Questions about Create New Futures - A conversation with Paul Adams

Hi Leader,

In this video segment, part of a recent presentation to the CEO group Entrepreneur' Organization (EO), I compare adult learning to the toddler learning experience, and explain how this insight will enable you to maximize the value of your learning. We know that in the most admired companies in the world, more than 60% of employees' learning is lost every day. By applying the discipline of the four stages of learning I discuss in the clip below, you will be able to achieve transformative results and help your organization avoid this catastrophic loss in their return-on-learning.

"Your future can update your past." That's a mind-bender of an idea. How can tomorrow redefine yesterday?

My conversation with Paul Adams, whose key points are highlighted below, is a special turn-the-table episode. President and founder of Sound Financial Group, Paul is an accomplished speaker and author. In his two books, Stop Burning Your Money and Sound Financial Advice, he shares his specialized financial expertise and coaching style. After reading my book, Create New Futures, Paul invited me to be a guest on his podcast, Sound Financial Bites, so we could explore the specific questions my book triggered for him.

As a student of life and of what works, Paul insisted that our conversation focus on the pragmatic applications of the points we explored. I enjoyed our dialogue, and I trust you will too.

Key learning:

  • "Your future and present can update your past." Reclaim your power-the power to choose, to be self-directed, and to defy the crippling mindset that says what happened to you yesterday defines who you are today. Instead, why not embrace this reframed perspective: your today can redefine your yesterday?
  • Do you allow crisis to define your future, or do you choose to create a future that redefines and transcends your challenging experiences?
  • What can we learn from Pope John Paul II's formative experience as a young man in an underground theater during World War II that shaped his later role in life?
  • "Instead of thinking that today is the product of yesterday, think of today as the beginning of tomorrow." This mental model proposes that what appears to be a setback can become the setup for new beginnings that lead to your next breakthrough.
  • How can parents foster the can-do mindset with their children? By creating a dual memory: one of the incidence of success and the other of the experience of overcoming the challenge that enabled the success.
  • Why and how did Aviv reframe a devastating loss in the Air Force into a teachable story?
  • What is the deeper meaning of integrity? How does Aviv use a story to reinvigorate the essence of integrity?
  • "A complaint is the misdirected energy of an unaddressed or unmet need."
  • Because many of us internalize and personalize complaints, our natural reaction is defensiveness. A healthy alternative is to understand and help the other person become part of the solution by converting the complaint into a concrete request that will help us address the unmet need.

Now it's your turn. As a leader, you are a transformation agent. How will you apply these ideas to create transformative focus today?

© Aviv Shahar