Hi there,

Happy Monday!

Here is your weekly dose of The Monday 3: a quote, an insight and an action I’m taking.

I’d love you to forward this to one person who might find it useful.

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A quote I’m pondering

Imagine you are dropped on a random spot on a hilly terrain, where you can only see a few feet in each direction (assume it’s foggy or something). The goal is to get to the highest hill…

Consider the simplest algorithm. At any given moment, take a step in the direction that takes you higher. The risk with this method is if you happen to start near the lower hill, you’ll end up at the top of that lower hill, not the top of the tallest hill.

A more sophisticated version of this algorithm adds some randomness into your walk. You start out with lots of randomness and reduce the amount of randomness over time. This gives you a better chance of meandering near the bigger hill before you start your focused, non-random climb.

Another and generally better algorithm has you repeatedly drop yourself in random parts of the terrain, do simple hill climbing, and then after many such attempts step back and decide which of the hills were highest.

Chris Dixon, Venture Capitalist: Climbing The Wrong Hill

A question I’m asking myself from this: What am I optimising for?

An insight from conversation

My days are filled with people looking to stop behaviours or start new ones and then make those changes stick.

An example might be in health:

Sometimes it’s obvious what we’re trying to say no to. We might be saying no to drinking as much, eating as much, checking emails before bed…

Another framing I like to use can help clarify meaningful incentives for change:

By making this change, what am I saying yes to?

We might be saying yes to more time and energy, sustainable productivity, role modelling for our children, colleagues,…

So next time you’re trying to change behaviour, try that question:

By making this change, what am I saying yes to?

An action I’m taking

I had a terrible night sleep on Saturday night. It boiled down to work plans bouncing around my mind for my upcoming trip to the UK and US. Frustrating as it was to wake up feeling tired, the best thing I did was go for a morning walk through the bush with Luce and talk it through. (I threw on a weighted backpack for extra benefit.) It was a beautiful day and by the end of it we’d hashed out my checklist for this week. Felt good!

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Is there one of these that really stood out for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts or suggestions too.

I hope you have a great week ahead.

With love,

Toby

Executive Coach, Speaker and Author

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