At the time, it sounded impossible and definitely not for me. I could barely swim a lap. I didn't run or cycle. Then I forgot about it entirely.

Eight years ago, a good friend talked me into going for a run. I was busy and I needed the exercise. I completed about one mile, in my basketball sneakers, and was winded.

Last month, I finished my first full Ironman.

How did I go from a one-mile run to an Ironman? I just didn't stop what I started. 

As we continued running, we naturally ran further. Then we decided to sign up with other friends for a half marathon, mostly for fun. Learning about structured running plans made a full marathon seem reasonable. Then a first triathlon, out of curiosity, and mainly to give my knees a break. None of it was planned, and each step turned out to be an extension of what I was already doing. By the time I signed up for an Ironman, it wasn't a leap. It was the next logical step.

What looks impossible from a distance is usually just a lot of small steps away. 

That's one of the lessons I learned, and there were others. Whatever you're in the middle of right now — a book, a business, a degree, a health change, a relationship you're trying to rebuild — I hope some of these are useful.

Start where you are, and give yourself a way to see progress.

We all have different starting points and limits. For me, it was running continuously for a mile. I didn't think about the mile as a smaller version of a bigger goal. It was the goal, and completing one mile well is what made more miles possible.

As I followed the training plan, each week of running slightly extended what my body could handle inside the same hour I already had. I wasn't finding more time — I was increasing my capacity and doing more with the same amount of time. That's the part people miss when they look at a big goal and do the math on their calendar. The constraint usually isn't the hours you have. It's what you can do with them — and that's trainable.

The mile also gave me something to track, and tracking it turned out to matter. My motivation didn't come from wanting it badly enough — it came from watching the number move. Three miles when two used to be hard. Finishing a mile in less time. Seeing that progress made me want to go out again, and going out again gave me more progress to see. Enthusiasm, for me, typically follows progress, and progress comes from getting started.

Which means you don't have to feel ready, and you don't have to want it enough yet. I certainly didn't. A friend asked, I said yes, and a mile was just where my body gave out. The starting point doesn't need to be the right one, only an honest one — whatever you can actually do today, rather than what you feel should be within reach.

The trap is comparing where you are to where you'd like to end up, deciding the gap is ridiculous, and never starting. The better question isn't how do I get from here to there? It's what's the thing in front of me that starts the compounding? Then do it long enough that it stops being a decision you have to make.

Work with how you're wired, and know what you can't teach yourself.

One thing I figured out over these eight years: signing up for a race is what makes me focus.

I noticed it by seeing the opposite. In the stretches when I had nothing on the calendar, training was easy to push off. And when I did train, it wasn't really training — I'd go to the gym and do roughly what I'd done the week before, which feels productive and gets you nowhere in particular. Once I'm signed up and there's a specific date, that changes. The plan for each week becomes clear. With only a limited number of Saturdays, Saturday's long ride has a job to do.

But deadlines work for me. They might do nothing for you. I know plenty of people who get stressed out by deadlines. Figure out what works for you — maybe it's telling someone you don't want to disappoint, or taking on the challenge with a friend. There's no right answer here, and that's the point. The mistake is borrowing someone else's method, watching it fail to take, and concluding you're not the kind of person who can do these things.

So look at your own evidence first. Think of two or three things where you had strong follow through. What was in place? A deadline? A person? A group? Money on the line? Real curiosity? Whatever shows up more than once is your lever, and you can use it on purpose instead of hoping it turns up again by accident.

Knowing your lever gets you moving. It won't tell you what to do once you're moving, and that's a different problem.

The clearest example for me was swimming. When I signed up for my first triathlon, I could barely get across one length of a pool without being completely exhausted. The date on the calendar is what made me deal with that rather than hope it would sort itself out, and it pushed me to get some swimming coaching.

I learned that the difference wasn't fitness. It was technique. I'd assumed I was a bad swimmer because I wasn't strong enough in the water, when really I just didn't know how to move through it efficiently. You can't solve that by kicking harder. I could have practiced swimming poorly for years, gotten more tired, and taken it as proof I wasn't built for swimming. What I needed wasn't more effort. It was someone who could see what I was doing and tell me what to change — which is the part you can't do for yourself, no matter how motivated you are.

