My son asked my why start now, when in college they'll teach him what he needs to succeed and learn core competency. That was a tough question to answer in a way that connected him to his goals, and was easily understood. This post is helping me understand it better.
I stopped writing for a bit and wanted to examine why. The answer, I think, wasn't exactly surprising but the best answers often times aren't surprising. The only thing surprising about the answers that move us forward is how simple they can be. I'm happier now, and hopefully I'm back to a regular writing habit.
Over the last 2 years, I've pursued building products and businesses but more importantly building up myself. The Lean Startup came highly recommended and I see why, but it's just not for me. I struggled to understand or articulate exactly why, until I read Reinventing Organizations.
Each year I sit down and decide what is most important to focus on. I balance my desires and ambitions with my capabilities, and how I want to improve myself and relationships to others. Here are my 2015 Areas of Focus.
How often do I complain about the inconsequential? Way too often. I find the faults to justify my own failures to complete tasks. Why do I do this? It's because I wasn't asking myself the right questions. It isn't the tools fault.
A recap of a momentous year. It started with fear, which changed to optimism and ended with peace.
President Dwight Eisenhower was an amazing visionary and was able to share that vision and excitement with others to accomplish amazing things: the Interstates, DARPA, and the mandate for peaceful space exploration and the formation of NASA.
How did he accomplish so much in a time of such great urgency? He knew how to prioritize better than anybody else.
We make countless decisions at all hours of the day, our work pulls is in one direction and our passions in another. Then we have families, chores, and many other responsibilities. These things build up, they leave behind a residue even after we take care of them. We need to clean that residue away.
It's a jumbled world where we confuse gratitude, praise, and flattery. There is a time for each, except flattery. Well, maybe flattery if you sell cars. It's difficult to distinguish the two and it requires practice.
The path of success and leadership lies not in compromise but convergence. The only way to find this convergence is to let go of your own ambitions, and find a new, shared goal that incorporates everyone's strengths and desires.
Taking three months of writing and other projects was good, but now it's time to ramp back up. Dealing with the failure of a startup, the expectations unfulfilled, and overcoming fear to find new allies.
Atlassian, the software company that makes JIRA, held a conference where a senior employee committed yet another offense that drives women from tech. What could they do better in response?
