Author: Kristin Keffeler

Big Ideas aren’t for commoners, right? Facebook. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Pennies for Peace. Apple. All Big Ideas. So, big, in fact, that they seem like the kinds of things other people do, not the things us common-folk do.

Hmmmm… you know I’m not going to buy that one, right? I proudly own the moniker ‘Big Idea Success Strategist’ — if I bought the “big thinking is for everyone else” excuse, I wouldn’t have much of a practice… or a Big Idea of my own. The focus of my work with clients is in tapping hidden potential, transforming mindsets to inspire Big Thinking, and implementing the systems and structure to turn Big Thinking into successful action. Fact is, I’m a sucker for a Big Idea, I can smell one from a mile away, and I know you have one… we all do. You may just not have called it that yet.

What IS a Big Idea?

Big Ideas don’t always look like international phenomena. They’re not always translated into billions of dollars, or impact millions of people. And, in fact, sometimes Big Ideas aren’t even what you do, but how you do it.

Do these sound like Big Ideas to you?

• The choice to stop competing as if your unique leadership is a commodity.
• Refusing to live a divided life and inviting who you are into what you do.
• Heeding the ache to restructure your business to fit your evolving life.
• Leading a business or a team that is grounded in purpose, passion, and profit.

All Big Ideas. All necessitate that you to be authentic and courageous. All invite you to be an innovator, a thought-leader, and a role-model. All require that you care enough to take action.

Big Ideas don’t always start out looking big. In fact, most of the time, they just start out looking like you doing what you do best and care about the most. And they always start with small steps.

In the words of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, when talking about Facebook:

“The craziest thing to me in all of this, is that I remember having these conversations with my friends when I was in college. We would just sort of take it as an assumption that the world would get to the state where it is now. But, we figured, we’re just college kids. Why were we the people who were most qualified to do that? I mean, that’s crazy…. I guess what it probably turns out is, other people didn’t care as much as we did.”

And we all know how that story turned out. What’s the first small step to your Big Idea?

What separates good leaders and masterful ones? Between those who just meet their organization’s and team’s expectations, and those who invite transformation into their organizations and teams? Between those whose services are viewed as a commodity and those who are known to be indispensable? The differentiator? The spirit of the fool.

Surrendering to Your Fool

Masters of all disciplines willingly embrace what George Leonard describes in his book Mastery as, the spirit of the fool. If you’re a leader who wants to have impact, it’s time to learn to embrace the spirit of the fool.

(Noteworthy point — this is different than the spirit of being foolish – showing up uninformed, unprepared, or trying to claim expertise outside your purview are several foolish behaviors of a leader).

The spirit of the fool is the willingness to be clumsy and awkward as you relinquish a hard-won competence in favor of a higher skill. It is the willingness to tread into unknown waters to courageously implement innovative ideas.

The Four Steps to Finding Your Fool

We resist embracing the spirit of the fool because it’s uncomfortable – it makes us feel silly and vulnerable as we flounder between competencies. Yet, just as building the strength of a muscle takes time, tenacity and practice, so does becoming comfortable in this liminal – and essential – space.

Here are four steps to finding and celebrating your inner fool:

Step 1: Come from Curiosity

The journey of the master is never complete nor should it ever be stagnant. Curiosity is the hallmark of one’s joyful desire to be a continual learner, always questioning if there is a better, more precise, more refined or more profound way.

Step 2: Create Emptiness

Like a full vessel with no room for more water, a full mind has no room for new ideas. Creating emptiness is an essential practice on the path of mastery. Implement a regular practice during which you to turn down the noise, clear the debris, and find the calm, fertile, still-point within yourself from which all creativity and innovation spring.

Step 3: Cultivate the Beginner’s Mind

The ‘beginner’s mind’ frees you from expecting an outcome based on what you have experienced in the past, and allows you to continually see possibilities in the current circumstances. It allows you to be innovative and dynamic in support of your team and its goals, instead of studied and rote.

Step 4: Take Courageous Action

It is one thing to think about being bold, innovative, and reaching for the next level of skill on your path to mastery. It is another to bare your vulnerable and inspired self to your colleagues and clients through action. THIS is where the spirit of the fool is most alive.

In an old parable, you have a cup in your hand and a quart on the table. In order to grab the quart, you must be willing to let go of the cup.

Are you willing to let go of the cup?

The Big Lie

There’s a big lie you’re telling yourself. Not to worry, you’re not alone. Many of us are telling ourselves the same lie. The lie is that you want to be successful.

But the vast majority of us don’t want to be successful. Not really. What we do want is to be fulfilled. We want to be flooded with joy in our work and our play, challenged to our limits, living in great abundance, and knowing that we had the courage to create it.

Success vs. Fulfillment

Success and fulfillment aren’t mutually exclusive. And, in fact, they may well look the same from the outside. But they come from very different places.