If you're in the same spot with swimming, I'd recommend the Total Immersion approach; it completely changed how I thought about moving through water.

Do what you want, not what you like.

I like sleeping in. I like fries at lunch. I like almost anything more than waking up at 5am for a long bike ride. Those are things I like. Finishing an Ironman without being destroyed was something I wanted. So I got up.

Nearly every training day came down to a contest between something I liked and something I wanted, and the thing I liked was always more comfortable and more convenient. What helped me was naming which one I was reaching for — only one of them moved me closer to a strong finish.

But the thing I was really practicing wasn't discipline. It was getting my mind to take direction from me rather than the other way around. My mind produced excellent arguments: you're tired, you deserve a break, one day won't matter, you'll double up tomorrow. They're persuasive because they're built by someone who knows exactly what you'll fall for. The skill is being able to hear all of it and still do the thing you decided.

The workout was rarely the hard part. The hard part was the twenty minutes beforehand, going back and forth over whether today counted. The debate you have with yourself is expensive. It burns the same energy you were about to spend, and you usually end up training anyway, just later and in a worse mood. At some point, I learned to recognize when I was negotiating with myself and practiced short circuiting that conversation.

Showing up isn't the same as going hard, though. Being tired is real information — it's just information about how to train, not whether to. Some days that meant an easy effort instead of the planned one. Some days it meant resting on purpose, as part of the plan, rather than as the result of losing an argument with myself.

None of this is about proving your worth by how much you can push through — taken too far, that's just self-punishment, and it can do real damage. The point is narrower. You want to be someone whose own decisions get carried out. There's a real difference between intending to do something and committing to it, and the gap between those two is where most goals quietly die. Close it enough times and you start to trust yourself — which is worth more than any single thing you finish.

The cost shows up before the benefit does.

There were months when I felt slower than I'd been a few weeks earlier and quietly wondered whether I was training wrong, or whether I just wasn't built for this distance. My confidence dipped right when I was putting in the most work.

Here's what I learned: training doesn't make you stronger. Training makes you tired. You get stronger afterward, while you recover, if you give it enough rest and food and time. So the weeks where I felt the worst were often the weeks I was working hardest. You pay the cost before the benefit shows up, and the benefit tends to arrive around the time you've stopped paying attention.

Knowing that didn't make those months feel better. But it changed what I concluded from them, which turned out to matter more. Feeling slow stopped being evidence about me and started being information about where I was in the cycle.

I'd like to say I could always tell the difference between a rough stretch and something actually being wrong. Mostly I couldn't. What helped was having a plan I trusted and people I could ask, so the question didn't have to be settled by whatever I happened to feel that week.

So if you're struggling with something that matters, that isn't necessarily evidence you chose wrong. More often it means you're working at the edge of what you can currently do. That's uncomfortable by design, and it's the only way capacity grows.

Find a pace you can hold, and the fuel to hold it.

For most of the eight years, I thought about training almost entirely in terms of fitness. Get stronger, build the aerobic base, log the miles. Pacing and fueling barely registered — they sounded like details you'd sort out later, once the real work was done.

That's fine for a half-marathon and even a half-Ironman. At Ironman distance it falls apart, and a coach at my local triathlon club was blunt about why. The day is long enough that you can be genuinely fit and still not finish. You go out at a pace that feels easy. You don't eat enough in the first few hours because you don't feel like you need it. Then somewhere on the run you run out of gas — not tired, empty — and once you're there, no amount of fitness or willpower gets you back.

I saw it on the course. People who passed me climbing a hill, clearly stronger riders than I was, lying on the side of the road thirty miles later.

So he taught me to hold an effort that feels too easy for the first several hours, and to eat and hydrate on a schedule rather than by appetite. Both feel wrong at the time. Both are the reason I was still moving at hour thirteen.

I think about this constantly now as I pursue other ambitious projects. For anyone in the middle of something long, what sinks people is rarely a lack of capability or effort. It's not going the distance — starting too hard and having nothing left before the thing is done.

So it's worth asking: is your current pace one you can sustain for what you're actually pursuing? And what's refueling you along the way? For some it's sleep. For others, supportive relationships, or unstructured time.

Pacing and fueling matter more if you're going a long way, and taking that seriously changed the question I ask myself. It's no longer how much can I get done this week. It's what capacity am I building over the next few years.

