A friend sadly told me, “I have ideas all the time. I dream about them. Sometimes they keep me up … but I don’t do anything about them because I don’t have time and nobody wants to hear them anyway.”
How awful is that?
Turns out, it’s not just awful, it’s career limiting. Adam Grant ties ideas to success through originality in his amazing book, Originals, “The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists.” What if my friend dreamed up something Brand New and nobody ever heard his idea?
My friend serves an important role. Without adherence to the existing processes, the trains wouldn’t run on time and society would lack the reliability and routine we all depend upon. Actually, we all have routine commitments in our jobs and our lives.
Still, the trend today is toward automating these routines and applying human capitol and strategic thinking to new ideas. Technology is empowering the individual to have more information, reach, and capability than ever before. Citizen journalists are tweeting world events live as they happen. Facebook’s new Live Streaming captured a shooting real-time almost immediately after it was deployed. Even management principles are moving toward flatter organizations with self-managed teams using Agile thinking.
Elyse, asked a room of people today, “which area of your life needs attention: Fitness, Food, or Fulfillment?” Most people said Fitness was the hardest area for them to achieve, most saying they couldn’t find any exercise they really enjoyed.
Ghads. I blame old school P.E. classes for taking the joy out of non-sport exercise. Nobody likes doing things they don’t choose. I hated P.E. so my parents sent me to lovely dance classes for many years.
A woman said she used to be very athletic but now she can’t do that anymore in her fifties, so she just doesn’t exercise.
Newer exercises, like the Core Align demonstrated in my last post, are gentle enough for people of any ability. I recommend starting with a trainer who can ensure you stay within your physical limits while still challenging your body safely.
There are billions of ways to get in your fitness, couldn’t we find ONE interesting to you? Walking, biking, TRX, Pilates, boating … maybe just trying one new exercise each week is the trick? Here in Bethesda we have tons of boutique options including several uni-gyms focused on only one particular exercise (e.g. spinning, hot yoga, etc). It’s all about your individual preferences and access to enough ideas about fitness to find your own fit.
My answer to Elyse’s question is “Fulfillment.” I love my day job as a Management Consultant focused on organizational change, and I want to expand that to help individuals learn to move when they either can’t or feel like they can’t. I’m particularly interested in the period of time post-injury after physical therapy when we each need to decide how and what we are going to do with our recently traumatized bodies.
Each organization and each person is different and requires new ideas and new approaches based on the same core approach:
- What are your ideas? What do you want to do?
- Where are you now? What are your resources?
- Let’s make a plan.
Let’s do this!!
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