How to begin

Hi there ????. Ready to lead? "Acts of Leadership" helps people, (irrespective of title or tenure), expand their leadership range one experiment at a time. Each issue shares a [pro/e]vocative definition of leadership, an idea and an experiment.

From little acorns

I started running in 2015 aged 44.

Prior to that I'd gone for a jog maybe a handful of times over the years. I certainly did not consider myself a runner - that's not who I was.

Over the next 7 years I ran 10 marathons achieving a personal-best in 8 of them. My fastest was the 10th, aged 50, where I built and maintained race-ready fitness through the 2 years of Covid lockdown.

I remember vividly my first training run in Central Park, maybe 2 miles.

I remember the fear I felt, weeks later, setting off on my first full lap of the park (6 miles).

Back then I simply could not imagine running anything like 26 miles or what that would be like.

I've experienced similar journeys over the years, starting from places of naivety and incompetence.

?? …from being a kid in Huddersfield learning to code in Basic, to leading teams at Google NYC

?? …from failing to climb my first rock routes on a top-rope, to learning lessons on Yosemite's El Capitan, and leading a 6-month rock-climbing expedition

?? …from quitting a well-paid corporate career to running my own company in rural Wales (6 years in and growing each year)

I know that when I create the right conditions, and commit, I'm capable of hard things.

And I know you are too.

A Definition…

"Leadership is... creating momentum."

An Idea…

Chain Reactions

noun: chain reaction

1.?a series of events so related to each other that each one initiates the next

2.?a self-sustaining chemical or nuclear reaction yielding energy or products that cause further reactions of the same kind

Imagine stacking a line of dominoes of increasing size on their end in a line. The first domino is the size of your little fingernail.

You topple the first domino and stand back to watch the chain reaction unfold.

How many dominoes would it take to reach a domino that was the same size as the Empire State building?

It's fewer than you might think.

Check out the short video linked below.

Compound Growth

From humble beginnings we can achieve incredible things.

Yet we humans have an uncanny knack of overestimating how much we can achieve in the short-term (and get frustrated or quit when we miss our expectation) and underestimating how much we can achieve in the long-term (we're terrible at visualizing compound growth and big numbers).

Inertia

The hardest part of starting anything new is often the starting part.

Overcoming inertia.

Our default patterns and behaviours, our default ways of DOing, THINKing and especially BEing, exert a huge amount of gravity.

Our desired future, the goal, by comparison, has very little gravity around it.

So if we're to travel and reach our goal the very first challenge is to establish escape velocity, to break free our where we're at today.

Begin before your're ready

When it comes to chain reactions the only thing you really need to do is simply start.

Perfectionism and ego will have you delay starting, wanting first to be certain of success. Beware perfectionism and ego.

You need many fewer dominoes to reach your target than you think.

You have a creative mechanism that fuels your goal-oriented machine (Maxwell Waltz, below). Trust that you will find what you need once you get into motion.

And, by taking action you show the universe that you are serious, setting in motion other chain reactions - like alerting people who want to help that you're serious about this work.

How to start

If you were sitting in my coaching room I'd ask, "Which domino will you topple first?"

Don't try and topple the biggest domino first. It's too big and you won't succeed. Then you'll become disheartened and give up.

Start with the biggest, smallest domino you know you can topple today.

Biggest, meaning it has to be something meaningful.

Smallest, meaning you can be certain you will succeed with it.

This is edgework. This is how you expand. This is how you establish escape velocity and begin your journey.

Co-pilot

You don't have to journey alone.

You likely cannot journey alone.

You'll need to gather allies on this journey of yours.

If you're looking to create something new in your life in 2025 I have news to share in the coming days.

Begin before you are ready.

Create something better than you can imagine.

An Experiment…

?? Build gravity around your goal state. Visualise it being real in as much detail as you can. Make notes about it; colours, people, sounds, sights, smells, locations, feeling, using all of your senses.

?? Write a list of the allies you need to gather to support you on this journey. Who do you need…

• to do your best thinking with?
• to best learn from?
• to best do work with?
• to best support and know you?

An invitation to explore…

?? YouTube: Domino Chain Reaction (geometric growth in action) (2m 33s)

?? Book: Psycho-Cybernetics (Maxwell Maltz)

Leadership needn't be lonely!

Lead when ready!

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