The pressure is really on folks. This is the first (second) BLOG post of a new decade. OK, OK. I confess. My first post of the year was going to be this one, but I had a change of heart. Big deal, right? Well, yes. It is a big deal. I was going to write about a seriously big topic, like the importance of spirituality in an overly connected, yet disconnected world. Oh yeah. That was a "meaty, beaty, big and bouncy" topic. However, I've been a whirling dervish of reading and listening over the last several days, and I've changed things around a bit. Three items have presented me with a confluence of thought.
In the late 1950s, Earl Nightengale recorded a 30-minute lecture entitled "The Strangest Secret." In it, he illustrates how the power of thought is the one thing that manifests every kind of goal that we can imagine. I posted the link in my last note. Here it is again. It is that important to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UygnXqoKrC4&list=TLPQMDkwMTIwMjBZ52iPt5rMEQ&index=1
In 2012, Brendon Burchard, in his NYT bestselling book The Charged Life, discusses how modern corporate productivity vis-a-vis cross-functional teams are incredibly effective yet stultifying. Lack of ownership and distractions dull organizational work-life happiness.
Also, in 2012 Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan published the book "The One Thing." In it, they posit that in a world of distraction, requests, emails, social media, obligations, and incursions of every stripe and shape, if we ask ourselves one question, we can cause the fog of indecision to lift.
Consistently focused thought on one goal is one of the most proven and powerful techniques in achieving what you want. Marcus Aurelius said, "A man's life is what his thoughts make of it." From Ralph Waldo Emerson, "A man is what he thinks about all day long." William James said; The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."
Have you ever created something that was yours and yours alone? Perhaps it was a tasty dish, or a piece of artwork, or a beautiful set of shelves in the garage. If it was something that you owned and finished, the sense of satisfaction is palpable. In modern corporate life we aren't given complete project ownership from beginning to end of any one thing. Of course, there are exceptions. I've worked in an industry that manufactured one of the most technologically sophisticated pieces of capital equipment ever conceived. The project leaders for those efforts had sole ownership. To be part of the teams that brought those to market was great. But, for most folks, it's not the same as if you did something that you own in toto. Cross-functional teams, by definition, mean you do specialized tasks on many different projects. When we are tasked with doing a little bit for several various efforts in the same organization, we become cogs in a highly effective and efficient system. Work becomes more of a paycheck that the self-fulfilling endeavor we dreamed of when we imagined our career and our contributions.
To combat this, THINK! Imagine what you want. Could you write it down and obsess over it? Is it something that you can obsess about? No? Think again and again. Find it. Find something in your organization you can drive. Come up with an idea yourself. Have the Courage to propose it. Live outside your comfort zone. These are not platitudes, my friend. They put you on the golden road to an Optimized Life!
