Introduction
Welcome to The ContraMind Code.
The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.
The Newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.
The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best and enables you to draw a blueprint on what it takes to get extraordinary things done. Please share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation.
Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession to drive peak performance.
My two uncles
by Rahul da Cunha
This is an article which is a must-read for everybody. As you age, you often tend to slowly lose your competitive spirit, enthusiasm and energy, citing age as a reason. Also, you, many a time, hear people saying they don’t have the bandwidth to do more than one thing. If you are truly driven, you will find the space to pursue them, come what may. One interest may feed off the other.
Here are some great thoughts from the article:
Clint Eastwood was once asked what it felt like to be 91. He answered, “I don’t feel 91 because I don’t know what 91 is supposed to feel like.” When queried about how he was so prolific at 91 (having directed nine films since 2010), he said: “I just get up every morning and go to work—I don’t let the old man in.”
Gerson da Cunha never felt 92 and never let the old man in.
For these people, passions rarely stayed pastimes. They translated into side professions or, at the very least, serious hobbies.
Vital lessons they taught to Rahul da Cunha: “Polish every word till it shines”, “create without compromise or don’t create at all”, and “Always write as if it’s to one person”.
“Dream it, do it… because you can.”
Regrets were unacceptable. Retirement was off the table, but critically, never let the old man in.
Read the article here.
Caring Deeply, Challenging Directly
by Shane Parrish
Dr. Julie Gurner is a Doctor of Psychology and a widely acclaimed executive performance coach. She specializes in improving personal productivity, focus, and decision-making strategies and developing high-performance cultures, teams, and executives, emphasizing ownership and leadership. She is in conversation with Shane Parrish in The Knowledge Project, where they discuss about discipline, motivation, setting boundaries, imaginary rules that we learnt as kids that hold us back today and more.
Some of the takeaways from this conversation:
Dr. Julie Gurner challenges some widely held beliefs that people have about discipline.
Dr. Gurner argues why motivation is more potent than discipline when it comes to getting things done. As there is a ‘pull’ for motivation to do things, it is more sustainable over the long term, and you don’t feel like being pushed to do something. Motivation is an endless source of fuel. Hence, she says she would place motivation higher up the ladder than discipline when helping individuals perform better.
She also goes on to say ‘internal drive’ is something that you cannot teach people, which is against the current wisdom that most people hold.
Look or Hire PhDs - Poor, Hungry and Driven!
If you have negative drivers like deep rage, resentment and anger, it largely depends on how you channel that energy, and it can become a force to reckon with. Properly harnessing this fire is critical.
How do you shift from a ‘victim’ mindset to a ‘survivor’ mindset?
Going back to the past and times when you felt powerless is not worth thinking about or spending time on. It’s the ordinary moments that decide the outcome of your life.
Imaginary Rules are ones that are unsubstantiated and are holding you back. It’s your echo chamber and keeps you very small.
Setting boundaries is vital for scaling.
If you are good at home, you can be good at work too.
Confidence comes from how we talk to ourselves, think about ourselves, and conceptualise ourselves to be.
Most people find ways to discredit things they don’t like or have been unable to do. Instead, see them as inspiration.
How do you learn to take risks? Take a risk in low stake places first.
Make it you vs you. ‘Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as a night, but when you move, fall like a thunderbolt ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Also, listen to the full episode on:
The Path: Satya Nadella
LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky chats with Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, in this conversation. There are some great thoughts that Satya Nadella shares which are great lessons from his life, management style and leadership.
Here are some powerful thoughts that Satya Nadella has shared:
Ask yourself one question: ‘As a CEO, have you prepared all your life to be there?’
In his life in India, he talks about the role of his parents shaping him into what he is today, how they were the exact opposite of each other, being brutally honest that he was not great academically, his first impression of seeing American Technology which is the computer and the malleability of software which created a latent interest in him.
The importance of freedom to express himself - was something that motivated him in his early days at Microsoft.
