Want to Create Something Cool and Innovative? Box Yourself In.

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William Shakespeare is widely known as one of the most prolific, and greatest writers in the English language. But consider how he created, and for whom. He wrote specifically for live 16th century theatrical performances, when it was common for audiences to stand up, wander in and out, go find something to eat, yell their displeasure at the actors, or even yell at each other to shut up and listen. It was often a chaotic and rowdy affair.

With these specific audience constraints, Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays that are celebrated and studied today. He also invented over 1700 words that are actively used in the English language. All kinds of words. “Elbow” for example, was merely a noun until Shakespeare decided to use it as a verb and allow a character in a play to elbow his way into a room. Other words he wholly invented, like the word “puking”. Here it is as written in the play As You Like It.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.
– William Shakespeare As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7

In 1960, Theo Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) accepted a bet with with his publisher Bennett Cerf. Cerf challenged Geisel to write a book using only 50 different words. The result was the acclaimed Green Eggs and Ham, which went on to sell over 200 million copies and is one of the best-known children’s books of all time.

In 1996, the innovative skier Shane McConkey was sitting at a bar in Argentina with some friends complaining that there wasn’t a really good powder ski in existence. He sketched his vision of a powder ski on a napkin which had almost no side cut and no camber. Side cut is what gives skis their hourglass shape and are fantastic for carving on hard, packed snow. Just lean them on edge and they bite into the snow. But they’re terrible in powder. If you design the narrowest part of the ski to be directly underfoot, in soft powder you sink.

The other change he sketched on that napkin was to reverse the camber. Camber is…, well how about a visual to explain it. See here:

Traditional camber creates a tendency for the ski tip to dive in deep powder. And if your tip dives in deep powder you’re likely to fly over the handlebars on your face into the mountain. Instead, skiers had to lean back uncomfortably to keep their tips from diving. Reverse camber allows a skier in powder to center his weight comfortably on the ski, providing more control.

While designing the ski, McConkey borrowed from water skiing. In his mind, powder and water were similar in that they were dimensional. In powder you ski in the snow, not on top of it. He simply imagined using a water ski in deep powder. That ski he sketched on a napkin took two years to be produced. As he describes, “Over the course of the next two years I would talk to people about how cool it would be to have skis with decamber and reverse side cut specifically for powder. Almost everyone I mentioned the idea to would either laugh or politely smile.”

A lot of presentations are boring. Amiright? The speaker drones on while staring at his pie charts with his back to the audience. Some of the most exciting and innovation presentations have come as a result of practicing PechaKucha. In Japanese, PechaKucha literally means “Chit Chat.” It’s a style of presentation in which the presenter gets exactly 20 slides, to deliver in 20 seconds each, for a complete 6 minute and 40 second presentation. Oh, and the slides auto-advance in exactly 20 second increments. That will make you tighten things up, and practice. And practice.

Shakespeare wrote to entertain a loud, rowdy, and distracted live audience. Theo Geisel attempted to write an entertaining book using only 50 words. Shane McConkey designed a ski to only be used in very specific snow conditions. PechaKucha exists to kill boring presentations.

These are all examples of using constraints to create innovation. According to Stanford Professor Bob Sutton, “Research on creativity and constraint demonstrates that, when options are limited, people generate more, rather than less, varied solutions — apparently because their attention is less scattered.”

Innovation isn’t rocket science. It can be deconstructed and learned by anyone. Try our course Out•Innovate the Competition to build measurable innovation in your workplace.

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Our company Mindscaling, is busy building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk.

Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Buy a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

You Can’t Build a Reputation On What You’re Going to Do

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A little northeast of Flagstaff, Arizona is a desert of volcanic ash and rock from an eruption near the year 1065. It’s now called Cinder Lake. It’s a desolate, barren landscape with porous, ashen soil, pockmarked with divots and potholes.

In July of 1967, NASA engineers “improved” the landscape by blasting over a hundred craters in the middle of Cinder Lake to make it more accurately look like the moon. It was here for a couple years thereafter that NASA conducted a series of lunar training trials with Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and other astronauts and engineers. They brought in their space suits, vehicles, and crazy-looking apparatus to conduct experiments and stress tests on the lunar buggys.

