You’ll most likely have heard Michelangelo’s comment about how he created his sculpture. Let me paraphrase for you:
“I just carve away anything that doesn’t look like a lion, and I’m left with a lion.”

We all nod our head to that, but you have in that statement the very sine non qua of Great Work:
Focus on the No’s and you become clear on the Yes’s.

I talk about it a lot, not just because I think it’s the essence of doing more Great Work but because it seems
to be the essential lesson I keep needing to learn about doing more Great Work for myself.
(You do know all of us teachers teach what we most need to learn, don’t you?)

Here are four somewhat unexpected things I’d like to do a better job
at saying No to – and how I plan to do it.

When you’re done, pop over to the blog post and let me know in the comments what you’re trying to say No to.

1. Saying No to Control
… so I can say Yes to Freedom

My very first boss was creative, prolific and a touch insane. I remember one of my
mouth-operating-before-brain-career-limiting-move moments when, in a company strategy session
and in front of everyone, I joked he needed to have a finger in every pie.

I seem to have become that very same person.

Box of Crayons now has too many pies. Either that, or I have not enough fingers.
But in any case, we – and by that I mean I – have reached a point where it can’t go on.
If I haven’t dropped a ball yet, it’s only a matter of time. And hamster-in-wheel is not
a job description worth much.

Here’s the shift in thinking that might make the difference for me. I am not Box of Crayons.
I serve Box of Crayons.

Here’s the action I’m taking to make the shift. We’ve hiring some additional support for me,
people who’ll lead projects, filter some of the communication that comes my way and help keep me
where I belong.

2. Saying No to Popularity
… so I can say Yes to Friendship

I’m not super obsessed with numbers, and in fact am pretty lousy at managing metrics.
(I mainly go with “Is this the right mix of Great Work and Good Work?” “Am I having fun?”
“Are we in the poor house?” I’m hoping for Yes Yes No as the answers).

But the rise of new technology means that one way of spending time is hanging out in the social media mirrored rooms
waving at many (woo hoo! 8,000 people on Twitter!) but never really holding hands and having a conversation with a few.

At least, in my case, not enough.

The shift in thinking is to recognize it as a width vs depth thing, and feel the hunger for the depth.

The action I’m taking is to take the Call a Friend option once a day to connect to people I love.

(That said, you can always connect to me on Twitter here and on LinkedIn here.

3. Saying No to Money
… so I can say Yes to Impact

I have such an exciting project on the go, and you’re going to hear more about it in the coming months – in fact
I’ll be asking for your help to make it successful. Here’s the high-level, top-secret summary: an ebook with a bunch of
fantastic contributors writing about, in so many words, how to do more Great Work. Here’s what’s cool about it – it’s
going to help raise a bunch of moolah for a great charity…

More to come on that of course, but what I’m conscious of is that between now and January, I need to give
this project – my Great Work Project for the moment – the appropriate time and space to come together.
This matters, and as such it’s in real danger of being ignored and shelved as the Good Work tide continues
to rise and its waves lap my feet.

And Good Work is so tempting. The Great Work makes me fret, gives me sweaty palms, invites
all sorts of self-sabotage. Good Work on the other hand is the relatively simple task of rolling up my sleeves
and getting things done, having some fun and often making some money all the way. And yet – Great Work, unsafe and uncertain as it so often is, is where I hang out on the edges of my own competence and ambition, learning
what’s possible for me and for the world.

The shift in thinking is to remember (and remember and remember) that Great Work projects take time
and need time, and your calendar never lies about what really is most important to you.

The action I’m taking is to schedule and track my time on this project, with the goal of six hours a week to move it forward. (That means 132 hours committed between now and the end of the year. That should be enough for some progress.)

4. Saying No to Plans
… so I can say Yes to Now

Truth is, I’m unlikely to ever say No to plans. I love them – which is one reason at least that Charlie Gilkey and I ran a great little teleseminar on the art of mid-range planning. I’ve got plans for the week, the month, the quarter, the year. When in doubt, I pull out a piece of paper and start sketching out a plan (which, it must be said, often looks exactly like the plan I’d done two weeks earlier and then “filed” somewhere safe and forgotten about.)

But perhaps it’s time to plan a little less. Leo from Zen Habits is on a No Goals kick at the moment, but I can’t quite go that far. I am becoming aware that the price I pay for planning is that I spend more time in the future and less time in the here and now.

