Rule 9

I was given a reminder of an important lesson yesterday: If you perfect the process, you gain the freedom to focus on the main game, to create, to perform, to be intuitive. If you have to think about the process, you are always stuck at level 1, working out the basics, again, as you go.

Think of it like driving a car. You are free to use all of your attention and creativity to avoid a collision when the moment comes – but when you were a learner you would have used all of your attention to remember which pedal was for breaking with. It is there in Rule 9 of the Ten Rules. It was brought home to me again, breathlessly, yesterday. “Create disciplines, do the basics brilliantly.”

I have taken on a challenge this summer to raise funds for SPARKS, the children’s medical research charity. Taming Tigers have supported SPARKS since 2008 but this year, for personal reasons, it became even more important to do something to support them. The challenge involves freediving on a sled (like in the film “The Big Blue”). It is great fun, very challenging and pretty technical on various levels. Yesterday, the sled taught me a lesson: Make the process second nature before you try to perform at the next level.

I was training on a new sled which had just been built. Once at the maximum depth, before the ascent to the surface can begin, I have to shift my grip to the bar where my feet had been for a safe ride up. This is a new move that comes with this new sled. I had not perfected it. Having descended to a relatively shallow 30m, I inflated the balloon to take the sled and me to the surface – and let go of the thing in order to change my grip. It whooshed up to the air and light above – without me – before I secured my new grip. Not a big deal at 30m, just an unexpected swim back up. But a decidedly big deal at the depths we are aiming for.

There is always a simple procedure to follow to avoid problems. In rock climbing, you never let go of the rope when your buddy is climbing, you handle the rope hand over hand. In No Limits (sled) freediving, you never let go of the sled – you travel around it hand over hand. Of course, if you’re worried about remembering that , you cannot focus on the things you need to focus on. In fact if you’re “worried” about anything when you are freediving, you may as well give up. Adrenaline is not your friend down there.  So making the procedure second nature allows you to perform. Perhaps it is illuminating that the world’s greatest freediver, Herbert Nitsch, is a commercial airline pilot in his “spare” time. We all like to fly with pilots who follow the correct procedure and save the moments of creative genius for a crisis.

But this is not easy to do at work. It is not always apparent what the process is that you need to perfect.  If it is apparent, it may well be boring and repetitive to master it. It may be dull to work it out once and for all and manage the delegation of it in order for you to move on to play the main game with all of your attention. That is partly what differentiates a champion in my opinion. They take the time to identify the processes and then invest the time (and tedium) to perfect them – or delegate them properly. And so they create the space to perform. This is rarely sexy stuff, it is mundane, behind-the-scenes work, but it makes the difference. One of my sporting inspirations needed more sleep and relaxation time in his long and full day. He spent hours on the road each day. So he hired a driver and sacrificed the significant cost of that to perform at a higher level in the main game. Process delegated, time won back. Relaxation time acquired, game improved.

What are the processes that need tweaking for your organisation so that the business evolves into a performing, creative entity rather than a having to invent the basics from scratch every day. What are the processes and procedures  and tasks that you, personally, could perfect or delegate in order to become a more instinctive player of your main game. You will be rewarded for your effort in spades.

Over to you.

Jim.

PS – If you’re not sure what your main game is and how well you currently perform at it, don’t panic – but do take seriously and make urgent the task of discovering the answers.  We are not “employees” any more. We are all mini businesses. It is wise to know what business you are in – and strive to thrive at that.

An acquaintance of mine wanted to get preferential treatment when there was a delay to his Air France flight out of Paris. “Do you know who I am?” he demanded of the customer services manager on the information desk.

“Claude”, said the frenchman to his colleague, without looking up from the computer screen, “will you look in this man’s passport for him, he has forgotten who he is”

“Who am I” is seen as one of those big questions. Perhaps it needn’t be. Perhaps the size of it depends upon which side of the lens we are looking through. Looking at it from my side of the lens, I might wrangle with who I am and who I want to be with the help of a therapist or a business coach or a mate in the pub for many happy self-obsessed hours. The reality, though, is that those observing me from the other side of the lens are often well aware of who I am. It’s the sum of the things I have done and the promises I have kept.

