Lessons

Lesson Info

Opportunity & the Power of the "Undone"

What I wanted to do was give you one more element of your portfolio. One more thing that you can draw upon when you leave the program this afternoon and then heading of course, into tomorrow and it has to do with this and the word dual edged sword come to mind how incredible opportunity is for us simultaneously, what opportunity does to us I'll start off with a question to everybody watching right now. Has anyone ever it's been a big week at work or life? You're under some pressure, and you finally late at night, you put everything down and you go fall asleep and you're in the middle of one of the deepest sleeps ever and and suddenly at two twelve am, you wake up and you think I've sent the e mails and I finished the spreadsheets. We're all good happened anybody most of the time, what I wake up with a two o'clock in the morning is oh, my gosh, I forgot to send the email and we didn't complete the spreadsheets. It seems that opportunity kind of chases us around as this. I call it unfini...

shed business, and when I think about mentors that I've had in my life, and by the way, I'll talk about mentors as people who have influenced the way, I think. And as such, I can include people like al einstein because he influenced the way I think I have to meet someone for them to influence the way I think I study biography a month and every month I pick someone but I dive it deep I read their books, I watched their movies I bought the amazon prime for those of you around the world I am a zon prime lets me have free access to documentaries aiken borrow books through my amazon kindle have to buy them I can borrow them and the month that I studied albert einstein this was several years ago I learned more about this guy then then I ever knew one hundred sixty I q and when he was in fifth grade, his teachers called him the dunce of the class that he couldn't learn math and his quote that jumps out of the book I read a biography from stark his quote that jumps out of that book is this bold part behind me here where I say that I wrote development accorded the individual development according to me and I'm always asking, where does that come from? And I believe it comes from this concept of unfinished business, so what influences whether or not we have opportunities or not what influences that well really about three things I got three things that will influence the abundance or even lack of opportunity and one of them is what I have called home eo stasis we're going to talk a lot about this idea today I won't use this word all day long today, but I'll talk about this idea essentially homo stasis is that tendency we have to return to our normal are our routines oh what's expected has anyone ever had a guest? Come stay with you at your house and the first couple of days they're trying to figure out where the light switches are or that that one lip in between the living room in the dining room they have to kind of step up a little tiny bit to you you don't even notice it anymore that's your normal I get to travel a little bit to new york city so I live in this quiet, sleepy town of ojai, california there's eight thousand people in my town there's no street lights where I live there's no sidewalks where I live quiet at night we can see stars I'm going to get to new york city completely different. And any time I bring a friend along with me I've brought my sister to new york jodi travels with me have brought friends the first one or two nights there asking me jason, how do you sleep through all of this from what I know is that I have a normal that is set while I'm there the second thing that influences my opportunity again, that creates an abundance of opportunity or will actually drop how many opportunities I have is this concept of the social network, we're going to go into detail that tomorrow there are some people I do need to spend more time with. You probably just had one or two come to your mind on the other side of that coin. There are some people I need to spend less time with, always a difficult one to try to identify, especially when some of those families, some of those people are in close relationship to us. I shared with you earlier that infographic I found just today on goal setting and that indicator of if people right, if they think about a goal, if they write a goal or if a share a goal with the right people, because every single one of us I'm going to put in the same group, we've had the opportunity our life to share a goal with someone that didn't think we could achieve it. I was look at the peripheral nods of heads up and down those of you online. If there's someone around where you share a goal and that person, they don't immediately support you in that I'm going to start to take a look at the context that I'm spending time in. I know I know that the idea is that you're going tohave in this room later on, we're going to change the lighting background, we're going to change the stage on you a little bit. The context year in will actually change the opportunity you dream up for those of you who commute here in the bay area or in new york, I'll actually bring my clients will sit on the bart will sit on the subway because I know they'll have different ideas in the different contexts therein. One of my favorites is working with marketing leaders, marketing executives because they try and have their ideas about marketing when they're upon the fifty third floor of a white board room where someone comes in and pours their water for them. We go walk down the avenue, we drop down into the subway and know if they've told me, jason, I haven't ridden the subway in years, I said, I know look around because they're wearing and they're listening, and they're talking about the things you're trying to design way up. They're so this idea of opportunity and homo stasis I want to be very careful of because I don't want to just return to my own normal my guess is that you have a routine you have in place from the time you wake up in the morning. To the first screen that you take a look at two the first bit of nutrition that passes through to the first connection that you make to the outside world, and we're going to shake that up a little bit. We're going to look at how does this idea of unfinished