For instance, I’m writing this newsletter on the deck on my mother-in-law’s house in Nova Scotia. It’s a Friday, the heat from the day is still in the air but the humidity is gone as we drift towards evening. I’m sipping a rather delicious glass of Shiraz Viognier – if you’re thinking that the writing in this is a little OTT, that just might be a reason – and the garden is vivid with flowers, a family of robins dancing in and out of the foliage and the bird bath.

When I’m planning, I kind of miss all of that.

The shift in thinking is to realize that planning comes at a cost. A price I’m willing to pay, but perhaps to pay less these days.

The action is to spend more time with the Vice President of Everything Else, who is a genius at enjoying the moment.

Don’t Take My Word For It

Smart people thinking out loud about choices.

“Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

“I can resist everything except temptation.”
- Oscar Wilde, Irish writer

“Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we’ll find it.”
- Sam Levenson, American humorist

“Choice is the essence of what I believe it is to be human.”
- Liv Ullmann, Norwegian actress

“Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, I’d rather lie around. No contest.”
- Eric Clapton, English musician

“He who has choice has trouble.”
- Dutch proverb

“I exercise extreme self-control. I never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast.”
- W. C. Fields, American actor

“If everything’s under control, you’re going too slow.”
- Mario Andretti, Italian-American race car driver

Have you seen the Fast Company Influence Project? They’re conducting an experiment to see who’s really influential on line, and they’ve got quite a funky set up.

• In fact, you could help me participate in the project by just clicking on this link. If you wanted to help even more, you could then follow the “spread Michael’s influence” button and see where it takes you…

In our Coaching for Great Work programs and the other workshops we run, we do touch on influence. The reason is the more senior you become, the less control you have over things and the more you’re required to use influence to get things done. And influence is derived from your relationships and understanding the undercurrents of power and control.

Now, I’m not sure if I actually have much influence. But I’d trace whatever I might have to these four strategies.

1. Invite participation

One of the coolest things I’ve done for a while has been the Great Work Interview series. The sophisticated program behind getting such an amazing range of people to participate is that I decide who I’d like to interview. And then invite them.

Truth is, I have about a 85% success rate. Nearly everyone says – sure, I’d love to. Some say, my apologies but not now. And a tiny, tiny, tiny number don’t respond.

Reach up and out. Make a specific request. Invite them into something cool. Be persistent.

2. Know who matters

I was just speaking to [alert! Name-dropping ahead!] Tom Peters last week, and he was talking about organizational politics. His point was that politics is the way business gets done. I made some comment about just how critical relationships were, and he corrected me – no, not relationships. Politics.

His point – politics gets a bad rap in organizations, as if it was somehow dirty or manipulative. But in fact, it’s just the way things work. Politics means influence. And you get to do that for Good (or Evil if you really wish).

Good news – the legendary “16th Map” from Do More Great Work is available at www.DoMoreGreatWork.com. And it will help you figure out who matters.

3. Build

I’ve done a lot of tiny things to build my brand. Hundreds of teleclasses. Many interviews. Assorted articles. Six years of newsletters. Phone calls up the wazoo.

I think of it like silt gathering at the bottom of a lake. Slowly but surely building up a layer of…sludge.

OK, perhaps not the best metaphor. Let me try that again.

It’s like a pointillist painting.

Many many many dots of colour, and when you step back you see a picture.

4. Be a gazillionaire

OK, I’m not an -onaire of any description and it’s likely that you’re not one either.

So let’s cross this off the list, and replace it with my favourite three Great Work attributes. Focus. Courage. Resilience. Know where to put your attention. Be brave and start something. Keep going even when it gets tough.

Don’t take my word for it

Smart people thinking out loud about influence.

The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.
-Salvador Dali

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
-Henry Adams

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.
-George Eliot

I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Influence is like a savings account. The less you use it, the more you’ve got.
-Andrew Young

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
-Mark Twain

July 4th has come come and gone -  Independence Day- and  Box of Crayons’ birthday. To our great surprise, we’ve just turned eight, and the Vice President of Everything Else and I celebrated by grilling some asparagus on the barbie, drinking a glass or two of prosecco, and doing a complete project review where we talked about the  six months to come and what we’re hoping to do.

It’s hard to celebrate

Or is that just me? Truth be told, I find it really quite difficult to stop and acknowledge the moment. It’s one of the reasons I’ve become a fan of Project-ization (see below for some up-coming webinars on that), because Projects have a start and a finish and a metric. And if you’re wise, you stop at the end of a project and go – how did we do? What do we want to acknowledge and celebrate?

