Scott Perry's Blog, page 33

Sheila Heen - How to get unstuck.

Insight and inspiration for flying higher in the difference only you can make from guests who have appeared on Creative on Purpose Live.

[Scott] What's one tip or piece of advice that you would leave our listeners with today that would help them fly higher in an endeavor where they seek to make a difference?

[Sheila] Boy, it's a great question.

I think that maybe what helps me is to at least once a day step back from my to-do list to think "Alright what is actually the most important thing I should think about today?" And it may be something I've been dwelling on for a long time from a task perspective like I don't know how to attack this task.

But maybe the reason I'm stuck is that there's something I'm not getting about what they need from me or what might help. So that I'm actually trying to set aside the urgency of the tasks to reflect on my own stuckness.

Or they're just like "What is it that they're hoping for here?" And why is it that I'm not sure what to offer? So it's just rethinking something sort of backing up from it. And if I do that once a day when I notice I'm stuck on something, that's the only thing that tends to get me unstuck.

And that's often a creative process. Because my usual approaches are not helping either me or them.

[Scott] Yeah, I love it.

Sheila just shared insights about pausing, zooming out, and prioritizing your next step into the difference you seek to make. How can you employ this tip in your endeavor today?

Scott Perry, Chief Difference-Maker at Creative on Purpose.

(BTW, you can watch this and every other entire interview in the Creative on Purpose Broadcast Archive. To learn more and access for free, click here.)

If what you just read resonated, please share it with a friend.

Is it time to reset?

In sports, halftime is a scheduled pause in play. An opportunity for teams to reset–a time to rethink strategy and recalibrate tactics before resuming play. It's scheduled chronologically, midway in the action, but sometimes provides space for a timeless and even transformative moment.

As a difference-maker engaged in an endeavor to make things better, halftime can feel like an elusive, even impossible, thing to nail down. There's rarely a clear starting point and never a real end to the game of making meaningful change happen.

But here's the thing, any time can be halftime in a life dedicated to work that matters.

Halftime can be halfway through a co-working session, midway through a day, during a break in a meeting, in the middle of a project, betwixt and between a [INSERT MOMENT HERE].

Time is a story, a construct. It's all made up. Choose your moment. Insert the pause you need to zoom out, reconnect with your core values, recommit to your vision and mission, reassess your immediate goals and plan, and re-engage with the right people.

Are things going a little sideways or topsy turvy in your endeavor? Do you feel shaken, not stirred? Has the project you're working on or the conversation you're having gone pear-shaped?Or maybe you're just a bit stuck and unable to get out of your own way?What happens if you declare halftime and reset?

Scott Perry, Chief Difference-Maker at Creative on Purpose.

If what you just read resonated, please share it with a friend.

 

The Discipline of Delight by Design

What the heck does delight have to do with making a difference?

Plenty.

Human beings are hardwired to be attracted by and embrace delight. Unexpected pleasure or joy is what makes moments memorable, even mundane or challenging ones. 

Ever had an especially great server at a restaurant? My wife and I went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant for our 25th wedding anniversary several years ago. When the server found out it was our anniversary, she sent a bottle of wine to our table and presented us with cannoli for dessert on the house.

I can't remember what we had for dinner, but I remember the moments shared above and the server's name. And we've been back to dine there many times since.

A customer service agent that added a gift card after a no-questions-asked refund recently delighted me. I've even been delivered bad news by care providers with such compassion and consideration that I've thanked and hugged them.

If you can't delight those you serve from time to time, you won't be serving them for long (and they sure won't tell all their friends about you). And while delight may come by accident, hoping it will arrive isn't an approach I've ever been able to sustain.

While sometimes a necessary tactic, hope is not a strategy. 

But can you design delight into the difference only you can make? 

There's no guarantee, of course. Creative work, even creative work done with, for, and on purpose, might not delight. There's too much uncertainty and too much beyond your control.

Delight can't be engineered to arise in every exchange, but a discipline of designing for delight creates the opportunity for it to arrive. 

