At the edges, things are a bit scary. You don’t know what is there outside the edge. At the center things are comfortable. You are safe.

If you want to stay where you are, you can stay at the center and be safe.

If you want to embark on new journeys, the edges are where you should be.

Let us see what will take you to an edge?

A small percentage of people will proactively go towards an edge and explore. They are wired to be at the edges. So let us leave them aside.

Majority of people have to experience a trigger that will take them to an edge. The trigger can be an event ( example: being fired or laid off from work) or on the other end, it can be a simple conversation. As you are reading this, observe what is going on in your mind. When I spoke about it in one of my previous talks, people confessed that while I was talking on the topic, they were already feeling uncomfortable about the whole thing. Please don’t resist anything. Edges are uncomfortable and that is the way it should be.

While they are uncomfortable, they need not be bad. If you are open, amazing things can happen.

I have had many conversations that have pushed me to an edge and today I am thankful for those conversations. Again, these conversations were not confrontational or unpleasant. Sometimes, at the time of the conversation, I didn’t even realize that I was being pushed to an edge. Actually, let me take a quick example and you will see this in action.

A few years ago, Dan Roam ( Author of “Back of the Napkin”) and I were attending a conference organized by 800-CEO-READ. The conference was great and at that time, the book “Back of the Napkin” was not even published yet. Dan was humble but talking to him even for a few minutes would show that he was a super smart person. We were engaged in a conversation and Dan shared about his new book and it was about drawings. I hate(d) drawings and I told him that there was no way I could learn drawing even if someone put a gun to my head. Dan smiled and said that everyone could learn to draw and it was easy. I was skeptical and in the next few minutes Dan showed me that he was not joking. Dan was kind enough to give me a galley copy of his book which I was able to devour on my plane journey back.

That was it – a ten minute conversation and that changed my life completely. My view on visual thinking was transformed in those ten minutes. Today I might have illustrated close to one hundred blog posts on this blog. I continue to learn and experiment and I am thankful to Dan for that “edge” conversation. I am thankful to GOD for making me be “open” for new possibilities.

Here are some examples of blog posts where I have illustrated:

1. Why some smart people are reluctant to share? (Dec 26, 2009)

2. Why nice people will win BIG TIME in the long run? (Jan 15, 2010)

3. Why some smart people don’t take action? (March 13, 2010)

I am sure you have your own stories about being pushed to an edge.

The question is not about the past. What you need to think about is how are you structuring your life in the next few months so that you are engaged in more conversations that will push you to the edge?

Something to think about.

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• Free Conference call with Steve Farber – Monday Aug 14, 2006

Why some smart people don’t take action?

I mean “action” that will lift them to a whole new level in life and in business.

This is a question that has haunted me for a while. I meet so many smart people during my travels and speaking engagements. when I hear what these people are involved with and think about what they “could be” actually involved with, it is not difficult to see the “gap.” They could be doing much more but it seemed like they have resigned to be just “good.”

When I get close to some of them, I openly discuss this and honestly, it is not news to them. They know that they are not living up to their full potential. They are aware of that. Some of them say that “soon” they will make a change.

I kept thinking about this “gap” and wondering about the reasons for just doing “good work” when they could be doing “great work.” Why limit the contributions to making a difference to a dozen people when they could make a difference to a thousand people?

The reasons for this seemed like:

• They were waiting for the right opportunity
• They had obligations that they had to fulfill before they take on big challenges
• They had personal or family reasons beyond work
• They were simply happy with what they were doing
• They were not aware of their true potential
• They had become comfortable with their present situation and didn’t like change
  and so on..

Valid reasons but I was not satisfied with any one or combination of them. They were true for a specific case but I could not find a more generic reason for inaction.

Last month, when I was reviewing  my notes from a few meetings over the years, the reason became clear.

It was not ONE reason but there was a complex system at play contributing to the inaction. Let me explain it the best way I can.

Here is the quick summary:

Most smart people want to make a BIG difference. But they don’t think they are ready to take that plunge to live their dream. They don’t want to raise the stakes (by quitting their job, investing in something, joining a movement) yet until they are ready. They keep discovering that something else needs to happen before they raise the stakes. The more they wait, the higher their current obligations making it more complicated to raise the stakes. So on one end, they keep discovering that there is so much more to know “before they are ready” to take the plunge and on the other end, the stakes are low for them to take any action to make a change.

Let us look at this in a bit more detail

Whatever someone pursues (an idea) the step before taking action is to build the “capacity to take action.” Smart people know that they need to build that capacity first before they take action.

