execute tired, without the Judge in the room?
I had nothing left…
I returned from one Christmas exhausted. Just a thing, not a bad or good thing, to pay attention to. The old me would have pushed through, done it badly, and then sat through the Judge’s full review of how badly…
Are you running on empty and still grading yourself on a full tank?
… instead I noticed it. Just noticed. I found a task that was best done with low energy, like listening to a lecture I had to get through instead of resisting it. And somewhere early in the day, a little creativity showed up that I had not planned on.
Noticed, not judged.
For as long as I can remember I have been working, and not in a negative way. I love solving problems, particularly the complicated ones. Tired Saturdays are where that love has to give way to something plainer.
…Millard got the call
Millard Powers was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Christmas Eve, 1965. 6 years of piano, trumpet in the school band, then guitar, and communications at UNC Greensboro. Majosha with Ben Folds in 1988. The Semantics. A Grammy nomination in 1999 as a producer and engineer. On April 22, 2005, in Denver, he played his first Counting Crows show, filling in for Matt Malley. He was not auditioning for a seat. He was doing the job in front of him, that night, as well as he could.
Then he did it again. And again. The fill-in became a member because he kept choosing to execute the show he had, not the show he wished he had been asked to play.
That is what it means to execute. Not the big decision… just the next show.
Come Around…
Come Around hit No. 1 on the Triple A chart in September 2008 and held it for 3 weeks. It came off Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, produced by Gil Norton, a No. 3 album, and the writing credits run across the band, Powers among them, on bass and double bass.
That record came out of a hard stretch for Adam. On CBS a few years later he named the discipline it takes. “You’re not going to tell yourself later on, well, it was so hard, so that’s why I didn’t manage.”
Nobody gets out of a hard stretch in 1 decision. You Come Around a day at a time.
you execute EASY, not complicated…
I have said for years that making things EASY is way more important, and way more difficult, than solving the complicated. Picture 2 circles overlapping: easy, when it is just you and 1 other person. In a large organization the overlap gets smaller and smaller, sometimes the null set. The tired version of you needs easy. A low-energy task. A short list.
No artificial Intelligence can hand you that judgment call. It takes a tired human, on a Saturday, picking the 1 small thing instead of the 10 ambitious ones.
Positive Intelligence calls 1 of the Sage’s powers Activate… taking action without the Judge’s fear and pressure riding along. That is what a Tired Saturday asks you to execute: not the ambitious plan, the small honest one.
The Judge will tell you the nightly list is for work days. It is not. Saturday is where it stops being a task and starts being a habit.
Execution is the rep, not the result.
My own first question on a coaching call used to be a tossed-out ‘how’s it going’, which I have since learned invites The Judge before anything forward-looking gets a word in. Saturday is a good day to retire that question on yourself too.
Your “Simple… Not Easy” move: this Saturday night, what is it that recharges you? Gardening, playing your instrument, drawing, napping… At least 1 of them has to be rest you did not apologize for…. and yes that is my judging voice 😉
Tired Saturdays. Truthfully, my best “work” is done then because… I am investing in… a better me. Need help? Schedule time with me here.
My tag line is … Not Easy. Yes… actually it is Easy. Just… Come Around
