In This Episode…
After working through Cal Newport’s great book “Deep Work” and then realising how much work I still need to do to develop my mental skills and abilities I realised it was still easy for me to become overwhelmed by the scale of the task I have before me. In dealing with that feeling I was reminded of a story about how I helped someone overcome those feelings . In this episode I share that story.
Episode Show Notes
00:14 – Background – in a previous episode I realised I am a mental wreck because of my struggle to apply myself to one of Cal Newport’s Deep Work exercises. Faced with everything I need to do to develop this important skill, I started to feel a little overwhelmed.
00:44 – This reminded me of a time when I helped someone through feelings of overwhelm when they were faced with a similar steep and challenging learning curve.
00:59 – A few years ago, I designed and delivered a series of sessions to help kids in school understand how to learn and remember. After getting the model right we decided to expand our trainer delivery team.
03:08 – One talented new presenter I was training up got completely overwhelmed with the amount of content she had to learn, the delivery style to develop and the logistical requirements of being on the road.
04:19 – To help her deal with the challenge, I used a pen to help shift her perspective from focusing on everything (looking at the pen side on) to focusing on the next thing (looking at the pen end on).
06:04 – It worked and she went on to become an outstanding presenter for us.
06:09 – So today whenever I start to feel overwhelmed by the scale of things I have to do, I simply take out my pen…
