025: Healing, Deliberate Practice and Speaking Your Mind
Identify the essential; Eliminate the rset
Hello from Bengaluru!
โIn case we havenโt met - my name is Narayan Kamath. I am an Executive and Leadership Coach, helping Engineering/Technology leaders multiply their impact, enjoy greater career success and feel more fulfilled.
There are two ways of looking at healing.
You can think of healing as fixing - addressing a specific issue. This usually means treating the symptoms rather than the root cause. Taking a pill for a headache, or for a common cold are examples of this approach.
The other way to look at healing is to find and work on the root cause. This might mean boosting our immunity, managing stress, building physical and emotional resilience.
This applies to all domains of our lives. Rather, when it comes to the second, holistic way of looking at healing, it addresses all dimensions at the same time - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
Where in your life are you fixing the symptoms instead of addressing the root cause holistically?
๐กDeliberate Practice is Not Always the Route to Mastery
Does deliberate practice lead to mastery?
The popular answer is yes.
The more nuanced answer, as always, is "it depends"
What determines whether deliberate practice leads to superior performance in a domain?
In ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐: ๐๐๐ฎ ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐ง๐๐ก๐๐จ๐ฉ๐จ ๐๐ง๐๐ช๐ข๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ฃ ๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐๐๐ก๐๐ฏ๐๐ ๐๐ค๐ง๐ก๐ , ๐๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ฑ ๐๐ฝ๐๐๐ฒ๐ถ๐ป, quoting psychologist ๐ฅ๐ผ๐ฏ๐ถ๐ป ๐๐ผ๐ด๐ฎ๐ฟ๐๐ต, makes a distinctionย between โkindโ and โwickedโ learning environments.
A kind learning environment is one which has:
โ ย Well-understood Rules
โ ย Simple cause-effect relationships, andย
โ ย Repeating/predictable patterns
Sports like Chess and Golf fall in this category.
Here the key to mastery is deliberate practice, and Tiger Woods is the exemplar for this path to mastery.
A wicked learning environment on the other hand has:
โ Unclear rules
โ Few repeating patterns
โ Feedback that is delayed or inaccurate
In this environment, deliberate practice has limited advantage, because your practised strategies may not be suitable for the typically unpredictable and novel situations you encounter.
What works better in a wicked learning environment, is learning in a variety of contexts, which develops your ability to quickly learn without prior experience.
Depth of experience is an asset when you are in a kind learning environment, broad/varied experience wins in a wicked learning environment.
๐กHow to Speak Your Mind When It Matters
Speaking your mind without fear shows people you are confident and authentic.
It makes you more attractive and influential, and more likely to succeed in life and in your career.
Yet, this is a rare quality - most people are afraid to speak their mind.
The main reason we are afraid to speak up is a fear of rejection.
This is hard-wired into us for evolutionary reasons - from the times when rejection by your group meant certain death
We also hesitate to speak up when we are afraid doing so may make others feel threatened and evoke reactions that hurt us, hurt them, or hurt the relationship.
The best way to overcome our fear of rejection is to leverage our in-built mechanism for dealing with runaway emotions - letting our logical brain deal with the issue.
When we shine the light of logic on our fear, it more often than not simply evaporates.
The way to avoid triggering potentially harmful reactions from others is to explicitly address and assuage trigger factors such as status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness.
For example, to reassure someone you are not threatening their status, start with : "๐ ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฏโ๐ต ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ค๐ฉ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ณ๐ช๐จ๐ฉ๐ต ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ค๐ช๐ฅ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ด, ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ต ๐ช๐ต ๐ช๐ด ๐ช๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ต๐ข๐ฏ๐ต ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ ๐ด๐ฉ๐ข๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ ๐ง๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ญ ๐ข๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ต ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ด"
The next time you find yourself unwilling to speak up, ask why.
Overcoming your fear of rejection, and reassuring others you are not a threat is the key to getting better at speaking up.
End Quote
To end this edition, here's a quote I've been pondering on this week:
โSimplicity boils down to two steps - Identify the essential.ย Eliminate the rest.โ โ Leo Babauta
What in your life do you wish to simplify today?
That's all this week! Thanks for your time.ย
๐
Narayan
PS: When you are ready, here are some ways we can work together to amplify your impact:
1. Grab a free copy of my Deliver Through Others Checklist - Itโs a useful summary of the key principles to working better with and through othersโ Click Here
2. Work with me privately - If you are an Engineering/Technology leader aspiring to evolve into an inspiring and impactful Business Leader, letโs talk! Set up a no-obligation exploratory call with me - Click Here