I love the quote from American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, John Dewey: "We don’t learn from experience, we learn from reflection on experience."
This event was a wide ranging discussion with Kevin Ryan who has been a secret weapon for me in sport and business for 20 years as a speaking, sales and negotiation coach.
Arjan Vos is a Dutch women's water polo coach and was responsible for a diverse squad at Queensland Academy of Sport. In this conversation Arjan shares his coaching philosophies.
That night, I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. A million things were running through my head. Amongst them was a query: "If Dad might be dying, what questions could or should I be asking him?"
When I was up to my eyeballs in water polo, a part of my training was weekly martial arts sessions with Andy Sutton. Back in early 2002 he introduced me to the principle: "Go slow to go fast." This wasn't just counter intuitive when I first heard it - it seemed plain mad. We'd been training one on one in a park in West End in Brisbane and it really didn't make much sense to me. At the time I opted to file it away in my subconscious in the "too hard basket".
Have you ever lingered in the bathroom at a social event to take a few extra minutes to re-gather yourself? Have you ever found that working alone was much more productive? Or, on the flip side, that working alone was much less productive? I can definitely answer “Yes” to all three. If you’re looking to understand why you answered these questions the way you did, then “Quiet – The power of Introverts in a world that can’t stop talking” might help… I first saw Quiet’s author, Susan Cain, speak in Boston at Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing conference. Her presentation really struck a chord with me as Susan discussed the role and importance of introversion in our business and personal lives. (I’m looking forward to sharing a video interview with her in a second post soon.)
In the vein of Marshall Goldsmith’s “What got you here, won’t get you there”, The 5 Temptations of a CEO, forced me to take a look in the mirror. Result = opportunity to improve!
I've just finished Marshall Goldsmith's great book: "What got you here, won't get you there - How successful people become even more successful". What is the book about? My one sentence answer is: It is about removing your personal obstacles to further magnify your strengths.
It’s an existential question I asked myself after reading Ben Horowitz’s blog post: Lead bullets. Fortunately I was reading Ron Baker’s book Implementing Value Pricing at the time.
I read once that your gut feeling is the sum total of everything - everything you know, everything you've ever been taught and everything you've ever experienced - boiled down to a yes/no, right/wrong choice and impetus to act. I absolutely agree.
You know it's a good book when you dog ear the last page. That's what I did with Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferrazzi. I did it for this quote: ...you can't do it alone. We are all in this together. It's a book about the power of relationships. It's a book of advice and practical tips for starting, growing and strengthening relationships. It's a book that takes it one step further and holds up your relationships as the single most important ingredient to your success. While the success part is all in the eye of the beholder, I completely agree with him on the importance of relationships - and it's a timely warning.
Consider your schooling for a minute. What if you had lectures for home work and exercises for class time? What if you could have spent more one on one time with your teacher to help you really grasp the details of concepts, and help you solve problems rather than sitting in a classroom trying to concentrate on the 5th lesson of the day? What if you could have rewound the teacher to listen again to the part that you didn't quite understand? Would it have made a difference? Would you have learnt faster (or at least at your pace), been more engaged, been more interested? It's underway.
What is a Black Swan? A Black Swan has 3 attributes: First it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable. (p xvii)
In the workshop which Adam and I both attended, Liz organised a 5 minute exercise to get us in the groove of relentless questioning - one of the top traits of all great leaders from her book. We picked an issue then chose roles. Adam asked the questions first, and I answered, then we switched it over. I was excited! Even in 5 minutes, I had a much clearer idea of the problem we'd been discussing. I made a mental note to use it in the future if I was stuck on a problem. Sure enough...