When they start building their “capacity” they make up a “threshold of capacity” required before they can take any serious action. After that they start building that capacity ( capacity for example may be some skills such as marketing or sales or they might think they need “X” dollars and “Y” strong connections) and being smart they quickly realize the gap between “their current capacity” and the “threshold of capacity” required to take action.

They make take several actions to build that capacity. Their efforts may include attending a course like an MBA. They act in their own way but always to build capacity so that ONE day they are READY to take that necessary action (the Plunge.)

Over this time, they realize that the threshold capacity is higher than what they originally envisaged. The gap is probably bigger than their original estimate. They need to work hard to get to that threshold capacity.

Over the next few years, they aggressively work on increasing their personal capacity and as they learn more about themselves and also about the world around them, they realize that to guarantee their success, they need to increase their threshold of capacity” to an even higher level. The gap between their “personal capacity” and the “capacity threshold” further increases.

The quest to “get ready” continues.

While their capacity expansion continues, they have ensured that they are “safe” – meaning the stakes were “low” for them to take any action. There is really nothing they would have “lost” (at least in the short-term) by NOT taking any action. They were doing well in their current jobs or in whatever they are doing. They were “above average” from the society standards and they needed a really good reason or two to do anything different. The stakes were low to make a significant change.

But they do want to change. Yes, as soon as their personal capacity matches the “capacity threshold” that they have identified to take the plunge.

Unfortunately their own “smartness” contributes to the continuous expansion of the “capacity threshold” before they take the next plunge.

REQUEST: If you know of someone super smart in your life that is on the fence, please send them a link to this article. Or, if you know many smart people, simply share the article via one of the social networks. Just increasing the awareness helps people to get out of their “stuck” state.

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You may also be interested in other mini-research outcomes:

Here are the outcomes of the previous mini-research initiatives:

1. Why some smart people are reluctant to share? (Dec 26, 2009)

2. Why nice people will win BIG TIME in the long run? (Jan 15, 2010)

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Related Articles at Life Beyond Code:

• Pushed to an edge
• Don’t like what you are doing OR you are saying you don’t like what you are doing?
• Beware of Awareness Tests at Lateral Action
• Are you creating the right kind of buzz?

If you are having an off day, there is no need to broadcast it by sharing something mediocre.

The temptation to share is super-high because the barrier to entry in social media is super low. You think, you write and you hit publish and you are off to the races.  When you are in a pinch, you may feel like sharing something mediocre and justify to yourself that “just this one time it’s OK” to do that.

Honestly, if you have “already made it” you might still be able to get away with it.

But if you are a rising star, that “just one time” might hurt you badly.

Why?

Simply because:

1. Someone might just stumble on to your site and read just that one piece and decide never to come back again.

2. Someone who is just building a relationship with you and your work might decide it is not worth spending any more time

3. Someone might spread this message (with their comments) and instead of helping, it might hurt

4. Someone might alter their perception of “who you are” and “how much attention to pay” on your future work.

I can go on but in the social world, there is nothing like “just this ONE time” – you are always on the stage.

It is OK to have an off day. All of us have that. It is NOT OK to broadcast it to the world.

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• When is the best time to start – Seth Godin’s take
• Update on ChangeThis Manifesto – Making the Most of your Time

They say extraordinary is simple – all it takes is that “extra” to be added. However, in real life, it takes a few years to add that “extra.” It makes sense because if it were any easier, everybody would do it and it would no longer have that “extra.”

Here are few TED talks that has that depicts what the “extra” will look like:

1. Extraordinary Dance

Kenichi Ebina moves his body in a breathtaking fashion.

2. Extraordinary Visuals

Hans Rosling takes data visuals to a whole new level.

3. Extraordinary Rejuvenation

What is your idea of rejuvenation?

Take a holiday for a day.

How about a weekend?

How about a week?

Well, How about one year every seven years?

Watch how Stefan Sagameister explains his idea of rejuvenation by taking a year off every seven years. And, what that year of time off contributes to the richness of the other seven years.

4. Extraordinary Technology

There is an information overload and Pranav Mistry explains his invention – wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

5. Extraordinary Curiosity

James Cameron has written and directed some of the largest blockbuster movies of the last 20 years, including The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Titanic, and Avatar.

Watch him explain how his “curiosity” led him to where he is today.

There are 600+ presentations on the TED website. Each one of them is a gem. Enjoy!

PS: Thanks to Kiruba Shankar for pointing me to Stefan Sagameister’s video.

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• Difference between ordinary and extraordinary
• ChangeThis manifesto – 25 ways to distinguish yourself
• Quought for the day #54 – Gary Sage
• A Haiku and the need for us to have great teachers throughout our life…

Take a table with one leg. It is not very stable. You can push it a bit and topple it over. Now put another leg and the table becomes a bit more stable. Add two more legs and make all the four legs stronger and now you have a reasonably stable table. It’s hard to shake it and topple it.

