The Shark Effect - Being the Best Might Never Be Enough

I got to sit down with former NFL player and amazing leadership speaker and coach Alex Molden last week on his podcast The Shark Effect to talk happiness and leadership.

 Before I jump in and tell you a few of my favorite highlights, I want to tell you briefly about Alex’s fundamental framework – adapted from something learned early in his career from one of his NFL coaches. He says as we navigate our lives and careers we should:

 ·      Know Your Assignment – Know your job inside and out. And know the assignment of the folks around you so you can hold them accountable.

·      Be in Alignment – Be aligned properly because when you are mis-aligned it impacts your results and creates stress.

·      Be ready to make Adjustments – Be ready to adjust and, as circumstances change, pay careful attention to what needs adjusting.

 Want to hear Alex’s thoughts on this in more detail, check out the first episode of his podcast HERE.

 Finally, here are some of the highlights from my conversation with Alex:

 1)    How do you align your passion with your purpose?

 At the highest level, aligning your passion with your purpose starts with connecting with yourself. Instead of getting swept up into the life of doing, find ways and make time to have the conversation with yourself about what really has meaning to you.

 In addition, on a more micro level, it helps if you know your essential sources of joy. How do you accomplish that? I’ve got the perfect exercise in this recent article. Ultimately, once you can distill what drives you down to the essence you can identify the common themes.

 Finally, realize that when it stops being fun, it might be time to re-evaluate. Alex talked about this transition in his playing career. And I’ve experienced it, too. It’s okay if you outgrow your current situation or career. The key is recognizing that and then knowing how to move forward in a way that is aligned with your purpose. Again, knowing your essential sources of joy can help.

 2)    Why I hired my first coach.

I hired my first coach right before I made the transition to starting my own business. I didn’t hire my first coach because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I was pretty sure I knew I wanted to be a coach. Instead I needed help with two things. First, I want to take advantage of the transition moment I was in to really zoom out and consider all the possibilities. Second, I needed help with my mindset. Going from law firms and finance to starting a coaching business felt like a big leap, and I needed support convincing myself that I was ready to take it.

 3)    Why needing to be the best might be a trap.

 The pursuit of excellence sounds great, right? Who doesn’t want to be the best? But here’s the rub. You can’t ever stay the best at something for very long. So what happens is that a drive to be the best creates a continuous need to do more. On the one hand, this can be helpful motivation to push yourself and grow. However, if your value gets caught up in being the best this can have a detrimental impact. Ultimately, if you believe that you are only good enough when and if you are the best, then you might find it hard to show up in the world as your full, flawed, human self. Not being able to be your full self is a surefire way to inject more unhappiness and tension. If you really need to be the best at something, focus on being the best you.

 Want to hear more? You can find the full episode HERE.