Above all else

Last week, we talked about stubbornness, and how it is reinforced by the false maxim of being "true to yourself".  To be clear - overcoming stubbornness means that if you can do something better, or be someone better, change!  It doesn't mean, make yourself like everyone else.  It's great to be unique.  It's great to be different.  As the saying goes, if you do what everyone else does, you'll get what everyone else gets. I've been reading Youngme Moon's excellent book "Different - Escaping the Competitive Herd". Having had the privilege of being in some of her classes in the past, I can almost hear her voice reading out the text as I flip the pages!  In one particular section, she points out that, just when the likes of Yahoo, AOL and AltaVista were increasingly one-upping each other by bulking up their search pages with news, email, weather, stock prices, entertainment and advertisements, Google turned up and decided that they would be ...

Over the years, I've kind of worked out what I like, and what I'm good at.  At work, I know I'm good at a few things and not so good at others.  I'm generally earnest and get along even with difficult people, so people know I've got no hidden agenda and can trust me.  I've got a knack for looking at complicated things, and reducing them to simple actions.  I have a tendency to act, rather than to ruminate.  I usually manage down better than I manage up.  But I also understand that these tendencies aren't always appropriate.  Sometimes a situation at work requires me to be confrontational, and not agreeable.  Sometimes a matter needs time to slowly talk through a complex response.  I continue to learn these lessons all the time.  Several years ago, I had two bosses, one of whom was great at managing down to me, and another who was great managing up to the boss above.  I naturally liked boss 1, because he knew what he was doin...

I heard this truth over the weekend - there is a faith that gets you going, and there is a faith that keeps you staying. I believe that exercising is good for me.  The faith, or belief, that exercise helps to keep me healthy gets me going, off my couch and into the gym, or onto the beach to run.  But once I'm actually on the treadmill - what keeps me running onward, when my breath is short, and my legs are burning?  That same belief, which got me going, keeps me staying too. I remember something similar when I first started chasing after my wife.  At some point, I decided she was the one.  That faith, or belief, got me going.  I don't know if things are same in these trigger-happy Whatsapp times, but I definitely remember sitting and staring at the telephone for what seemed like hours, sometimes even dialing 7 out of the 8 digits (or was it only 7 digits at the time?!) and then being unable to hit the last digit to connect the call.  But I ...