One day they encountered a Navajo elder who inquired what they were doing. The astronauts explained that they were practicing and training for a trip to the moon. The Native American man was astonished at what he heard, and then fell silent, quietly contemplating what the astronauts told him. After a few moments he spoke.

“The people of my tribe believe that there are holy and sacred spirits that live on the moon. Would you please pass a message to them?” And then he uttered a few sentences in his native language, carefully repeating each line until the astronauts memorized and repeated it back accurately.

“But what does it mean?” the astronauts asked.
“That I cannot tell you. It is a sacred message for only my people and the moon spirits to know.”

When they returned to the training facility they found a Navajo translator who listened to their secret message, and then laughed and laughed. He said, “It means, ‘Don’t believe a word these people tell you. They have come to steal your lands.'”

We would all like a reputation for generosity and we’d all like to buy it cheap.
– Mignon Mclaughlin

It’s a cute story. It’s not true, but illustrates the point that your reputation precedes you. Like it or not, people talk. And your actions say much more about who you are than any marketing brochure you write about yourself. Which is why one of the most important things you can do to generate good will among those you have worked with, and high expectations for those who are interested, is to actively live your values.

It’s hard to live up to our own expectations. We know that mobile devices detract from the quality of our conversations, but we look at them anyway. We know that waiting to talk isn’t the same as listening, and yet it’s hard to quiet our inner dialogue. We know that self-compassion is important, and yet we beat ourselves up over the silliest things.

Eric Kandel, a neuroscientist at Columbia University who received a Nobel Prize for his work on memory, was once pressed to say how much of the mind works unconsciously. He guessed between 80 to 90%. The broader point is that real change is difficult since much of our thought process is unconscious.

You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.
– Henry Ford

Pick one thing. About ten years ago I was so consumed with my work I would prattle on to anyone who would listen about what projects we were working on, what fabulous things we were trying to accomplish, what we were excited about. Some people were interested, but many weren’t. Many people would just tune out. So I started asking questions instead. It made a big difference in the quality of my relationships when I led with questions instead of statements – particularly more powerful kinds of questions.

Reinforce the change. Whatever small change we choose to act on, when we see it elsewhere in the world, reinforce it. In my own example, I wanted to lead conversations with questions instead of statements. Now, when I see other people around me begin conversations with questions (for example; “How are your kids?” or “You just went to Detroit. What did you learn about the city?”). I point out their considerate questions and say “Thank you for asking.” Or even better, “That was a thoughtful question.”

Build your reputation one small act at a time.

Building cultures of leadership, trust and innovation starts one small act at a time. Try our course Small Acts of Leadership to move the needle a little in your workplace.

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Our company Mindscaling, is busy building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk.

Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

Keeping Score is a Losing Game

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Maybe it’s a function of the age, of being 12 years old. I donno. But a few years ago, our son would keep score of everything. If I asked him to empty the dishwasher, he would say it’s his sister’s turn. If we’re stacking wood in the shed, he lets me know how many more pieces he stacked than his brother. If we go out to buy shoes, he would let me know he picked the ones that cost less, or were cooler, or some other metric of comparison.

Everything was counted as points for, or against. Nothing was out of bounds, “I ate more carrots“, and nothing was beyond his calculating gaze “He’s a faster runner, but I worked harder.”

If you are ever wondering whose turn it is to take out the trash, then it’s your turn. And you’re better off to do it without even knowing whose turn it might be. At work, if you’re keeping score on whose turn it is to proof-read the marketing copy, draft the proposal, assemble the meeting agenda, or edit the upcoming presentation, then you’re likely to feel ripped off when you do it, because making contributions based on reciprocation is always going to make someone feel like they aren’t getting a fair deal.

A workplace of zero-sum, scarcity thinking creates an environment in which there aren’t enough jobs, isn’t enough credit, and isn’t enough opportunity to go around. When work relationships are built on the basis of scarcity, we monitor the contribution of others, hoard credit, and harbor frustration at our work. Then we talk trash about our colleagues after work.

To counteract the negative effects of constantly keeping score at work, try hosting a Reciprocity Ring. Developed by sociologist Wayne Baker and his wife Cheryl, the exercise works like this: Assemble a group of people – anywhere from 8 to 50 people – and ask each person to come to the meeting with a request. It could be something as simple as an introduction, or as wild as a lifelong dream. The object of the group is to try to fulfill each person’s wish using their knowledge, resources and connections.

