#46: The Words You Use Daily
“Clarity isn’t just about goals. It’s about the meaning behind the words you use every day.” Hey Rollers, One of the things I’ve come to really enjoy about the topic of leadership is that, at its core, it’s not actually about other people. The way you lead and communicate with others tends to mirror how […]
#45: Your Life Code: The Rules You Choose To Live By
“Most people are living by a code… they’ve just never written it down.” Hey Rollers, I read a book by Chip Wilson (the founder of Lululemon) a few years back, and came across an idea of his that I love. He calls it a Life Code. At first glance, it looks simple enough. A collection […]
#44: The Signals We’ve Engineered Away
“If you always remove the signal, you lose the skill.” Hey Rollers, I came across a piece of research this week that got me thinking. (It’s kind of ironic considering I’ve been elbow-deep in nappies the past month…) In the 1950s, over 90% of toddlers were potty trained by 18 months. Today, that number has […]
#43: Are You Coachable?
“Everyone says they want to be coached… until they are.” Hey Rollers, A viral clip has been doing the rounds the past couple of weeks. It’s a courtside moment from Brenda Frese, the head coach of the University of Maryland women’s basketball team, and it’s not subtle. In the middle of the game, she pulled […]
#42: The Circle of Now
“We’re impatient with what takes time… and patient with what shouldn’t.” Hey Rollers, A few months back I heard Seth Godin describe something that made its way into my highlights archive. He called it the “circle of now”. A toddler, he says, has a circle of now that lasts about seven seconds. If they don’t […]
#41: How Ice Ages Actually Happen
“Nothing dramatic happens… until everything has already changed.” Hey Rollers, What I’m thinking about today is the “big freeze” and what that might mean for making breakthroughs in our lives. I’ve been reading The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel, and in one of the chapters he uses the formation of ice ages to land a point […]
#40: Shirts, T-Shirts & No Shirts
“Context has a real influence on how we experience ourselves. Paying attention to it is often the first step toward understanding it.” Hey Rollers, I’ve been thinking about shirts lately. Not fashion exactly, but what wearing one — or not wearing one — seems to do to how we feel about ourselves. About ten days […]
#39: A Smart Toughness Lens on Emotion and Action
“Before discipline comes emotion.” Hey Rollers, Today’s edition is a tiny bit longer than usual, but I promise there’s a practical reason for it. This past week I was introduced to the work of neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp. He spent much of his career developing and studying something called affective neuroscience — essentially the emotional systems that drive […]
#38: Are You Making Life Easier, or Harder, Than It Needs to Be?
“We don’t just live in environments. We respond to them.” Hey Rollers, If you’re reading this at home or at your office, pause for a moment and take a look around you. What do you see?Or more importantly, how does what you see make you feel? Ecological psychology has been on my mind lately. At its […]
#37: The Fastest Way to Ruin an Average
“A small effort still counts. A zero doesn’t.” Hey Rollers, I’m writing this while sitting on the side of a field watching a local club cricket game. There’s a famous story about Don Bradman, statistically the greatest batsman of all time. In his final innings of a 20-year Test cricket career, he needed just four […]