So I’ve cast my eye around my world to find some things I’d like to acknowledge and celebrate. Maybe they’ll ring true for you too. Or maybe you can find some of your own.

1. A pen

I once heard it said that strategy was a visual act – it’s about how wide and far and deep you can see to plan your route – and so too is imagination. (Perhaps “strategy” is just the business word for imagination.)

I’m increasingly aware of how difficult I find it to be strategic and imaginative in front of a device, in my case a laptop. The laptop for me has become a device of productivity – getting stuff done or consuming content. Nothing wrong with that – we’re talking Good Work and we all know that Good Work is fundamental to prosperity.

But we also know that it’s all too easy to get sucked into your device/Good Work so that all you are doing (or at least trying to do) is be productive. And that makes you sound like a machine.

A pen is a doorway out of productivity and into imagination. It opens up freedom and lateral movement and the ability to sketch and discard and to build and improve. You can instantly write, draw, map, sketch – this is what Dan Roam’s been preaching for a while in Back of a Napkin [Amazon affiliate link].

So pens matter, and I’ve been looking for something that’s more than the cheap plastic things you’d buy at a Staples and not a gazillion dollar status symbol a la Mont Blanc. The answer for me is Lamy [Amazon affiliate link]. I now have one each in my two bags, one on my Good Work table and one on my Great Work table, four pens that are my “red pill” into the world of creativity and strategy and planning and what’s possible.

2. Barriers

If you’ve read anything from the last couple of months, you’ll have seen me get excited about Tony Schwartz’s new book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working [Amazon affiliate link]. There’s new stuff in there for me I haven’t read before – the power of an afternoon nap in particular – but it’s also been a reminder of something I’ve known for a while: that to change your behaviour, you need to set up structures in your environment to encourage you to behave the way you want to behave.

Because it’s not enough to grit your teeth and say, “I’m going to try really hard this time.” Just doesn’t work. So I’ve been experimenting with barriers to increase my creativity time and lessen my busywork time. One thing I’ve got running right now is Concentrate, a Mac app that stops me checking email and Twittering and all the rest. I have a setting on it called Morning Writing, I set it for an hour (I’ve got 32 minutes left as we speak), and it makes everything inaccessible on my computer other that TextEdit, the basic program in which I write my newsletters.

I also don’t have a cellphone or Blackberry. Believe me, there’s one part of me that really, really, really wants an iPhone. But the price I’d pay for having ready access to emails is too big a price. So I don’t.

Set up barriers so the easy-to-do but not-so-wonderful behaviours you exhibit have a chance to change.

3. YA Fiction

One of the many many gifts the Vice President of Everything Else brings to my life is that she is a former librarian and bookseller. What that translates to on a day-to-day basis is insane reader of books, and in particular Young Adult Fiction. Now I read fiction (I’ve even had an article on James Joyce’s Ulysses published, should anyone care to see a perfect example of academic purple prose) and business and science, but wasn’t big on reading YA. Until now. Marcella’s been thrusting them upon me, and I have to say they’re exhilarating and challenging and an excellent read. As summer approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, you may be looking for holiday reading. Here are two of my favourites.

The Hunger Games [Amazon affiliate link] Follow Katniss as she competes in The Hunger Games,  an annual televised event where one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts in this  dystopian society are pitted against each other in a game of survival and forced to kill until only one remains. The first part of a trilogy that explores really powerful themes about what it means to survive, humanity intact.

Peak [Amazon affiliate link] After Peak Marcello is arrested for climbing a New York City skyscraper, he’s left with two choices:  court ordered Juvenile Detention or a year with his estranged father, who runs a climbing company in Thailand.  Peak  learns that his father’s renewed interest in him has big strings attached, climbing Everest. Interestingly life imitated art in May this year when we heard about a 13 yr-old California boy who also set his sights on the mountain.

4. Overwhelm

You’ve heard the metaphor that work can be like a treadmill – by which I mean the sense of plodding along forever in the same spot rather than a place to dance. I think yes, treadmill, but one that keeps increasing speed bit by bit by bit. Somehow you’ve got to the point where what was a light job has turned into a flat-out sprint, and you’re doing all you can to just hang on.

And then it bumps up another notch.

And metaphorically at least, you fly off the back of the treadmill. Or at least do that little jump hop thing so you can put you feet either side and stop running.