It’s also important to do this live, face-to-face, together. Research shows that requests made in-person are 34 times more likely to be effective and responded to.

The wonderful part about a Reciprocity Ring is that the team goal is to fulfill someone’s personal or professional wish, so it’s a great exercise in giving. The other wonderful part about the exercise is that it normalizes asking for help – everyone must arrive with their own wish. Wayne and Cheryl Baker say they see gender differences at work when it comes to giving. According to Baker, “Women are more likely to suffer generosity burnout. They help but don’t ask for what they need, hence, burnout. Men give and ask for help.” In a Reciprocity Ring, everyone has to arrive with a request, so it creates an environment in which it’s safe to ask for help.

Wayne and Cheryl Baker have tuned the exercise to try to achieve higher rates of granted wishes. They encourage participants to arrive with a wish that meets their SMART criteria – specific, meaningful, action-oriented, real, and time-bound. When a wish has these parameters, it’s more likely the group will come up with a solution they can deliver on.

Go on, give it a try. It’s an easy exercise in creating a culture of trust and giving at work.

Building cultures of leadership, trust and innovation starts one small act at a time. Try our course Small Acts of Leadership to move the needle a little in your workplace.

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Our company Mindscaling, is busy building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk.

Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

Real Moments Will Not Be Televised

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The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
– George Bernhard Shaw

It’s school vacation week here in New England and we’re out skiing with the family. It’s pretty cold, and early afternoon yesterday, we sat on the chairlift chatting about taking a break and warming our toes. There was a lull in the rhythm of the day, and our minds started to drift on to the next thing. Someone next to me on the chairlift pulled their hand out of a warm glove and reached for their phone. We weren’t quite present.

Minutes later, we bumped into a few friends on the hill. And then a few more. Within half an hour we were a posse of eight racing through the woods, bouncing among the mogul fields, carving down the mountain, and drifting among each other having new, interesting conversations. It went on for a couple hours. We forgot about our toes and chilled cheeks, and instead deepened our play, deepened our conversations. We were very present and alive. We also created new relationships and deepened others, all in the span of a couple hours.

These are the moments we search for, the moments of meaning and companionship. It’s reflexively easy to reach for a phone and wander through the fast food of social media seeking a quick dopamine hit. Scrolling through Twitter or Instagram in a passive fog never quite finding satisfaction or joy in the effort. Quite a few studies have shown that taking a digital detox from social media predictably improves our sense of happiness and well-being. Other studies clearly show that social media just increase stress and anxiety.

Here’s a useful way to look at it. Nothing substitutes for in-person face-to-face human connection and time together. So think of your digital life as supportive tools to help create more meaningful human interactions. With location services and social updates you can easily triangulate where your friends and family are so you can meet up with them and have in-person, face to face human interactions. I discovered my friend was in town so we texted to have a coffee. In moments together we experience the nuance and joy of real human connection – the tonal inflection, facial changes, gestures, posture and gaze.

Albert Mehrabian, author of Silent Messages, famously posited that 93% of our communication isn’t even in the actual words we use. He found that 7% of any message is conveyed through words, 38% through vocal intonation, and 55% through nonverbal elements, such as body language and posture. I think the truth varies but whoever true communication happens, we won’t find deep communication through Facebook.

As Cal Newport describes his approach to digital minimalism, first ask yourself What are my values? and What kind of life to I want to be living that is fulfilling? and then layer in a digital life that supports those goals. So instead of asking yourself whether you prefer Instagram or Twitter, instead ask yourself if Twitter serves a purpose that supports your life goals.

It’s important to understand that how we consume media affects the way our brain is wired for deep thinking. Fast media doses of high speed, low attention, vacuous, binge watching media disrupts our ability to think deeply and creatively. Try slow media instead.

“If every moment of potential boredom in your life — say, having to wait five minutes in line or sit alone in a restaurant until a friend arrives — is relieved with a quick glance at your smartphone, then your brain has likely been rewired to a point where it’s not ready for deep work.”
– Cal Newport

Interested in a learning experience on being present and mindful as a leader? Try Karen Hough’s new course, The Art of Leadership Presence.

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I founded Mindscaling, a company building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk.

Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

The Magic of Bill Murray

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“If you can consciously let yourself get taken and see where you go, that’s an exercise. That’s discipline. To follow the scent. Let yourself go and see what happens, that takes a bit of courage.”
– Bill Murray

The comic legend Bill Murray has created decades of urban folklore by simply showing up in odd, random places and interacting with people. Did he really take a french fry from someone’s plate and whisper, “No one will believe you.” Did he really ride a bike in a Walmart wearing a fireman’s uniform, squirting a water pistol? Who knows for sure.

But there is video of him washing dishes at a party in Scotland, playing tambourine at a house party in Austin, and crashing a private karaoke room in New York. And there is a beautiful story from a father who met Bill outside of a hospital and watched him spend half an hour on his knees in the cold, comforting and talking to his son in a wheelchair after brain surgery.

Or this story. Bill gets into a cab in San Francisco and starts chatting with the cab driver, and discovers the cab driver is a saxophone player. Bills asks when he gets to practice his instrument, and the taxi driver says he doesn’t get to practice much because he drives the taxi all the time. So Bill finds out the saxophone is in the trunk and tells the driver to pull over so Bill can drive the car while the taxi driver gets to practice his saxophone in the back seat. They wander the streets of San Francisco with the taxi driver blowing saxophone in the back, and then cross over the bridge into Oakland after midnight to have barbecue together at a diner, and play saxophone for a crowd in the parking lot.

Whether Bill is dropping in to a game of kickball or reading poetry at a construction site, he is showing up to be present, not to entertain. He’s not there to juggle, tell jokes, or get on stage. He’s there to be alive in that spontaneous, inventive moment. In his own words, Bill says when it works best he finds a way to wake people up in their lives. He says he might encounter someone sleepwalking through their life, and hopefully he can help create a moment to wake them up. He also says sometimes he gets lucky himself, and wakes up to a new truth or new understanding.

Universally, everyone who tells these stories describe him as kind, present, and able to bring levity and joy to a moment. But the moments are fleeting and unpredictable. He’s famously impossible to track, or pin down. Even Sofia Coppola who wrote and directed Lost in Translation said that Bill told her he “might think about it” without ever actually committing to doing the film. So Sofia sent him the production schedule, flew to Tokyo to start filming, and then just hoped that Murray would show up, which of course he did.

Katie Calautti, a reporter for Vanity Fair, was asked to do a story on Bill Murray at the Toronto Film Festival. She said he was impossible to coordinate with because he has no entourage, no people, no team to interact with. He just shows up, and since you don’t know when or how he is going to appear, it’s pretty hard to write about his comings and goings. She said she spent most of her time at the film festival chasing a ghost. She said later that reporting on Bill Murray is like reporting on jazz. You just have to show up and see what happens.

It’s easy to be inspired by, and learn from Bill Murray. Show up, listen, give kindness, don’t seek the spotlight, look for opportunities to ease pain, or provoke new ideas. And when it works right, maybe something will happen to transform the moment, and allow an awakening.

“We’re in this life, and if you’re not available, the sort of ordinary time goes past and you didn’t live it. But if you’re available, life gets huge. You’re really living it.”
– Bill Murray

If you have a quiet hour, I recommend the documentary The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man.

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I founded Mindscaling, a company building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk.

Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

Striving for *Best* is Killing Your Mojo. Choose Good Enough.

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Have you purchased something recently? Something major like a new laptop, a car, a bicycle, or even a minor thing like a toaster, or a shirt? And when you bought it, did you pore over the reviews and try to pick the very best one, with the most options, coolest color, or lightest design?

If you struggled through the decision process before your purchase, you are more likely to keep looking around even after you bought it, and more likely to have buyer’s regret about your purchase later. You know that feeling after you bought a Toyota. You start to see them everywhere. You also see the competitors you thought about, but didn’t buy. There’s always a better camera, a faster processor, a brighter shade of blue.

Between 1975 and 2008, the number of products in the average supermarket swelled from about 9,000 to almost 47,000. If you go to a supermarket today, you will be confronted by up to 80 types of cookies to choose from, and up to 100 types of toothpaste. Crest alone has 61 varieties depending on whether you are interested in breath quality, whitening, gingivitis, sensitive gums, soft enamel, or even if you’re over 50 years old. Seriously 61.