Learn to relax when things go wrong.

For most people, the first time you do the Ironman is the first time you do the full distance. I swam, biked, and ran a lot, but I'd never done all three back to back at that distance. So a good part of race day was going to be things I hadn't experienced before, and no amount of preparation was going to change that.

It started early. I took a foot to the head during the swim, which happens in a mass start and still comes as a surprise.

I'd also come into the race with a strained hamstring, which changed the plan before it started. I rode the bike conservatively and stopped more than I'd wanted to, not because I was tired but because I wasn't sure the leg would hold.

It held. By the time I started the run I felt good. The hamstring was tight but fine, I had enough in the tank, and for the first time all day I thought I was going to finish comfortably.

Then, about halfway through the marathon, I felt a sharp pain in my right knee.

I stopped. I walked. I started doing the math on the cutoff, trying to work out whether walking thirteen miles would get me in before midnight, and whether running on the knee would do real damage. I didn't have good answers to either. I also wasn't sure whether the leg would simply stop working and take walking off the table too.

What got me moving wasn't resolve. It was something smaller: I dropped my shoulders, slowed my breathing, and accepted that my knee was going to hurt. Then I took a step, and another, and tried a few different paces until I found one it would tolerate. Nothing about the situation changed. The knee hurt for the rest of the race. But I could keep going, which was the best thing I could hope for.

When something goes wrong, relaxing rarely feels like an option. It feels like the opposite of what the moment calls for — you want to do something, fix it, take action. Tensing up at least feels like a response. But most of that energy goes into the reaction rather than the problem, and on a long day, energy is the thing you have least of.

The specific problem you'll face is one you probably haven't rehearsed. What you can rehearse is how you meet it — and it's worth practicing when the stakes are low. The delayed flight, the email you didn't want, the plan that falls through, the bad weather. Those are chances to notice the tightening and let it go before it costs you anything.

The rest of that marathon was stop, walk, run, and repeat, with the crowd's encouragement and adrenaline carrying me for most of the way. I finished, and finished stronger than I expected to given the knee. Seeing my family at the line was the best part of the day. Unfortunately for them, they had to help me walk my bike and carry my gear back to the hotel, which tells you something about how strong the finish actually was.

Snap back to the moment.

Lake Placid is a beautiful course — too bad I spent long stretches of it in my head.

I'd look at my watch at mile 85 and wish it said 110. I'd replay the fries I'd eaten the day before and blame them for my stomach issues. I'd wonder whether the hotel exercise bike I'd used on vacation the week before explained the pain in my knee.

And here's what I noticed: the more I did that, the longer the day got. Time crawled whenever I was thinking about where I wanted to be instead of just being in it. When I was actually in it — the road, the effort, the lake off to my right — time moved. I'd felt the same thing during training. Whenever I focused on how much was left, it felt like a burden. When I came back to the thing I was doing, the hour just passed.

Staying present sounds easy. It isn't. What helped was asking myself a question, over and over: What am I doing right now? Running. Toward the finish. That's it.

What surprised me wasn't that things went better when I was present. It was how rarely I noticed I'd left. The tell for me is a heaviness that doesn't match what I'm actually doing. Catching that, and coming back, is what I'm practicing daily.

It's on you, and it's a team effort.

Nobody could do my training for me. Not my family, not a coach, not a well-built plan. If I didn't get out the door, nothing happened. On race day, I was the one at the start line and the one crossing the finish. It's easy to look at that and think you did it all yourself.

Triathlon looks like an individual sport, and it turned out not to be one. Almost none of the eight years happened without other people in them.

My family gave up weekends so I could disappear on long training days, and nobody made that an argument. Friends helped me pick out a bike and rode some of the long ones with me, which is the only reason a few of them happened at all. The coaches who fixed my stroke and drilled me on fueling prevented me from hitting the wall mid-race. And on race day there were volunteers who'd signed up to spend their Sunday helping strangers. One of them peeled the wetsuit off me after the swim, which would otherwise have cost me several graceless minutes and a good deal of composure.

None of that was help I went looking for. Most of it I didn't ask for and some of it I didn't notice at the time. But it's the reason the whole thing worked, and it's changed how I think about my own effort. Since then I've started looking back at other things I've finished and counting the people who contributed. There are always more than I would have guessed.

