We are all connected

We are all connected. The way you choose to live ripples into the future. Your decisions today can be a blessing or a curse for your descendants. Strive to live in such a way that the world will gain from your time here.

People can’t see every choice you make

People can’t see every choice you make, so they use the details they can see to infer the quality they cannot see. You can see it in the clean joints, the clear sentences, and the product's simplicity. If the work you can see is visibly sloppy, the work you can't see is likely to be the same (or worse).

If you really want to be a game changer

If you really want to be a game changer, become a master observer. Just the willingness to stop and look at things that no one else has even bothered to look at enables game changers to identify real points of meaning. The simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted can be a source of great power and creativity. We learn when we observe; we pick up on clues, we figure things out. That is what preparation is all about.

Lobby expertise

Someone who has seen a lot of movies but has never made one has a certain kind of knowledge. The same is true for clients, patients and students. They haven’t solved a problem, healed a patient or taught a class, but they’ve seen it done. They might have something helpful to add. Or they might not.

Responsibility, fault, blame and shame

Responsibility, fault, blame and shame. They’re not the same. They (mostly) don’t even rhyme. People can evade responsibility by saying it’s someone else’s fault. They can take responsibility, even if it’s not their fault. In fact, being an adult involves taking responsibility for things that we could point out are not our fault. We can soothe our unwillingness to take responsibility by blaming someone else, or we could surprise everyone by accepting it in advance. And shame? Shame’s the deal killer, the dream destroyer and toxic. It’s often on offer, but we don’t have to accept it.

Options can be more dangerous

Options can be more dangerous to a competent person than failure. The more competence you have, the more opportunity you have. And the more opportunity you have, the harder it is to focus on one thing.

Upside-downside

The sensitivity analysis for a decision is easy to overlook because we tend to focus on the expected outcome. Perhaps it makes sense to begin with the edges instead.

Upside: If this works, really works, what are the implications?
Downside: If this fails, totally, what are the costs?

After we understand the edges, then it makes sense to be more nuanced about the chances of either happening and start discussing the likely outcome.