Brewed From Within

Feng Shui

Peace awaits those who appreciate all that is without worrying about all that is not. That said, things will not just fall into place. It takes initiative, consistency, awareness, and sacrifice to find your own equanimity.

Similar to how we decorate our environment to harmonize with nature, we can connect elements of our career portfolio to feel the benefits of feng shui.

The world is loud, and endless distractions make us feel frantic when there’s so much to do. Being present along with a quiet appreciation of understated beauty keeps us centered. As mindfulness becomes part of our practice, it’s easier to slow down just enough to ensure we don’t miss life along the way.

The places we visit, the people we’re with, and the art we ship all connect through us. Over a lifetime, we become a destination for others, and this becomes our gift.

When there’s passion, humor, diversity, intellectual humility, and harmony within our own environment, the impact of our gifts are lasting and the way we invest time with others will add up in the end.

Brewed From Within
#114 📖 Life & Happiness

By Ben McDougal, ago

Tenured & Tired

Consistent action transforms opportunity into potential. As experience expands, successful leaders are rewarded with increased capacity, attention, and control. Along with many cultural motivations, financial capital is often involved as well. These alluring incentives make it no surprise that many prominent positions are held for too long. Leadership calls for lasting commitment, and long-term leaders can sustain longstanding progress.

But how can we interact with complacent leaders who have become tenured and tired? People who are coasting. People who act as gatekeepers to progress. People who hold on to power from the past.

When starters run into the aloof, misaligned energy can lead to a standoff. Time is the ultimate answer, but what if progress is needed now? Every situation is complex because of the environment, people, and organizations involved, but here are tactics that work no matter the circumstance.

The first leans on social currency. It requires us to set the ego aside and instead celebrate all that the accomplished, yet stubborn gatekeeper has achieved. Use respect, kindness, and appreciation to form a bond. Relationships that feel less transactional often create leniency toward new ideas. When a crack in the wall of inactivity is created, be the glue that maintains the integrity of the existing system. For example, “I’m too busy” is a common qualm, so lean into that pain by offering to execute ideas that sparked mutual interest.

It’s important to be realistic in these moments, because when promises are made, credibility is at stake. As you light a path toward progress while you also champion change by evolving ideas into reality, trust is gained and your ability to continue making a ruckus increases. Along the way, take responsibility for failure, but give credit away when success is achieved.

If an organization is involved, another tactic invites the tenured leader to level up their team by activating a colleague. This provides a new hire the chance to get personally involved within the startup community, while the organization is seen as being engaged within the entrepreneurial ecosystem. It’s hard for some to understand that time spent in the wild is more valuable than clocking time in the office, but if the organization allows this person to show up, everyone wins. The new community member feels a boost of innovative energy and brings intrapreneurial vibes into the organization, while the startup community benefits from fresh perspectives and expanded support.

Extra Shot

“Make things better by caring enough for those we serve, to imagine the story they need to hear.” –Seth Godin

If you’re tenured and feeling tired, you’re not alone. We all experience motivational ruts and emotional dips. Even in ideal situations, leading for any length of time is depleting. Markets, products, services, teams, strategies, and cultures change as well, which shifts how your own interests and skills align over time. If haphazardness is left untamed, a lack of purpose impacts your attitude and everything around you. When the urge to settle drags us away from being our best, setting new milestones helps to spark fresh enthusiasm. Other galvanizing tactics include trying something new, developing other areas of your career portfolio, resting, reading, writing, hibernating for a longer break, or quitting if it’s time to write a new chapter. Even if it’s challenging, make an effort to find fun and be wary of consuming more than you create.

Once rejuvenated, get back into the startup community. Even if we’re just listening, we can feel invigorating energy from the creative ambition of others. New opportunities will emerge for experienced leaders, but there’s no rush. Instead, adopt the inspiration. Let others lead, and use fresh intensity to break through emotional lulls as you uncover more ways to make an impact with your art.

Brewed From Within
#61 📖 Leadership

By Ben McDougal, ago

Bloop

Small choices don’t make a difference, until they do.

