☕️ saturday mornings #11
learning leadership, destroying drums & understanding yourself
Happy Saturday all,
I hope you’re having a wonderful start to your weekend.
Let’s dive into some of the coolest and most interesting things I’ve been exploring over the past week. Thanks for being here.
Quote I’ve been thinking about:
“The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.” — William Hazlitt
Book I’m reading:
The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger
Although I’m often skeptical of autobiographies, as they can be used by celebrities to cement one’s reputation and put themselves on a pedestal, I thought The Ride of a Lifetime was ultimately a book about leadership but was a great story with a lot of strong underlying ideas.
Robert Iger wasn’t born into money, didn’t attend a prestigious school in the U.S. or get fantastic grades, as he never had a passion for academia. He started at ABC News at an entry-level position and relentlessly worked his way up over time to eventually become the CEO of The Walt Disney Company, and arguably one of the most successful executives of the past few decades.
Mr. Iger pulled Disney out of a downwards spiral and was the driving force and vision behind Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. As such, Disney’s stock increased 429% during his 12-year tenure with the company (~12.3% annualized).
His story ties into the idea of what people are able to accomplish over decades. For me, it takes some of the pressure off for everything to work out perfect, or exactly as I’d planned. Oftentimes, it’s easy to get caught feeling I need to get the perfect grades or the best job, which can catastrophize small failures and makes it difficult to enjoy the present moment. By reading the story of someone who didn’t start from much, faced a lot of trials and tribulations, but still found a lot of success, it provides a sense of comfort that all the small things don’t have to be perfect for the overarching goals to work out and to be happy.
To get a bit of a taste of the book, I’ve included a few of my favourite passages below:
If you approach and engage people with respect and empathy, the seemingly impossible can become real.
True authority and true leadership come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be anything else.
One of the most important qualities of a good leader is optimism, a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved. Even in the face of difficult choices and less than ideal outcomes, an optimistic leader does not yield to pessimism. Simply put, people are not motivated or energized by pessimists.
I tend to approach bad news as a problem that can be worked through and solved, something I have control over rather than something happening to me.
Short clip I’ve been watching:
As the description says, “This video has been clinically proven to help with depression.” Although that’s a bit of an exaggeration, I got a pretty good kick out of it.
Challenge for the week ahead:
I initially heard about this test from a good friend, who’d done it a couple of weeks prior and strongly recommended checking it out.
This personality assessment is an inexpensive but comprehensive 100-question test that takes about 15-minutes to complete. It was initially developed in Dr. Jordan Peterson’s lab by a team of professional psychologists and university professors that study personality psychology and neuroscience.
Following the test, a report is generated with your ranking on each of the five major personality traits and the sub-components that make up those traits, and what each ranking suggests about your personality.
The five main personality traits measured are: extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. This personality model was initially created in the 1980’s but is still found to be one of the most reliable and accurate descriptors of one’s personality or nature.
I completed the test a couple of weeks ago and thought it provided very valuable insight. I believe it helped me see myself in a new way and added a layer of understanding about why I act and think the way I do. The descriptions for each trait felt accurate and explained or pointed things out that created “aha” moments.
I found it quite interesting that although I’m in my own head every single day and always with my thoughts, there’s still so much I don’t realize about my own nature and why I act or react in certain ways. Through taking this test, I found it helped me to be more patient with myself in challenging circumstances and allow me to better articulate what I’m thinking or feeling with others.
If you’re interested in learning more about what makes you tick, I’d recommend checking out the test and reading more about it. As far as I can tell, one of the best investments of time and money you can make, in terms of improving your relationship with yourself and with others, is to learn more about yourself.
Often there’s a lot less we know about ourselves than we may think. As Pindar (an ancient Greek poet) said “Become who you are by learning who you are”.
Thank you for reading this week’s edition of saturday mornings. I truly appreciate your time and support and I hope you’ve been enjoying these newsletters.
As always, if you have any feedback, questions, or concerns I’d love to hear from you.
Have a great weekend
Much love to you and yours,
Thomas