Because at some stage, it gets too much. In fact, you’ve probably got to that stage right now. Too many projects, too many meetings, too much email, too many commitments.

When you finally hit the overwhelm stage, you’re in a position to go: This Isn’t Working. Chris Brogan would say it’s time for Redrawing, where you’ve finally got to stop incrementally adding to the load, and actually building from the bottom up making real choices about what you’re saying Yes to and what you’re saying No to.

At this point, tweaking won’t do it. You can’t go any faster on the treadmill. Jump off and re-imagine what you’re doing.

5. Bees & their keepers

It is the most perfect time right now to walk up Roncesvalles Avenue, my local main street in Toronto. There are at least six fruit and veg stands scattered among the chichi coffee shops and the slightly insane Polish delis, and each one of those six is groaning under fresh, local produce. Tomatoes that sit heavy in your hand and have that rich earthy smell, perfect raspberries in the blue-green cardboard container, blueberries, asparagus…

And without bees, this would all be nothing. You may have heard about the crisis in the bee world – the colony collapse disorder – and the fact that every third bite of food you take required bees for pollination.

So let’s celebrate these marvels. And if you’re really keen you can start raising some of your own – more and more cities and making it legal to do so.

6. Betrayal

A friend of mine is in the final stages of a terrible divorce, a gut-wrenching experience of bitterness and betrayal. It’s extremely hard to watch, and something where I have an extraordinary sense of impotence and uselessness, a complete confusion on how I can offer support.

It has reminded me of times when I’ve felt betrayed by people with whom I’ve worked. A boss in one case, a colleague I’d invited in to participate in a project in another. I still get small flares of indignation and outrage when I consider the situation.

What’s to celebrate here? I’m not trying to lessen the pain and anger and sadness that comes when you are betrayed and let down. Contrary to popular belief, there is not always a Life Lesson to be learned. Sometimes betrayal is just betrayal.

But it does shine the light for me on those that are steadfast and true. Those who are generous and act with integrity. Those who cheer me on and love me.

And I’m reminded to appreciate those people a little more than I typically do.

7. Over-acting

I’m a soccer player, admittedly these days more in my mind than in my body. I played for more than 30 years, a stalwart defender where my main roles were to head the ball when the opposing keeper kicked it up the field (which may explain a lot) and shout at my own team in an encouraging sort of way.

So of course I’m enjoying the World Cup which rushes to its conclusion this week . Toronto is a particularly fine city in which to watch the games, a combination of 1. not having a Canadian team in the competition and 2. being the most multicultural city in the world and thus 3. actually having 32 teams in the competition. Cars throughout the city drive by with one (or two or three) national flags attached to the window.

But what’s with all the melodrama? Soccer’s always had something of a reputation – hockey players here are particularly scornful – but this World Cup seems to be even worse than usual. Every tackle is a moment of sheer agony, of soul-deep pain and gratuitous rolling around.

It’s proving to be a useful mirror for me, Jungian shadow work meets Adidas. How much do I overact? How much do I complain and argue with the ref? How easily do I go down from a tackle? How do I exaggerate  the barriers in front on me?

8. Chocolate and salt

Lindt Excellence Sea Salt. 70% chocolate and sea salt. The best combination ever.

9. And how about you? What do you celebrate?

What would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments section here.

Don’t take my word for it

Smart people thinking out loud about celebration.

“The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.”
-Sydney Smith, British clergyman

“Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It’s a miracle, and the dance…is a celebration of that miracle.”
-Martha Graham, American choreographer

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.”
-Tom Peters, American businessman

“I celebrate myself, and sign myself.”
-Walt Whitman, American poet

“It’s always good to remember where you come from and celebrate it. To remember where you come from is part of where you’re going.”
-Anthony Burgess, British writer

Three free webinars and teleclasses

1. Wednesday July 14, How to say No to the Busywork (AMA webinar)

Last week when I was in New York, I stopped off at the AMA offices and pre-recorded the first 40 minutes of this. So I already know it’s going to be good! The final 20 minutes or so will be a live Q&A with me.

=> 12 noon Eastern, 9am Pacific, 5pm GMT

=> Register here

2. Friday July 23rd, The Why of Work with Dave and Wendy Ulrich (teleclass)

Dave Ulrich is one of the big big names in HR and leadership. His new book, The Why of Work written with his wife Wendy,  a psychologist, is all about the role of organizations and leaders and managers and everyone to create meaning and purpose at work. This call will be a beauty.