The path of success is extrinsically motivated (doing because you think you should), while the path of fulfillment is intrinsically motivated (doing because, when you listen carefully, your heart tells you that you must).

The missing ingredient for most people who are successful, but not fulfilled? They have an idea — uniquely theirs — lurking in the depths of their soul that they have never brought to light, and on which they have never taken action.

3 Steps to Move from Success to Fulfillment

A vast majority of leaders have awesome Big Ideas. And, many Big Ideas die with their creators because the path of success somehow feels safer than the path of fulfillment. But, the best kept secret?

Once you make an unequivocal decision to honor within yourself the choices that fulfill you, the life force that is tapped swamps the draw of perceived safety that mere success dangles in front of us.

Is it time to move from success to fulfillment and bring your Big Leadership Idea into the light?

Step 1: Ask the Big Question.

Be willing to ask yourself, “Is this it? Am I doing what I’m here to do?” and then challenge yourself to sit still long enough to listen for the response. There is a still, quiet voice in each of us that knows the answer. The more respect you give it, the louder it will speak.

Step 2: Have the Courage to Act.

Being willing to release who you are in order to stretch into who you are becoming takes a lion’s courage. There’s part in each of us that will valiantly protect the status quo – “C’mon… why rock the boat? This isn’t all that bad is it? I mean I [pick one: get paid well, have the right house, drive the right car], right? Can the grass really be any greener elsewhere?” But the status quo impacts your spirit the way a room without oxygen impacts your body. It’s only going to stay alive so long before there’s nothing left to breathe.

Step 3: Embrace the Hard Stuff.

“Hard stuff” is the stuff shines a spotlight on the areas of yourself that are begging to be ‘scrubbed up’ so that you can evolve as an leader, as a manager, and as a person. It is the gremlin of scarcity that coaches you not to do it. It is the voice of the reptilian brain that beckons you to stay small. It is the insecurity that drives you to say ‘yes’ to any opportunity, instead of having the courage to say ‘no’ unless it is the right opportunity.

The ‘hard stuff’ is just a collection of opportunities disguised as challenges. Instead of avoiding them, embrace them and….well, let the games begin!

It’s as easy as that…. 1…. 2…. 3…..

Here’s a Riddle…

Everyone has experienced me, but few people know how to find me. I cannot co-exist with anxiety, fear, anger… or multi-tasking. I don’t cost a dime, but if I could be bought, people would pay small fortunes to create me. I can show up any time, any place, and during any activity. I am the difference between “good” and “great.” What am I?

The Answer

I am ‘Flow.’ The state of peak performance. First proposed by one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of positive psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, ‘flow’ is defined as:

The experience people have when they are completely immersed in an activity for its own sake, stretching body and mind to the limit, in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

It is the place where your attention, motivation, skill set, and the challenge before you collide. The result is a joyous, productive harmony, where you are at your best – your most innovative, most productive, and most brilliant. A ‘flow experience’ is often characterized by words like “rapture,” “timeless,” and “single-pointed-focus.”

Whoa. Sound like a magic elixir? Too good to be true? It is not. And it is a key differentiator between those who are “good” at what they do, and those who are recognized and celebrated as “great” at what they do.

Components of Flow

According to Csikszentmihalyi, there are three components that are necessary to generate a ‘flow state.’

1. One must be involved in an activity with a clear set of goals. This adds direction and structure to the task.
2. One must have a good balance between the perceived challenges of the task at hand and his or her own perceived skills. One must have confidence that he or she is capable of doing the task at hand.
3. The task at hand must have clear and immediate feedback. This helps the person negotiate any changing demands and allows him or her to adjust his or her performance to maintain the flow state.

As can be seen in this graphic, flow state occurs when you have the courage to embrace a higher than average challenge, while, at the same time, stretching your skills to meet that challenge.

High challenge, but it requires low skill? Flow is blocked and the experience instead is one of anxiety or worry.

High skill, but not a challenge? Flow is blocked and instead the experience is one of boredom.

The Four Elements to Creating Flow

While a flow state can never be forced (how about that for an oxymoron?), you can intentionally set yourself up to create a state of flow by incorporating four key elements:

1. Intrinsic Motivation. Take on a goal or challenge that you are intrinsically-motivated to achieve. This is different than a goal that motivates you because of an external reward (like money) or recognition (like an award).
2. Uni-task. Choose to create a single-pointed focus during the times you are working on that goal or challenge (no email, no phone, no multi-tasking).
3. Stretch. Select a goal or challenge that makes you stretch. You know what that is – it’s the thing that keeps knocking on the back of your mind and it has the power to both excite and scare you at the same time.
4. Build skills. Is there is a system you need to implement, a mind-set you need to adjust, or a skill you need to build? Do it. Then get to work.

