personal purpose | The Fourth Revolution Blog

What Makes Great Organizations and Individuals different?

According to Simon Sinek, what makes the difference for great organizations – and great leaders – is that they know their ‘Why”. It is from their purpose that they derive how they do things and what they do in detail.

All individuals and organizations know their “What”. Some organizations know their “How”, but very rarely their “Why”.

Watch Simon Sinek give a great explanation with fantastic examples related to the Wright Brothers versus the establishment, and other great examples in this TED speech (if you’re a hurry, watch from 1:20 to 5:50 – if you can stop then!):

(Here is the link if you can’t see the video)

“People don’t buy What you do, they buy Why you do it” – Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle (Why-How-What) is an interesting approach. It triggers important questions for ourselves and for our organizations.

Is your personal “Why” clear and compelling? Is your organization’s “Why” clear and compelling?

If not, what are you going to do about it?

Stop blaming, and take responsibility for once!

Naturally, we almost always blame someone or something else for our powerlessness to achieve what we would like. And the worst is that we often don’t realize it because it has become so second-nature to us! It sometimes take someone else to pinpoint this awful habit.

Whenever in a workshop or a meeting, for example in organizations, I instill the rule of ‘no blaming’, it soon becomes apparent how natural it is for us to find (good) reasons why we did not do what we committed to, or what we intended to. When you pay attention to it, you’ll find people fall all the time into the blaming mode. Not only blaming others, but also blaming the weather, the system, their family and/or their origin, and so on (our inventiveness in the field of excuses is truly fantastic)…

By the way, the higher ranking the participants are, the easier they will find excuses, which makes it even more fun to instill that rule of no blaming in executive or board meetings!

What if we would take responsibility more often? What if we would take responsibility for the delay, for the screw-up, for our incapacity to exercise more or eat less? Just taking responsibility changes everything. It makes us in charge of our own life. It stops creating this tyranny of unchangeable fate and destiny.

Once you are aware of it, you’ll realize each time you use blame and excuses. You won’t bear it any more. And slowly you’ll become more responsible. You’ll become more human. And you’ll change your fate and destiny.

What if we were all somewhat insane (and what we can do about it)

A nice definition of insanity is: to do things over and over again – and expect a different result.

How much of a creature of habit are you?

It’s quite amusing to think that we are probably all insane to a certain point. In our lives we often repeat behaviors out of habit and still, expect that something different will happen. That, somehow, fate will overcome our lethargy. Look at yourself and ponder how often we tend to fall into this mode.

It is so prevalent that it is sometimes incredible. Is that not the dream of the average person to somehow become rich and famous (refer to all the relevant TV shows) – and still… not to change anything, not one detail, to their daily behavior and occupation?

So, stop doing what you have always done, stop blaming everybody and anything for the fact that things don’t happen in your life the way you’d like. Change, introduce new experiences, even serendipity if you can. In summary – stop being on the brink of insanity by repeating ever and ever again the same routine! Come back to sanity by changing something – or even everything if you dare!

What the World Needs is More People that Are Alive. How Alive are You?

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive” ~Howard Thurman

In the Industrial Age, not so long ago, society wanted us to become a standard conforming commodity. A class of weird artists was (barely, sometimes) tolerated. It is now quite obvious that boring conformity is not the best solution, neither for society as a whole (its needs increasing innovation), nor for us as individuals (we need purpose for happiness).

Yet most people are still asleep and need to become alive in the Fourth Revolution. They are not connected with their purpose or whatever would make them enthusiastic.

While it is difficult to envisage an organized world where everybody would be following its passions (some compromise might be needed at some point!), there is certainly a huge leap that can be made to reveal our common potential.

As a coach, what I am achieving most of the time is to make people become alive around a burning passion that they discover within themselves and that they realize can do more of it in their lives.

How alive are you in your daily life? How about NOW for a good time to wake up and start living?

If you want to read more about coming alive, visit Manal’s excellent blog post “What Makes Us Come Alive“, from which I noted the quote that inspired this note.

What should you do with Criticism?