Challenge the story you're telling yourself.

I opened with what I said when I first heard what an Ironman involved: not for me. I wasn't weighing it and deciding against it. I'd dismissed it immediately.

That's usually what stops us. Not the difficulty of the thing — a quiet belief about ourselves that closes the question early. I'm not athletic. I'm not a writer. I'm too old to start. I'm not that disciplined. Those feel like observations. Mostly they're claims we've never actually checked.

I'd believed a version of this about age, too. I assumed my peak years were a decade or two behind me and that everything from here was a slow decline. But I'm a better swimmer, cyclist, and runner now than I've ever been, and I got there well into my forties. Not faster — better. Skill doesn't seem to decline on the same schedule as speed, and I hadn't considered that.

Natalie Grabow didn't learn to swim until she was 59. At 80, she finished the Ironman World Championship in Kona, the oldest woman ever to do it. What I find striking isn't the finish. It's that at 59 she must have had every reason to think swimming was something for other people, and she went and learned anyway. Almost nobody who finishes a hard thing had a special starting point.

I'm not sure any of us fully knows what we're capable of. What I am sure of is that most of the limits I've assumed about myself were never tested — they were just sentences I'd accepted at some point and stopped questioning.

It's worth asking what you've already ruled out, and whether you've ever tested it.

One last thing

Rather than asking what you'd like to accomplish, here's a question I think is more useful:

What are you already doing that's worth continuing?

I didn't set out to do any of this. I went running with a friend and kept going. Somewhere in your life there's probably something you do inconsistently, don't take very seriously, and would be glad to still be doing in eight years. Protecting that is probably worth more than anything new you could add.

The first step is usually smaller and less impressive than you'd expect. Mine was a mile, and it left me winded.

Finally, none of these lessons showed up during the race. They showed up afterward, when I sat down and asked what had actually gotten me there. That's been true every time — after my first book, after my second, and after paying close attention to someone worth learning from, like William Zinsser. The experience by itself doesn't teach you much. Reflecting on it is what turns one into the other.

So whatever you've finished recently — a project, a hard season, something that didn't go the way you wanted — give it an hour and a blank page. Ask what you'd tell someone who was about to do the same thing. You'll know more than you think you do.

The post Lessons Learned Going From One Mile to an Ironman appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

After overcoming the initial jitters of zero visibility and irrational shark attack fears, I aimed for a building on the horizon and started my freestyle stroke, breathing every two strokes. This is where I learned firsthand why sighting — lifting my head to check my course — is so crucial.

I'd tried sighting a few times in the pool, but it always seemed to mess up my stroke rhythm. Since I felt I was swimming straight and wanted to cover more distance smoothly, I didn't sight until about ten minutes in. When I finally did, I was shocked at how off course I was. I had wasted a lot of time and energy not making much progress. I ended up needing to sight every few stokes just to stay somewhat on track.

Reflecting on this, I saw a parallel with pursuing goals in life.

My Takeaway: Sight Often to Avoid the Illusion of Progress

In both swimming and life, it's surprisingly easy to get caught up in immediate tasks that we lose sight of our true goal. Are your efforts directed towards reaching your objectives or are you just so busy that you don't realize that you're swimming off course? Are you aware of the currents in your life that may be pushing you unexpectedly sideways and adjusting early enough to ensure you're still on track?

Sighting in open water involves briefly lifting your head out of the water to check your alignment with a distant marker. It's a deliberate act that ensures you're heading in the right direction. Similarly, in life, we need moments of reflection and assessment. Regularly stepping back to evaluate our progress against our long-term goals helps us course-correct before we drift too far off course.

Take a moment to sight right now. Look at the emails in your inbox or check the meetings on your calendar this week, and ask yourself whether or not what you're doing is leading you to where you want to go. Just as in swimming, regular sighting can keep you on track, ensuring you reach your true destination in the shortest possible way.

The post Navigating Life’s Currents: One Important Lesson from Open Water Swimming appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

So, how can you practically value your time over money?