Now think about your dream and the reason not to pursue it. If there is one reason, you can shake it off easily. Add more reasons (no money, no experience, no connections etc.) and then you have a stronger reason to NOT pursue your vision. Without our knowledge day in and day out, we keep adding more reasons to NOT pursue our vision and soon unconsciously we start believing that our dream and our life are different – the cards you have been handed just not make it easy to pursue your dream. It’s just fate.

So, what could you do?

Two things:

First, systematically remove the legs (reasons) for NOT pursuing your dreams. The more legs (reasons) you remove, easier it is to break the resistance (topple the table) to pursue the dream.

Second, use the same principle in the opposite fashion. Start finding legs (reasons) for pursuing your passion. The more legs (reasons) you find, the stronger the conviction (table) to pursue the dream. To start the journey, simply start finding a second reason to do anything important.

All the best.

Photo Courtesy: bbaunach at Flickr

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During my last trip to India I spoke at two events. In one of the events, someone complained that a bestselling author was not wiling to give thirty minutes of her time to discuss a particular issue. His point was that it was just thirty minutes – nothing much.

We had a healthy debate about why it was “just thirty minutes” for him but a series of “just thirty minutes” for the bestselling author. He is not the only person who would have requested “just thirty minutes” from this author and if she accepted all such requests she wouldn’t have time to get anything done on her end.

Honestly, I told him that if he had made a case as to why spending thirty minutes with him is an “opportunity” for the bestselling author there was a good chance that he would have got more than thirty minutes. And, if he can’t be an “opportunity” for her right now, he will be an “opportunity cost” for her.

Opportunities are taken and opportunity costs are shunned typically.

Two other people have written about “just thirty minutes” in a different context. Here they are:

1. Nicole at Kicking Sand: No. You Can’t Pick My Brain

2. Kevin Dugan at Strategic Public Relations: Can I Pick Your Brain?

You might also be interested in:

Free Dilemma: Bits vs Atoms

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How long do you think it will take for 22 people to introduce themselves?

How about just over 2 days?

This was (almost) what happened at the CEREBRATE2010 event late last month (detailed write-up on Cerebrate blog here)

CEREBRATE is the brain child of Kiruba Shankar and it follows an Unconference format. I was so glad to participate in the 3rd edition. This edition was sponsored by MARG.

The Rules of Cerebrate

The rules of the conference are simple (read: the birth of Cerebrate by Kiruba Shankar)

• Every participant (achiever) will be from an unique field. No two people will be from the same profession.
• The event will always be a residential program, preferably at a venue that is away from cities.
• There will be no audience.  The only people who will be in the event are the achievers. There won’t be ‘talks’ but conversations.
• Participants are highly encouraged to leave their laptops, blackberrys behind. There won’t be newspapers or TV either. The focus is highly on people interaction.

The event was one of the best I have attended in the last twelve months. I am already missing the participants and it’s not even been ten days.

What made CEREBRATE2010 successful?

Here are a few that I can think of:

1. Choice of People: This was an invite-only event and the participants were handpicked not just for their achievements but also for their mood and willingess to contribute richly.

2. Diversity: No two participants were from the same field. There was only one mountaineer (Sandhosh) and there was only one musician (Vasu) and there was only one designer (Ramesh) and there was only one historian (S.Muthiah) and so on.

3. Egalitarian Approach: From the get go, the approach was egalitarian and within minutes the participants felt “very” comfortable being in the group. There was no time needed for “warm ups” and “small talks”

4. No-holds barred Conversations: Every participant shared with an open mind and an open heart. Each one had their trials and triumphs and they laid them bare. The richness of the conversations shot up by 100 times as compared to a typical corridor conversation in a conference.

5. Choice of Venue: The event took place in MARG Tapovan, one of the new properties by MARG and the place was simply breathtaking. When we were not engaged in heart-to-heart conversations, we were busy swimming (actually playing water-touch-rugby in a swimming pool), playing table tennis or playing cricket. The hosts (MARG) treated the participants with love and caring that is typically uncommon.

6. Listening: Every participant was “totally” listening when others were talking. The focus was on people and the conversations and not on what was on their Blackberrys.

7. Openness: Last but not the least, participants were open and believed in the outcome of the event even though many of them were participating in an Unconference for the first time in their lives.

What will come out of CEREBRATE?

Apart from lifetime friendships with the 21 other participants, one of the highlights was to create a book called CEREBRATEtweet ( in the THINKaha format). It is a completely crowdsourced book with ideas and insights from the 22 participants. Stay tuned.

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If you can’t sleep on a long plane ride, you have a problem – it can get boring.

