Don’t believe everything you think

For the next 5 minutes, let’s elevate your career.

In today’s email:

• Don’t believe everything you think

• Our language can be beautiful

• Update your mental models

• It’s the pebble in your shoe

• Muhammed Ali as career coach

ON YOUR CAREER

Don’t believe everything you think

Not every thought we have is true nor useful. Thoughts are not profound simply because they arrive in our mind. Scrutinize them. Keep, eliminate, or put them on creditwatch.

COMMUNICATION

Our language can be beautiful

Muhammed Ali is this edition’s Career Coach. Some of his language is beautiful. Simple. Pure. From head and heart.

All of us can move people when we write and speak from head and heart.

PRODUCTIVITY

Update your mental models

A mental model is a simplified explanation of how something works, used to interpret the world and to make decisions. An example of a mental model is the Pareto Principle - the idea that 80% of results come from 20% of efforts.

The most influential mental model in my work is triple intelligence. I’m curious how coachees use and develop their rational, emotional, and social intelligence. Same applies to me and my colleagues.

I continue to test and borrow other peoples’ mental models. I discard some that no longer seem useful. Productivity can increase if we think faster and better. Updating our mental models helps get us there.

1 MINUTE TO HAPPINESS

Take the pebbles from your shoe

Muhammed Ali said, ‘It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.’

Small, persistent irritations can drain us more than large challenges.

Our happiness can therefore be advanced in 2 ways:

1. Re-frame small irritations as unworthy of our attention

2. Empty pebbles from our shoe

What pebbles can you remove from your life?

What could you fix in a weekend?

GET SMARTER

Muhammed Ali

Muhammad Ali (1942 - 2016) was born Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky. He became a towering figure in both sport and social activism. As an 18 year-old, he won a boxing gold medal at the Rome Olympics. Ali was to become world heavyweight champion three times. He participated in legendary bouts like the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ and ‘Thrilla in Manila’. Ali was a gifted wordsmith, with a wit and speed that made him a cultural icon. His most famous poetic line was, ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see. Now you see me, now you don’t. George thinks he will, but I know he won’t.’ Ali had dyslexia.

Outside the ring, Ali was a social activist. He refused to be drafted to the Vietnam War. This led to him being stripped of his boxing titles, suspended from boxing for over three years, and losing millions of dollars during the peak of his career. Ali was sentenced to 5 years prison which was overturned by the US Supreme Court. Ali’s conscientious objection, fight for racial equality, and conversion to Islam combined to make him a much-disliked figure in 1960’s America. This changed. His courage in the ring and enduring goodness outside it won people over. Some of Ali’s wisdom: