The School of Greatness - 921 Take Time to Reflect

Episode Date: February 28, 2020

“I would like to live in a world where it’s not the loudest voice that wins, but instead it’s the best idea that wins.” If you enjoyed this episode, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/921 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes

This is 5-Minute Friday! Welcome everyone to today's episode with my friend Dori Clark. She's got a book out called Stand Out. How to find your breakthrough idea and build a following around it. Maybe they're not sure what their big idea is yet. Maybe they don't quite, they want to make a contribution, but they don't quite know how, or, you know, they might have an idea, but they're not quite sure how to spread it. I would like to be able to provide enough of a roadmap for them that it becomes easier for those good ideas to spread. Because I would like to live in a world where it's

not the loudest voice that wins, but instead it's the best idea that wins. I like that. And you also mentioned that you say, actually in the book, it's rare that we make time for the kind of sustained reflection that is necessary for breakthrough ideas. Can you elaborate on that? Yeah. One of the stories that I tell in Standout is actually about Daniel Goleman, who some of your listeners may recognize as the gentleman behind the emotional intelligence phenomenon. And when I started to look into Daniel Goleman, I started out by literally just sort of brainstorming, like, well, you know, what are the really big ideas in the world of business or, you know,

other big professions and emotional intelligence just stood out. I mean, the Harvard Business Review called it literally the breakthrough idea of the 1990s. And so, so I started, you know, peeling it back and saying, all right, well, where did that idea come from? You know, what, what actually is its genesis? And I had assumed, I didn't really know anything about his background, that Daniel Goleman was a researcher, that he was, you know, talking about his findings maybe. But that's actually not true. He, he did go to graduate school for psychology, but at the time he was a reporter and he was literally, as part of his job, he was reading a psychology journal. It was a really, really boring article, which I've read, in this psychology he sees what he recognizes as gold. You know, there's this article that's basically saying, hey, IQ, that thing that for the past 50 years,

everyone has thought of as being the most important thing in a person's life and future success. Actually, no, it's not. And he saw this and he's like, oh my God, this is really profound. But no one was ever going to hear about it if it stayed in the pages of this boring psychology journal. So as a journalist, he starts writing about it, gets a book contract, writes a book about it, becomes a bestseller. Literally, it's on the bestseller list for like five years. Changed the way that the culture thought about things. And for me, hearing that story, I thought, you know what? Who does that now? Who actually has the time now to sit back and read a journal article? I mean, everybody's reading tweets or BuzzFeed listicles on their

phones. They're not reading articles. And it goes back to something that David Allen told me when I interviewed him, which is you don't need time for a great idea. I mean, literally, you can have a great idea in 30 seconds. What you need is space. You need mental space to have a great idea. And I think that if there's a drum that I want to beat here or a message to get across, it's that we need to create more white space in our lives so that we are better equipped to let our minds wander and to be able to make the kind of fruitful connections that Daniel Goleman did or that David Allen did in coming up with their breakthrough ideas. That's a powerful thought.

And what do you recommend people do to create that white space? What are some things they can do on a daily basis or monthly or whatever it may be? Well, they don't have to be complicated. Some people are increasingly – you see articles that they're taking a digital Sabbath or something. So, you know, they have 24 hours where they're not looking at their phones or whatever. If you want to do that and you can do that, that's great. But you don't even have to go that extreme. I mean, literally, this is something along the lines of, you know, during dinner, turn off your phone.

Or, you know, is there a way that you can get into your schedule a short walk every day? Yeah. Psychology research actually has determined that a 30 minute walk per day is the psychological equivalent in terms of its benefit of a $30,000 raise. What? So, yes. So if you, if if you would all listeners, if you would like to give yourself a $30,000 raise, take a walk every day and you know, not a walk looking at your phone, but an actual walk and you're going to be happier. You're going to feel better. And you are probably going to be able to come up with a lot better, more fruitful connections in your life as your mind has the freedom to be able to range

around things. Hey guys, if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show, then you'll love the free book I'm giving away right now. It's called The Millionaire Morning. It includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at themillionairemorning.com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now, themillionairemorning.com. you