If you can’t improve it, spending time on it wastes your time

There are a lot of things worth paying attention to and spending time on trying to affect. If you can't or won't do anything about something you don't like, it doesn't improve your life to worry about it or to take time away from something you like or can do something about. You can call it "choosing your battles" or "discretion is the better part of valor." If you're taking time from something you enjoy for something you don't that you can't or know you won't do anything about, you're choosing to make your life worse. It's not worth it.…

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Look forward as you learn to lead yourself

Over and over as I work with clients and students, as they learn to understand and manage their emotions, when they look back at their lives they see choices and actions they now know they would do differently. They notice relationships they mishandled, choices they would make differently, behavior that led them astray, and so on. I do the same thing. I think of relationships I lost, school and job choices I missed, maturity I lacked, and so on. I know how to do things better now. Sometimes I lament with my clients and students, empathizing with them at what…

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How would you behave during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

The movie Thirteen Days illustrated how John Kennedy and the executive branch handled the Cuban Missile Crisis. I recommend the movie (and Robert Kennedy's book of the same name). I edited some parts to highlight one aspect of the situation---the personal perspectives and behavior of people closest to the President. While you won't likely face decisions with stakes as high as nuclear war, you'll face similar structures of conflict. Many people have written about conflict management, decision-making, avoiding groupthink, and other angles. https://joshuaspodek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/thirteen_days_clips.ogv I recommend watching these clips actively by trying to put yourself in the places of each character,…

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The problem determines the solution

"Which is more important as a leader, to work alone or to work in groups?" I heard that question asked of a panel of business leaders last week. The panelists all answered something like "in this day and age you have to be able to work in groups. That's where you get everything done" with some acknowledgment that you had to be able to work solo too sometimes. As soon as the moderator asked the question I thought, "You're asking about solutions in the abstract. The problem determines the solution." You can best solve problems that take solo work to…

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Eisenhower on deciding, resolving conflict, and uniting a divided team

People often ask me about resolving conflicts and how to handle them as a leader. This clip shows Eisenhower, played by Tom Selleck, handling a conflict two days before D-Day. It's dramatized, but not so much that we can't learn from it. Context Eisenhower and his team have been planning the Normandy invasion for months. They want to launch in the next couple days, but two major unknowns split to leaders on one aspect. The unknowns are the weather and the German army's preparations. The decision is whether to drop the elite paratroopers and gliders behind enemy lines the night…

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I have low standards the first time

This post on doing things you love even if you're not good at it prompted discussion -- or at least people asking me about doing things that feel scary or are hard. For most people, the challenges are internal. Most people aren't risking health and safety doing something like climbing Everest -- they're thinking of trying out for that senior position, singing karaoke, going to a gym for the first time, or asking that guy or girl out. Their risking losing social standing -- aka embarrassing themselves. Why people don't try new things Their biggest fears are based on beliefs…

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