=> 1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific, 6pm GMT

=> Register here

3. How to create plans that work with Charlie Gilkey and me

We weren’t going to release the recording of this to the world, but apparently people had trouble registering and then getting on the call… so now we are. We got lots of terrific feedback on this call in which Charlie and I share some of the best tools we use to help keep our plans alive and useful and relevant.

=> You can download the mp3 here

=> You can download the free tools here

Can you help? I’m looking for an assistant.

In an attempt to follow my own advice, I’m looking for an assistant who can help me not get sucked into too much Good Work while cunningly avoiding the Great Work that beckons.

It’s a part-time role, and requires a combination of a spine of steel, a project manager-y mind, a Box of Crayons vibe, a sense of humour and some technological know-how.

Curious? More details on the role, including how to throw your hat in the ring, are here

Update-application process is now closed-many thanks to everyone who applied.

I’ve been collecting quotes for, oh I don’t know, forever. I guess I’m inclined to the aphorism. Give me Emily Dickinson over Tennyson, give me a haiku over an epic. One of my first entrepreneurial ideas – this would be before the internet really got going – was combining a calendar with a cool quote from one or two people born on that day. Probably a good thing I didn’t over-invest in that.

Here are nine quotes that point to some themes I’ve been thinking about over the last couple of weeks – and some useful resources to check out.

Sleep

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”
-Ernest Hemingway

I’ve started behaving differently because of Tony Schwartz’s new book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working. In an early chapter, he shares some compelling studies about the difference getting enough sleep makes. It’s not just about tired people make mistakes – although they do. It’s about people who perform the very best, people who excel, get lots of sleep. The typical American? 6.5 hours a night. The very best violinists in the world (the subject of one particular study?) more than eight hours. And because sleeping in later isn’t really an option for most of us, that means making plans (see above) and following plans to go to bed earlier.

Breathing

“Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.”
-L. Frank Baum

My friend Eric Klein does lots of work around leadership with organizations, but in my opinion one of his deepest gifts is bringing the full power of meditation to those leaders. This is particularly important right now at a time when our attention and our focus is more disrupted and disjointed than ever. (Nick Carr’s new book The Shallows – which I haven’t read – says the internet is changing our brain at a cellular level. Not everyone agrees.  I’ve renewed my determination to meditate a little regularly, not because of any super spiritual kick I might get out of it, but because I want to be able to give things my full attention and to come back to giving them my attention when I wander. Here’s Eric’s latest post on the power of ritual – three simple and important things you can do to kick-start your day (and yes, meditation is one of them).

Planning

“For the happiest life, days should be rigorously planned, nights left open to chance.”
-Mignon McLaughlin

Planning matters. Plans fail and they fail all the time of course. “No plan survives contact with the enemy” it’s been said. But planning really matters. It what allows you to be smart when your plans fail. I’m running a teleclass this Thursday and sharing some tools on how to make your plans sustainable and practical. There’s information below on how to sign up. Hope you’ll join us.

Switching

“I put a dollar in a change machine. Nothing changed.”
-George Carlin

I’ve just finished putting down the Heath brother’s latest book, Switch. It’s another beauty along the lines of the equally excellent Made to Stick , and it gets to the heart of three core insights that drive personal and organizational change. I’m particularly passionate about the third one they talk about, “prepare the path”. What that means is setting up structures that help guide you to behave the way you want to behave, rather than relying on the highly overrated willpower. It is in fact what Tony Schwartz and Eric Klein are talking about too – change your environment and your environment changes you.

So to make the link to the point on meditation above, I now roll out my meditation/yoga mat in the evening, so when I get up in the morning I’m not sucked into the death-spiral-vortex of email, but actually do the 13 minutes of meditation I’m currently aspiring too.

Meaning

“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”
-Thucydides

I’m lucky enough to have cornered Dave and Wendy Ulrich – authors of a great new book, The Why of Work – and had them agree to do an exclusive teleclass with me. It’s a little way off – Friday July 23rd at 1pm Eastern – and it’s worth getting into your calendar right now if you’re interested in increasing the amount of meaning and impact – some would say Great Work – in your work. Sign up for the call here

Strong women

“Strong women leave big hickies.”
-Madonna

Love that quote. And if you’re one of those strong women, my friend Marcia Reynolds has a new book just arrived for you: Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Achieve Contentment and Direction. I really like what I’ve seen of it – in particular, the five core needs that drive these women – both the light and the dark side of it. Worth checking out if you are an Alpha Female.

