Author: neil

Frank Slootman, CEO of Snowflake, in a podcast conversation with Patrick O’Shaughnessy was my lunch hour listen.  The ‘narrow the focus, increase the quality’ comment was fascinating, primarily because I struggle with narrow focus. I have heaps of things on the boil at any given time, at work and in my personal life.

Nearly every successful human – and I don’t mean it in the narrow sense of financial or career terms – I know a great ability to focus on a handful of things. I’m envious of people who have that kind of focus. It’s a resolute strength to say no to many good things so they can say yes to the one or two great things they are after. I can’t, and won’t judge their choice of greatness. I can and will admire their ability to zone in on the thing that really matters and stay with it for a long time. It feels like they can hold on far longer than I can hold my breath.

Another week has gone by. A week of conversation, of challenges, of minor and major struggles. The incessant rain was the backdrop for all sorts of emotions. The sun has been a stranger, hiding no sooner than appearing for moments. A couple more days and then I hope the weather – both within and without – gets a little sunnier.

Learning how to ask good questions, and learning how to listen, are two skills I find myself struggling to practise. It’s easy to speak, to have an opinion, to fill up the time available with speech. There are heaps of distractions, making active listening almost impossible unless consciously done. And asking good questions is only possible if one is listening.

Pause. 7 seconds is a good chunk of ‘dead time’, according to Prof Patrick Winston, whose “How To Speak” is a fantastic investment of learning time. Aim to have pause have power over phrase this week.

The world’s an overwhelming place at the moment. Floods nearby. War further out. Spooked financial markets. Supplies harder to come by. People worried, battling their own demons and challenges. Online or offline, the sensory overwhelm is intense.

How to reconcile the micro with the macro? There’s so few things that I have influence over, let alone control.  War or floods don’t change whatever I do. Neither will people’s feelings and behaviors.  Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics had the right idea: we can’t control anything – except our own happiness. Choose your outlook, and everything follows from that.

It was interesting to be thinking about this while I’m texting with an unhappy (?) ex-volunteer.  I got a terse “please don’t contact me again” message from them.  I have never met the person nor do will I ever. Nevertheless, the rejection would have stung, not that long ago.  Knowing that the only thing I have control over is my attitude to this, I was able to put a pause between the message, and my response to that stimuli. It doesn’t matter; the implications are not worth losing my happiness over.

The media headlines have a blood red background – designed to make us see danger. I’ve never seen any media headlines in green. Wonder why that is?

I blew an opportunity to inspire a group to make a change, for lack of preparation.

I did prepare many things: the slides, the story, the imagery, the rehearsal with the others. What I didn’t prepare well was the close. More precisely, how I wanted people to feel. Choosing my words carefully. Delivered deliberately. Reaching into their hearts and minds and helping them want to make the change.

I felt, after I finished, that I had merely lifted a mirror to them.  They might have seen a reflection that they wanted to see, not what I wanted them to see.

A lesson to remember. Prepare, write the words out. Rehearse them too. I’m nowhere as good as I get told – or think – I am, when speaking off the cuff.

Be the change you want to see.

That’s a powerful call to action, and I’ve found myself surrounded by people who want the same change. Finding a tribe has been easier than I thought it would be. Whether it is at work or in the many projects I’m involved in, a number of wonderful people (with a wicked sense of humor) are starting tof build, willing to help, wanting the same change, knowing it is just beyond the bullshit of the gatekeepers’ irrational arguments. It needed me taking the first step of reaching out, speaking up, or crying out.

Whether these projects will achieve what we set out to do, I will probably not know. If it sets in motion a series of actions that create the change some point in the future, our efforts will have not have been in vain. Even if it doesn’t, we know already that we tried our damn-dest!