Here is your second Seven-Bullet Monday for August
1. A quote I am pondering:
"Almost everything you need to make your dream a reality requires new skills, experiences, and understanding. You must do things you've never done before. Starting before you're ready isn't easy, but if you want to change—it's required." – Marie Forleo
This Marie Forleo quote is one of my favourites. There is time for preparation, and there is time for launch, and, more often than not, launch time comes before we feel fully prepared. That's where we need the courage to take the job, start the project, or step out on stage. In doing so, we can be confident that we will develop the missing skills and experience as we boldly step into the opportunity.
2. A question I am asking myself:
Why can't I drive the golf ball straight?
My driver has gone utterly rogue recently, so much so that I have renamed it "Spray". I am also bulk-ordering golf balls due to my generous dimpled ball donations to everything but the fairway. For the last vestibules of summer, I'm determined to straighten up things, so I can once more pick up my tee before the ball lands in the centre of the fairway. Yes, I wish! 😉
3. A book I am reading:
Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days – Jake Knapp
Jake Knapp built a name for himself at Google by designing the Sprint process, where a core business team locks itself away for five days to rapidly develop a plan, build a prototype, and complete a tested solution. Knapp and his team have taken this Sprint model, with its five fundamental principles, and run it across many different businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes. I found that the book provided many great examples of how the process works, and I think it has a lot of merit for our businesses and organisations today.
4. My favourite podcast this week:
The Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard – David Lieberman
David Lieberman is an author and expert on reading people, something we would all like to be better at. In this podcast, he talks about the importance of reading people and how to maintain respect in relationships. You will also learn from this podcast to discern if someone is genuinely interested in you.
5. Hugh-Tips
Lessons from Charlie (Part XII)
Charlie Munger's quote this week: "To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people."
For the last piece from the Charlie Munger series, I have taken a quote that speaks to putting in the hard yards to grow your wealth through investing. Looking for hot tips from family, friends, and coworkers is tempting because it requires far less effort than doing your research. Invariably these hot tips turn out to be not so hot, and, in Charlie's language, you got what you deserved because you didn't do the work. On the other hand, if you diligently do your investing work and then see the return, it is much more rewarding because you deserve what you got.
6. My highlight this last week
Holding our Climate-Related Risk & Opportunity Workshop
This week, we held a climate-change workshop for our business and had an excellent turn-out from our operational leaders. They brought decades of experience to bear in analysing past weather-related events that impacted our operations and helped us discern how these might occur in the future as our climate continues to warm. By the end of the workshop, we all understood how chronic and acute weather events might impact our operations, which will help with further mitigation planning.
7. My challenge to you for this week
Appreciate the colours that nature displays all around you
Nature has a bounty of colours, which we often overlook. Our eyes are such a wonderful and underappreciated gift of life, being able to distinguish something like 10 million different colours. So this week, let's remember that and spend just a few seconds each day taking in and appreciating the incredible colours that nature bestows on us from every vantage point.
Have a fulfilling week