10 minutes

“Learn to use ten minutes intelligently. It will pay you huge dividends.”
-William Irwin

Box of Crayons’ Coaching for Great Work program helps managers and leaders coach in ten minutes or less and in doing so overcomes the biggest force of resistance to coaching in organizations. We’re having a ton of success with the program in such companies as Nestle, TD Bank and Gartner and we’re looking now to see who else is looking to have coaching have the impact it could and should in their company. If you’d like to learn more about the program for your organization, drop my a line by hitting reply.

Connections

“Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections.”
-Katherine Paterson

I’ve been a fan of Nick Boothman’s work for an age. He’s taken some terrific and sound Neuro-Linguistic Program (NLP) principles, and made them very practical and very accessible. He’s just had an expanded and revised version of his classic book Convince Them in 90 Seconds Or Less: How to Connect in Business reissued, and it’s one for the “practical classics” section of your bookshelves.

And here’s another, different type of connection. Indexed is a totally brilliant visual blog by Jessica Hagy, where she draws simple, brilliant, hilarious, razor-sharp venn diagrams and graphs to help us understand the absurdity of our lives. It’s won all sorts of recognition and awards, and it’s one of the top three blogs I read every day.

Enough

“I’ve finished that chapel I was painting. The Pope is quite satisfied.
-Michelangelo Buonarroti

My friend Jen Lounden’s created a funky new tool and ebook, The Satisfaction Finder. I know Jen well – she’s part of my “brain trust” – and I know she’s struggled with the whole “paralysis of perfection”. And in fact, haven’t we all? Those moments when we stop short because we’re suddenly daunted by what’s ahead of us. Although Jen’s audience is typically women (so guys, look a little beyond the style of the blog) this is a fantastic tool for everyone and anyone who needs a kickstart again when feeling stuck. Her “conditions of enoughness” is a really lovely, really useful concept. You can check it out here.

Don’t take my word for it

Smart people thinking out loud about quotations.

“That’s the point of quotations, you know: one can use another’s words to be insulting.”
-Amanda Cross

“I always have a quotation for everything – it saves original thinking.”
-Dorothy L. Sayers

“I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.”
-Marlene Dietrich

“Collecting quotations is an insidious, even embarrassing habit, like ragpicking or hoarding rocks or trying on other people’s laundry. I got into it originally while trying to break an addiction to candy. I kicked candy and now seem to be stuck with quotations, which are attacking my brain instead of my teeth.”
-Robert Byrne

Like quotes too? My favourite source is Quotes of the Day. You can sign up there for a free daily dose in your inbox.

Last reminder for this Thursday’s Planning teleclass

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”
-Jim Rohn

Charlie Gilkey and I are putting on a free teleclass on The Art of Planning this coming Thursday at 2pm Eastern and I hope you’ll join us.

We’re tackling the thorny challenge of creating a plan that’s useful, sustainable and scalable. But above all, that’s useful. Charlie’s had a military career based on the art of planning and now runs the pretty fantastic Productive Flourishing blog. He’s got some really great tools he uses (and in fact I use as well), and he’ll be sharing those with you. I’ve got a structure I’ve taken and adapted from one of the biggest, most successful companies in the world.

We’ll be sharing some core insights about planning, looking at some of the barriers to what stops our current plans being useable, and sharing these great (and free) tools.

So, fancy creating a plan for you and your life that you can use? Well, sign up now here.

By the way, we’re not recording this call. So it’s now or never…

Get Unstuck & Get Going on the stuff that matters

Stuck is having only one way to see the challenge – and not liking what you see.

So you can’t move forward, but the only way you get unstuck is to do just that.

*Sigh*.

Get Unstuck and Get Going …on the stuff that matters can help. It’s a self-coaching tool, that allows you to generate new possibilities and figure out your own path forward.

It’s unique design means that you can generate nearly 50,000 different question combinations that will spark new ideas and insights. And the Action Acceleration Sheet is a simple but powerful process to help you move from Stuck to On the Move.

There’s a short video of me giving a guided tour of Get Unstuck & Get Going here.

Is it because I’m the eldest son?