Track your time

The first step to valuing your time is to track it. Use a time-tracking app or a simple spreadsheet to record how you spend your time. This will help you identify where your time is going and make more conscious decisions about how to spend your time. A few time wasters to flag when doing this exercise are any time you're spending to:

• Worry about what-ifs and what-if-nots
• Live and replay the past for whatever reason
• Fantasize about the future
• Take too long to decide on things that are reversible and matter very little (like what you're going to eat for lunch or whether or not you should buy those shoes on Amazon)

Set priorities and create a time budget

Once you have an idea of how you're spending your time, set priorities. What's most important to you? What do you value? Is it spending time with loved ones, pursuing a hobby, or advancing your career? Decide what matters most and make sure you're spending your time accordingly. One way to do that is to budget your time for the week to come and determine how much time you'll allocate to your key activities. This will help you make more intentional choices about how you spend your time. Take a moment and think about what you want your life to look like during your final years - who do you want around you? what would you like to accomplish? what physical condition would you like to be in? How you invest your time now will bring you either closer or further away from that vision.

Learn to say NO

Now that you have clarity about your vision of your life, you'll need to protect it by setting boundaries and saying no to things that don't align with your goals, value, and vision. Saying no can be difficult, but it's important if you want to value your time. If someone asks you to do something that doesn't align with your priorities, politely decline. This will free up your time for the things that matter most to you. A reframe that worked for me is to remember that saying yes to someone else is often saying no to myself.

Outsource and delegate

Often, when we track our time, we feel that everything we're doing right now is necessary to do. This may be true, but what isn't true is that you'll need to do everything yourself. Whenever possible, look for ways to outsource and delegate as many of your tasks as possible so you can free up your time (your most precious resource). Often, this will give others the opportunity to learn and grow and relieve you of tasks you may not want to do or do not fall into your area of expertise. You'll also be poised to take advantage of unexpected opportunities that may arise.

Avoid multitasking or being perfect

There is enough research now that shows multitasking is not only a less effective use of time but often a source of stress. You're better off focusing on one task at a time and giving it your full attention (assuming the task is an important one - I'm all for listening to a podcast while folding laundry). Another way to gain back time is to let go of perfectionism and the need to control every situation. Sometimes good enough is good enough. Don't spend excessive time on tasks that don't require it. This practice will help you feel more comfortable delegating to others.

Schedule downtime and take breaks

As part of your time budget, schedule downtime to recharge your batteries. Whether it's watching your favorite TV show or taking a walk outside, make sure you're taking breaks throughout the day to give your brain a rest. This is assuming that you're getting ample sleep. If you're not getting enough sleep, prioritize that in your time budget.

Practice mindfulness and be present

Mindfulness can help you stay focused on the present moment and become aware that each moment carries a choice around how you want to spend your time. By practicing mindfulness meditation, you can catch yourself slipping into poor uses of time and adjust. I found Dan Harris's book 10% Happier and Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness for Beginners a good place to start if you want to learn. Being present will allow you to fully enjoy the experience and value the time you're spending.

Invest your time like you invest any other important resource. Be intentional, deliberate, and rigorous. Your time is what makes up your life (4000 weeks), so spend it wisely. Click here for a visual representation of how much time you have left to invest (a la Tim Urban's post: The Tail End).

Photo by Aron Visuals 

The post How to Value Time Over Money appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

It embodies how I like to view competition - an arena to showcase your efforts with the journey of preparing to compete making you better than you were before regardless of the actual outcome.

A Parent Talks to a Child Before the First Game

"This is your first game, my child. I hope you win.

I hope you win for your sake, not mine. Because winning’s nice.

It’s a good feeling.

Like the whole world is yours.

But, it passes, this feeling.

And what lasts is what you’ve learned.

 

And what you learn about is life.

That’s what sports is all about. Life.

The whole thing is played out in an afternoon.

The happiness of life.

The miseries.

The joys.

The heartbreaks.

 

There’s no telling what’ll turn up.

There’s no telling whether they’ll toss you out in the first five minutes or whether you’ll stay for the long haul.

 

There’s no telling how you’ll do.

You might be a hero or you might be absolutely nothing.

There’s just no telling.

Too much depends on chance.

On how the ball bounces.

 

I’m not talking about the game, my child.

I’m talking about life.

But, it’s life that the game is all about.

Just as I said.

 

Because every game is life.

And life is a game.

A serious game

Dead serious.

 

But, that’s what you do with serious things. You do your best.

You take what comes.

You take what comes

And you run with it.

 

Winning is fun.

Sure.