And here's the thing, it's actually easy to do. Delight is simply a human response to being seen, heard, understood, and treated with dignity, respect, charity, or kindness. This happens so rarely that it's surprising. Surprise is the secret ingredient in the delight recipe.

So what if you stopped listing all the features and benefits of your product, service, cause, or idea and instead crafted a connection with such care and consideration that delight can't resist the invitation to swing by?

Scott Perry, Difference-Maker Coach at Creative on Purpose.

If what you just read resonated, please share it with a friend.

Annie Duke - Perfect is the enemy of the good.

Insight and inspiration for flying higher in the difference only you can make from guests who have appeared on Creative on Purpose Live.

This week's wisdom comes from Annie Duke, author of How to Make Decisions. Tune into the entire conversation here.

[Scott] "You've shared so much goodness about how we can become decision-makers but also make better decisions. It feels to me like what I'm hearing in everything you've shared is that decision-making is a skill, and like any skill, we can get better at it by deciding first that we are going to practice this skill. And in the pursuit of making decisions, we'll make some bad decisions along the way, but we'll get better at making better decisions. So I really appreciate that.

Would love for you to just end with the question I always end with, which is if you could only share one piece of advice or one tip to share with people, whether it's around decision making or just about trying to make the difference that you seek to make in the world, what would that piece of advice be. How does somebody that's tuning in and has their own endeavor lean into the obstacles and adversity but also into the opportunity in the difference that they seek to make?"

[Annie] "I think that it would be just like that old aphorism, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." And I think that runs throughout my work in the way that I think about how do you actually make progress, right?

So like on a sort of microcosmic level for yourself, you know it's what I said. We're fallible human beings making subjective judgments under uncertainty. So, you're not going to be ever perfect at it. There is no decision that's going to be perfect. But the point is if you can be a little bit better like you should judge yourself compared to like how were my decisions last week or the week before or the week before and try to think about–I don't want to think about, like, did I get this one right? But am I getting better at it and try to sort of taking that longer time horizon and understand that small differences make big changes over time. And stop worrying about getting to 100% because you can't.

And then, I would take that on a macro level. As I sort of see what's happening in society, where everybody's so sure that they're right and they need everything to be exactly their way. And somehow, like, compromise and small changes and progress toward a goal have become a dirty word. And just as that's absurd for you personally, that's going to paralyze you.

And also, it's going to cause you to have a tremendous lack of compassion for yourself because that's just setting yourself up to fail. Right? Because you can't be perfect. It's going to make you lack compassion for other people as well. Because you're going to view them as failing all the time, particularly because you can see the decision more clearly than they can, just as they can see the decision more clearly than you can. When they're looking at you.

And then, you know, on a society level, I think that we can see a lot of failures from that kind of attitude. You know, as everybody entrenches into their camp of knowing that they're 100% correct. And then how do you actually create progress? And understand that if you can create small changes over time, that's what progress is. That's what gets us to these really big seismic shifts that you can't see until you take that really big time horizon.

So as for yourself, as for society, is what I would say, and you know, just remember like we're all just trying to figure out what's true, and what to do about it. And we should all have a lot of kindness for that problem because it's a hard one."

[Scott] "I really love that, really love that. A little less value judgment and reaction, a little bit more consideration and response. So love, just really appreciate all of that, Annie."

Annie just shared insights on not falling into the perfectionism trap, taking small steps into possibility and potential, and treating yourself with greater compassion. Which will you employ today?

Scott Perry, Chief Difference-Maker at Creative on Purpose.

(BTW, you can watch this and every other entire interview in the Creative on Purpose Broadcast Archive. To learn more and access for free, click here.)

If what you just read resonated, please share it with a friend.

The Grammar of Identity

The last time I wrote about identity, I addressed the perils of clinging to identity narratives. Today, I wonder if rethinking the grammar of identity might promote a healthier and more holistic way to think about who you are while holding space for who you aspire to be.

We most often name our identities as nouns. Asked to describe who I am, I might respond, "I'm a father," or "I'm a freelancer," or "I'm a writer," or "I'm an older, straight, white, privileged man," etc. 

