After a clear run for so long, my luck with dodging COVID ran out a couple of weeks back. My family and I were all hit with it, and the house was thrown into ‘chaotic rest mode’ for an entire week. Thankfully, my kids were barely affected, and they very quickly got used to the rhythm of sitting in front of the TV while mum and dad rested.

Interestingly though, it seems that I also quickly got into a habit (or perhaps more accurately, I lost one). It’s likely no surprise that to do what I do, I need to lean into courageous discomfort on an everyday basis.

Trying things, taking risks, and receiving feedback (both positive and negative). That’s where growth is found, and it’s something that I’ve become accustomed to.

So it was interesting to me when I got back into it all this week, that I was scared… Not consciously so, but subconsciously my actions were those of fear. I found myself procrastinating the harder, higher exposure things – looking instead for comfort in the mechanical and repetitive.

I’d become much too used to being comfortable, lying on my couch, catching up on TV I’d been meaning to watch.

Comfort had replaced courage – and it wasn’t healthy for me or my business.

Thankfully, through active intention and gradual exposure, I’m back into the courage seat and pushing and growing again. But that wouldn’t have come without proactive intention.

Are your teams leaning into the courage habit, or is the comfort habit in control instead?

Here’s A Wild Idea: Falling For The Wrong WHY

I’ve written in the past on the ‘duality of why’ and even on ‘magical change’ – but today’s wild idea comes from the combination of the two. It’s a pattern I noticed while spending too much time watching TV (see above…) While wandering through the many avenues of YouTube, I found myself watching random episodes of Penn & Teller’s old series: ‘Fool Us’. The idea of the show is simple. Several magicians each week will come and perform one trick for Penn & Teller (and the viewing public) – and if Penn or Teller couldn’t guess how the trick was done, then the magician succeeded and was given a trophy.

Most didn’t succeed.

But there were a pattern in those that did – each of those magicians understood what the game really was. It was a game of two goals:

1. Entertain the audience, while
2. Tricking Penn & Teller.

These seem obvious for us from the outside looking in – but so many of the magicians seemingly forgot the second goal. They put on amazing tricks, breath-taking performances and exciting shows – but all using established principles of magic.

Those that won the coveted ‘Fooled’ trophy were those that actively flipped the goals. Their brief looked like this:

1. Trick Penn & Teller, while
2. Entertaining the audience.

This changed how the tricks were designed. These magicians would build in false tells and come up with creative alternatives to well known tricks so that Penn & Teller couldn’t guess how it was done – even at the expense of audience entertainment.

In other words, success was found by truly understanding the right order of the WHYs.

What would your project look like if you flipped its WHYs?
Is it possible that you’ve placed the ‘vanity WHY’ over the ‘true WHY’…