Business Thoughts, Favorite Quotes, Rants and Observations

look of intensity

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“I remember your eyes: fifty attack dogs on a single leash.”

—–

Jeffrey McDaniel

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“I belong to quick, futile moments of intense feeling.

Yes, I belong to moments.

Not to people. “

—

Virginia Woolf

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When I first read those two quotes I immediately thought of that intense person you work with who doesn’t have people skills, or, they may have but do not utilize under the guise of “I am a perfectionist and everything else doesn’t matter.” That is the scariest type of workaholic. One with a maniacal focus on deadlines & status of things and an overall sense that, if everyone else had their intensity, the world would be good <and a better place>.

I also thought about how many of these business people who change over time. Their intensity softens.

Sometimes we call it ‘burn out’ <when they just start showing up but not having any interest in delivering the goods>.

Sometimes we call it ‘selling out’ <they seek mediocrity instead of perfection>.

Sometimes … well … these people just turn into damn good leaders.

The last are the ones whose intensity softens, but their focus sharpens.

Look. We all evolve as a person over time. Some call it maturing I would simply suggest it is experience or the outcome of experiencing Life. And while personal evolution is … well … personal … there are some shared commonalities. One of the most interesting common themes in our evolution is most of us, once we get our shit together, become recovering perfectionists.

Yup. Recovering perfectionists.

What I mean is that while our adult mentors didn’t call it ‘perfectionism’ as they taught us, and mentored us and guided us toward adulthood <and this even happens early in your young business career> we were all basically taught perfectionism is the objective if you seek to be successful. We were all taught to be intense in our focus and, consequently, that intensity leads to increasing the odds of our success.

It almost seems like we breed intensity.

In other words, intensity and focus and restructuring your Life to be one of the ‘successful’ or ‘greatness seeking’ people are kind of the vision thoughts that everyone … yes … everyone … is supposed to embrace.

Google the topic and approximately 12 million articles claim to share the secrets of highly successful people and pretty much every one says if you simply restructure your entire existence you too can become deliriously successful. And almost everyone on of them, while not expounding upon perfectionism per se, focus on perfecting the details and plans and progress steps.

This sounds not only incredibly stressful, but also incredibly challenging. So much so one could conclude not everyone can actually do it <which would suggest that some % of the 12 million secret-to-success articles are lying>.

Regardless. Invariably almost everything you were being taught about Life suggests it is either everything or nothing. Maybe more kindly I could suggest that all the world sees if you are a C student/employee or ‘not intensely focused’ you are just someone who “isn’t living up to his/her potential.”

Think about it.

Not once did anyone ever … ever … remind you that sometimes saying ‘ah, fuck it’ was a viable alternative. I know … I know … ‘just fuck it’ doesn’t really seem like a viable alternative if you truly seek success. But a softer version of the ‘fuck it’ concept is something that economists call the ‘concept of optimization.’

Optimization is maximizing something subject to a constraint, e.g., businesses maximize profits subject to the constraint of how much capital and labor available.

Personally I like the concept and I believe ‘optimization’ is something most good business people who lead figure out. I also tend to believe happy people figure it out in their everyday Life. However, let me go back to that dastardly thing called ‘contextual.’

Some guy named Herbert Simon suggested years ago that nobody can actually optimize because it’s too complex and demanding. He introduced a concept called ‘satisficing.’ This is the concept that we end up not maximizing but instead doing something satisfactorily.

Well. I could suggest that this could be construed as embracing mediocrity, or possibly moderating success, but I actually think, while I could haggle over the word ‘satisfactory’ <because you can do this and still have a high level of excellence>, it actually is the space in which recovering perfectionists find a home.

It’s a healthy way of viewing business and Life in which you haven’t eliminated improvement as an objective or something good, but you have relegated constant obsession with squeezing every last ounce out of time, people and ability.

To be clear <part 1>. You cannot be moderately successful with an attitude of positive indifference or if you work hard at avoiding work or if you only do what you like.

To be clear <part 2>. A recovering perfectionist does NOT mean you accept mediocrity nor does it suggest accepting something better than the best … it just means you realize best is very very often contextual. And it means you realize that perfection is most often a myth <or fleeting at best>.

But a recovering perfectionist does mean that your look of intensity scans and spans rather than always be something of laser like focus and that improvement can be measured in a variety of ways and variety of places.

And that is where the best of the best recovering perfectionists reside.

They live in a space in which they have an intense desire to do good things and do good things well. And they do so with efficiency & focus rather than bludgeoning intensity.

What I mean by that is Perfectionists tend to fill space – in their never-ending pursuit of perfection they speak into silence, do things <anything> within uncommitted time and think when … well … all the time. Their intensity with using space & time in all dimensions is relentless and tiring <not always with desired results>.

The most important aspect you will find in a recovering perfectionist is their ability to maximize by NOT filling space, i.e., to stop talking once they have set the plan in place.

This doesn’t mean they aren’t intense.

In fact. Let me suggest you can judge a good leader by their moments of intensity. The moments in which you can almost see & feel the person at the head of the table shift, and settle, and zero in at the task at hand.

Intensity is good — when doled out in appropriate doses and used wisely.

In my opinion <so take this with a grain of salt> effectively managing intensity takes experience.

Young business people, and young people in general, just struggle to balance it.

Lastly. If you are not an intense person, I don’t believe you can become an intense person <you will never be a perfectionist, obsessive maybe, but not a perfectionist>.

If you are a naturally intense person, I believe you almost always begin too intense <you are a version of a perfectionist and ultimately remain a perfectionist – and in general miserable and making the people around you miserable – or you become a recovering perfectionist>.

Effective intensity, as with most things in Life, is all about balance <or proportional use>.

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“It is the greatest manifestation of power to be calm.”

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November 26, 2019 by Bruce

Written by Bruce

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