the old path to become overgrown.

Just keep walking the new path.

Re-framing Failure

What have you learnt from the gift of failure this week

“I hate the word failure and wish it never existed,” I stated as strongly as I could as we reflected on some past experiences.

I shared that the problem with failure is its opposite seems to be pass.

The problem with pass is it has a strong mental connection to school or uni, where you pass or fail.

If you didn’t pass.

You failed.

You were a failure.

Nowadays, particularly in start-ups, ‘failing often’ or ‘failing fast’ is seen as a badge of honour. Because you can learn so much from failure.

Which is why I love how schools are trying their hardest to re-frame the word failure.

My friend who I was sharing all this with said that each Friday, his daughter is asked at her primary school, “What have you learnt from the gift of failure this week?”

Isn’t that a great question! Take another look.

What have you learnt from the gift of failure this week?

I realised in that conversation that I need to intentionally re-frame the word ‘failure’. To stop hating on it.

It should no longer be linked to pass or fail. Rather it should be linked to all the successes I have had as a result of learning from my failure.

Failure can be a gift.

If you learn from it.

 

What have you learnt from the gift of failure this week?

[pause]

[reflect]

Have you learnt anything?

Because if you haven’t, maybe your stuck in your comfort zone again.

Great Leaders Flip-Flop!

Great Leaders Flip FlopIt’s election year. This means you will hear two phrases in the media over the next 6 months. They are the terms “flip-flop” and “U-turn”.

The media is exceptionally good at spotting a flip flop or U-turn in the opinion of a candidate. While keeping the politicians ‘honest’ is important, I get concerned when the media portray changing your mind as a bad thing!

It’s not.

Authentically changing your mind is a strength.

Which type of leader would you rather follow?
– A person who is close minded to change.
– Or a man or a woman who authentically considers the evidence, and changes their mind.

For some reason society often frowns upon those who change their minds.

Personally, I’d rather be seen as a flip-flop leader.

Are you prepared to change your mind?

More importantly if you are presented with new evidence or feedback on a belief you hold dearly, would you change your mind?

Changing your mind or beliefs or attitudes is actually far harder than it seems. Far easier to stick with the status quo.

Which is why, great leaders flip-flop!

Every Single Day

The secret to daily exerciseI’m not sure what caused the epiphany. Maybe it was the brief moment I had sitting in crisp fresh air marveling at the lake and mountains nestled in the Swiss Alps. Perhaps it was processing time from long hours of driving. Or something I was reading, I cannot recall.

But on that day, I knew that I was making a decision that would impact the rest of my life.

So I started.

And I’ve done it every day since.

That was 1301 days ago.

Back in October 2013, I decided to exercise everyday for the rest of my life. Which I am aware sounds way more amazing than it actually is.

So here are my two secrets:

First, because I love freedom, I have a very loose definition of exercise. Exercise for me can be the hard, less fun, stuff like running 10km, or going to the gym. Exercise is also going for a walk with my wife, having a walking meeting with a co-worker, or playing basketball with my son. And on the bad days when time is short or I’ve been sick, exercise might be something as simple as some press ups.

To exercise means “activity carried out to improve your health”.

That’s pretty loose.

So why over complicate it?

My second secret. Doing it every single day. (The only leave pass I will give myself is being in a coma.)

Doing anything daily sounds exhausting, but I actually find it rewarding (particularly given the low expectations I have). Once the habit is established, it is significantly easier than trying to remember to do something X times a week.

And I enjoy it.

So what could you do, every single day?

If you made the rules loose enough?

I’m not disciplined. My life experiences and various psych tests prove that.

I also take a photo everyday. When I did the photo of the day, the first time for a year I found it exhausting because I had a bunch of rules. When I started again on my birthday back in 2013, I decided I had no rules. Just take or get a picture.

SO MUCH EASIER!

I’m not disciplined, but doing 1 thing, intentionally, everyday.

Proves to me, that I can be.

And it could prove it to you to.

I can’t imagine war

THANK YOU for giving more than we can imagine. I can’t imagine what it’s like to go to war.

I can’t imagine having the courage to leave my family. To say goodbye to those I love.

I can’t imagine being shipped off to some distant land to fight for people you don’t know.

I can’t imagine long periods in trenches. In jungles. On battlefields. Bored. Exhausted. Cold, wet and scared.

I can’t imagine entering the battle. To be ordered into such great danger that my life is no longer in my hands.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to start shooting. At humans. Real people. To take a life.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to see people killed. Not just people, but friends. Close friends. Killed right in front of my eyes.

I can’t imagine being shot. To feel the excruciating pain. To know I am in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of a battlefield. To fear for my life.

I can’t imagine returning home. Emotionally and physically scarred. To have the scenes, the sounds, and the bloody images locked permanently in my mind.

I can’t imagine.

I also can’t imagine our country. Our life. Our freedom. Had you not imagined our freedom for us, and then given everything.

I can’t imagine we could ever thank you enough.

THANK YOU for giving more than we can imagine.

Explorers

Explore anything anywhere anytimeWhen I was a kid, before you could ‘google maps’ the entire earth, I day dreamed of exploring the vast pacific ocean and discovering some distant new island.

Nowadays, explorers are mostly people from ages past, that we watch in documentaries, or read about in children’s books. I don’t know of any parents who want their kids to grow up being explorers.

But explorers is exactly what we should be.

Explorers are brave. Bold. Adventurous.

And to explore means to search. Scrutinize. Investigate. Discover.

Which means we can all choose to be explorers.

We still need explorers!

You & I have the opportunity every day, to discover something new.

We can explore new cultures by talking to a stranger. We can explore new foods. We can explore new neighbourhoods. We can explore new ideas.

We can explore anything.

Anywhere.

Anytime.

If you are brave enough.

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