Tag: life advice

Life Advice from a 70 year old…

All taken from this post: 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known from Kevin Kelly, (thanks to my brother for sharing it with me a couple of weeks ago!).

Kevin Kelly was the founding editor of Wired. He reached 70 last year and shared 103 bits of life advice. I find these lists often are mostly cliche… but there is depth in this list.

This week’s video is me picking out the 3 bits of life advice that most resonate with me – and then sharing why these bits of advice are so important and relevant to myself.

3 of the 103 bits of life advice that I loved…

  1. Living with Paradox… and Mentors (at 2:20 in the video)
  2. Building A Life of Learning and Growth (at 5:33)
  3. Trusting People (9:35)

Living with Paradox… and Mentors

“Three things you need: The ability to not give up something till it works, the ability to give up something that does not work, and the trust in other people to help you distinguish between the two.”

I love this one for this paradox: you need to be stubborn enough to stick to things beyond where someone else might abandon… and you need to be flexible enough to stop doing something when someone else might really struggle with the “sunk cost”… the hours and effort already invested in the activity.

How do you develop this capacity? You don’t. You are too close.

The only way you can develop the ability to navigate this paradox is with the input and perspectives of others. It took me a long time of stubborn arrogance before I finally had to accept that other people have much better perspectives on my life than I do.

Building A Life of Learning and Growth

“Your best job will be one that you were unqualified for because it stretches you. In fact only apply to jobs you are unqualified for.”

Once you have mastered something, we need you to move on… to take on something more complex. If you stay doing a job that you are now completely competent in… you begin to coast… and then feel like you deserve more… and become complacent… and then you find yourself out of a job.

I am currently leading Vistage in Spain… and the team around me can tell you that I am not yet the “perfect leader”… I am a work in progress… I am learning a lot as we go. I am completely committed to the mission of the organisation, and working hard to build up my skills and capacities to be a good leader… but I’m not there yet.

Trusting People

“If you loan someone $20 and you never see them again because they are avoiding paying you back, that makes it worth $20.”

I trust people as a general principle. It has worked out marvellously 99.9% of the time… but I have been let down, cheated and disappointed a number of times.

There is a saying “cheat me once, shame on you. Cheat me twice, shame on me.”

I have interviewed and hired hundreds of people over the last 20 years. I have accepted investment in my business, partners, employees… I have invested in others’ businesses and lent money to friends… and I’ve learnt that only behaviour counts… what people say they will do has no correlation to how they will act in future… what people have done in the past has huge correlation with how they will act in future.

If someone commits to pay you back $20 and then breaks that promise – it is a very inexpensive way of identifying someone not to trust in any way in future. While you might be wrong, there are 8 billion other people who are likely to be a better bet.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

I was doing some mindless twitter surfing just after lunch today, and I stumbled upon a gold mine. I love the thread that followed this tweet:

and here’s some of the answers that really resonated with me…

If you don’t prioritise your life, someone else will.

When your child wants to have a talk, drop what you’re doing and listen to them.

https://twitter.com/BCynamon/status/1176944873150115840

Only take advice from someone you’re willing to switch places with.

https://twitter.com/ahmedtherawi/status/1176965686591139844

Pay attention to what they do, not what they say.

Don’t complain about what you permit.

The best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing you can do is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing

Run

Don’t ask why the addiction, instead… ask why the pain.

and… Be humble enough to do what you can until you have the strength to do what you want.

What’s the best advice you have ever received?

If you are interested in my answers, I have a couple of posts that are big lists of lessons that I have learnt from others: 17 Daily Personal Habits for a Fulfilling Life and The Complete Guide to Personal Habits: 158 Positive Reflections on Life

What is your answer? I’d love to hear it in the comments below 😉

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

The secret to a good life? No, just a simple reflection on the nature of things. The important gestures you can make each day that really make an impact on others over the long time, are often so small that they are easily forgotten each day…  but over 10 years the presence or the lack of a couple of small gestures makes a huge impact on your relationships and what you can have achieved in life.

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Ancient Wisdom

This video comes from the beautiful location of Villa Ottoboni, on the outskirts of Padua in Italy. I had the privilege of teaching an interactive workshop on “The Psychology of Leadership” with the Ambrosetti organisation today.  

and that’s “Goodbye” from the central market of Padua

What’s the Most Important Lesson I have Learnt in Life?

Last week, my 13 year old niece Natia asked me: “what is the most important lesson you have learnt in your life?”

Natia was clearly quite serious (and had thought about her own answer), so I took a few minutes before responding. The video below explains my answer to her question.

How would you answer this question? What’s your lesson?

Leave it in the comments below 😉

What do you know now that you wish you knew then? #1

Last month, I asked my email subscribers a question:  What do you know now that you wish you knew then? (and wish you did).  Imagine you are having a coffee with a younger version of yourself. What would you say?  (If you still feel that you are the younger self… what would you ask the future you?)

I will be publishing a couple of the answers as I have really benefitted from the wonderful answers over the last 6 weeks.

I am interested in these answers because I am in the process of preparing a speech to 1,600 undergraduates who are on the point of transition between the world of university and the world of work and building a career.

Lesley’s Answer: What An Independent Consultant Would Say

Your question stimulated a rather interesting ponder over a glass of wine listening to the waves in Cartagena! This is what I’d tell my younger self, but it definitely wouldn’t apply to everyone…

  1. People (clients, bosses etc) are more influenced by what you say about yourself than you might think so learn the art of self-promotion as quickly as possible and don’t rely on the quality of your work to speak for you.
  2. View feedback as potentially interesting information about yourself and the person giving it (not personal criticism).
  3. Individual differences between people are even greater than you think so learn some tools to help you make sense of those differences as quickly as possible (especially MBTI) so you can handle people as they need/want to be handled.
  4. Perfection is unnecessary and unattainable.
  5. It’s not cheating to play to your strengths and delegate/pass on the other stuff to people who are better at it. There are actually people who enjoy the routine stuff and they’re worth their weight in gold!. Be in ‘the flow’ as much as possible (ref Csikszentmihalyi).
  6. But the devil IS often in the detail, so you’re right not to try to wing it!
  7. Trust your intuition even if it’s hard to put into words how you know and you can’t back it up with hard evidence.

Years ago I went to see John Harvey-Jones speak and someone asked him the same question. I loved his surprising reply: “The shits always get theirs”. I’ve seen quite a few bullies rise up through corporate structures and unscrupulous individuals riding rough shod over people but sooner or later they have generally been derailed. So I’m delighted to say that I agree with him.

Sadly, I’m not sure any of the foregoing will help get any young Catalans/Spaniards into work. What I’d say to them is “Learn good English, think more about delighting customers and before trying to get funding for a big idea, get hands-on experience in a small business that makes and/or sells things to learn about business basics like cash flow, margins and understanding the customer.” Working in my Mum’s greasy spoon as a teenager was a great preparation for running my own consultancy!

About Lesley Cannell, C. Psychol. AFBPsS 

Lesley is a business psychologist who established her consultancy business, the Change Team, in the UK in 1993, with the mission of using psychology to enable people to change their behaviour and organisations to change their culture. Her clients are mainly multinational FMCG companies.  Lesley has lived in Barcelona since 2007. Like the birds she flies south to escape the cold… spending the winter months in Cartagena, Colombia.

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