Tag / practice

by Nathan Coumbe

How do values appear in your life?

What do you value? And how do you structure your life so that the things you value are apparent?

If you say you value thinking, how do you engage with that value on a daily basis?

  • No social media?
  • Embracing boredom?
  • Avoiding mindless TV binging?
  • Walking in silence?
  • Writing when ideas strike you?
  • Writing or thinking in public? (Publishing something)

If you say you value your health, how does that show up in your day?

  • Eating lots of fruits and vegetables?
  • Cooking more meals at home?
  • Intentional movement?
  • Finding ways to build more movement into your day so you don’t have to think about it?

Values are developed through action. They requires practice to become part of who you are.

by Nathan Coumbe

Make an exercise out of the hard parts

Something I learned to do as a musician was the idea of “deliberate practice.”

What this meant for me—like when I was learning a concert snare drum solo—was to take individual measures or a small group of measures, and turn them into exercises.

Examples:

  • A difficult passage that had a hard dynamic transition or sudden change
  • A complicated rhythm I needed to drill before I could play it

I would take these passages, slow them down, get them perfect, and work my way up to “normal” playing speed. Then I would add back in the music that surrounded these difficult sections.

This is how I was able to learn difficult music.

There’s a lesson to be learned here for every aspect of life.

Doing the things you can already do easily won’t make you any better at anything.

You’d got to practice the hard parts until you can get them right.

For more daily musings like this, subscribe below:

by Nathan Coumbe

Running Out of Ideas Isn’t the Problem

Why do we worry about running out of ideas?

Our minds are idea-making machines; we couldn’t stop them from ideation if we tried. 

So why aren’t we creating something new and publishing it every day? Why do we fail to write a blog post? Or take a photo and post it?

We do not suffer from a lack of ideas: we worry the ideas we do have aren’t good enough to show anyone else. 

Here’s the secret: they probably aren’t. Most of the ideas you think up aren’t great. They might not change the lives of thousands of people. 

But there’s a chance one might change one person. And that small chance is reason enough to put your ideas out into the world. 

by Nathan Coumbe

Leadership as an experiment

The only way to become a leader, or to improve as a leader if you already are, is to treat everything like one giant science experiment.

Start with a hypothesis: “If I do/try/encourage _____, then ______ will happen/change/get better.”

What are you positing? What are you already presuming? Start with an observation you believe to be true.

Here’s an example:

“My employees feel disconnected from the company’s mission.”(Observation)

“If I meet regularly with them one-on-one to discuss what they believe is most important, then they will feel involved, supported, and I might get some really good ideas about how we can improve things around here.”(Hypothesis and potential solution)

At this point the experiment begins. Set parameters: what do “regular meetings” look like? What sort of questions will I ask? Am I prepared to listen empathically, to really understand how they feel and what they think matters?

You’ll gather data and attempt to put the ideas into practice (another experiment, perhaps). Test the ideas; observe what happens; use the information gathered to make changes as needed; repeat the experiment.

Think like a scientist.

If you think like a scientist, you don’t simply run the experiment and assume that it works. A scientist doesn’t hypothesize something, put on a blindfold, call the experiment a success, and move on to the next idea. The scientist tests, observes, measures, and solicits feedback. When you get that data, it will show either progress or regression – support for your idea or arguments against it. Use that data to adjust your hypothesis and experiment again, until it either works or becomes obvious that your hypothesis was wrong.

You are going to be wrong. Often.

There is only one way to avoid being wrong: don’t try to become a better leader. If you are willing to become a better leader, you must be willing to be wrong. Since you know you are going to be wrong, you need to become comfortable with honesty and transparency.

“This idea that I had, this new way of doing things, it didn’t work. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

Humility and Trust

A leader must be humble and emotionally mature enough to admit errors and missteps. If you attempt to hide your failure, if you put the blame on anyone or anything other than yourself, if you pretend it all worked out when it’s obvious it didn’t, you will lose the trust and respect of those who serve under you. It will be very hard to get that back.

Think like a scientist. Test, observe, measure, and get feedback on your ideas. Experiment.

Most importantly, don’t ignore the data, and apologize when you’re wrong.

Join 904 other subscribers
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.

Join 904 other subscribers
by Nathan Coumbe

Be bad in public

Yesterday’s post talked about perfection getting in the way of your art. Today, I wanted to give a special thanks to John Cochran, Joey Panella, and Rebecca Smith for letting me get out of my own way.

When I was in my early twenties, I majored in Jazz Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi. My weapon of choice was the drum set, and I was pretty average.

I was learning from books, playing in jazz band rehearsals 3 days per week, and shedding in the practice room. Still, I was not great.

I wasn’t great because I had almost no experience.

For whatever reason, John, a guitarist, came to me and asked if I would be willing to play drums with him and the others in a weekly gig at a pub in Hattiesburg. I accepted.

It was not until I started playing 3 hours a day – not very well – every single Tuesday from 10pm-1am, in front of a live audience, that my skills as a musician truly started to develop. That was the experience I needed to truly begin developing as a musician. It was at that point that I began learning on what I needed to focus and develop, so that I would improve. And improve I did.

I say all of that to encourage you to do a few things:

  1. Be brave enough to practice, and suck, in public.
  2. Find a mentor or sponsor that will allow you to suck in public.
  3. Show up day after day whether you suck or not.

I’m not encouraging you to be bad at something for which you’ll never put in the effort to become excellent. I’m saying that you’ll have to be bad at something you want to do before you become good; it helps if you do it in public, and it really helps if someone supports you while you do it in public.

It’s the only way you will start learning what you need to learn.

Thanks John, Joey, and Rebecca.

Don’t miss a thing! Subscribe below to get insights and ideas sent directly to your inbox each day.

Join 904 other subscribers

by Nathan Coumbe

Proactivity and resilience go hand in hand

Resilience is the ability to rebound from challenges, setbacks, and crises. When something happens, a resilient person is seemingly less affected by the event than a non-resilient person (not true). 

Is someone born resilient? Doubtful. 

Resiliency is a skill; it can be practiced and improved. It can be practiced by consciously choosing how to respond to a challenge, setback, or crisis. The effects of the event may indeed be negative: they might be seriously damaging to mind, body, or spirit. But that most fundamental human right, that of proactivity and the ability to choose, cannot be taken away by a negative event. 

Resiliency, therefore, is practicing proactive responses in the face of negative events. It can mitigate the long-term effects of a difficult situation.

Is it easy? Of course not.

Is it necessary? More than ever. It will make you stronger.

Choose how you respond; become more resilient.