But winning is not the point.

 

Wanting to win is the point.

Not giving up is the point.

Never being satisfied with what you’ve done is the point.

Never letting up is the point.

Never letting anyone down is the point.

 

Play to win.

Sure.

But lose like a champion.

Because it’s not winning that counts.

What counts is trying."

—Unknown

If you like the messages in this poem, I highly recommend reading the full book. It's full of insights from Wooden's life and view of the world.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema

The post A Parent Talks to a Child Before the First Game (Poem) appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

Risk is typically perceived as a fear that requires a certain courageous personality to overcome. We are often categorized by ourselves or others as being risk-averse or risk-seeking and lead our lives accordingly. The risk-averse person seems destined to lead a stable but perhaps unextraordinary life while those who are risk-seeking will either crash and burn or be wildly successful.

Unfortunately, many people live according to their own risk profile, not realizing that they may be missing out on wonderful opportunities. By not knowing how to take smarter risks, you're likely limiting your potential. But how do you take risks in a way that doesn't make it feel like you're gambling with your life?

First, recognize that everything you do has risk - from crossing the street to texting to putting on pants (one of my toddlers suffered a torque fracture when he fell putting on his pants - *sigh*). We label something as "risky" when it is above our personal risk threshold. If the activity falls below this threshold, we see it as normal. Much of the advice we've heard centers around bypassing your threshold, which is a dangerous thing to do. "Just do it" may sometimes work out but can also be catastrophic especially if the risk is high.

To help bring to life the tips you're about to learn, imagine you are standing at the edge of a steep canyon and leaping across to the other side is the risk you would like to take.

Depending on your fear of heights, your experience with leaping across canyons, and other relevant factors, you have a personal threshold for how risky you think this leap will be. You can increase this personal threshold if you have a compelling reason for why you want to get across to the other side. For example, if it was just part of your vacation hike, your risk threshold might be much lower than if you were being chased by a bear. In many cases, the risk threshold you have is dependent on factors outside of your control such as the specific situation, your personality, other people's actions, etc.

To be a smarter risk taker, consider these 3 practical actions to reduce the risk of the task at hand to below your risk threshold:

De-Risk the Actual Task

Whenever you can, look to remove risks to achieving your outcome. If your goal is to get across to the other side of the canyon, you will want to walk along the edges of the canyon and find the area where the edges are closest together. You may also consider the possibility of building a bridge as opposed to jumping over. The idea is to find different ways to remove the risk you're seeing.

For a work-related example, if you're about to give a presentation at a high-profile conference, can you control where you are on the agenda so you're not following the best speaker or going right after lunch? Can you make sure you get in a day or two before your presentation so you won't be stressed with travel issues? Perhaps you can get an attendee list so you're not surprised by any unexpected senior leaders walking into your presentation and potentially rattling you.

De-risking is usually the most intuitive of the three tips so hopefully, many of you are already doing this.

Build a Safety Net or Buffer

In the canyon leaping example, the leap will seem less risky to you if there is a safety net below you.

To build your buffer, first identify what's at risk. What are you actually going to lose if this doesn't pan out? In many cases, you may realize that there isn't really much at stake.

For example, if you’re looking to join a startup after a 15-year career at a Fortune 50 company, what will you lose if the startup fails? Perhaps you might lose financially and have to worry about paying your bills and supporting your family. Maybe it will hurt your professional trajectory causing you to fall behind your peer group. Maybe your ego will take a beating when everyone judges your decision as stupid and reminding you of their advice not to leave your job.

Once you understand what is at risk the next step is to figure out how to protect against the downside of that risk.

Using the same example, if you’re worried about your ability to pay your bills and take care of your family, create a plan to save more and reduce living expenses so you can go for 2+ years without income. If you don’t want to lower your professional trajectory, assess how this startup experience can boost your trajectory even if the startup fails. Perhaps you can build a wider professional network or gain skills that you could not get at your current job. Another way to build a safety net is to either persuade your current company to buy the startup or start a similar division within your company. Lastly, as for your ego getting hurt, you might want to invest in other areas of your life so it won't be the end of the world if work doesn't go well. Being a part of an accomplished sports team or music group or coming home to a fantastic family can help you be more resilient. If you're afraid of your ego getting bruised, keeping your venture a secret from others can also help.

