I have a few observations to share.
Mostly, these observations are for me, but they might also be for you. You won’t know unless you read them. Next year will be here in a few days and only you can do what needs to be done to be ready for it.
Here are some of the notes from my reflection time, preparing for 2025 and reviewing 2024.
The delta between potential and power is perspective. You get what you see, and you will see what you say.
The most strategic thing you can do is follow the pull: oftentimes this ‘pull’ will not make logical sense and you will only see the validity of it in hindsight. I have limited time in 2025 (but plenty of time to do what I am pulled to do). If we eliminated the things that were obligated and thrust upon us, and spent our time building the things we can’t stop thinking about — how would life change?
People change the most (and the fastest) when they develop a new opinion about themselves. This goes for better or for worse. My job is usually not to get anybody to do anything; it is to help them see themselves a different way, and they will equalize their lives (and choices) accordingly.
Greatness is a daily “chipping away” of anything that is not great. It’s not that hard, it’s just long. It’s worth it if you care about it; it’s not worth it if you’re being obligated by something else and don’t really care about what you’re doing.
John Gardner gave a keynote to McKinsey & Company in November of 1990 titled “Personal Renewal.” It’s one of my favorite transcriptions to go through towards the end of the year. Here are some highlights:
- Or maybe they just ran so hard for so long that somewhere along the line, they forgot what it is they were running for.
- We can’t all get to the top, and that isn’t the point of life anyway. I’m talking about the people who — no matter how busy they seem to be — have stopped learning or growing.
- Boredom is the secret ailment of large-scale organizations. Someone said to me the other day, “How can I be so bored when I’m so busy?” And I said, “Let me count all the ways.”
- We can’t write off the danger of complacency, growing rigidity, imprisonments by our own comfortable habits and opinions.
- Don’t be too hard on yourself. Look ahead. Someone said that “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” And above all don’t imagine that the story is over. Life has a lot of changes.
- As Jim Whitaker, who climbed Mount Everest, said “You never conquer the mountain. You only conquer yourself.”
- When you hit a spell of trouble, ask “What is it trying to teach me?”
- You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions, if you have any, which you do. You find that the world loves talent but pays off on character.
- You come to understand that most people are neither for you or against you, they are thinking about themselves.
- One of the enemies of sound, lifelong motivation, is a rather childish conception we have of the kind of concrete, describable goal toward which all of our efforts drive us. We want to believe that there is a point at which we can feel that we have aired. We want a coring system that tells us when we’ve piled up enough points to count ourselves successful.
- Life is an endless unfolding, and if we wish it to be, an endless process of self-discovery, an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own potential.
- You have within you more resources of energy than have ever been tapped, more talent than has ever been exploited, more strength than has ever been tested, more to give than you have ever given.
- I place my bets more often on high motivation than on any other quality except judgement. There is no perfection of techniques that will substitute for the lift of spirit and heightened performance that comes from strong motivation.
- You have to build meaning into your life, and you build it through your commitments. Your identity is what you’ve committed yourself to.
- We tend to think of youth and the active middle years as the years of commitment. As you get a little older, you’re told you’ve earned the right to think about yourself. But that’s a deadly prescription. People of every age need commitments beyond the self, need the meaning that commitments provide.
- I can tell you that for renewal, a tough-minded optimism is best.
- We cannot dream of Utopia in which all arrangements are ideal and everyone is flawless. Life is tumultuous — an endless losing and regaining of balance, a continuous struggle, never an assured victory.
- Nothing is ever finally safe. Every important battle is fought and re-fought.
- Some men and women make the world better just by being the kind of people they are. To be that kind of person would be worth all the years of living and learning.
Merry Christmas and let’s make it a banger 2025!
-T