There's nothing inherently wrong with this kind of naming. Announcing our identity as nouns can help us step into and own an identity. And yet, the downside of noun-naming identity is that we tend to see a person as objectified and fixed once named this way.

However, as the mathematician, Alfred Korzybski eloquently stated, "The map is not the territory."

In other words, the description of someone is not the person themself. More importantly, this kind of naming doesn't hold space for the potential of someone's becoming.

Perhaps a more helpful framing for how we name and embrace identity comes from an unlikely source?

"The fact is I think I am a verb instead of a personal pronoun. A verb is anything that signifies to be; to do; to suffer. I signify all three." ― Ulysses S. Grant

Whatever your opinion is of Grant, the insight is poignant (he was dying of throat cancer at the time) and compelling. In his dying, Grant saw himself not as a thing but a work in process (albeit a process of transitioning from the conscious corporeal world to another).

A more pacifist figure, R. Buckminster Fuller, paraphrased Grant this way.

"I live on Earth at the present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing - a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process - an integral function of the universe." R. Buckminster Fuller, I Seem to Be a Verb

Identifying as nouns has its place, for sure, and thinking about identity as present tense verbs can help us avoid seeing ourselves and others as commodities. Identifying as verbs helps us see shared activities and make deeper connections that lie beyond the categories imposed by nouns.

Applying this approach to myself, I might reframe the identifiers I shared above with "I love," or "I coach," or "I write," or "I live." Naming identity as present tense verbs doesn't box me into one fixed identity. It expresses what I, a fully integrated and whole human being, happen to be doing right now.

What happens if you drop your identity nouns and pronouns just for today? How might identifying as verbs help you be less trapped by labels and instead be a more dynamic and active agent in pursuit of being and doing better?

Scott Perry, Difference-Maker Coach at Creative on Purpose.

If what you just read resonated, please share it with a friend.

Overwhelm

When was the last time you experienced overwhelm?

For me, I negotiate with overwhelm on a daily (almost hourly) basis. In fact, I'm dancing with it right now as I try to write this. What do you say when you don't know what to say? What do you say when you can, in fact, say anything?

Here's something I've come to believe that helps; the flip side of overwhelm is an abundance of opportunity. It's a paradox that is fed by another, human beings are most comfortable with certainty, but we feel most alive with uncertainty.

Yes, too often, there are too many choices, and most of the time, there are no guarantees that any one of them is the best, or even a better, choice. At the same time, what a privilege to have options to consider and decisions to make. This sounds like something to be grateful for, not gripe about.

And the thing about choices is they want to be chosen. Instead of being driven inert or into hiding by the overwhelming array of opportunities, what if you merely got on with it and chose?

Sure, choose on purpose. Make a choice that aligns with who you are, where you want to go, and what difference you want to make. But in the end, whatever you choose doesn't matter a lick until you act on that choice.

And then guess what? You'll be in a new situation with a new array of choices and a decision to make. You can choose to be overwhelmed or blessed with an abundance of opportunities. What do you choose today?

Scott Perry, Difference-Maker Coach at Creative on Purpose.

(Click here to learn a time-tested antidote to overwhelm and burnout).

If what you just read resonated, please share it with a friend.

Jacqueline Novogratz - When should you go faster?

Insight and inspiration for flying higher in the difference only you can make from guests who have appeared on Creative on Purpose Live.

This week's wisdom comes from Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of Acumen and author of Manifesto for a Moral Revolution. Tune into the entire conversation here.

[Scott] "What's a last tip or insight or bit of inspiration that you would share for somebody that seeks to either advance or aspires to begin making a bigger difference in the way only they can make it?"

[Jacqueline] "Thanks, Scott, and yes we actually had a fire in my house today, which is why I keep doing this. Because it's all the windows are open and the fire marshall is still downstairs. So, apologies again.

I'm gonna very quickly say three.

One is, be interested rather than interesting. Too often we focus on, you know, who am I am here rather than who are you.

Two, and it follows, is just start and let the work teach you. You know purpose doesn't find people who are waiting on the sidelines trying to figure out their purpose. When you see something that interests you, follow the thread of your curiosity. Take one step and that step will lead you to the next step that you need to take.

