Wanna know what’s harder than keeping your mouth shut when the pie cart rolls on by? Actually this one is immeasurably more difficult.
Practice keeping your mouth shut when another mouth is rolling over you unjustly. Yikes. This is much harder than keeping it shut when the pie goes by. Practice keeping your mouth shut when everything inside tells you the other mouth must be put in her place. Practice keeping your mouth shut when you’re so sideways you feel like you’re gonna turn into a pretzel if you don’t open a can of whup-ASS and get even. Practice keeping your mouth shut when you simply have so much worth saying…
This is much harder than keeping it shut when the pie goes by.
Today, in another tough practice with one of my clients I told him some truth he did NOT want to hear. He heard it, anyway. And then something strange happened.
He thanked me.
He told me he is changing and he’s certain I’ve had something to do with his transformation. He told me he’s different over the weekends and in the evening. He told me he’s different at work too. He stuttered a bit and then he said something really sweet. He said he feels like he’s got a different mind. He does.
His mindset has changed. He is learning to listen and let tough messages into his mind. He used to simply practice triple d. He would defend, deny, and destroy anything coming into his mind that made him feel less. Funny, once he practiced listening and letting it in he began to feel more.
Throughout history, high performers have “changed their minds.” Transforming ones own mind cannot be done in isolation. And, your mind won’t be changed by simply absorbing more and more tweets from minds that they themselves have yet to be renewed. This is why we study, learn, and slowly apply. This is why we read rich, challenging textbooks- texts & tweets, not so much. You cannot get better with changing your mind.
Who you listening to? What rich, challenging book you taking on? Why you got time for so much noise and distraction and so little for looking within? Tell me more, my friend. Tell me more…
BUILT TO LEAD 
Up until now, I’m a self-professed non-reader. Yes, from time to time there would be something that make me pick up a book “Nothing Like it in the World”, “The World is Flat” or “Freakanomics”. I may have actually finished one of them. In the past 6 months I’ve read “The Deeper Path”, “Your Secret Name”, “$100 Startup” and “Crazy Love.” All to the last page. The best one is “Your Secret Name”. I’m also working on the bible, but that may take a while. There may be something to this reading thing. Do you have any suggested “reads”?
I once found myself in a “collaboration” meeting with 5 women. Every time I tried to speak I was interrupted. The next meeting I kept my mouth shut and found when the women were through they would turn to me for my opinion. I was allowed to speak without interruption. I now listen much more than I talk.