business poll on you just a little bit now for this activity, what I'm going to ask you to do for those of you who can if you if you flip to a new page in your notebooks, for those of you who are watching online, if you want to pull up a new text editor or pull out a new page of the workbook, I'm going to give my in studio audience a quick activity and then we're going to talk a little bit about what's going on in the online world. All I need for you to do here is to think to yourself what are some unfinished business things that are on my mind right now and he's going to be at work in life? They're going to be big and little they're going to personal and professional spelling doesn't count. I see just scratch these things down, you all do that I'm going to go to the online community and I'll be right back. Some really interesting reactions to some of the things that you've been saying, it's quite fascinating how different people are taking different things where I really was interested by this comment from emily barani, thank you for joining us, emily she's saying that not being booked solid for her is uncomfortable, but then she goes on to say, if you are comfortable, you're not growing. That was very interesting. What do you think about? Well, immediately, I think about the class that creative life has by michael port on booking yourself solid, so helping out my colleague here and, you know, it's it's, fascinating off line. I had some conversations with participants today about this idea of how busy we are, and I'm a huge proponent of if I'm booked up and I'm completely booked and I'm too busy, and I'm getting more bookings than there's really only one thing to dio revisit my demographic, by the way, one of the lines that I kept out of this, I had it in to pull that out, how didn't pull it out, and it had to do with compensation because I really want to be cognizant of this idea that creative and productive have different meanings for people, um, I'm one of these guys that I want to actually get rid of the idea of a non profit organization. Because when I look into the future, the next thirty to fifty years profit is a to me, a bloodline. It's. How do we create a prophet? A profitable experience for people. But you can probably I mean, just sitting here, you probably see it's like, yeah, you know, jason took that out for this little piece. So when I think of that, that I mean, gosh, j k o it it was almost like a, uh, two heads coming at each other, like I want to be booked up so that I'm comfortable, but I'm comfortable that means I'm in shallow water. So how do I continue to toe to maximize that? Yeah, yeah, actually, this is a follow up from before because you said, you know, it defined the stress and felipe belgium is referring to this unfinished business. He says, I never seem to finish things because always some expected important things keep coming up. Sometimes I find myself being interrupted without hesitation, and then after two hours that I finally get to work on the things that I want and I need to d'oh. But then, at the end of the day, I always had this feeling of not having done the things that I needed and wanted to dio and that's the source of stress. So the unfinished business and actually feel it made a follow up comment later on today which I thought was really interesting he was strong about how he tries to manage this time but ended by saying boss's plan of one hundred and twenty percent of capacity they never allow for the fact that people have other things to do a great friend of mine in a city outside of san francisco and he was on a team of about eight people and there was one moment where there were people in a team that had family situations there are people on the team that has some life situations and he was the one guy single in the city he kept getting the work from seven p m to nine p m so he actually signed up for an iron man triathlon and that was his excuse to leave the office at the at a decent hour is I have to go train you know you have to go get your kid to yoga I have to go train and it was a fascinating we will figure out how to make that thing happen high just another thing on that note I've done the national novel writing month where you have to write it fifty thousand word novel in a minute and it and it was just like running a marathon like sorry I can't go to that party go to right uh so I see unfinished business as like what is my mission in life and what do I need to do before I die and my my two big things air getting into a great like find my lifetime romantic partner I've grown over the years and I've created lots of great things in my work and I really like that's something I want to focus on and then secondly in my in the work and entrepreneurial endeavors that I'm embarking on a immediately came to my mind go bigger go home like just really go for it and you know, ask for what I need get people involved and make it big by involving other people so it was all those points you made about the social network and right, right thinks so I'm gonna look at at the at the in studio audience I want to pick someone who has kind of a a fairly running list here you've got a a good number of things that showed up just quick show of hands I'm going to call on you yet just so I know where to look as I go through this okay kind of all around so for those of you on online, if you if you did this exercise and wrote several things down if those of you sitting here the first thing I'd like to ask is how many of you wrote down more things than you thought you'd right now just given the exercise that anybody get more than I've got three more questions so look to you in a moment how about this? Anybody have a popcorn effect where you wrote something down and then totally unrelated something else came in it was big and then little and home and then work and it's like that how about this? Did anybody write something down and then directly underneath that was a part of that thing and then there was a part of that thing and you started doing some project planning on me anybody do that? Okay, this next one is take a look at the last item he wrote the last one and count up for if you have that money cannot buy lunch how long has that been around the record I've got in one program when I asked someone