Be yourself, everyone else is taken
When you observe people on a train, you can see that they have a different response to the journey.
Some love it.
They look out of the window, pointing out key features.
They sit back and relax, happy that someone else is doing the driving.
It’s a pleasant, enjoyable experience for them.
And then there are those who merely tolerate it.
As a leader, there will often be a range of messages that you need to deliver every day.
“Do this.”
“Do that.”
“Make this your priority.”
“You made a mistake here.”
According to Ed Catmull, author of Creativity Inc,
“The past should be our teacher, not our master.”
Do I hear an amen?
Let your mistakes teach you lessons, not define you.
Captain Ahab didn’t chase minnows.
If he did, Moby Dick would be a very boring story.
He didn’t settle, but chased something large.
Something challenging.
Something that pushed him to the extreme.
I saw this great quote this week:
Physical toughness measures what you are capable of.
Mental toughness measures whether you will actually do it.
Here’s the thing.
There are lots of things that you are capable of doing.
If someone is rude to you, then…
If you have a stressful day at work, then…
If your partner isn’t feeling valued or loved, then…
If you are spending too much money on trivial things, then…
I’m often inspired by the tales of great athletes and we put them on a pedestal for their competitive achievements.
We glorify famous actors and musicians, clicking on articles that contain their names so that we can keep up to date with their antics.
Politicians, inventors, military leaders, captains of industry. Some noble, others less so, as they gain notoriety and a reputation for their words and deeds.
But right now, there is a group of people I want to acknowledge as genuine, bone fide Australian heroes.
America has already been discovered.
So has fire, the motor vehicle and the iPhone.
It’s tempting to look around and think that everything has already been discovered and there’s nothing new left.
But let me encourage you today and throughout this year to stay inquisitive.
2020 won’t be defined by what happens to us.
It won’t be defined by our goals or aspirations.
It won’t be defined by events that are beyond our control.
This year will be defined by how we deal with what happens.
Well, here we are again, at the end of another year.
2019 was another big year for this humble little blog and I went past 2.6 million views since starting in 2010
Thanks everyone for your support this year, I really appreciate all of you and trust that 2019 will be your best year yet.
I now have written over 2,500 posts on this blog since I launched and here are the 10 posts that have generated the most traffic in 2019: Read the rest of this entry »
