This week I joined 11,000 friends and colleagues in Orlando for Family Reunion 2022. It was the first large in-person work event I've been to in almost two years, and the energy was palpable. Reunion is also one of my favorite places to pick up new ideas, rekindle old friendships, and keep the motivational tank full. I hope you find these few takeaways helpful.
Watching - Duncan J. Wardle is the former Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney. He gave the keynote at a CEO Mastermind that I attended on Friday. The address started with a story that underscored how we go from expansive thinking to reductive thinking throughout our lives. We don't start out creative and lose our imagination as we age; instead the people around us tell us we aren't creative as we grow up. As we move into school, jobs, management, parenting, pretty much all parts of adulthood we start hearing and saying "no, because..." to ideas. Instead we should say "yes, and..." during our brainstorming sessions. When coming up with possibilities we aren't making decisions, but setting the stage for options. We should work from the place of most opportunity, not the least. It's easy to take a big idea and make it smaller; it's really hard to take a small idea and make it bigger. There were a ton of other wonderful ideas and stories in Duncan's keynote. I'd encourage you to check out a shortened version of his Theory of Creativity talk from 2018.
Reading - The Art of Learning is a book by Joshua Waitzkin that I've been loving. Waitzkin was a child chess prodigy who became an eight time National Chess Champion and was the subject of the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. He spent the first 18 years of his life building a mastery of chess that's very near unrivaled before the pressure of fame burned him out on the sport. He then discovered Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands and became a 21 time National Champion in the meditative and martial art form. Throughout the book Waitzkin spins fabulous tales awhile also unpacking the understanding of his successful study. He reminds us that true mastery of any skill comes from mastering ones own mind as well as breaking down the skill into its fundamental pieces. To achieve excellence we must learn the basics, be specific on what we build, and go tremendously deep before we go even slightly broad.
Listening - Every time I hear from or speak with Gary Keller I add to the mountain of wisdom he's given me. On Friday we started with a simple exercise: everyone held their phones at arm's length for about a minute. It wasn't long and the exercise wasn't hard, but the point was clear: the more you hold onto to things, the more it hurts, no matter how small they are. The only way to scale your life is to let go. So that begs the question, how do we let go and still get the results we want? The first thing to do is learn how to scale and which levers to use. Time is our worst lever because it demands the most energy and leads to burn out. To let go and achieve more, we must invest in people who share our standards. By combining forces we don't just get additional productivity, we can make an exponential impact. The key is to find the right people, set the right standards, and take the right actions that yield the right outcomes. Who are you leveraging to help you get the life you want?
Have an inspired, flowing, collaborative week.
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