Purpose Driven Leader

12/17/2023

Spending time on lesser goals is a form of procrastination.

They get in the way of us achieving meaningful outcomes in our lives.

It's easy to spend time on lesser goals.

- They are less scary
- They take less energy
- They are within our comfort zone

They give us a short term sense of purpose, and an illusion of progress.

All we are doing is avoiding the uncomfortable actions that bridge us closer to our destination.

Instead of focusing your attention on 100 different things, take a moment today to do this exercise.

1. Imagine yourself at the end of the year (which is only 102 days away btw!)
2. What is that version of you celebrating? What have you accomplished at that point that you are happy and proud about?
3. What actions you can take today to get you close to that outcome? (you'll find that these are the items you are likely procrastinating on today)
4. Schedule them in to your calendar now
5. While you are there, do a quick calendar audit, and remove blocks you have that are focused on lesser goals

This is not to say that you should spend every waking hour focused on meaningful work. Humans don't work like that.

You should allocate plenty of time for rest, and for play.

But keep in mind that focusing on lesser goals is a terrible form of rest or play. They help you avoid the meaningful and difficult work, while giving you marginal relief.

Instead, plan on doing the most meaningful work, and then when you want to rest, you can focus on your favourite game or netflix, guilt free!

12/10/2023

We all have strong opinions about what our limitations are.

- "I am not good at giving feedback"
- "I am not good at writing"
- "I am great at building things, but I am not good at marketing"

We fight very hard to defend our limitations.

We do this while brushing off and trivialising our actual capabilities and strengths.

In reality, a lot of these limitations are not really limitations. They are a byproduct of where we have chosen to spend our time and energy so far in life.

For an example, the real reason you consider yourself to be a bad writer is because you haven't allocated enough time to practice and hone that skill thus far in life.

Barring some very rare medical conditions, it's very unlikely that any of these are a result of an impediment you are born or "internal wiring" that's getting in the way.

What's standing in the way of you getting better at something is how well you are defending your inability to do it.

This is not to say that you should strive to overcome every limitations in your life.

It's more beneficial to take strategic bets on skills that help you get to where you want to go in life.

For an example, I don't invest at all in getting better at doing taxes. 😀

For as long as I can afford to do so, I will trade dollars for that. I gain very little enjoyment from it, and compared to where I am allocating my time, I consider it money well spent.

That is a very intentional limitation that I actually care to defend, as it is helping me hone other skills that are higher leverage for me.

But if there are limitations that are actively standing in the way of your growth, stop defending and doubling down on them.

Change your narrative.

Change it from a "limitation" to an "investment area". As with any investment, get clear on the expected ROI, and let that drive you to get better.

Ask yourself what small incremental step you can take or what habit you can put in place to start your journey to over come them.

I'll leave you with the full quote that nicely sums this up.

"If you argue for your limitations you get to keep them.
But if you argue for your possibilities you get to create them"

What limitations are you going to stop defending? Instead, what possibilities will you create?

12/05/2023

Your objective is not to make perfect decisions.

It's to play the odds well most of the time.

Decisions are ultimately about taking risks, and intentionally moving towards something.

If you had all the information, and 100% clarity on an outcome, then it would hardly be a "decision" to make would it?

At that point it would just be a task.

Which means every meaningful decision comes with some amount of ambiguity, and as a result, some amount of risk.

And when you pick a path, you'll often be trading something for something else.

Rather than following your gut alone, it is a good idea to invest in learning about heuristics and frameworks that can help you evaluate your options more efficiently to simplify your decision making process.

Some great decision making frameworks I use are:
- Decision by Design course by Shane Parrish
https://buff.ly/3t06Z3F
- TOMASP framework by Djoume Salvetti
https://buff.ly/34XoodN

A lot of folks procrastinate on making decisions because they are worried about not landing the perfect outcome or nail the "right answer".

There's often no "right answer". Only "good enough" answers that compound over time.

There's a hefty price tag associated with spending a lot of calories evaluating options. Often this leads to ultimately missing the opportunity altogether because of inaction.

Not all decisions require the same amount of care. Using frameworks will help you put a proportional amount of effort into a decision as it warrants, and move fast when it makes sense.

If you are new to decision making frameworks, try starting with some of the ones I mentioned above.

If you have other decision making frameworks you use, please share them in the comments below. 👇

12/03/2023

To be impactful, how much code should an engineering manager write? 🤔
Should engineering managers write code at all?

Check this out for a deep dive on this sensitive topic!

One of the biggest difficulties in transitioning from a software developer to a manager is coming to terms with the realisation that…

11/27/2023

So many of us talk about things as if they are absolutes.

"I can't sing"
"I am not good at writing"
"I don't do public speaking"

These all assume that you are already at the end of your journey, and what you have now is the final product.

The reality is far from it.

We are all works in progress. None of us have reached anything closer to a final destination.

Our brains are extremely malleable, and no matter how old, we are still able to pick up new skills.

Quick exercise: What limiting beliefs do you have that you consider to be fixed attributes? Which of those, if you didn't have that constraint today, would make your life much better? Take those, and add the word "yet" to the end of them.

"I can't sing... yet"
"I am not good at writing... yet"
"I don't do public speaking... yet"

Great. Now what's a step you can take that progresses this journey forward?