Don’t be paralyzed by fear of the unknown! Do what you’re qualified to do, and stop doing the things that only waste your focus, time and energy.
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iHeartRadioWhy Your Team Needs You To Be Precise
Why Your Team Needs You To Be Precise
If you want your team to do bold, creative work, you must take the first risk by giving them clear, precise direction. Here are a few ways to do so.
One of your best podcasts. This definitely should be the basis for your next book.
Fortunately, it is a core element of the next book. :)
the next book? oh yeah!
There are times when certain things happen at the exact perfect moment in your life. This podcast was perfect timing for what I needed… I listened to it 3 times. Thank you.
Fantastic! Glad it was helpful, Dave.
I agree this is one of your best. Well, it’s most relevant to me right now anyway since I’m 6-9 months in to my entrepreneurial journey. It’s such a hard lesson to learn at first, but it becomes exciting once you get comfortable with it. It gets exciting to try new things and to view your work as a laboratory, not a life-death or win-lose situation. I read it first in Michael Port’s Think Big Manifesto (although I know other’s have written about it) when he talked about getting comfortable with discomfort. Thanks, Todd.
Dear Todd Henry:
I hesitated, at first, to listen to
your podcast because I supposed advice on creativity would be like an ethics
seminar. You don’t gain ethics
from a lecture, and you don’t gain creativity from one either (again, this is
what I thought). Then, I listed to
your most recent podcast, then the next, then the next, and finally I’d heard
every last one. My false
assumption that a podcast cannot help creativity is somewhat comparable to what
you call “false causality” in your blog.
I loved this concept that we are missing the possibilities out there by
making false assumptions about what is feasible to accomplish. Now, I of course did not memorize the
substance of all the podcasts, but some things stand out in my mind so
much.
First, the Flinch interview put a
useful label on that moment when I am watching the “Bachelor” (hours of
superficial conversation, over-hyped drama, commercials, all only to reach an
anticlimactic ending that is usually predictable, all a total waste of time),
knowing my dream is literally waiting for my able execution in the other
room. The Flinch explains this
concept and labels it, “the Flinch”.This is the type of creative help I never would have come up with on my own.
Another great moment I remember
after listening to all of your podcasts in the last few days is you stating something
along the lines that simple ideas are good, and that you should allow yourself
to publish them. Do not over
complicate your work, you advised. This is dead on advice for me. The tendency to want to be that
profound entity of creativity, that genius that stands alone, and is
untouchable by the normal others, that tendency is potent. And trust me, I am aware that I am not
a genius, or a creative prodigy—maybe I just want to seem that way so people
won’t realize I’m so normalJ Anyway, great advice.
I could tell that you are a writer when you used colorful
wording like that we, your audience, should engage in “humble curiosity”.
Of all the podcasts I enjoyed, one
of my very favorite was Susan Cain’s talk on introverts. I quite literally started that podcast
believing myself to be an awkward extrovert without enough friends and deeply
ashamed of my lacking social energy.
I left the podcast knowing without a doubt that I, Megan, am an
introvert and proud to be one. It
was amazingly helpful and I think it will encourage loads of creative
introverted people to embrace themselves and thus enable greater
accomplishment.
The
Unstuck podcast left me remembering to go to unusual spaces, not to just work
in my office. This podcast advised
us to find a way to make a fool of ourselves and that we the audience can make
inspiration actually happen.
Of
all poetic lines you leave throughout your podcast, I most adored this one and
wrote it down: “[creativity is the] perpetual assault on the beachhead of
apathy” (wow there is some good writing in an age of “wut up dawg”
texting). At one point you also
said: “The love of comfort is frequently the enemy of greatness”. And we don’t have to pay for this
stuff?
Needless
to say, THANK YOU for your awesome content. I started a dream of my own in the past month which is
idea4ort.com, and so I have added you as a link to my newly launched platform. Please
note, Todd Henry, your work is a big daily inspiration for my idea4ort.
Finest Regards,
Megan Cook
Idea4ort Founder
Megan,
Wow. I’m not sure how to respond. If I could write a note of encouragement to myself, it would look a lot like this comment. I’m deeply grateful for your kind words, and I’m so glad that the podcast has been of benefit to you.
Congrats on your new project!
Well said megan! I am totally resonating with all of the things you listed here, Todd really is a gift giver.
This is brilliant- exactly what I needed to hear today! So grateful for your work and words.
Thanks, Natalie.
That was useful and inspirational. Thank you
Thanks! Glad it was helpful.
I liked that this podcast was inspirational in a new way. I feel like a lot of inspirational podcasts kinda say the same thing, or have a message that I’ve already heard a dozen times or more. Listening to this was a very different experience; I feel like I actually learned something new! I’m a new fan of the podcast, and I look forward to hearing more. :)
Thank you, Julie! Glad you enjoyed the podcast and found it practical and helpful. That’s what we try to do – offer up actionable thoughts. Glad it resonated.