count up for how long? Ten years wait I said I've been trying for for what feels like a decade soon as he said that so it's fascinating to me is by late is one more problem to get to before our break today there's there's that it's fastened to me how this works that little list can cause good stress good stress is that acute stress good stresses last night at about eight fifteen when we wrapped up our dinner and for our walk home I ran through the creative live over you would jodi one more time because we were down to twelve hours and forty five minutes till showtime then there's the bad stress then there's the whether or not this has been on my mind for a decade but what I do with that thought for the decade a question that all I've already planted the seed for you to think about and this is something that will come back from the break and explore if as need be was this concept of what those things are I've been thinking about is actually being blocked by the things I shouldn't be thinking about when I put this question upon the screen every single one of you could probably think of three or five or seven things that you never want to have to think about again I mean, some samples that I've come up with over the years are things like I don't wanna have to think about what food I'm eating on this current diet that I'm in I just want that information to be accessible I did an exercise I travel a little bit for my job so last year was about two hundred twenty nights in hotels about one hundred fifty flights and there's things that I don't want to think about anymore I want my confirmation for the airplane hotel rental car just so happens I want the supplies that I have in my house toe always be stocked I've actually put things on subscription so that every thirty days in the mail comes those supplies that I need every month and every four months in the mail come those things that I don't want to have to think about. I want to end this segment, and we're going to go to our break here by talking a little bit about one of the things I've found closes unfinished business and it's going to sound simple when I drop it into your garden of thought. But I love you to play with this as we go into our fifteen minute break here in a few minutes and it's the power of acknowledgement this started by accident. I was a high school teacher back in the mid nineteen nineties, and we were in a staff meeting. It was early in the year, and I heard some of my fellow teachers complaining that they weren't being thanked and as if that was gonna happen, auto, magically and I I went home that night and had a conversation with jodi. I went to my computer, my word processor, and I typed in this big a piece of paper. I typed it's your day, and then I had put a line and I went to school the next day I made one hundred thirty copies because there was one hundred thirty days left in the school year. And I taped every morning I taped one of these eight and a half by eleven sheets that said it's your day and then I wrote one of the staff members names on that piece of paper I wrote the janitor's name or with the principal's name I wrote a teacher's name I wrote the aids name I wrote the bus driver's name and that stayed all day long in the mail room of the office where everybody passed through teachers and staff and support and students and then I don't know I think most of us in this room are old enough to remember yearbooks from high school and at the end of the year we had the yearbooks and we got people to sign our yearbooks and they always want the same thing. I don't know if you remember this, but it was it was wonderful to meet you have a good summer see you next year and what wound up happening is people started writing messages that were way beyond it was wonderful to meet you have a good summer see you next year people were literally putting in thank you for helping me yesterday. Thank you for being my teacher. Thank you for being a call league now I had no idea other than every morning or back to school I put another one of these down on the mail room um counter when I left school I left that school three years later I wanted to say goodbye to the teachers that I wouldn't have talked to normally there in the science department of the math department and there were so many teachers that when I walked into their classroom up on the wall as these posters were there three it's your days that since expanded and now what I dio is at the end of every day I write a thank you card I travel with him I travel with stamps I travel with cards at the end of the day I close my eyes I sit down at my desk right before my head hits that pillow on that light goes off and I spend just a little bit of time throwing some words on the paper and the biggest thing I want to do is simply notice what got done notice something that they did generally that was of service it was a product or is an experience that helped me along the way a thank you card today does several things for me number one it lets me focus differently it's almost like when I'm going through the day I'm waiting to see who's going to get the thank you card that night it lets me pause and reflect someone earlier this morning said that their mohr included learning whose was that? It lets me recognize that that day something awesome happened it's a mindset the mind set. People ask me all the time. They say, hey, jason, you know, do you ever do you ever hope that they do something when they get your thank you card, I say, well, for me, more than anything else, I get to spend six minutes being grateful. I mean, there's, a little life changer. If the people on the planet just spent six minutes in gratitude, what could happen? Like I said, I travel with what I need. And if it's a heavy travel day, what I'll actually give to the front desk is a lot more than one. Thank you card. And I just figure it's this way of sharing with the world. So the element that I want you to think about, the element that I'd like you to go to break thinking is how powerful the undone is. On the one side, it activates us. It gets us engaged on the other side. I look for where I can check something off. I can button something up. I can ship something out to my community. So I'm gonna pop it back over to you and and see what what's going on out there.