I’m talking about the tyranny of choice, the curse of options. If you are presented with 61 flavors of ice cream, you are more likely to make a slower choice, and a choice that you are more likely to regret, than if you are presented with 5 options. There is a price we pay for all those choices. The price is not just the time you spend anxiously deciding, but the nagging suspicion that you may have made a wrong choice.

Sheena Iyengar, author of The Art of Choosing, did a little study in which she and her students set up a jam and cracker tasting table at a grocery store. In one version of the tasting, they offered 6 different jams for people to taste. In the second version, they offered 24 different types of jam. After the first tasting, 30% of people bought a jar of jam. After the second tasting, only 3% bought a jar. More choice can lead to paralysis, indecision.

We worry that each choice we make says a little something about who we are. Each selection is a small reflection of what we believe, what we hold dear. What if we make the wrong choice? We’re not perfect, and we sometimes beat ourselves up trying to be stronger, sharper, more present, more focused, more caring. We should be more compassionate to ourselves, and we shouldn’t punish ourselves by over-evaluating our choices. After all, we’re constantly changing anyway.

The word is satisficing. It means choosing something that’s good enough, will do the job, will suffice. Those who try to maximize every single choice are likely be less happy about their choices, and less happy about themselves. They also tend to be perfectionists.

Comparison is the death of joy.
– Mark Twain

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Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building powerful human and digital learning experiences based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.

Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

Don’t Let Your Grit Become Workaholism

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What comes easy to you? What do you love? After you’ve sat through 4 meetings, done the dishes, taken out the garbage, or stood in line at the Division of Motor Vehicles, what are you excited to escape to?

I have friends who find solace in yoga, escape into reading, or immerse in deep conversation. Their version of self-reward is to get a group together and share ideas over lunch. I also have introverted friends who dread the idea of hosting a big meeting. My friend Chris’ idea of joy is to curl up in a chair and knit and knit and knit. She says they will find skeins of yarn untouched after she’s gone. She can’t get enough. My friend Jeff clocks whole afternoons lost in his workshop shaping cabinets. Hopper can spend an entire week swimming in the open ocean.

In order to get good – really good – at something we have to work at it, put in the long hours, maybe even ten thousand of those hours. And if you’re going to put ten thousand hours into something, you deserve to enjoy it. So start with something you feel drawn to, something that comes easy.

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.
– Richard Bach

If you start with what comes easy, the work becomes passion. “Grit is the combination of perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” Angela Duckworth goes on to say, “It’s not simply working really hard and being resilient, it’s working toward something that gives you a sense of purpose and meaning.”

Workaholism, on the other hand, is working compulsively at the expense of other pursuits, and possibly at the expense of physical or psychological health. A work-obsessed individual pursues power or control until it becomes a compulsive addiction to gain approval or public recognition of success.

The primary difference here is that workaholism is work for work’s sake. It’s also work for external validation – like getting affirmation or money or power. Grit involves the pursuit of a higher calling, a striving to achieve something of meaning beyond the work itself.

Choose what comes easy. Then the work becomes joy.

May you and your loved ones have a joyous holiday season, and a wonderful new year.

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My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.

Last summer, our son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored this with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

Don’t Let Someone Else Define Who You Are

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Right now, over 2 million high school seniors all around the United States are applying to college. And many of those apply early, to receive an early response, and to possibly increase the odds of getting in to their dream school. Those who applied for Early Decision or Early Action, are hearing the news right about now. Hope abounds, and I understand. Our son, a senior in high school, understands.

If you are a high school senior, or have a high school senior, you should know something that matters much more than acceptance at your dream school. The choices you have made, and who you have become by the time you are 18, matter way more than any decision by a college admissions board. And whatever acceptances or rejections you receive, they are temporary and they do not define who you are or who you can become.

The friends you have made, the adventures you have embarked on, the books you have read, the challenges and adversities you have confronted, and the small acts of kindness you have given over your years leading up to age 18, define you far more than the seemingly arbitrary and confounding decisions of college admissions professionals. Don’t let a small group of people who have never met you, define who you are. You get to decide that.

There are a lot of schools you can attend, and have an equally marvelous experience. What matters, of course, is not where you are, but what you think, and who you play with, and share time with. So remember, whatever school you are accepted at, choose to attend, or life choice you make, the most important thing you can do is to make a difference where you are. Solidify your intentions. Light a candle where you are, and let it burn brightly.