He makes compelling statements which are worth thinking about:
He never saw his job at Microsoft as a way to get another job!
‘Don’t wait for your next job to do your best work.’
‘Sometimes, we define our jobs too narrowly.’
‘What if you thought your job as my(his manager’s) job, then what would you do(differently)?’
‘Expanding your job rather than waiting for your promotion.’
‘Think of Leadership as a privilege and not an entitlement.’
‘Leaders have this innate capability to come into ambiguous, uncertain and confusing situations and bring clarity.’
‘Leaders create Energy.’
‘Don’t be confined by who reports to me.’
‘Leaders solve over-constrained problems by knowing how un-constrain themselves and their teams.’
Finally, be mindful that no leader is perfect and is bound to make mistakes, and they can be the problem in a meeting or in making that decision. How they continuously keep evolving is vital to their growth.
On Motivation, Inner Drive and Success
One single line of thread connected all three articles - be it the two uncles’ story, concepts discussed by Dr. Julie Gurner or the thoughts shared by Satya Nadella.
Motivation is core to anything that you set out to do. Even if you have the DNA of discipline built in you, motivation acts as a catalyst to be disciplined. Similarly, motivation expands your bandwidth and does not stress you out. When you are motivated, you feel unconstrained by time, the scale of the problem, the effort required and the ability to get things done. That is why we get surprised by individuals or leaders who pack or get so many things done in the same amount of time as most of us. Motivation is an incredible fuel for generating energy. If you are a manager or senior leader in any organisation, motivating your team can inspire them to get things and an incredible amount of energy gets released. But, only people with a strong inner drive in the team are the ones who will respond to these motivational cues. Many senior leaders focus on rigour and discipline as a process. However, if they need sustained and flawless execution on the ground, motivation is a crucial driver to get things done.
Dr. Julie Gurner, however, makes a critical point that people either ‘have the inner drive’ or ‘not have the inner drive’. She also says that you can’t motivate individuals who don’t have the inner drive. The question is, how do you assess inner drive? There are no grades, degrees, educational qualifications, promotions, or work experience that can assess or predict high inner drive. Inner drive is a behavioural trait that needs to be observed and sensed rather than looking at quantitative scores as it is a qualitative measure. It is worth studying and understanding what people with inner drive do.
How do people with a strong inner drive behave?
They have a dream or constantly chiselling their dream and are diligently working towards it. They understand it is a long, arduous process.
They want to be good at something and don’t constantly seek external validation. To them, competence, autonomy, creation and connection are essential to anything they do.
These people enjoy the task that they are doing rather than the result of what they are doing. One way is to observe how long an individual has been doing something when no promotions or material rewards are connected to that work. It could be things in their personal life and not necessarily at work, like going to a gym, following a diet, playing a sport, reading books, working for a social cause etc.
They don’t explicitly discuss or share their achievements but follow a silent rigour daily. When you interview somebody, ask them for something they do which is not in the resume. And why?
They don’t complain. They rarely ask whether what they are asked to do is a part of their job role or description.
They don’t shy away from taking up something not within their domain. They grab any challenge that is thrown at them.
They are not intimated by failures, afraid of making mistakes, or publicly admitting weakness.
They are ‘outcome hungry’ and not ‘recognition hungry’.
They measure their contribution by ‘value maximisation’ and not just only by ‘money maximisation’.
They live neither in extreme ecstasy, even if they accomplished more than what they dreamt of, nor have regrets, even if they are not close to accomplishing their dream. They know they did their best, and they gave it all they could because, for them, the task is the reward.
Your inner drive acts as a catalyst for motivation and, therefore, success. Success is also not driven by the perception of others but by the perception of self-created benchmarks.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
‘Never let the old man in.’ Just get up daily and do your work with the same energy and enthusiasm as when you started your career.
Discipline without motivation is bound to be short-lived. Align your inner drive with motivation and discipline for success.
The best leaders thrive in ambiguous, uncertain and confusing situations. They work on over-constrained resources and develop ways to un-constrain themselves and their teams.