Imagine yourself a circle that has expanded from a lifetime of personal growth. Now, spin out another tiny bloop beyond the existing circumference. This gives yourself room to expand.

Extra Shot
If you break one rule, avoid breaking another.

Even when small choices seem insignificant, the willingness to bloop stretches our neuroplasticity, widens our perspective, extends our reach, improves our health, and broadens our potential. As this becomes a habit within the systems of our own continuous improvement, all the circles of life expand and overlap to layer confidence into experiential wisdom.

Brewed From Within
#101 📖 Life & Happiness

By Ben McDougal, ago

Winding Whys

Asking “why” seems to be innate.

As soon as kids learn to speak, the inquisitions begin. The first few whys may emerge from innocent curiosity, but it’s easy to tell when the game is underway.

Endless whys may lead to frustration (especially when it’s bedtime, eh), but why not find joy in making these winding whys into a fun challenge. Instead of shutting things down, try to quickly answer every why. Can we mindfully outlast a youngster’s attention span?

Extra Shot
“Mom… Dad… why do you love me?”
After countless rounds of winding whys, what a fun chance to coalesce endless reasons into one run-on sentence.

As we zoom out, it feels trite to reflect on how humans have so many whys we cannot answer. Instead of the paradoxical path or trying to understand all of our own whys, the five whys from Toyota is an interesting tactic.

Developed by system thinkers inside Toyota back in the 1980s, this iterative technique was used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem. When following 14 specific rules after exactly five whys, the last answer often points to a process that is not working well or does not exist. This technique has critics and can lead to rigid, even shortsighted interpretations. That may be the case, but more often than not, our own willingness to go deeper helps move past easy answers.

The five whys may not solve all our winding whys, but the idea behind this historic tactic can be fun to use at home. We also know playing with why is helpful for decision making and culture building in business.

As winding whys carve through your mind, appreciate the difference between complex, complicated, and simple ideas. Socratic questioning, active listening, real-time doodles, media-supported storytelling, inverse charisma, laughing, and of course, child-like wanderlust all add a twist. Why not?

Brewed From Within
#119 📖 Life & Happiness

By Ben McDougal, ago

Ideaworks

Our daily lives gobble up mental bandwidth. If you’re interested in building a business, compelling ideas may hit but lasting intention is needed to build momentum.

It’s unlikely that lightning will strike in a single brainstorm. Instead, combine detail-oriented initiative with pure wonder and open-mindedness to attract earned luck, thanks to serendipity. As ideas fueled by action create chemistry over time, different combinations will map more opportunities.

Extra Shot

We get what we repeat.

How might combining ideas be like a colorful fireworks show? Let’s begin with the anticipation a crowd feels before the show. Then a bright light flashes, and the sound of that first colorful explosion is celebrated.

To get color popping in the night sky, a fuse was required to spark early progress. Fuses such as linking slowness with urgency, actively listening, allowing new experiences to shift your perspective, and always staying curious give the idea machine more ways to continuously flip the switch.

As each fuse is lit, we hear that thump of a distant firework being shot into the sky. This sound of propulsion is like ideas darting into the limitless atmosphere of our mind.

With each idea sparked, there’s a thrilling hope that what’s about to pop is exactly what we’ve always wanted. Even if it’s not an absolute showstopper, each ideawork sparkles with different colors, shapes, and sounds that inspire the sky and connect into the broader experience.

Looking up into the stars, we appreciate each blast in different ways, based on the vantage point. This awakens the fact that every idea has value. Bad ideas lead to better ideas. This can spark great ideas that reverberate, and when given the space to merge, combine into a fantastic reality.

Extra Shot

Don’t wait for next year.

As ideas pop to create a tune, it’s like the grand finale a crowd waits for. The audience may scurry in different directions after the show, but they’ll keep talking about the experience long after that floating smoke clears.

When songs rhyme with a melody, the idea machine sparkles. When execution is a habit, even duds can’t stop a remarkable show from lighting up the sky.

Brewed From Within
#5 📖 Entrepreneurship

By Ben McDougal, ago