Leadership Fuel 2: Flip your perspective & intuition

Here is your fortnightly Leadership Fuel newsletter – a dose of clarity and insight for a complex and distracted world.

1. A word from us

Throughout your life, certain ideas and beliefs are reinforced and embedded so deeply that it’s easy to miss an entire universe of insight and growth which could be accessed with a simple change of perspective.

Counter-intuition is defined simply as intuition that is counter or opposite to our expectations or beliefs. A great way to access counter-intuitive insights is to ‘flip’ or ‘invert’ your perspective and see what emerges.



Here are a couple of inversion examples:

1. Meeting your shadow

We all know the things others say and do that trigger us, drive us up the wall, elicit anger or perhaps even envy.

But what if the things that most frustrate and anger you in others were in fact mere reflections of yourself?

Meet your shadow: the unconcious, un-owned and/or un-integrated aspects of your being that you project or ‘push out’ on to others.

Feeling resentment toward your ambitious colleague who keeps getting promoted? Perhaps that says more about your own inner ambition and drive which hasn’t been fully acknowledged, owned and expressed.

Hate being being instructed or told what to do? Perhaps you like being the authority figure, having the answers or being the one to teach others.

Next time you catch yourself ticked off, venting, feeling frustrated or jealous of someone else, try inverting the outward focus from them to you by asking:

• What might this feeling be showing me about myself?
• What is it about them that is really about me?

Remember whenever you point a finger at someone else, 3 of your fingers are always  pointing right back at you!

2. Procrastination

Procrastination is perhaps one of the most demonised behaviours in the modern world. We are inundated with articles, tools and strategies to ‘kill procrastination’ or to ‘take action and procrastinate less!’ the list goes on…

We are told that if we conquer procrastination, we could then take more decisive action, live the life we want and make our dreams comes true…

But what if procrastination wasn’t something to kill but a voice to be heard? A voice trying to tell you about your highest calling, deepest values and passionate interests – the very things your dreams are made of.

Inversion: Instead of beating yourself up, next time you catch yourself procrastinating or ‘wasting time’ rather than working on your ‘priorities’ try inverting your perspective with these questions:

• What might this procrastination activity be telling me about what I’d rather be doing with my life?
  
  
• How is this thing I’m ‘wasting time on’ in fact a deeper reflection of who I am and what I’d like to be spending my time doing?
  
  
• If I intentionally spent more time on this procrastination activity, would I enjoy my life more?

Note: not all procrastination activities are signals of your higher calling, some are just low value, high urgency tasks that can be useful to take your mind of things, create space, or let the unconscious mind go to work on solving bigger problems i.e. household chores, grocery shopping, binging on TV shows (or maybe deep down you’re an actor at heart!)

2. A question to consider

“What if I could only subtract to solve problems?”
– Tim Ferriss

3. Fuel for thought

A book to read

+ The 5am Club by Robin Sharma – A great read unpacking the early-rising habit which has enabled some of the worlds greatest achievers to operate and sustain world-class levels of performance. It’s packed with great tips and advice on how to optimise your morning routine for maximum focus, creativity, self-renewal and personal growth.

Articles to check-out

+ Identifying your circle of competence – This is a chapter from Farnham Street’s Wall Street Journal best-selling book The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Tools. In this chapter you’ll explore the gap between what you think you know and what you actually know, how ego contributes to blind spots and how to accurately identify and expand your circle of competence.

+ 1000 true fans? Try 100 – This is a great article exploring the viability and product/service model for individuals to make a living off their creations as an artist, writer, influencer or entrepreneur in the modern world of work.


A video to watch

+ The mindset of Kobe Bryant – This short video provides a fascinating insight into the drive, commitment and tenacity of the late Kobe Bryant – exploring his approach to optimising his mindset, leveraging strengths and mitigating weaknesses in the pursuit of being the best he could possibly be.

4.  A final thought to ponder

“A person is only a person because of other people”
– Zulu Proverb

Thank you again for choosing to be part of our community and we hope you find great value in this newsletter.
Warmest regards,
Alex & the Adapt Leadership team