Where are you experiencing flow in your work? What’s keeping you from having more flow experiences? Is it time to change something up?

You know that feeling? The one where your heart feels tight, maybe your head spins a bit, it feels like someone has placed needles between your eyes and clamped a vice to each of your shoulders?

When you feel like this, your focus is fractured and everything, even the lint in between the keys on your keyboard, is more interesting than the task you have before you. Sound familiar? That’s stress.

Bless us. The power inside each and every one of us is inspiring. However, like the excess of anything, that same power can be self-defeating. Sometimes we allow ourselves to believe that our greatest asset is our ability to “pony up”—to keep our eye on the prize and not stop pushing until we get there. And, sometimes it is. But not always.

The Gift of Stress

Stress is a gift. A what? Yep, it’s a gift. When used appropriately, it helps to “rally the troops,” to gather our mental and physical resources and focus them with laser-like precision. It fuels creativity, action, and immense productivity. The problem is not with stress, but with our seemingly diminishing ability to oscillate between periods of stress and recovery. To know when to leverage our stress response in support of a goal and when to allow our bodies the grace of recovering and repairing from the onslaught of cell-damaging stress-related hormones. In fact, many of us are so chronically stressed that we’re unaware of the level of stress we’re experiencing this very moment.

A 60-Second Experiment

Sit back in your chair. Put two feel flat on the floor. Roll your shoulders back and away from your ears. Close your eyes (well, finish reading the experiment first…). Now, take three deep breaths. Pull air all the way to the bottom of your belly, hold it there, and let it go. Try two more, just for good measure.

Feel any different?

Deep breathing is one of the fastest and most effective ways to mitigate the effects of stress, bring oxygen to your brain, and regain your focus and clarity. Do you think there’s any coincidence that “inspiration” is used to describe both the inhalation of air as well as a timely and brilliant idea?

So, when cleaning the lint from your keyboard becomes more compelling than the proposal you’re in the midst of writing, be gentle with yourself. Your lack of focus isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s your body’s way of telling your brain to take the backseat for a minute. Your body is smart—trust it and it will certainly continue to inspire your brilliant brain.

Breathing aside, everything in our lives is a choice*. I can already hear the clamor of dissenting opinions. Read on and then we can debate.

* (Fair enough… there are obviously other automatically-regulated functions of the body that sustain life and fall into the same category as breathing, but hang with me on the concept, not the technicality).

Several years ago, one of my favorite industry thought-leaders planted this simple, yet significant, idea with me…. Every single action we take each day is a choice, and if we think it isn’t, than we are choosing think smaller, act smaller, and be smaller than we actually are.

Whether we realize it or not, many of us resist the power of choice because, with choice comes owning the responsibility of consequences. It’s a lot easier to throw up your hands and tell your spouse that you have to fly to New York tomorrow because a client demanded a meeting. Or, to resentfully give up another one of your daily work-outs because you have to go to a networking event.

But, the truth is, you are choosing to fly to New York tomorrow because you prefer the consequences of short-notice travel to the consequences of possibly losing a client. Or, you prefer to the potential benefits of attending the networking event to the potential benefits of honoring your boundary for self-care.

The Mindset of Choice

Choice is a mindset. Just like ‘abundance,’ ‘success,’ and ‘possibility’ are mindsets. A mindset is a set of assumptions and beliefs through which we see the world. These assumptions create a filter for information that perpetuate the belief (for example, have a scarcity mindset? You will see all of the instances where there is lack and overlook where there is abundance, thus validating your belief that there are not enough resources in the world). Mindsets can work for or against us.

The mindset of ‘choice’ is a success-perpetuating mindset. It allows us to see all the options present and make a decision based on the cost-benefit analysis of each option. The decision we land upon is the decision we’ve consciously made based on weighing the consequences or opportunities in each scenario.

The Language of Choice

The magical thing about a mindset is, just because you may not have a specific success-perpetuating mindset, doesn’t mean you can’t build it. One of the most effective ways to cultivate supportive mindsets is to change your language. Try this on for size:

No-Choice Mindset: “I have to cut this meeting short because I need to take this client call.”

Choice Mindset: “I’m going to cut this meeting short because I have a client call that I want to take.”

No-Choice Mindset: “I got roped into this Board of Directors meeting and have to go.”

Choice Mindset: “I was invited to the Board of Directors meeting and am going to take the opportunity to share my opinion.”

No-Choice Mindset: “I have to pay the mortgage.”

Choice Mindset: “I’m choosing to pay the mortgage because I prefer that to the consequences of being delinquent on my loan.”

The Practice of Choice

It may seem subtle, but the practice of cultivating a mindset of choice puts you in the greatest position of power. Freedom, expansion, and possibility come from choice. Limits, constriction, and inertia come from lack of choice.