Tag / growth

by Nathan Coumbe

I hate getting feedback… Don’t you?

I hate getting feedback…

It hurts. It stings. It can crush your soul—especially if you think you’re already kicking butt. 

But it’s also the best way to figure out where you can grow to hit your goals.

That’s why I actively seek it out in everything I do. 

Musicians Are Brutal

This practice came from my time in university. I was studying to be (and working as) a professional musician. 

Every week, I had multiple lessons, rehearsals, and performances. And after each one, my teachers, bandmates, and mentors had feedback for me.

It was brutal (to put it mildly). But it made me a better musician. 

These people were better than me, more experienced, and knew what needed to be done to succeed. 

I’ve carried this practice with me into every job I’ve had. It’s made me a better leader, writer, and marketer.

“A mark of a competent adult is their ability to accept feedback. The mark of a child is their expectation of praise without merit.”

—Donald Miller, Business Made Simple, p. 15

Surround yourself with people who want you to improve and succeed in your roles. Actively seek out feedback. 

The more you do it, the better you’ll get. But I can’t promise it won’t sting.

How do you feel about feedback? Are you actively seeking it out?

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by Nathan Coumbe

We Must Grow from Truth to Truth

“I never think of what I have said before. My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth.”

—Mahatma Gandhi

Consistency is only beneficial as long as the truth to which we are holding remains true.

Changing our minds seems to be a sign of weakness, meekness, and shame in our culture. But is it not a sign of wisdom and growth when we take a new stance upon learning new information?

When we hold to something because “that’s the way we’ve always done it,” even when a new truth is staring us in the face, our culture, relationships, and society stagnate.

There is nothing wrong with changing your mind as you learn new information.

Be wise and grow.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Perhaps you’re looking at the wrong map

One of my favorite teachings in Stephen R. Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is the one about paradigms. To summarize, he uses maps as a metaphor for paradigms: they are representations of real places, not the places themselves.

If you are trying to navigate through Atlanta, but the map you received was misprinted with Atlanta as the name but a layout of New York, you are going to have a very difficult time getting where you want to go.

This has resonated with me for the past two days. I have been feeling restless and unsettled about where I am in certain aspects of my personal and professional life. It’s a feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I decided to take a step back and use my powers of self-awareness to look at how I was looking at these circumstances.

I won’t go into detail about all of the things I’ve examined for two days, but what I will say is that I have come to find that I was looking at my life through a certain lens. When I stepped back and looked through a different lens – when I picked up a different map – I had a sudden feeling of clarity.

Perhaps I am in the right place: where I am is allowing me to practice and make mistakes. I am learning and using skills that I have been trying to practice, and I am doing it in an environment that supports me.

My paradigm has changed from one of restlessness to one of purpose: I am here for a reason; I am doing certain things for a reason. I must live in the present for a while, so I can launch into the next phase of my life.

Take a moment today and look at your maps.

Make sure you are looking at the right one.

If not, get a new map.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Working your brain

I am exhausted. Truly and totally exhausted. This week has seen numerous late nights, one of which did not end until 5am the next day; it has featured little sleep, long days at work, and even longer days at home in my personal time. That last bit is of my own doing.

Reading – deep reading with the goal of analyzing and validating information, premises, and arguments – is like strength training for the brain. Combined with the mental exercise required to function in a typical day job, it is easy to overwork this organ.

It’s pretty common knowledge today that you shouldn’t strength train 7 days a week; strength training should be interspersed with active recovery, lighter exercise of different types, rest, recuperation, and restoration. You also need to get plenty of sleep so that your muscles can repair themselves.

The brain is no different; strenuous reading and self-education combined with long, stressful days at work, with a little sleep deprivation sprinkled in, makes for a drained individual who will not be able to comprehend or retain much of the information being studied.

As important as self-improvement and mental growth is, it is as important to make sure you are approaching it the same way you approach training your body. Take the time to rest, especially if you are just starting out on a course of rigorous reading or coursework. Perhaps only read for 30 minutes a day, three to four times a week, much like a novice would approach a new exercise regimen. You can always increase the length and frequency later. Just like exercise, the habit of mental growth and development is more important in the beginning than how hard and how hard you push yourself.

Study hard, then rest hard. That’s what I’m doing for the next few days.