If you want to get the most of the something — like visiting a big city, then it’s better to do one or two things and let life show you the rest. Trying to do it all rarely pays off.

When we over optimize our work and our life, we eventually stop being the mouse looking for the cheese. We become the cat.

If you know someone that is looking for a job, they are likely doing mock interviews. Go to that person and suggest they record their next interview and keep a transcript. Suggest they upload the transcript to ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT for improvement suggestions.Helpful results.

An idea that I am working out. Bear with me.Our eyes and minds don’t perceive things in real time. There’s always a delay, and ours minds fill in lots of gaps.Our minds also lie to us.If all that’s true, wouldn’t we benefit from slowing down more to take things in? To see things more as they are? Slightly delayed.

Dad has Alzheimer’s. When people ask how he’s doing, I answer truthfully: he sucks. Because who would enjoy that?

That said, what if there was a way to enjoy it?

My dad forgets what I say easily. At lunch, he asked me many times what I do for a living. He would ask me to clarify and simplify each time. Eventually I got so good at answering the question he stopped asking a follow up.

The best friends I have are the ones who vehemently disagree with me. I can throw any idea their way, and I’ll be assured a beautiful push back. I love it. I love it because that push back, that passionate disagreement, makes my ideas better. I get to see what I missed or didn’t consider. Cultivate these people in your life. Choose people who are smarter than you, but don’t have an agenda to push. People who just care about helping you find the right answer. People who care about helping you make your work better.

An aspect of great leadership is intolerance. I buy into that idea. Why?Because I believe that winning matters. If an employer hires me to improve their bottom line, they count on me and my team to deliver. If my team loses, people could lose their jobs, the business could go under, our customers don’t receive value. Winning matters.If I am going to win, I need my team to play the show better than our competition. My team needs to execute near flawlessly. For them to know how to execute, I reinforce what works and I am crystal clear about what won’t be tolerated. Being intolerant sounds counterintuitive; especially if you live in a society that asks for more tolerance. However, human nature is counterintuitive, paradoxical, and absurd. If people are counting on you to win, embrace the paradox and develop a “what we don’t tolerate” list.

I find the output I get from this prompt useful and immediately actionable.Write three most valuable takeaways for a revenue operations (Customer Success or Sales) leader of “___ book title” by ___ author. Generate three questions that would help a team of revenue operations leaders rethink how they do customer experience based on the author’s point of view. Write one key quote from the book that summarizes it.Try it out with your favorite book. Be sure to customize the italics text for your situation.

If you attend your friends concert and don’t like the show, what do you say? You could say, “I didn’t like it.” But would that help your friend do a better show next time? No.You could say, “I think your music may appeal to people who enjoy the love child of country, hip hop, and jazz… I know some people like that. I’ll share your music with them.” The former could be useful. It’s honest. But you aren’t helping your friend grow.The latter is generous. Your feedback helps your friend find the people who would enjoy their craft. Effective feedback pushes work forward.

I think we often forget that humans are irrational and absurd creatures. We look for them to do things in an organized and rational manner, and it never happens that way. You are not excluded.I am not excluded.Perhaps the way to better lead and work with our species is to accept our absurdity. Comics figured this out a long time ago.