And, the third, which is not for people who are just starting out but more for people like me, I was recently with one of the great social entrepreneurs of the world. Just a couple of years before he died. Fazle Abed, who founded this extraordinary organization called BRAC in Bangladesh. And I said, "Sir Abed if you had to do one thing differently what would it be?" And he said, "I would have gone faster earlier." Everyone wants to slow you down. Don't let them do it. I think about that all the time."

Jacqueline just shared three powerful ways to move your endeavor forward. Which will you employ today?

Scott Perry, Chief Difference-Maker at Creative on Purpose.

(BTW, you can watch this and every other entire interview in the Creative on Purpose Broadcast Archive. To learn more and access for free, click here.)

If what you just read resonated, please share it with a friend.

3 Tips for Living the Good Life

You're probably familiar (maybe painfully so) with my fondness for ancient wisdom. If so, you may have heard me reference the quote, "Know thyself."

This is the most well-known maxim inscribed above the entrance to the Temple of Apolo, where the ancient Greeks sought prophetic insight from the Oracle of Delphi.

As a difference-maker, "know thyself" is essential advice. You can start to investigate this by asking yourself, "What are my values?" And "What's the vision I'm working toward?"

Turns out there are two other aphorisms carved above the entrance to the Oracle's home. Here are all three Delphic maxims.

Γνῶθι σεαυτόν - Know thyself
Μηδὲν ἄγαν - Nothing in excess
Ἐγγύα πάρα δ ἄτα - Certainty brings ruin

"Nothing in access" is also great advice for difference-makers. Put another way, less is more. It's easy to conflate productivity with progress. But more often, doing one right thing well propels your endeavor forward the furthest and fastest.

Finally, there is serious peril in certainty and over-confidence. "Certainty brings ruin" more often than not. Change agents like you and I are well-advised to embrace curiosity and consideration instead.

How do you remind yourself of who you are, what to do, and how to approach it? Why not keep the ancient wisdom of "know thyself," "nothing in excess," and "certainty brings ruin" close at hand and top of mind?

Scott Perry, Difference-Maker Coach at Creative on Purpose.

If what you just read resonated, please share it with a friend.

Choose Your Story...

Human beings have always made sense of themselves, their circumstances, and each other through narrative. I'm telling myself a story about myself, about what's going on around me, about you, and even telling myself a story about the story you're telling yourself about me.

It all gets very complicated and challenging very quickly.

And yet...

Whenever you're telling yourself a story that isn't serving you, the antidote is quite simple. Choose a better story.

Unfortunately, simple is never easy.

We are also creatures that love the status quo. We like to know where we stand and what's expected. Even when our status or situation is impeding our sense of flourishing, we take comfort in familiarity.

What to do?

Choose your story, choose your future.

Most of the time, the stories you are cycling on pop up unconsciously. What happens if you hit the pause button, bring in the conscious mind, zoom out, and reflect on the impact your default narratives have on your physical, psychological, and spiritual wellbeing?

What if you decide to periodically choose to be the curator of your experience, the steward of your perception, and the agent of your destiny? How might you then craft narratives that promote a sense of sufficiency while you strive to be and do better?

Scott Perry, Difference-Maker Coach at Creative on Purpose.

If what you just read resonated, please share it with a friend.

Kasey Pierce - How free are you?

Insight and inspiration for flying higher in the difference only you can make from guests who have appeared on Creative on Purpose Live.

This week's wisdom comes from Kasey Pierce, founder of Red Pen Media.

[Scott] "If there was just one tip or piece of advice that you could leave with viewers that would help them fly a little higher in an endeavor that makes a difference, what would that be?"

[Kasey] "Remember that you are so free, you can choose bondage. Never hand over your power to somebody else."

How can you avoid the freedom trap that Kasie is pointing to here?

Scott Perry, Difference-Maker Coach at Creative on Purpose.

(BTW, you can watch this and every other entire interview in the Creative on Purpose Broadcast Archive. To learn more and access for free, click here.)

If what you just read resonated, please share it with a friend.