You can do at least 20 times more than you think

You can do at least 20 times more than you think.

As Dr. Martin Luther King put it:

If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.

The reality is that when you want to move forward, sometimes you get mired in too many decisions – not enough clarity.

Decision fatigue is real and it slows you down. Dr. King’s laser focus on civil rights is what made him so effective.

We are all limited in how much energy we can access for making great decisions. If we spend our morning agonizing over what to wear and what to eat for breakfast, we have less energy (and maybe less time) for putting together the “it’s show time” presentation for the directors or our team meeting.

That’s why Mark Zuckerberg wears the same thing every day. (He borrowed that from the late Steve Jobs.)

Standardize your lunch. The former creative director and president of J Crew, Jenna Lyons, lunches on Cobb salad every day.

You can only decide a certain number of important things each day. You already juggle the dimensions of time, priorities, and energy. The latest thinking is to add a significance calculation. For how long with this decision matter?

What things can you ignore or NOT decide, or spend much less time deciding?

Consider things like what to wear, eat, where to buy gas for your car.

One tip I learned years ago from working with super coach, Christine Kane, was to schedule all personal care and medical/dental visits for the whole year.

I also pick out what I’m going to wear the night before. Religiously. And if someone’s really paying attention, I wear the same thing basically all the time.

Decision fatigue and your communication

The reality of decision fatigue is that it takes energy to perform at our best. We need energy to make our goals a reality and we need energy to creatively solve problems and 20X our outcomes.

Another 20X Hack: help people remember so you don’t have to repeat yourself as often.

How can you make it easier for your audience to assimilate and remember what’s in your email or presentation, whether it’s one person, your team or 1,000+?

There are many tricks to help people remember. The best one is actually 3. Give 3 points, 3 things to do, 3 ways to do it, 3 alternatives.

Edit out everything else.

Mixonian Learning Labs are for 20X performance

As an answer to information overload and decision fatigue, Mixonian’s theme for 2018 is Conversation Innovation — leading to Mixonian’s new mini-trainings called “learning labs.” Learning labs are based on the research that intense short trainings are the most effective. Learning labs prime the learner to retain and, more Important, implement what is being taught. We set the expectation for these learners to share what they learn with their teams.

Learning Lab Modules

Growth Mindset: Growth mindset is the hallmark of all achievement and is a defining quality of “break-through” managers.
Energy Management: Cultivate habits to transcend decision fatigue and match up your energy load to match your priorities.
Emotional Intelligence: All emotions are contagious – you want tactics to keep the energy high (both yours and theirs). This is basically like learning how to read the minds of others.
Communication Styles:Each learner is assessed for which of the 4 basic communication styles fits him or her.
Active Listening: Active listening is what builds relationships and influence inside and beyond the organization. This module is full of exercises to reframe the power of listening.
Extreme Ownership:Inspired by Jocko Willnick’s work, develop your personal routines and tools to keep you at your best self and raise the bar on your own performance. It’s about taking ownership for results for your team, regardless of where the actual fault lies.
Effective Feedback: Priming the person to give and receive the message determines how the feedback is received and implemented.
Innovation Drivers: Learn from most innovative companies in the world what it takes to embrace constraints to drive innovation.
Principles of Influence: Relying on the latest neuroscience research, learn the critical role of emotion in influence, how facts/data are overrated, and the power of curiosity.
Imaginative Networking:Establish instant rapport and avoid boring conversations and awkward moments.