A Thoughtful Way to Start the New Year! (#229)
The Confident Leader
BOOST YOUR LEADERSHIP IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
Just after Christmas, I was driving around town and found myself particularly annoyed. Based on the time of year, you might be experiencing the same thing. Here’s what I discovered.
“When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.”
– Plato (Ancient philosopher)
This Week’s Edition
Are you in need of some time to sit and think?
Clarify Your Thinking
Driving around town and finding myself suddenly annoyed, I reached for the radio. I changed the station. That didn’t help. Out of frustration, I just turned it off…
Sigh. Deeper sigh. That was it! I was overloaded and didn’t realize it. Too much noise had accumulated over the past month. Too much Christmas music. Too many parties and events. Too much noise consumption and not enough quiet downtime.
Old Thinking: My mind is cluttered. I can’t think, but there’s still so much to do. I will keep pressing on and hope it gets better.
New Thinking: Part of resting is actually resting. I should take time to decompress from December and most likely from the entire year. I should spend some quiet time just thinking.
Thoughts Lead to Actions
For Christmas, my daughter got an Oura ring, a wearable technology that provides biofeedback like sleep time, amount of REM sleep, heart rate, etc…
Other wearables like my Garmin watch provide stats on blood pressure, VO2 Max, number of steps, running pace, etc…
To me, one of the most interesting aspects of these devices is their analysis of your body’s recovery time and readiness for the next workout or upcoming day.
By analogy, what technology provides biofeedback for our thinking? What device provides the analysis of our mind’s recovery time and readiness for the upcoming day?
When I was in my car feeling annoyed, I reached for the radio and turned it off. Instantly, I began to get the mental feedback that I was on noise overload. My brain immediately began telling me that was the case and signaled that I needed to do something about it.
The information wasn’t provided by a ring or a watch. It was provided by my own mind amid the silence. Silence was the device providing the space for the biofeedback: I was overloaded.
If we stop long enough to listen to ourselves, our minds will tell us what we need. The best part of silence is it’s readily available, free, and offers instantaneous feedback.
So, how do we make silence actionable? I’ve devised a practical approach to harnessing the power of silence in January. I’m dubbing it the:
Thoughtful Car Ride Challenge
Adults spend on average 60 minutes per day driving in their car. Imagine if you could reclaim this time as thinking time. During the workweek alone, you would amass 5 hours of thinking, reflection, and contemplation.
Scientists call this type of thinking time metacognition – thinking about your thinking. Its benefits are well documented:
- Improved resilience
- Greater self-awareness
- Higher levels of thinking
- Emotional and social growth
- Ability to be aware of and control one’s thoughts
Here is how the Challenge works:
Step 1: Determine if you would benefit from more time to think
Step 2: Define your “why” for undertaking the Challenge
Step 3: Silence your radio and phone for your weekday car rides in January
Keep a journal of the things you think about. Quickly log them after each trip. Reflect on them at the end of each week. Let’s compare notes at the end of January.
Boost Your Performance
Watch this week’s video for more of the origin story of the Thoughtful Car Ride Challenge.
What’s Your Opinion?
Let us know if you are doing the Challenge. Share it with me at robin.pou@robinpou.com
If you are going to be a leader, you might as well be a good one. Don’t let doubt count you out. Have a confident week!
Robin Pou, Chief Advisor and Strategist
We live to make bad leadership extinct so forward this newsletter to others who strive to be confident leaders.
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What is “The Confident Leader”?
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I began a video series called “Panic or Plan?” It was designed to equip leaders to navigate the doubt they experienced and to rise in the confidence they needed to lead during turbulent times. It took off. I then started this newsletter to equip leaders in the same fashion each week for the doubt that crashes across the bow of their leaderSHIP.