Increase Your Competence

If leaping is what you need to do to get across the canyon, the more skill and training you have, the less risky the task will seem. When you build up experience and expertise in the exact task needed, it won't seem as risky to you as someone looking at the situation without your expertise. A great visual example is the tight rope photo for this article. For an experienced tight rope walker, the activity depicted may seem less risky than to our untrained eye.

In a professional context, if you're thinking of taking a role in a different country, it's hard to not see it as risky if you haven't done it before. If this is a goal of yours, you may be able to reduce your risk by taking on a three-month international project or to work on a cross-border team. These experiences will help you understand the nuances of working effectively across cultures. You may also want to speak with others who have made this leap to get a road map for making the transition. Sometimes having a guide is enough to reduce the risk to below your threshold (for example - climbing Mount Everest).

Taking smarter risks is not about mustering the courage to "just do it". It’s about actively managing your relationship to risk. You can de-risk the situation, create a buffer to limit your downside, or train to increase your competence.

You can apply these risk mitigation tips to all areas of your life - career, relationships, sports, academic research, etc. It's generally agreed that more risk leads to more reward. By using these tips to take risks comfortably, we hope it will lead to a more rewarding life for you.

What's a risk you want to take but is right now above your threshold? Which one of these tips can you use today to bring you closer to taking a smart risk and live a life without regrets?

Photo by Leio McLaren (@leiomclaren)

The post 3 Ways to be a Smarter Risk Taker appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

(click on book cover for more details)

Extreme Ownership: How U.S Navy Seals Lead and Win

• Published: November 2017
• ISBN-10: 1250183866
• EP Rating: 4 out of 5 (worth picking up)

EP Main Takeaway: To be a leader, you need a team that's willing to follow you. As the leader, you're always responsible. If your team is not committed or if you don't accomplish the mission, you have to own those failures. To lead well, you have to be decisive under uncertainty. When you're overwhelmed, stop and assess, prioritize, and execute. Understand that discipline equals freedom and you don't need to prove yourself but you do need to lead by example.

The post Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

(click on book cover for more details)

The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Their Full Potential by John Maxwell

• Published: September 2014
• ISBN-10: 1599953676
• EP Rating: 5 out of 5 (great read)

EP Main Takeaway: Growth should be intentional and aligned with your passion and purpose. If not, you run the risk of being busy without meaning. Be honest with yourself and take consistent action based on insights from self-reflection. Design your growth to match your goals and consistently have tension between where you are and where you want to be. Show humility and exude character in all of your interactions. Manage your environment to help you and be grateful for all the support by developing your talent to serve others.

The post The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth by John Maxwell appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

(click on book cover for more details)

Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day by Todd Henry

• Published: April 2015
• ISBN-10: 1591846994
• EP Rating: 5 out of 5 (must read)

EP Main Takeaway: Know your purpose and devote most of your time to accomplish it. Actions define us not intentions - you make maps by moving - when you stand still, it's hard to know what to do. Don't focus on being great to others, just focus on delivering great work. Remember the lag between cause and effect - always a delay between planting and sowing.

Ask yourself: What did you fail at this week? (This is your driver for growth)

The post Die Empty by Todd Henry appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

We don't know how much time we have

During the holidays, New York City is packed with people - on the sidewalks, inside stores and in the subway. Usually, I fade the crowds out to get to where I want to go.

But today, as I waded through tourists stopping to short to take photos, I stopped to look at what they were focused on. As I followed their gaze, I saw this massive "Believe" sign lit up on the side of Macy's Department Store in Herald Square. This beautiful sign made me realize that although I've spent most of my life in NYC, I've seen very little of the city. This insight caught my attention because when I travel to other cities, I try to maximize every minute of my time to see as much as possible.

As I thought more about this phenomenon, I came to the following conclusion:

I push off seeing more of NYC because I believe I have more than enough time to do so.

This reasoning also explains why I saw so much more of cities that I don't see myself going back to anytime soon.

This perception-induced procrastination dominates other aspects of our lives. When we think we have a lot of time, we put off the important actions and work that we could be doing right now.

In Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle is the Way, he shares an interesting practice from the ancient Stoic philosophers: meditating on one's mortality.

