YOU CAN DO ANYTHING, NOT EVERYTHING
One of my mentors sent me a book a few years ago — “The ONE Thing — it was around the time I was asked to give a lecture on leadership at the University of Southern California. It was just before I launched P.S. 314, inc and I felt like I was pursuing many endeavors at once. While many were successful, I was exhausted by the work required to do and be all at once. This was a moment that was asking me to pause, and it inevitably taught me three lessons to share.
I took a step back to evaluate who I was in the roles of these endeavors. What I learned was that I was doing everything, just because I could. That is not a recipe for sustainable success. To truly optimize our greatest potential, we need balance, clarity and focus. It's a marathon, not a race.
Lesson 1:
The book – “The One Thing” - provided a much-needed perspective. Sometimes, when we do many things, we become busy, and at times, productive. Yet that may result in creating a swirl of spinning plates that consume our energy. It can be stifling, leaving us as a master of none. The filter of prioritization is a necessary asset we must apply to all things, especially our goals. I wanted to do and had the opportunity to do many things, but this was a point in my career when I needed to make a decision. I had to decide what would benefit me the most — what was my true goal, and what was I doing to get there... Anything else would be a distraction or secondary. This text provided me with the clarity I needed to define my what and my how.
Lesson 2:
Having an opportunity to speak to USC students about leadership was an honor, one I didn't take lightly. I was also wondering how best to communicate what I'd learned through experience and observation. How do I tell a story I'm still writing and from which view? I'd been able to navigate my career through multiple lenses — advisor, artist, strategist, coach, educator, producer, blah blah blah… Which would be most insightful? A friend called and said, "Don't worry about the role, think about what the journey has taught you. Make a list of lessons that have impacted you the most, so far. We all like lists. You can tell the stories behind them as you go." That approach helped immensely, because then I could simply speak from the role of Pi, #thewholeisgreaterthanthesumofitsparts.
Lesson 3:
we all have a business identity and it serves as well to know it. In Year 2 of P.S. 314, I invested in Business Mastery with Tony Robbins. He is brilliant! Walked on fire and all of the very intense shifting work you might imagine. I learned an enormous amount that I continue to apply. One lesson is the business identity. We are all one of three people in the business; it's about our nature, and none are better than the other. All are needed for success. There is the artist — this is the innovator, the person who is focused on the work, the design, the product, the program, the idea. Then there's the creative — the one who is constantly tweaking the work to get it right... Then there is the leader. This is the process person, the manager, the operations guy/gal, the one who puts the puzzle pieces together, the one who understands how it (the work + the people + the process) should flow to "make the sausage." Next, there is the entrepreneur, the one who sees the big picture, how the thing you've built fits into the greater marketplace. Entrepreneurs are somewhat disconnected to the process and the people, because they're looking at how it all works together for their benefit. I think about it through an analogy of a train. The artist builds the train, the leader is the conductor of the train, and the entrepreneur is the one who owns the railroad. Truth is, you need them all, but you are not inherently all of these folks. The best way to figure out who you are is to reflect on what you do when you are in a state of crisis or euphoria: do you work on the project? Do you focus on making the puzzle pieces fit? Are you more concerned with the chess board and your next move? It helps to know who you are, so you know who you need.
You can do anything; you need not do everything.