Moving around to their side of the lens for a few hours is not nearly as much fun. But it is very illuminating as to who I really am.

I think that this works just as well when evaluating myself as a leader or discovering what my brand truly stands for.

Over to you.

Jim.

Click on the image to view the Rule 3 video

Click on the image to view the Rule 9 video

The most important part of Taming Tigers is not the achievement of goals.  It is setting ourselves free from our tired, well-rehearsed, out dated and unhelpful reactions to certain situations.  Setting ourselves free to make our own choices and then to act from our core rather than merely react “instinctively” (it’s not instinct, although it feels like it, it’s learned).

The only disadvantage of bringing the book alive with my journey to the race course is that the “big goal” thing can sometimes overshadow this more important point.  You don’t need to have a big scary goal to set about taming a Tiger or two.

Taming Tigers is all about self awareness.

Once you have started on that path – noticing how the Tiger affects you, what the consequences are for you and others and how to alter this process – something very powerful has begun.  Slowly you begin to notice the Tiger and reject its advances more easily, whether in pursuit of a great goal or whether in order to speak your truth, in a moment of pressure, to somebody whom you previously permitted to intimidate you, to light up your Tiger.

If you keep on that path (see the Change Rules:w Rules 7-9) who knows where it will lead?

Over to you.

Jim

If you are a regular subscriber, you’ll know that I am giving a piece of the Taming Tigers jigsaw that cannot be explained during a presentation over four blogs. If you are new to the blog, you can find the previous installments here 

 The Ten Rules for Taming Tigers are divided into four groups.

·         The Integrity Rules (Rules 1-3)

·         The Leadership Rules (Rules 4-6)

·         The Change Rules (Rules 7-9)

·         The Esteem Rule (Rule 10)

Today it is the turn of the Change Rules to come under the spotlight.

The Change Rules

Rules 7-9 are the Change Rules.   It is through these Rules that we begin to form new habits and make consistent and lasting the changes that Rules 1-6 began. Rule 7 – Do something scary every day -challenges us to create Tigers to confront on a daily basis, notice the emotional and mental reactions, grow in self awareness and mindfulness of this reaction and develop our ability to defeat the internal barrier – the Tiger.

Rule 8 – Understand and control your time to create change – invites us to form a new relationship with the most precious commodity – our time. The activities we choose to fill our time with are how we devote our energy – our life on earth. It is the notebook in which we are writing our story. When our need for approval or our neediness, our dependence on the chase for irrelevant prizes, our unwillingness to speak our truth (we often call this being “nice”) means that our time is “no longer our own we are deluding ourselves”. It is our own. We are making choices. The Tiger is roaring. We are not free. Our ego is in control.

Rule 9 – Create disciplines and do the basics brilliantly –  invites us explicitly to create new habits. New disciplines and basic standards of behaviour that will assist us to be the person that we know we are or that we wish to grow to become. They are also vital to the achievement of goals and prizes, of course. Vital to surviving and growing on our Quest. They are easy to write down. They require the previous eight Rules to actually practice daily. And they pay great dividends in terms of growth and self esteem and other more tangible rewards.

 Through these three Rules, we begin to consolidate the changes – to grow.

Please feel free to post comments, thoughts and experiences.

Jim.

Click on the image to view the Rule 7 video.

Click on the image to view the Rule 8 video

Click on the image to view the Rule 9 video

My Tiger and I have been getting very intimate again recently. I don’t like it much. I have some challenges for myself in 2010 that inspire me and will test me in unfamiliar ways. And that’s taken us to a whole new level in our relationship. It’s been hinting at marriage – and I’m running.

I cannot, try as I might, improve on the definition of the Tiger. “The thing that stops us” or tries to. I’d like the definition to be smarter; a better soundbite. But it isn’t. It is what it is. And mine is trying hard to stop me achieving what I want to achieve this year.

