We lose respect for a leader when he or she fails to acknowledge a mistake. What we want to see in our leaders is a sense of self-awareness and honesty.
The Road to Self-Renewal
On the bus on the way to work yesterday I listened to a great Social Innovations Conversations podcast featuring Tom Tierney (“Pursuing Social Enterprise, Making a Difference“). In his speech, Tom recounts the strength and insight that he gained from conversations with John Gardner and quotes from ‘The Road to Self-Renewal’, a speech John Gardner delivered in 1993. I was inspired to track down a complete copy of the speech (which you can find here) and I think it’s definitely worth a read…
Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.
15 Ways to Be More Productive
This slideshow from Inc.com features some useful productivity tips from a number of company founders/CEOs.
I like Caterina Fake’s strategy for meetings:
There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom.
And Krissi Barr’s tips on focus:
If I think something is going to take me an hour, I give myself 40 minutes. By shrinking your mental deadlines, you work faster and with greater focus. I also schedule time every week on my calendar for quiet, concentrated PowerTime where I only work on my most important activities.
Not so sure about Jordan Zimmerman’s strategy though:
Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die.
Trade School
Trade School was delivered as a collaboration between OurGoods and GrandOpening where teachers offer their time, skills, experience and knowledge to classes of students who barter their own goods and services to attend.
For example, you could learn everything you wanted to know about composting in exchange for a pretty blouse or some homemade bread. Or you might bring along a small trinket to provide to the teacher of the WordPress course.
I love this idea! Something similar could be launched in a whole range of different spaces and places…. Will need to ponder if/how this could work in Canberra… Got any thoughts, then let me know….
And I’m also seriously inspired/excited by the whole GrandOpening shopfront idea which transforms on a regular basis and, as well as hosting Trade School and art exhibitions, has been everything from a single-table ping pong parlour to a wedding chapel to a drive-in theatre.
How to Cultivate Conscious Laziness
If you’re spending all day in bed, you want other people to know about it, and be jealous. So provide frequent and descriptive Twitter and Facebook updates about your day. “Gray bird on windowsill.” “Turning over now.” “Tahitian Gardenia candle worth the $20.”
Love it!
Window Farms
(via Zach Klein)
Hydroponic edible gardens for urban windows – window farms turn our cities’ windows into vertical veggie farms.
Another item to add to the list of dream office requirements (along with Idea Paint, an office dog, and walking workstations).
Remember, you’ll be dead soon…
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
~ Steve Jobs
(via suzanne.z)
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