It’s good to have critics. It shows you are contributing to a worthwhile shift. It means people pay attention to you. It can contribute to improve your product, your art. Here are 6 reasons why criticism is a good thing.

It’s also bad to have critics when it influences you not to give out your best. There are times where you shouldn’t listen to them. There are times you should only listen to you, what brings you alive and what you know the world needs.

So, when should you shun critics and when should you listen to them?

Let me take an example which is close to my heart.

As I am considering a new book it is clear that the topic of the book is non negotiable. It is a message that is growing within me for some time now and that I need to deliver to the world.

The format of the book, whether it will be a story or a non-fiction style, that’s more open to discussion and suggestions. I will still have a strong opinion and I will own the final format.

Finally, the detailed word-for-word editing is something that I consider to be quite open to criticism and improvement (in particular, as English is not my first language).

So it should be for your creations: the main message should not be negotiable; you should own most of the outline of the delivery; and leave critics deal with the detailed editing.

Alas, many people let critics influence their main message and make their detailed editing not negotiable. Don’t fight the wrong battle. It is your main message, coming from your heart, that is the most valuable.

Why, even in a Complex World, you Need to Head Towards your Purpose!

In an ever more complex world where many events become difficult to predict, our tendency would be to follow the flow, let the events drive us.

That’s not how we’ll reach greatness. An acute observer of companies taking decisions in complex environments, Jim Collins, the famous author of Good to Great and his latest book Great by Choice, states:

“Most people start with the outside world and try to figure out, how can we adapt to it? Greatness doesn’t happen that way. It starts with an internal drive. And there is really a key question with big decisions: What are your core values and your real aspirations?”

sailing in storm — While the storm might bring you astray from the route, you sure still know where you want to go!

It is vital to have a direction when it comes to taking decisions, even in a complex world. Personal Purpose is essential, aligned with your core values and true aspirations. And actually, Jim Collin’s research shows that the most successful companies are those that maintain their heading the most consistently. Like the captain of a ship in the midst of a storm, he can accommodate temporary changes of direction to minimize the effect of wind and waves, but still knows where his goal lies.

Be agile in responding to events. But keep your eye fixed on where you want to go, and come back to your initial heading! Only then, of course, will you be able to reach it!

Quotes are from the foreword to the book The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times by Fortune Magazine editors

Three Questions to Help You Define your True Aspirations

Jim Collins gives us three questions to define our aspirations (actually, he gave it in the context of a company but it does work for us personally too!):

What are your real core values and your real aspirations?
What is the truth about the outside world?
When you intersect your drive with your reality, what’s the truth about what you can distinctively contribute potentially better than anyone in the world?

Question 2 is absolutely essential to reality-check that our aspirations and core value can find resonance with the outside world (and respond to our basic needs too!). It’s certainly tough to have a clear view of the world beyond our usual bubble (and might require some help from other people with other point of view), but it’s absolutely critical.

These questions are very powerful. What’s your answers? What’s the reality check of your current aspirations like?

Quotes are from the foreword to the book The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times by Fortune Magazine editors

How you Should Subtract Things Every Day from Your Life

A very famous quote by Lao Tze talks about wisdom:

“To attain knowledge, add things every day.

To attain wisdom, subtract things every day.”

Unlearning by Master Yoda — Even Master Yoda’s wisdom is that one needs to unlearn!

We are not used to consider subtracting things from our daily life, unlearning what we know, do be part of what we should do. Still a lot of very respected wise people do insist on this key skill to progress in life.

We tend to add-on, increase the clutter on our desks and lives, but not so often do be subtract. Or when we do it, it is a real crisis and it becomes counterproductive. I am personally very guilty of adding up and seldom subtracting – up to the point where it becomes too much as I tend to clean up my life (sometimes a bit too harshly).

Being able to subtract progressively and maintain an acceptable level of clutter is a key skill for happiness and success, in particular in the world of the Fourth Revolution. A few minutes per day removing things from our desks and minds is the right solution. It’s tough but it needs to be done! Would you have any other suggestion?

Hat tip to Valeria Maltoni (Conversation Agent) for the quote and more insights

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

So many self-development books speak about “finding ourselves”! Is that really true? Do we have an innate ourselves that we need to seek through some layers of junk accumulated throughout the years?

This is a wrong concept. Life is about creating ourselves. Life is about building something – us. Life is about growth, change, finding the synergy between ourselves and our environment.

Life is about the choice we can make to become what we want to be, how we want to behave. The choice to give out to the world the effect of some of our incredible talents.

And isn’t it much more enticing to consider that we can make our life a life of building something unique, great, rather than just trying to figure out how we were made? Stop looking to the past for innate talents. Look into the future and grow. It is worth every minute of it.

Why do we consider that people can’t change their mind?

Recently another perverse effect of the fixed mindset became obvious to me as I was in the US watching a presidential election debate (but this can be observed in any country).

Commentators and debaters alike spent their time referring to positions, votes, declarations, papers, etc written by the candidates in the course of their career. They used these references – sometimes decades old- to pinpoint inconsistencies in the declarations of candidates.

A striking question that came to me is “why can’t people be allowed to change their mind?”. Why can’t we understand that in some instances, people do change their point of view? Of course you would not necessarily expect people to change fundamentally their values (or then very slowly). But on a number of issues, faced with new evidence and experience, people should be allowed to change their minds!

For example, a politician suddenly becoming president of a large, powerful country will certainly encounter experiences in this unique position that will lead him to reconsider certain of his beliefs or opinions. Still he/she is not to show any of this publicly. It is as if our society would not accept any growth and change from these people.

What is amazing is how difficult it is for us to accept that people can indeed change their mind on some fundamental issues. And this is probably caused by our ‘fixed mindset’ inheritance.

The next time someone you know dares say that he/she changed his/her mind on something important, support this person. It is tough to say this in our societies. Let change it and support growth and change. We collectively need it.

How more constraints force us to create better solutions

“In the field of design, there is the belief that with more constraints, better solutions are revealed” – John Maeda in “The laws of simplicity”

Would that also be true in real life?

Would more constraints force us to find better solutions because it would force us out of our comfort zone – out of the easy solutions? At what stage are there too many constraints to impede any meaningful creation?

Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona (Arizona) – a magnificent example of inspired design in a constrained setting

I certainly do admit that highly constrained situations do force to think creatively and find solutions that are hidden at first. The only condition is to still feel empowered in spite of the apparent obstacles.

How can we continue to feel empowered and inspired when the situations seems immovable? Personally beyond a certain difficulty I often feel more empowered than dis-empowered by the challenge. An other way is to be motivated by the desire to achieve the goal that requires this creation. Your sense of purpose will make you overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Now – are the solutions created by us or revealed to us? Isn’t it the same at the end?

Yes, certainly more constraints will make us all find better solutions. It’s a challenge, it’s a chance, we need to grab it. Now.

Why you can’t achieve your dreams alone, especially if they really matter

I went to a series of entrepreneur workshops and, again, and again, the same recommendation came from of the experienced entrepreneurs: don’t follow your dreams alone, focus on getting a team!

This is the single main distinction between successful endeavors and sad failures: the team, the quality of the team and of the support it offers.

Only with the help of the team can you catch the ball!

It might not need to be a team in your company; it can be a team of advisors, mentors, but it is vital to get a team around you to support, encourage, test new ideas…

It certainly need to include your close family.

Plain summary: it is vital to have a team around you to help you take off and catch the ball that you were looking to catch! Alone you won’t be able to do it, you’ll just be stuck to the ground.

And it is not just the case as an entrepreneur. It is the same when you are just pursuing your passion, your purpose.

The more your purpose really matters, the more your own resistance and the world’s resistance will act to suffocate it before it becomes too big. You need a team to help you in this quest. You won’t fight the world alone.

Pam Slim made the point very well on her blog post, your resistance to ask for help is drowning your dreams! Of course it is just one of the tricks of Resistance to impede us to do the real work.

I love Pam’s conclusion:

“If your dreams have meaning, if they are significant and challenging and worth it, chances are, you can’t accomplish them alone.”

Yep. So where’s your team?

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