Wednesday 20 June 2018

Compete With Yourself

I'm currently presenting and hosting a series of master-classes as I complete the writing of this final book in a trilogy.

Learn more about the master-classes held in Ballarat on the fourth Wednesday of every month.


This post is the Compete With Yourself chapter of the book.

In a nutshell

We start comparing ourselves to others very early in our lives. Doing so is a journey to dissatisfaction, unhappiness and mediocrity.

We are all unique. We are not comparable to anybody else.

Not a single duplicate in the 100 billion lives that have walked planet earth.

The quest is to become the best version of our one-of-a-kind selves. This means we must continually compete with ourselves.

3 Recommended Actions

1. Create a profile of what the best version of you looks like on one page

The following will be helpful as you create a picture of your best you.

Remarkable people don’t bully others.

Remarkable people don’t show their lack of intelligence by being violent towards others.

Remarkable people respect views and opinions that are different to theirs.

Remarkable people are passionate and persuasive yet never arrogant enough to think and act as if their way is the only way.

Remarkable people have ditched dogma and instead lead by example.

Remarkable people are not attached to their ideology, belief system, or political party bias, instead they debate ideas and then collaborate to achieve what really is good for humanity.

Remarkable people have roles not jobs. They understand that jobs are part of roles and that all roles are about relationships and delivering value to others as perceived by them.

Remarkable people are candid and authentic. They say what they mean and mean what they say.

Remarkable people promise big and deliver.

Remarkable people do their deep personal work and show it through their acute self-awareness, and therefore their willingness and ability to be highly aware of others.

When remarkable people are in the room, they’re in the room (thank you Nigel Risner).

Remarkable people share powerful stories, the kind that others can see and feel themselves in.

Remarkable people co-create cultures of candour where elephants in the room are named, and closets are absent of skeletons.

Remarkable people tell the truth as they see it, yet never in ways that are a put down of others.

Remarkable people ... Please insert your thoughts.

Now create your one page. Start with putting your name on the top, today’s date and the heading I am remarkable when

To help you to live your one page choose a theme song for competing with yourself and play it regularly to get into the state right for you.

2. Write down what you stand for

Below are two examples to help you, my own and my client Jamie Wilson.

What I stand for - Ian Berry

The changes I want to see and influence happening (thanks to Seth Godin for the concept) are:

Homes, workplaces and third places where it’s standard practice for people to feel heard, understood and appreciated. Therefore I stand for:

1) People being willing and able to have the candid, convivial and compassionate conversations essential for other people to feel valued, live values and deliver value.

2) Every person having continuous opportunities to be the best version of themselves and to do work that is meaningful for them and highly valuable for others.

3) Leaders inspiring, reminding and persuading others to be and do as above.

What I stand for - Jamie Wilson

I stand for OUR People, OUR Team. Our people should not be managed, they should be lead, guided and encouraged to prosper, achieve and be their best.

Business objectives are achieved as a consequence of individuals achieving their objectives

We need to manage processes, procedures, policies, practices and systems to ensure our people can deliver their and our objectives

I stand for OUR culture. A culture that everyone invests into and leads from example and owns their unique piece of it

I stand for communication improvements across all areas of the business. We are the BEST at what we do, lets not let this bring us down

I STAND FOR EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM. TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE

Now go create your own. Clue: What you stand for is the change you want to see/make happen.

3. Develop and stick to a one page for your rituals or standards

You can download my one page here (See link just under Action One - Compete With Yourself).

Use it as a guide to create your own.

Recommended Deep work

I love the concept of deep work by Cal Newport. Read about it via this link 

Below are 3 areas I recommend you focus your deep work on

Regularly transform yourself by undertaking the compete with yourself exercise which you will find at the companion resources web page.

Discover, unleash and enhance your own and other people’s gifts. I believe this is the number one role of leadership.

Get better everyday at engaging in candid, convivial and compassionate conversations with fellow humans.

Should you not yet be familiar with the Enhancing Your (Their) Gifts concept you’ll find links at the companion resources web page. 

You will also find there content to consider about conversations. It is key from a self-leadership perspective and therefore competing with yourself that you master all conversations in the meaningful meetings matrix you'll see at the link. Visit this web page now to access these resources that will assist you as you undertake your deep work.

Do Your Work.

You might take the actions I recommend. You might not.

The key will be, not what I say or recommend, rather what you hear yourself say to yourself, who you become and then Do Your Work.

The words Do Your Work are inspired by the Steven Pressfield book Do The Work, which is about overcoming resistance. Steven believes, and I agree, that the pain of running away from doing what we know we should is greater than actually doing the work!

There’s a link to Steven’s book at the companion resources page.

Be remarkable.
Ian

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