Announcing the Executive Mindset newsletter

• Shift your time to focus on more impactful work

• Identify the beliefs that hold you back from new ways of working

• Communicate more effectively with others

• Influence others to follow your lead, even without direct authority

• Build alignment with others to collaborate on more important projects

• Navigate corporate politics and resource allocation discussions

• Understand how purpose and values can create results for the organization, as well as yourself, in aligning and focusing your efforts.

• "Mindset-shifting leadership coaching. Eric's strong desire to see his clients succeed is clearly visible in the effort and empathy with which he shares his expertise."
• "There was a great deal of wisdom in what Eric shared with us. I know I’ll be revisiting our lecture notes and the additional resources that were shared throughout the course."

• Poor sleep, poor results. Great sleep, great results. A post inspired by a dream where I was at an MIT alum event, and lamenting that we all had to learn the hard way through our own experience that sleep was not worth sacrificing, that we got better results when we slept better.

• Do the Most Important Thing First: See above.
• Say What You Want: If you don't clearly state your expectations of others, you are hoping that they will magically change to conform to what you want. But that rarely happens, and you will be left feeling frustrated and helpless. Your situation won’t change until you change the situation.
• Resource Allocation: The job of an executive is resource allocation. They have an infinite list of things that could be done - they have to prioritize that list against their limited resources, and decide what their teams will work on. Instead of doing the work they are assigned, they are the ones assigning the work.

• The Self-Help Trap, by Tim Ferriss. When I first read the Four-Hour Work Week, I disliked Ferriss's approach of exploiting and optimizing for the current system. So I appreciate that he's now admitting the limits of that approach: "Modern self-help contains an in-built flaw: To continually improve yourself, you must continually locate the ways you are broken." Instead, he is learning to embrace the skill of acceptance (c.f. the Serenity prayer) and letting go of the constant need to optimize and improve.
• Joan Westenberg has a similar reflection in her piece, Why I Quit the Strive. A few sharp observations:
  • "From the outside, The Strive it looks like that thing we call passion; but from the inside it feels like a crushing, soul destroying anxiety disorder. You set a goal, and with a bit of luck and a whole lot of blood, you hit it, and you feel good, and then it fades and you set a bigger goal."
  • "The Strive doesn't believe in hobbies. In its twisted framework, everything is either productive or wasteful. ... It can't process the idea that you might do something because you enjoy it. Every hour has to be an investment. Every experience has to compound." It believes "Contentment is boring."
  • "The Strive is a really good way to avoid sitting with your actual life. If you're always chasing the next milestone, you don't have to ask whether you like the way you spend your days."
• How to Fix a Typewriter and Your Life, a lovely New York Times article about a man nearing retirement who discovered a typewriter repair shop near Seattle, and for some reason, it called to him. He became friends with the 92-year-old owner, and eventually apprenticed with him, and took over the business from him. "Soon, he quit his job and walked away from its stultifying steadiness, its salary and benefits. His colleagues were sure he had lost his mind. But Lundy knew he was trading security for meaning, predictability for possibility. “I was happy,” he says simply."