“My favorite keynote speaker I’ve ever heard. (And I’ve heard a lot!)”

We avoid uncomfortable questions for one simple reason: We`re afraid of the answer.

If we never ask, we never have to act. We never have to own what we discover about our team, our organization, or ourselves. Silence feels safer than accountability, so we keep the question tucked away and tell ourselves we`re being prudent.

But the question doesn`t disappear just because you refuse to ask it. It keeps shaping your decisions from the shadows.

So here`s mine for you today: What uncomfortable question are you avoiding right now?

Ask it. Then have the courage to act on whatever you hear.

#speaking #leadership #creativeleadership #keynotespeaker #courage #teamculture #accountability #toddhenry ...

Being known for something is a gift. It can also become a trap.

When you become the go-to person for a thing, the temptation is to protect it. Keep doing what works. Circle the wagons. Everyone tells you you`re doing fine, but deep down you know you`re coasting on yesterday`s skills.

Great leaders disrupt themselves at the peak. They start a new curve before the world forces them to.

Where are you on the curve right now? What do you need to let go of so you can grab onto what`s next?

The real danger was never failure. It was comfort.

#speaking #leadership #personalgrowth #career #dailycreative ...

My wife told me it was a little ten foot cliff, and she told me it ended in a pizza buffet. That second detail is the only reason I agreed to go.

What I found when we got to Horse Cave was an eighty four foot sheer rock face that empties out into another one hundred and twenty seven foot drop.

Listen, I have been afraid of heights since long before I was married, so I did what terrified people do when they want to look generous: I held the door. I waved twenty five people ahead of me. There was a lightning storm rolling in, and I was quietly betting that it would arrive before my turn did. So, I insisted that everyone else enjoy the experience while trying to avoid it myself.

There was just one problem: my young daughter Ava was at the front of the line and super excited to go. BUT... the guide announced that a child couldn`t go first, and Ava turned around and looked straight at me.

My hand went up before my fear had a chance to file an objection. I shuffled to the front.

We all have moments like this. You already know what the right thing is. You don`t want to do it. And then someone calls something out of you that you suspected was there, but didn`t want to acknowledge.

That is what leadership actually does. It doesn`t manufacture courage in people who lack it, it recognizes and calls out the courage that was already there, waiting for a reason to show up.

I didn`t go over that cliff because I stopped being afraid.

I went over it because my daughter was watching, and because the person she needed me to be had been standing at the back of the line the entire time. She called that person out of me. That`s leadership. #speaking #thebravehabit ...

That little pinprick in your gut telling you to check your phone has a name. I call it the ping.

It arrives like an emergency, as if something "out there" is more important than what`s in front of you. Linda Stone calls the result continuous partial attention. Always kind of here, always kind of somewhere else.

Nobody does their best work that way, yet we all keep trying.

The ping may interrupt you but it shouldn`t get a vote about where your attention goes.

#creativeleadership #focus #deepwork #speaking #dailycreative #leadership #productivity ...

Mediocrity isn’t something that happens overnight.
It’s built through small decisions:
To settle.
To compromise.
To go with the flow.
To play it safe.

Brilliance requires a different kind of discipline.

The discipline of bravery.

The bravery to find your sweet spot, or the place where your unique strengths, experience, and perspective allow you to create disproportionate value.

Your sweet spot isn’t found by accident.

It takes courage to discover it.
Discipline to operate in it.
And bravery to stay there when the easier choice is to conform.

You have an area of maximum effectiveness.

The question is: Are you brave enough to find it?

#Leadership #Brilliance #Courage #PersonalGrowth #LeadershipDevelopment #HighPerformance #speaking #ProfessionalGrowth #Purpose ...

Jimi Hendrix opened for the Monkees in 1967 and got booed by an arena full of teenagers who wanted something safer. He did not soften a single note. In some part, rock and roll sounds the way it does today because one man refused to trade his sound for a few more rounds of applause.

You have something nobody else in your room has. That is precisely why it makes people uneasy. Your work can feel like an indictment of theirs, and the pressure to file down your edges will always arrive dressed up as good advice.

Thomas Merton saw the trap clearly from a monastery in Kentucky. He wrote that hurry ruins saints as well as artists, because people who want quick success will not take the time to be true to themselves.

Take the time. Refuse the trade. Build a body of work you can point to with pride. #speaking ...

Bravery grows in a field someone else prepared.

When people have a sense of agency and an optimistic vision of the future, brave action becomes likely. Not guaranteed, but likely. That`s the fertile ground. Leaders, tilling that ground is our job.

We say we want people to do the right thing even when it`s the hard thing. So how often are we speaking vision into their life? How often are we speaking agency into their life, telling them not only where we`re going but how they play a role in getting there?

When someone always takes the easy, comfortable path, one of those two is usually missing. Our unique responsibility is to bring clarity into the uncertainty. Do that, and watch what grows in the field you prepared.

#TheBraveHabit #leadership #creativeleadership #bravery #speaking ...

My friend @jonbobdotcom did something crazy. He opened a restaurant for one night.

He called it "Snakebite" because the thing he`s most terrified of is snakes.

But the best part of the night had to do with the placards they put on every table that read, "What would you do if fear had no hold over you, and failure was an option?"

We often ask a much more pointless question like "What would you do if you knew you couldn`t fail?" That`s silly, because failure is always a possibility when you`re trying hard things.

I think the more meaningful question is this: What would you do if - even if you fail - it would still be worth trying?

When you can answer that question, you`ve discovered something worth spending yourself on.

I love telling this story as part of my Brave Habits talk. Learn more at ToddHenry.com/speaking. #speaking ...