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Growth Spurt: The Superpower of Doing Nothing · The Growth Project

• 0:02
  You.
• 0:03
  Hey, doctor Drew Brandon with us here to talk about our growth spurt for this week.
• 0:08
  today, I want to talk about a specific superpower that I have observed in people over the years.
• 0:15
  so, as you hear that term superpower, I don't know where your mind goes or what that gets you thinking about, whether it's the gift of of decision making or eloquence or sales skills or whatever it might be.
• 0:28
  There's so many different examples out there of superpowers that people can have. But those are not the ones I want to touch on today. Instead, the superpower that I want to mention is a person's ability to leave things alone, a person's ability to do nothing. Which might sound kind of crazy, because it's you might be thinking, well, how is that a superpower?
• 0:50
  I was leaving something alone. A superpower. How is choosing to take a step back and not get involved a superpower? And, I'll tell you that in my experience of working with high performers, leaders, big organizations over the years, I have found that people have a really difficult time doing this. Why is that? I think we're forced to kind of confront and acknowledge that we as humans are imperfect people, and we love the idea of being certainly a character, preferably the main character in how things go down.
• 1:29
  Right. We want to make the decision. We want to solve the problem. We want to jump in the fray and deal with whatever might need to be dealt with,
• 1:38
  in whatever the challenge is. Right? And so sometimes that needs to be done. Well aware of that, acknowledge that there are plenty of situations where depending on your role, depending on what the scenario might be, you very much need to, jump in and get involved.
• 1:54
  And that will happen. And I'm sure as your as you're thinking about and listening to this, this message, you can think of plenty of examples of that. However, I have found that one of the superpowers of high performers and great leaders is that person having the ability to look at the situation, understand the complexity of what's going on at any given moment, and in some instances, consciously choose to do absolutely nothing to stand down.
• 2:24
  To not have to say anything. To not have to get involved. And why is that a super superpower? Sometimes. And the answer is sometimes it's better. Sometimes it's needed for someone else to handle those things. Sometimes your involvement potentially in the dynamic is only going to make it tougher, make it harder, make it more complicated. So your ability to restrain yourself, your ability to say, I'm going to sit this one out, can sometimes be really, really hard sometimes because you have the best of intentions, you want to be helpful.
• 3:04
  You want to get in there and fix or solve the problem, whatever that might be. However, if you do that, one of the complications can sometimes be that you're then taking away someone else's ability to to handle it, to grow their confidence and their ability to do things. And sometimes the other element of it is if you get involved, we're now bringing in a whole nother set of of biases that you have.
• 3:30
  We're now bringing in a whole nother set of history that the other people involved might have with you, which could be counterproductive to the situation. There's so many elements that can begin to take shape in problematic ways. So I really want to challenge everybody to think about,
• 3:44
  how are you in that arena? Right. If you had to assess or if someone were to assess your ability to to do nothing, to take a step back, to leave things alone, what might that feedback sound like?
• 3:57
  And, I think it's it's difficult it's difficult for many leaders to be able to do that. So I really want to challenge you this week as you think about, like, how can I grow? How can I put my finger on certain areas, specific ways in which I can develop as a person, as a human?
• 4:11
  Put this one on your list and be hunting this week.
• 4:14
  Be looking for a scenario where you can do just that, where you can leave it alone, you can do nothing. You can let it play out. Keep in mind you always have the option after the fact to maybe get involved if that's the thing that's needed. But challenge yourself, see if you can. You can find one and and actually stay true to to leaving it alone this week.