One of the first Great Work Interviews I did – and it was a coup, because he is a Big Name – was with
Guy Kawasaki . His is the only interview in which I asked this question: “So, what’s the secret to your success?”
I have only asked this question once because …
1. it’s an inane question and
2. there’s never really a quick-fix secret, which was kind of what I was hoping.
Here’s what Guy did. He laughed. And then said, “There is no secret. But … I’m a grinder. I work hard, I get things done.”

That answer certainly played to my biases.

Things like Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art said as much:
A Professional shows up and does the work, an Amateur flaps around waiting for “inspiration” to strike.
And quite frankly, I’m a grinder myself. I work hard, often. I’m Responsible. And Industrious.

And so far this year’s been particularly intense it seems, what with the launch of Do More Great Work and then delivering our Coaching for Great Work program all over the place.

In Vino Veritas

But three things happened in the last week that have me reflecting on why Grinding might be overrated.

First, at the pub watching the Stanley Cup playoffs last night with Marcella, she mentioned how nice it was that I was slightly more animated and playful lately, That’s as opposed to the Grim, Grey, Getting-Through-Things mode I’d been in for the last, oh, six months. Nice.

Second, I watched this video from Gary Vee on how he’s feeling stretched and read this post from Chris Brogan about how he can’t keep up. These are two prolific, hard-working, Seem-To-Have-It-All kind of guys. And they’re feeling the grind as well.

And finally, I just picked up Tony Schwartz’s new and truly excellent book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working. It’s the expanded, deeper version of the book he co-authored with Jim Loehr called The Power of Full Engagement. And he’s got some insights and tactics for me.

You don’t have an On switch

Here’s the key insight I’ve taken from @TonySchwartz

We’re not designed to work like machines, where you hit the on-switch and then just produce a constant output of work. Rather our operating system is Human 1.0.  And as humans, we work best when we oscillate and when we pulse. When we’ve got rhythm. When we’re on and off. When we balance intensity with recovery.

Here then are three ways to play to your own rhythm:

• 1.  Sprint for 90 minutes

Imagine your work day was a running race. What sort of race do you think it is?

Up until now, I’d most likely have said it’s like a 10km run. (That’s 6 miles for you non-metric folk). When I was running 10km races – ah, the glories of my youth – I’d run at a pretty fast pace for the whole race, maybe speeding up towards the end. This wasn’t a jog and nor was it a sprint. It was speed-running and I raced through the whole thing.

Schwartz has got upside my head with work, and now I’m starting to think of it as a series of 90 minute sprints – three or maybe four in the day – with period of downtime in between.

It’s a radical shift. We’re not doing one long shift. We’re doing four short ones. And why? Because you can do more, be more focused and create better stuff if you focus intensely and then stop.

(This newsletter is taking me about 90 minutes to write. Then I’m off for a quick workout in the gym.)

• 2. Get enough sleep v1

Here are the brutal facts. We’re nearly all sleep-deprived and it’s costing us.

Sure, you say… but I get along just fine on 6 hours sleep a night (or less).

Wrong, I say in reply. Not only do lab tests show that people who are getting less than the 7 plus hours of sleep a night they need under-perform, there are studies that indicate the different between very good and excellent corresponds with getting more sleep. Here’s how Schwartz puts it: “Great performers … work more intensely than most of us do but also recover more deeply.”

Yes, if you want to excel, sleep.

• 2.5.  Get more sleep v2

The best news so far from Schwartz’s book? Day-time napping is encouraged. A 20 minute nap in the afternoon significantly increase your ability to deliver for the rest of the day. Love that.

• 3. Keep moving

Not just like a shark or a relationship. But use your environment to help keep you changing your focus and your energy.

I’ve already spoken about this quite a lot in previous newsletters, but I’m a big believer in this.
You shape your space so you can behave the way you want to behave. And because there are different ways you want to behave, you need a range of different spaces in which to do your work.

Bottom line: don’t spend every moment at the same desk in front of the same computer, pausing only to go into the same meeting rooms.

(Here’s how I do it in my office.)

Don’t take my word for it

Smart people thinking out loud about going with the flow.

“Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change – this is the rhythm of living.”
-Bruce Barton, American author

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
-Lao Tzu, Chinese philospher

“Surrender to the flow.”
-Mike Gordon, American musician

“I catnap now and then, but I think while I nap, so it’s not a waste of time.”
-Martha Stewart, American entrepreneur

“There is more refreshment and stimulation in a nap, even of the briefest, than in all the alcohol ever distilled.”
-Ovid, Roman poet