The idea is to recognize that you will die and your expiration date might be sooner than you think. We often overestimate how much time we'll have because we're not even thinking about it. In some cultures, it's even taboo to talk or think about death for the fear of inviting calamity.

But what if you only had six weeks to live? What would you start doing today? What would you stop doing immediately?

How would your life change if you know you didn't have the time to do everything you wanted to do? What would you do differently or who would  you reach out to right now?

As you come up with responses to these questions, put these actions on the top of your goals list for 2017.  We never know how long we have. Don't put off the things you want to do, see or say.

As morbid as it sounds, we will all die. The important question is What do you want to happen because you lived?

If you're not sure where to start, plan your 2017 as if you're planning a vacation to a destination you'll never go back to again. What will be on your itinerary for tomorrow, next week or next month?

For me, it is taking my son to the Holiday Train Show at the NY Botanical Gardens.

Photo by MattysFlicks

The post Don’t miss out on life – you have less time than you think appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

This past year, I no longer:

• Watch the Oscars, the NBA or go to movies
• Play basketball
• Spend time with certain friends and acquaintances
• Go to casinos or play cards

At first it was puzzling to me why I've suddenly lost interest in activities that used to engage me for hours until I began observing my young son.

I see that day by day, he is growing. And with that growth, he outgrows his clothes, the food he eats and even certain behaviors.

This is normal, expected and makes complete sense.

However, as we get older and especially after we've been working for a while, growing stops being the norm. We fall into a routine and do the same activities over and over again. We watch the same type of shows. See the same group of friends. 

Growth stops.

Think back to your past year. How much of it was similar to the year before?

If everything around you remains constant, it is a clear sign that you're not growing. And in the words of American journalist, Gail Sheehy,

Now, we all grow in different ways. Just because I outgrew basketball doesn't mean basketball is a bad thing. It just means that for me and in the direction I'm growing, basketball just don't fit any more.  It's like size 3 shoes, middle school and partying until 6am. There is nothing wrong with these things, I just outgrew them.

Growth, if you think back to your adolescent years, is not always easy or fun. Unfortunately, this still holds true even in adulthood.

When I hear everyone talk about the Oscars or the big game, I feel like I missed out. When I see people playing basketball in the park, I want to jump in. In these moments of guilt, I find it helpful to remember my reasons for stopping these activities and the exciting things that have filled its place (like my son).

One of the hardest things to accept is that if you continue to grow, you will outgrow people close to you - your friends, your family maybe even your spouse.

The only way for you to authentically stay close to these people is to:

• Shrink when you are with them,
• Help them grow with you or
• Fully accept who they are and understand their influence on you.

By shrinking, I refer to behaving in a way that you no longer find resourceful. Unfortunately, as you get older, you'll find fewer people who continue to grow and you'll find that you are shrinking more often to fit in. The danger of situationally shrinking is that it will stunt your own growth especially if you need to do it often. Find ways to balance this and refuel your own energy by seeking out and spending time with people who value growth.

Another way to maintain your relationships while still growing is to proactively help those around you to grow. You can do this at work or at home. The drawback is change only happens when the other person wants to change not when you want them to change. If they're not open to growing, they are entitled to that decision. Don't let your good intentions fall short and definitely resist becoming a snob.

A third way to stay with the great people you love even if you're growing at various rates is to fully accept them for who they are while keeping in mind the consequences of growing at different rates.

When you outgrow someone else, your interests begin to differ and your individual outlook and philosophy on life and views on how to live it begins to change. Since life strategies influence behavior, you may find that you'll gravitate towards different and sometimes opposing activities. Most of your fringe or weak relationships end here because you and the other person won't be willing to put in the effort to keep the relationship.

In your stronger relationships, compromise tends to happen. You may shrink or the other person may grow or both. Typically, if the compromise is one-sided for too long, that could strain and eventually end the relationship. Now if both sides stop to grow, the relationship might stay intact but other areas in your life might begin to suffer. No one said life would be easy.

Look at your life - have you been growing, shrinking or staying the same?

If you're growing but feeling guilty because you're leaving things you once treasured behind, don't feel bad about it. It's part of living a fulfilled life and a natural consequence of growth. 

If you're not growing, what are you going to do about it? 

Photo by Steven Depolo

The post Outgrowing Things (or The Real Reason Your Relationship is Falling Apart) appeared first on Embrace Possibility.