18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done by Peter Bregman Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Peter Bregman
saved the lives of millions of people in thedeveloping world. Literally millions. Certainly he achieved this feat with great strengths. He was deeply connected with his values. He worked tirelessly and with single-minded focus. He cared deeply about others, friends and strangers alike, and did whatever he could to help them.
But he had a quirk. He lived and worked in the hyper-intellectual world of academia, where nuance is valued far above simplicity. Success as an academic traditionally lies in one’s ability to see and expound the gray.
But he never saw the gray. He saw the world in black and white, right and wrong. This simplistic view of the world is something that people in academia try to hide or overcome all the time. But he never hid his simplicity. He embraced it. And that was the source of his power, the secret ingredient that enabled him to save so many lives. He cut through the morass of a debate and arrived at the simplicity of righteous action.
Yet another friend, an outstanding investment manager, spends all his time obsessively looking at, thinking about, and reading financial statements of companies in which he is considering investing. He lives and breathes them. I once invited him to spend the weekend skiing. Instead of skis, he brought a stack of annual reports that stood three feet high. That’s just weird. But his obsession has made him one of the best stock pickers in the world.
We all have quirks and obsessions like these. Maybe we don’t admit them, even to ourselves. Or we worry that they detract from our success and work hard to train ourselves out of them.
But that’s a mistake. Our quirks very well may be the secret to our power.
The second element is your weaknesses. Rather than avoid them, embrace your weaknesses and spend your time this year where they’re an asset instead of a liability.
11
Heated Seats
Element Three: Assert Your Differences
I was running along the six-mile loop in Central Park on a cold winter day when I passed the southernmost end of the park and noticed a large number of miserable-looking pedicab drivers huddled together to keep warm. Periodically, one reached out to a passing pedestrian, but no one seemed to want a ride in a bicycle-drawn carriage. It was too cold.
And then, to my surprise, a little farther along the run I saw a pedicab—with passengers in it—circling the park. The reason this pedicab had been hired instead of the others was immediately obvious. On both sides of his small carriage hung signs with large letters that read HEATED SEATS .
In any highly competitive field—and these days every field is highly competitive—being different is the only way to win. Nobody wants to sell a commodity, and nobody wants to be a commodity.
Yet even though we all know that, most of us spend a tremendous amount of effort trying
not
to be different. We model ourselves and our businesses after other successful people and businesses, spending considerable money and energy discovering and replicating best practices, looking for that one recipe for success.
Here’s the thing: If you look like other people, and if your business looks like other businesses, then all you’ve done is increase your pool of competition.
I was consulting with American Express in 1993 when Harvey Golub became the new CEO. He wore suspenders. Within a few weeks, so did everyone else. In our corporate cultures, we school, like fish. We try especially hard to fit in when we worry about getting laid off. Maybe, we think, standing out will remind them that we’re here, and then they’ll lay us off, too.
But fitting in has the opposite effect. It makes you dispensable. If you’re like everyone else, then how critical to the business can you be?
That’s how my friend Paul Faerstein lost his job. He was very successful at fitting in. It was the early 1990s and he was a partner at the Hay Group. He was a good consultant—I learned a lot from him—and for a long time he acted like
But he had a quirk. He lived and worked in the hyper-intellectual world of academia, where nuance is valued far above simplicity. Success as an academic traditionally lies in one’s ability to see and expound the gray.
But he never saw the gray. He saw the world in black and white, right and wrong. This simplistic view of the world is something that people in academia try to hide or overcome all the time. But he never hid his simplicity. He embraced it. And that was the source of his power, the secret ingredient that enabled him to save so many lives. He cut through the morass of a debate and arrived at the simplicity of righteous action.
Yet another friend, an outstanding investment manager, spends all his time obsessively looking at, thinking about, and reading financial statements of companies in which he is considering investing. He lives and breathes them. I once invited him to spend the weekend skiing. Instead of skis, he brought a stack of annual reports that stood three feet high. That’s just weird. But his obsession has made him one of the best stock pickers in the world.
We all have quirks and obsessions like these. Maybe we don’t admit them, even to ourselves. Or we worry that they detract from our success and work hard to train ourselves out of them.
But that’s a mistake. Our quirks very well may be the secret to our power.
The second element is your weaknesses. Rather than avoid them, embrace your weaknesses and spend your time this year where they’re an asset instead of a liability.
11
Heated Seats
Element Three: Assert Your Differences
I was running along the six-mile loop in Central Park on a cold winter day when I passed the southernmost end of the park and noticed a large number of miserable-looking pedicab drivers huddled together to keep warm. Periodically, one reached out to a passing pedestrian, but no one seemed to want a ride in a bicycle-drawn carriage. It was too cold.
And then, to my surprise, a little farther along the run I saw a pedicab—with passengers in it—circling the park. The reason this pedicab had been hired instead of the others was immediately obvious. On both sides of his small carriage hung signs with large letters that read HEATED SEATS .
In any highly competitive field—and these days every field is highly competitive—being different is the only way to win. Nobody wants to sell a commodity, and nobody wants to be a commodity.
Yet even though we all know that, most of us spend a tremendous amount of effort trying
not
to be different. We model ourselves and our businesses after other successful people and businesses, spending considerable money and energy discovering and replicating best practices, looking for that one recipe for success.
Here’s the thing: If you look like other people, and if your business looks like other businesses, then all you’ve done is increase your pool of competition.
I was consulting with American Express in 1993 when Harvey Golub became the new CEO. He wore suspenders. Within a few weeks, so did everyone else. In our corporate cultures, we school, like fish. We try especially hard to fit in when we worry about getting laid off. Maybe, we think, standing out will remind them that we’re here, and then they’ll lay us off, too.
But fitting in has the opposite effect. It makes you dispensable. If you’re like everyone else, then how critical to the business can you be?
That’s how my friend Paul Faerstein lost his job. He was very successful at fitting in. It was the early 1990s and he was a partner at the Hay Group. He was a good consultant—I learned a lot from him—and for a long time he acted like
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