“Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.”

Dwight Eisenhower

Day 2 of these beautiful Peonies.

Athletes create space on the field of play all the time. They create space and execute on a move that looks like magic to the naked eye. It’s like they see on a different frequency or can tell the future.

Cricket batsmen thread a ball between two fielders with a flick of a bat.

Soccer players kick through a gap that wasn’t there a second ago.

Quarterbacks find the hands of a receiver faster than a TV camera. The only way to watch the replay is in slow motion.

The common thread is that these athletes commit and don’t hesitate. It’s about forward motion, momentum, and quick decisions.

Ideas and opportunities work the same way. New options and helpers appear when you commit and take action. 

There’s never a right time.

There’s never a perfect time to have kids, quit your job, start your own thing, get married, emigrate, buy a house, etc.

Stop thinking about trying to time a decision. Instead, plan for the upside, mitigate the downside as much as possible and then go. Forward momentum opens doors you didn’t know existed. 

“Some people are thermometers, some are thermostats. You’re a thermostat. You don’t register the temperature in a room, you change it.”

Andre Agassi

We all know people like this. They walk into a room and the energy changes. People perk up, it’s memorable and ripples of energy spread through the room. Zoom rooms won’t replace that in-person energy.

People remember how you treat them. A lot of the time you won’t even be aware of the good or bad consequences of your behavior.

Maybe it’s a good word, a recommendation or a warning. When it’s said and what is said is out of your control. What you can control is how you conduct yourself now.

Play the long game.

“Just trust me

Give it time

It’ll be fine

They will look after you

You are being ungrateful

They will come around

Don’t push it

It sends the wrong message

You are being paranoid

You worry too much

You’ll come across as negative

lt will look like you aren’t committed

Nobody else has that

Who do you think you are?”

These are all the platitudes and excuses you’ll hear when look after yourself and negotiate.

Ignore the noise and get the hard stuff in writing even if you burn a bridge or two.

If you get through a negotiation and someone’s nose isn’t out of joint then you probably didn’t push hard enough.

It’s easy to forget how many unknowns we faced in the first half of 2020:

• Hoarding toilet paper, basic supplies and antibiotics
• Alcohol wipes and disinfectant shortages
• Crashing stock markets
• Tom Hanks
• Do face masks work?
• Is covid airborne?
• Elective surgery suspensions
• Ground zero in Seattle’s old age homes
• New York City and Italy death rates spiking
• Closed borders
• Chinese disinformation
• Ventilator shortages
• Trump in denial
• Confusing messaging from the WHO
• Conspiracy theories and miracle cures
• Long-tail covid impacts
• Zoom as a verb
• School closures
• Tier 1,2,3,4,5 Lockdown levels

As a global village we’ve come a long way!

“Unknown

Unseen

We live underneath the radar

No sign – on screen

We dance underneath the radar”

Underworld – Underneath the Radar

Seek out the people who are quiet and competent.

Ignore the loud mouths who are banging the pots and pans – screaming for attention.

Platforms like Twitter and Facebook reward and amplify the blowhards, while the quiet and competent fly under the radar.

You have to seek out the quiet ones, but the reward comes in the form of life long friends, loyalty and low ego.