We all want to get better, some more than others, at whatever it is that we do. But, most fail and end up being average. Talent alone won’t make you great, but obsession will. Obsessing about the details, and focusing on getting better everyday. How?
Category Archives: Greatness
Embrace Feeling Dumb
I don’t know. Great!, that’s where you want to start, I said. Society rewards experience, expertise, having all the answers. But better answers aren’t found in the domain of old ideas, they’re found when we actively question what we think we know and venture outside our field of expertise.
Mindset is Everything. Here’s How We Can We Learn And Teach Mindset
I recently trained my leadership team on mindset. Specifically, what it is and how we can develop one that is useful. Here’s a summary…
There’s Value In Everybody
You know what’s cool? Being a better human. How many of us wake up everyday aiming to make somebody’s life better? Ernie Johnson, co-host of Inside the NBA on TNT, was invited to speak to the University of Alabamo Football team about exactly this question.
Doubt, Not Fear, Is A Dream Killer
“Why should I worry about a shot I haven’t taken.” – Michael Jordan
Last week I wrote a post on how to overcome fear of failure and doubt. Some people asked me to unpack it a little bit more, so I’ll do that here for you. Fear of failure paralyzes people. I know more people that are paralyzed by fear than those who are not. But get this, all of them have some form of self-doubt.
Self-doubt, we all have had it at some point. To achieve anything, and give your best, you can have fear; but you can’t have doubt. The minute you have doubt you start overanalyzing things, thinking about the negative things of something. Doubt, not fear, is a dream killer.
Fear is an instinct. Doubt is created by you. Fear can drive you, doubt drowns you. When you have fear you play to win. When you have doubt you play not to lose. When you play not to lose, you end up never playing your best.
So how do you overcome doubt?
You try, give your best, live with the results and learn.
There’s no magic formula, it’s a mindset and attitude. Personally, I’d rather not live with regret that I didn’t do this or that, tried this or that, than have a bunch of experiences and lessons from doing something.
I’ve always been fearless and had great confidence in myself. I can’t remember a time when I was truly fearful. But I can remember a few times when the voice of self-doubt stuck into my head. This happened in my mid-twenties, and it wasn’t fun.
I had a little bit of a perfectionist attitude when I was younger. I’ve never liked losing at anything. I still don’t. I dealt with that attitude by trying to control everything. I had a stretch in my life where everything went my way; I was always winning. And I became very arrogant because of this. One time I told my mom, “All I have to do is snap my fingers and shit happens for me”.
Yup, I was all up in my head.
But I changed my mindset when I things stopped going my way. As I started getting my hands into different interests, and things didn’t go my way, I started accumulating failures; aka lessons. Self-reflection, looking for answers, letting go of things and working on shutting down my self-critical voice pushed me through. Doubt has never been a big enemy for me. Self-criticism was my toughest enemy to defeat. I’m highly critical of myself and expect a lot of myself; and have made myself cry when I haven’t lived up to my expectations.
Losing sucks. But not trying sucks more for me. That’s why I’ve always followed my interests with complete disregard for what the end result could be. I’ve never seen my experiences as win or lose, rather as things I want to do; and whatever I do I give it my best.
We all know people who live their lives avoiding fear and pleasuring their self-doubt. They’ve basically surrendered to their self-doubt. Don’t be that person. Take action. Don’t let self-doubt dictate who you are and who you can become. It all comes down to your mindset and attitude. I can control my attitude. So can you. But we can’t worry about things that are out of our control.
Just do it.
Tim Grover: The Language of Winning
Everyone knows who Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant are. But, do you know who was their trainer throughout their careers? Their trainer was Tim Grover. Tim knows a lot about winning from having spent so much time with the best of the best athletes.
The Netflix Innovation Cycle
How does Netflix innovate? Just like any organization that has a track record of innovation, you have to start with it’s culture. Luckily, you can learn about Netflix’s culture from the CEO himself. In his book, No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention, Reed Hastings describes 4 steps which all employees follow within Netflix to pursue an idea they’re passionate about.