One Simple Tip to Avoid Waiting

Want a tip to help you resist the urge to wait? In a moment, I’ll share what happened last month, what I did about it, and how it impacted my leadership philosophy.

But it’s a double edge sword isn’t it?  If consistency is the hallmark of quality, and continuous improvement is the key to becoming world class, how do you balance risk and reward?

Faced with a opportunity to do something the way I’ve always done it, or a way I’ve been dreaming about but always chicken out, I was once again presented the opportunity, but was afraid I’d pass on it again.

But not this time.  Finally choose the way I had envisioned.

It was amazingly exhilarating!  Why?  Which is a good question because the thing I did differently, was actually very small in the big scheme of things.

Then why was it exhilarating?  Because conquering a small fear builds the confidence to conquer another small fear.

Eventually, the fears that get conquered are bigger and bigger, until we are faced with very little fear that we can’t act on.

Well, we will always come across scary things, but the confidence to confront and conquer is a priceless ROI for small risk taking habit.

The key, the simple tip – “Do at least one thing each day that scares you.”

Fear Not

“Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.”  Marie von Ebner Eschenbach

Early in my Fortune 100 career, there was a new assignment which required that I move and inherit an existing, high-performing team.

And even though they knew much more about how things ran, they still wanted me to help them improve. They brought dozens of creative ideas.

I was on a huge learning curve and loving every minute of it. However, you know what happened?

Nothing.

Being insanely busy, and blindly disorganized, none of their ideas moved forward. I was overwhelmed and didn’t even know it.

Crazy thing though, I thought things were actually getting better, because their ideas started to dwindle, but not because things got better.

Even crazier, they thought, “Don’t go to Jeff, he won’t do anything.”

Wished they would have argued with me, “Why aren’t you helping us?” Instead, they dodged.

And who could blame them?