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Last summer, our son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a book about it called Chasing Dawn. (Because, you know, we were cycling east. Get it?) I co-authored this with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

Our company Mindscaling, builds powerful leadership development experiences, and curriculum, for companies big and small. My other new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post #5 bestseller. Woot! You can grab a copy on Amazon. Have a meeting coming up? I can help. Let’s talk.

Reinventing Yourself One Story at a Time

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We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
– Kurt Vonnegut

I had an interview a few years ago with the great Irish philosopher Charles Handy. He talked a lot about the importance of reinventing yourself every few years, why it’s so difficult, and why most people don’t.

We tell ourselves stories about who we are, such as programmers, or lawyers, or exercise people, or activists, or vegans, or cyclists, or parents, or whatever. Over time, our actions and behaviors strengthen, become habitual, and harden to reinforce that identity. That identity is reassuring, but it’s also a constraint. We can begin to be defined by this self-imposed persona.

It’s all a story we tell ourselves about who we are. And we start to believe that story.

As a result, we can become blind to opportunity and closed to self-reinvention because we overvalue what we have invested in, and undervalue what our friends, family, and colleagues find most appealing and powerful about us.

In that interview, Charles Handy encouraged us to seek out friends and family, listen and trust their assessment of our strengths and to take time to ask what they think best defines us, and what they think might be strong opportunities for growth. You might be surprised when their version of who you are is quite different from your own version.
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Chasing Dawn, our new book, is coming out in a couple weeks. I co-authored this with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. It’s about cycling across America with our teenage kids. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

Our company Mindscaling, builds powerful leadership development experiences based on the work of best-selling authors. My book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post #5 bestseller. Woot! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I can help. Let’s talk.

Twitter: @gshunter
Say hello: shawn@mindscaling.com
Web: www.shawnhunter.com

Wanting to Be Someone Else Is a Waste of the Person You Are

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We rode into the small town of Lincoln, New Hampshire and stopped at a small grocery. The owner came outside excited to look at our bicycles, adorned with panniers and travel bags from our ride across the United States. After 3000 miles we were lean, our bikes were well used and covered in stickers and personal touches. We looked the part.

We explained to the store owner we intended to camp and then head up and over the Kancamagus Pass in the morning. He furrowed his brow and nodded. “Good plan,” he said. “The Kanc is steep and long. Leave early and take your time. It will be work to get up over the pass.”

We woke early to attack the pass, and after about an hour and fifteen minutes of climbing we topped out at the peak, pulled over at a scenic rest stop and took some photos. My son Charlie (16) and I didn’t think it was much of a big deal at all. After seven weeks of cycling across the United States it didn’t seem a big climb.

That version of myself that was in better shape. If I rode up that mountain today it would be a much different story. Today, I’d wheeze and labor up the climb. It would take me twice as long. I’d probably stop to stretch and breathe. Instead of lamenting that I’m no longer in that physical shape, I should instead embrace who I am now.

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.”
–Kurt Cobain

Unlike our puppy Wally, who doesn’t appear to have any self-conscious thoughts, we humans have an ongoing relationship with ourselves – a constant inner dialogue about our sense of self-worth. It is, of course, why people pursue fame, fortune, and power, in the false belief that we will achieve satisfaction through adoration, money, or control over external forces.

What we really long for is to be understood, loved, and appreciated. Since this is true, we should afford the same thoughtful care to ourselves. Stanford Professor Christian Wheeler did a study which examined our idealized attitudes versus our actual attitudes and behaviors. In other words, he examined what happens when our more perfect version of ourself is in conflict with our actual behavior.

When our behavior is incongruent with our idealized attitudes, we feel worse about ourselves, and we often cheat our behavior to better match the version of ourselves we want to be. For example, if we idealize ourselves as fit and attractive and we aren’t currently, that tension makes us feel worse about ourselves. Which is why Spanx is a thing.

In another example, Wheeler asks us to imagine someone who wants to like their job, but their job actually makes them miserable. They may spend time convincing themselves the job is fun and meaningful, but if they cannot bridge the gap, the incongruency will only make them more despondent.

Meet yourself where you are. Self-compassion will fuel your personal change far better than beating yourself up. Just imagine what you would say to a dear friend in a difficult situation. Say those same things to yourself.

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SmallActs-3DShawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.

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