So I’ve been trying to get into the daily habit of my new Rule 9 disciplines – the building blocks of any success. There are quite a few daily disciplines for these new challenges of mine.

Don’t do it, cries the Tiger as we do our daily dance. “What’s the point? Do you really think you’ll get there? ” And that’s the battle.

Rule 9. The last of the “Change Rules” in Taming Tigers. Deceptively simple. Deceptively powerful. Deceptively difficult!

Click on the image to go to the Rule 9 Video.

Jim.

Hope you enjoy this blog from Blaire Palmer.

Losing the pounds

Like about 90% of the human population at this time of year, I am on a diet. This is unusual for me. For many years I kept very fit and didn’t have to worry about what I ate. Then I had a baby and had the perfect excuse for a little baby weight which didn’t bother me until about 6 months ago when I realised fewer and fewer of my clothes fit me. Christmas broke the bank (in terms of lbs if not £s) and I realised, without a small amount of dread, that IT WAS TIME.

I realise that setting a weight loss goal isn’t in the same league as becoming a stand up comedian or a jockey in a year. But I think it represents the kinds of goals most of us set on a regular basis and fail to achieve fully.

For one thing, there is not definite end to it. Yes, there will be a day when I reach my target but unless I maintain the disciplines I have been following until that point (Rule 9), I will soon find myself heading for the baggier pants again. If your goal is to climb Kilimanjaro and you achieve it, no one can ever take that away from you. You will always be someone who achieved that. Weight loss, though, is rather meaningless unless you constantly work to keep the weight off.

The Tiger has some fun with this because he has all sorts of excuses which put you off going for the goal with full commitment. He says “What’s the point? You will just put it back on again,” and “Do you really want to be on a diet for the rest of your life?”

Then there is the fact that weight loss is a controversial issue and there will be many well-meaning people out there who try to put you off. You have to remember there is no safety in numbers (Rule 6) when your friends say “But you look lovely as you are” and “This one piece of cake won’t kill you”.

Weight loss is also the archetypal goal because it is on-going and becomes boring very quickly. By yesterday evening I was yearning for a plate of cheese and crackers and a hot chocolate. By the way, these are not things I usually have of an evening. But knowing I couldn’t triggered my Tigers to come out to play, tempting me with delights which, luckily, were not in the house. (If they had been I am not convinced I could have controlled myself).

Losing weight requires you to have continual conversations with yourself as you counter every argument the Tiger presents to convince you to break your resolution (Rule 4, It’s all in the mind). My Tiger says “You don’t need to be this strict because you don’t have that much weight to lose”, and “You should be allowed to eat whatever you want”. I have to respond with “I want to succeed so I need to follow the plan” and “No one is forcing me to do this. I want to feel fitter and lighter” etc. etc. etc.

Most of you will have heard the saying “The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”. It is this saying which is proving most powerful as I battle my Tigers. It is one of the reasons I joined a slimming club for the first time in my life, on the basis that “The tools for taming Tigers are all around you”. Over the last six months my efforts to do this on my own have been unsuccessful. I knew that if I was serious I needed to do something different this time. The group and the guidelines they set out in their plan should provide me with the disciplines, the support and a focus on my direction as I attend my weekly meetings, which I was lacking before.

So far (Day 6) it has been very valuable to have access to the Ten Rules not only because of the guidance they provide for me but because their very existence proves that the games my Tiger is playing with me are nothing more than that – games. The Ten Rules would not exist if most people found it easy to change their behaviour and their ways of thinking. The fact that they do exist is powerful evidence for the fact that we all find such journeys – no matter how everyday and common like diets or how dramatic and impressive like, for instance, running your first marathon – difficult and lined with Tigers.

If any of you are wondering what the “Act boldly” part of this weight loss plan is, by the way, it is telling you! Once you’ve told a few thousand people that you are going to lose weight, the pressure is really on to achieve it. Thanks for being there to make it even harder to turn back!  

Now it’s over to you…