How to have command over any situation without prior preparation even if you are NOT the subject matter expert in the room.

You’ve seen these people. They are the consummate leader. They can be dropped into any situation and command instant respect. It’s like they can see the strategy behind the strategy that everyone else is playing.

"So how can you be that guy or gal?"

How can you see around corners? There’s the myth that you need to spend 10,000 hours in a specific discipline to master it.

But that’s simply not true.

Even if you have advanced your thinking and bought into the “First 20 hours” approach to “hacking” your way through to get reasonably proficient at a skill or in a given field of expertise, you often find yourself in so many different scenarios that it’s simply impossible to keep up with everything.

It can be not only overwhelming but exhausting.

It’s kind of like no sooner have you “got on top of” one new fad or thing, whether it’s behavioural economics or mental models, then you’re told that that’s not the most important thing anymore.

You barely have time to do your actual job and keep up with current affairs, let alone trying to read and retain the next new thing you believe is going to make all the difference to your performance as a leader.

When you’ve finished a long day in the office with back-to-back meetings, before dashing out to ride the subway across town. Try to fit in social life, bingeing on a bit of a Ravikant podcast or wolf down an HBR article on your way over. Only to forget what you’ve heard or read by the time you finally get home and your head hits the comfort of your pillow.

And rinse and repeat all over again the next morning as your alarm goes off at stupid-o’clock because you’re trying to be like how a Navy SEAL badass told you to be.

Surely some of this MUST be contributing to your ephemeral sense of being on top of your game... You hope.

Because it is all such an effort. And where is this going to end, in this arms race of mental performance? How many habits must you stack before you are the person you are supposed to be? I’m here to tell you that there’s some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that none of that really matters.

The good news is also that none of that really matters.

And at your core, when you take a step back to reflect for a moment, you know that’s true.

What counts is that you have mastery over the critical few, unchanging principles… the frameworks that make all the difference… having those at your fingertips.

Once you’ve mastered the language of those distinctions, then you have access to unlimited power. Then you can keep an eye on the detail, whilst never losing your grasp of the bigger picture. Then you can lead with ease and certainty in any situation.

I work with leaders across industries to do exactly that. I work with executives working on M&A deals, IPOs, raising funds of $100m to $bn+, elite branches of various military forces, people working in espionage.

If you operate in high-pressure, high-stakes situations and any of the above resonates, then for more information, take a look at:

storythis.com

Talk soon,

Richard