Category: Expectations
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The action imperative
A bias for action can be a powerful way to drive change. It can also be an excuse to stay busy; to cave into impatience, and to avoid the difficult work of gathering information, learning, and thinking. In The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins calls this the action imperative, describing it as, “You feel as…
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“Problems” create meaning
I recently revisited this blog post I wrote almost a year ago. Here’s the passage that inspired the headline, from Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks (p. 180–181): Behind our urge to race through every obstacle or challenge, in an effort to get it “dealt with,” there’s usually the unspoken fantasy that you might one day…
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The best
Optimus means “the best” in Greek. It’s the root word of common ones in our culture, like, “optimize,” and, “optimism.” Optimize: The “-ize” in “optimize” means “to make,” so the whole word means “to make the best.” Optimism: The “-ism” in “optimism” means “taking side with,” or “imitation of,” so the whole word means “to…
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You see the world as you are
There’s a quote attributed to Anaïs Nin and Stephen Covey, “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.” While the quote’s origin is unclear, its resonance is clear. In The Art of Possibility (pp. 10-11), Roz and Ben Zander quote three neuroscientists who share a similar perspective: The British neuropsychologist Richard…
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The liking gap
“We found that following interactions, people systematically underestimated how much their conversation partners liked them and enjoyed their company, an illusion we call the liking gap.” The Liking Gap in Conversations: Do People Like Us More Than We Think? by Erica J. Boothby, Gus Cooney, Gillian M. Sandstrom, and Margaret S. Clark (via Platonic by Marisa…
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Participation trophies
In The Art of Possibility, Roz and Ben Zander write, “Enrolling is not about forcing, cajoling, tricking, bargaining, pressuring, or guilt-tripping someone into doing something your way. Enrollment is the art and practice of generating a spark of possibility for others to share.” A generous assumption of why participation trophies exist: it balances the all-consuming…
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Play to your strengths
It’s one thing to find a strategy, tactic, or best practice that worked for someone else. The internet is bursting with people sharing what works for them. It’s an entirely different thing to find the practice that works for you. You are the most important factor in how the things you do turn out. For…
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Steps to success
The Milwaukee Bucks were one of the favorites to win the NBA playoffs this year, finishing at the top of their conference division. The team had already won a championship in 2021. That didn’t happen. Instead, the team lost in the first round, to the eighth seed Miami Heat. Journalist Eric Nehm recently asked Bucks’…
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Question everything
In Figures of Speech, an essay entitled, Virgil Abloh: A Hundred Percent, Virgil Abloh and Anja Aronowsky Cronberg write: Get this. I was the idiot who believed that all fashion design was deeper than just clothing. I thought each season was about a concept that represented a larger idea. Don’t get me wrong, I know…
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Start with the end in mind
In The Art of Possibility, Ben and Roz Zander write: “Each student in this class will get an A for the course,” I announce. “However, there is one requirement that you must fulfill to earn this grade: Sometime during the next two weeks, you must write me a letter dated next May, which begins with…