What You Need to Hear | Be More Brownlee | Chimp Paradox
Hello there! Welcome to my weekly LEAPS.
You’re receiving this email because you subscribed to my weekly Wednesday feature or our mailing list. Every Wednesday, I share 5 things using our LEAPS approach:
Learn: something new or an idea
Energy: an energy (good or bad) word and it’s meaning
Action: something to do
Processing: a question to consider
Shout out: something or someone that I want to celebrate or acknowledge
LEARN
Something Worth Sharing
What You Need to Hear
I absolutely love the Olympics and have revelled in the wondrous achievements of so many athletes over the past week. While I wish I could have fully immersed myself in each and every sport, I did have work to do! However, on Wednesday July, 31st I had to stop what I was doing to pay full attention to the triathlon.
Given that a triathlon takes about 2hrs 45mins to complete, I’d had it on the TV in the background while I carried on with my various tasks for the day. Every so often I’d glance to see that the GB athlete Alex Yee was in the “leading group”. I’d spotted that as time ticked by and their third discipline of running was well underway, the clear leader was Hayden Wilde from New Zealand. Alex was in second place and considerably behind Hayden - with the French athlete Léo Bergère drawing ever-closer to potentially push Alex into third. They were now on the final lap and my hopes were dashed, until the commentator excitedly said, “Alex is catching Hayden!” This was the point I put down my pen.
What happened next was incredible. Alex had fallen 18 seconds behind the leader and was suddenly accelerating. He overtook the leader - who couldn’t fight back - and Alex sprinted to the finish line to be crowned Olympic champion. It was an unbelievable spectacle - and as the commentators discussed the events that unfolded, even they were asking ‘what happened to make Alex accelerate like that?’
The answer was four words. One of GB’s most decorated triathletes Alistair Brownlee was in the crowd and shouted “Anything can happen, mate!”. This message - along with who shouted it - was the magic needed to push Alex Yee on. It gave him hope, belief and drive. The learning for me this week is the power of hearing what you need to hear. There are 3 elements of a message which are important in its delivery of hope, belief and drive:
WHAT you need to hear
WHEN you need to hear it
WHO you need to hear it from
ENERGY
An emotion or energy; a stand-out word / s
Conflict
I’ve noticed a few times recently when I’ve felt conflicting feelings about something - this inspired this week’s word.
The word CONFLICT is from Latin CONFLIGERE meaning: "to strike together". It is formed from com "with, together" + fligere "to strike". When we have opposing thoughts, feelings or situations they often feel as if they are striking against each other.
ACTION
Something small that you can do that might make a big difference
Be More Brownlee
Taken from the Learn this week, I’m encouraging you to offer some hope, belief and / or drive to someone. As Alistair Brownlee said, “anything can happen!”.
PROCESSING
A question to think about and consider (you can discuss this with someone or write your thoughts down)
“How satisfied am I?”
Quite a big and open question this week. When you read the question “how satisfied am I?” to yourself, what comes to mind? Is there an area of your life, work or relationships that you’d like to improve or change? Are you getting everything you need or are you missing something important?
I’d love for you to send me your own stories / thoughts about this. Drop me a line with your answer / thoughts on this question
SHOUT OUT
Who / what I think deserves recognition - my gratitude or to be celebrated.
The Families of Olympians
I’m back to the Olympics…and another observation. This Olympics has talked a great deal about ‘family’ - from the number of competitors who are also parents now, as well as the families who have been able to attend and are in the crowds watching. This has been mentioned more due to the last Olympics being without supporters and crowds due to Covid. Shout out to all the families who have been alongside athletes not just for the past week or so, but through their lives, early morning practices, injuries, doubts, losses and achievements. A good friend of ours is in Paris with his daughter who competed in the Judo - and what a proud Dad he is!
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LEAPS is a process used by our team and clients all the time - and even my own family on a daily basis.
I’ll be sharing a set of LEAPS each week with you and encourage you to do your own version:
L: what have you learned?
E: what’s your energy / feeling word
A: what’s one thing you need to do?
P: what are you thinking / processing?
S: who or what can you shout out?