If you can sleep very well on a long plane ride, you have another problem – like missing your meals.

I belong to the second category. So, when I don’t want to miss a meal or tea, I tell one of the crew members to wake me up or simply post a note on my seat to wake me up when they serve meals/tea.

When I was traveling to India via Emirates, I noticed a very simple solution to the problem. Along with the headsets, they provide “Wake Me Up” labels that you can peel and paste on your seat to notify them to wake you up.

I used these labels on both my journeys and they worked like a charm.

These little things are what I call micro-innovation – simple ways of solving a problem.

Note: The system is not foolproof. I saw two kids playing with these labels (sticking them randomly on seats all over the plane) – but something is better than nothing.

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• Workaholics – Don’t miss this one
• Don’t like what you are doing OR you are saying you don’t like what you are doing?

I spent a few days last week with my friend Kiruba Shankar and his family. We talked a lot over these few days. Right next to Kiruba’s home, I saw hundreds of nursery plants and Kiruba told me a real-life story related to this nursery plants. That story touched my heart and inspired me to write this mini saga.  I have changed the name of the protagonist. There are so many lessons to be learned from that real-life story. I have tried to capture the essence of it in 50 words.

Purpose

In memory of his wife, Albert planted a tree in the name of anyone he met. Looking at hundreds of nursery plants in front of his home, someone asked him whether he was worried about somebody stealing the plants. Albert smiled and said he hoped someone would do just that.

Note:

1. A mini saga is a story told in exactly 50 words. Not 49 or 51 but exactly 50.

2. You can download a photographic manifesto of Mini Sagas at ChangeThis. Here is the link – Mini Sagas: Bite-sized Wisdom for Life and Business (PDF, 2.9MB).

3. For a complete list of Mini Sagas, please see the entire list here or at Squidoo.

4. Photo Courtesy: Cwalker71 at Flickr

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• Mini Saga #30 – The Discount
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• Mini Saga #11 – The Team
• Mini Saga #20 – Happiness

Request: Please bear with me on the complex looking title for this blog post. That is the closest I could get to explain what I want to explain.

Any job you take, there are two kinds of skills that you will work with

1. Core Skills – that help you with your core job. If you are in software, than that would be programming, design, testing etc.

2. Portable Skills – you might also call them supporting skills. “Support” here is sort of “over-loaded” meaning they are supporting you to help you get your job done and they are also supporting you to grow. These skills usually go the background. Examples of them are communicating well, working with teams, leadership, conflict resolution etc.

If you lack in core skills, you will suffer in the short-term.

If you lack in portable skills, you will suffer in the long-term.

If you lack in core skills, others will notice you immediately and it hurts.

If you lack in portable skills, you will not STAND OUT of the crowd. It sill hurts but in the short-term.

Rarely does your employer spends time, energy and effort to get you better at your portable skills. They want you to perform well in your core skills but they expect that you to develop your portable skills on your own. A small percentage of them will develop them anyway and they start growing in their careers and the others fade away. So there is no “extra effort” required by employers to do something special for employees. Statistically, things just work out fine for employers.

However, it is YOU who have to take care of yourself as it is your life.

Here is one way to take care of yourself – increase granularity of your portable skills.

Granularity is the relative size, scale, level of detail, or depth of penetration that characterizes an object or activity. If you don’t focus, your portable skills are typically less granular than your core skills simply because anything short-term takes over anything long-term. You have to force yourself to increase the granularity. How do you do it? By giving equal importance to your core skills and portable skills development. It seems easy but it’s not. Since there is no external pressure to improve your portable skills (your employer wants you to deliver flawlessly with your core skills and they expect you to have “enough” portable skills to support this) it is only YOU that can take some solid action.

There is enough material online and offline to take you to the next level on your portable skills. What is lacking is awareness to make this important in your life, motivation to do something about it, action (actually doing something about it) and sustenance (to continue to keep at it)

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Note 1: Here is a Squidoo lens that links to most of the previous articles in this series:
Squidoo: Distinguish Yourself

Note 2: The first 25 entries in the series have been packaged in a ChangeThis manifesto that was published on September 07, 2005. You can download that manifesto here:
ChangeThis Manifesto: 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself (PDF, Free)

Note 3: My latest manifesto on ChangeThis was published on August 6, 2008. This is a photographic manifesto featuring 15 of my mini sagas (stories in exactly 50 words). Here is the link:
ChangeThis Manifesto: Mini Sagas – Bite Sized Lessons for Life and Business (PDF, Free)

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Related Articles at Life Beyond Code:

• Ways to distingish yourself – #40 Learn to estimate well
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• “25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself” released at ChangeThis.com