Managing Your Shelf
How well do you manage your shelf?
This past week I shared a significant chunk of learning content to a school’s leadership team that is on the cusp of diving into the ’24-’25 school year.
It was extremely well received, feedback was outstanding, and kudos to their engagement and level of presence!
But…can you imagine?
It was their first foray into the year’s school calendar – a literal transition point as they shift from their summer mindset and heart-set.
Kids will be roaming the halls in just a few days. The demands of staff, students, and parents are just around the corner. To-do lists and priorities are pounding on the door.
I guarantee you – every note they took and every insight they treasured from our time together – no matter how valuable – was immediately and unapologetically placed on the proverbial shelf.
No worries. We all get it. Learning opportunities like this, though valuable and necessary, impact our flow.
And when the tide is pushing hard, we absolutely must get back to the mission at hand and manage the floodgates well.
The question for us as developing leaders is: How well do we manage our shelf?
Thursday and Friday of that same week I got to drink from the firehose at GLS2024 (The Global Leadership Summit).
Great speakers. Pages of notes. Fantastic insights. Books I can’t wait to read. An incredibly powerful resource overall.
And it will all go on the shelf for a time, because I’ve got two sermons to finalize, two Convene meetings to facilitate in the coming week, a guest speaker coming in later today…
Priorities.
Even though we may LOVE our work (which I do), “duty” calls, and that means I, like you, have to put a lot of things on the shelf.
For now.
Putting things on the shelf is not the problem. Leaving them on the shelf is the problem.
How well do you manage your shelf?
A client of mine stayed at his seat long after the others had left. I was tidying up the room and packing my things while he mulled over his notes and wrote in the margins.
I had to ask what that was all about. He said,
“When I walk out these doors, everything else in the world is going to hit me again. I know this about me, and I have learned that it is important for me to take a few minutes in the moment to process my notes before I leave the room. Managing them well on the front end helps me to access them more readily on the back end – when I need them.”
This leader – of multiple businesses and a development program of his own – understood how intentional we must be in managing our shelf.
How about you? Do you have a trusted process that helps you incorporate new learning into your life and leadership?
Here are two action items for you to consider as an intentionally developing purpose-driven leader:
Don’t neglect the act of consistently “stocking” your shelf
Develop a trusted process for managing your shelf that intentionally incorporates new learning into your leadership MO
If I can be of any help to you in this arena, please let me know.
Blessings to you, my friends!
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This Week’s Resource Recommendation:
“Executive Toughness” – Dr. Jason Selk
It is difficult to pinpoint the exact moments in our past when major mental shifts occurred, but my read of Selk’s “Executive Toughness” definitely stands out as one of those moments. Have you leaned into the intentional development of your “mental toughness”?
Book Blurb: People with inborn talent may be good at what they do―but only the mentally tough reach the highest plateaus in their field. And here’s the best news of all: mental toughness is something anyone can learn.
Director of mental training for the St. Louis Cardinals and a top-tier executive coach, Dr. Jason Selk knows everything there is to know about developing the mental toughness required for achieving any goal you set for yourself. In fact, the techniques he outlines in this book are the same ones he used to help the Cardinals defeat the heavily favored Detroit Tigers in the 2006 World Series.
Inspired on the vision of legendary basketball coach John Wooden, Selk’s program is as simple as it is effective. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. You have to put effort into your drive to success; it’s the only way to build up your mental “muscles.” Selk provides hands-on daily exercises for breaking old, self-defeating patterns of behavior and replacing them with the can-do attitude and positive behavior that would make Coach Wooden proud.
Executive Toughness outlines the three fundamentals for attaining high-level success:
ACCOUNTABILITY―admit to mistakes, correct them, and, most important, learn from them
FOCUS―on your strengths, on winning, on reaching your goal . . . for only 100 seconds per day
OPTIMISM―don’t just believe you can succeed, know you can succeed
Executive Toughness takes you through the steps of making these critical behaviors part of your everyday routine. Practice your accountability, focus, and optimism, and you’ll be on the path to attaining your goals; make them part of your mental “DNA,” and there will be no turning back―ever.
MMS 24-07
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Blessings to you, my friend!
