Season 2 Episode 21 – How to Free Up Your Brain and Your Life

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“Completion creates freedom, and accountability is all about creating a state of completion.” – Kari Granger

Life is full of incompletions — open loops of unanswered emails; vague coffee invitations; big projects we need to ‘get to’; kids’ recitals; the nagging awareness that we really should be should be eating better or going to the gym; and dishes — so many dishes. With all the demands on our attention coming at us all day, every day, it is predictable that our trying-not-to-forget-it-all, is always stealing a part of our awareness and attention, whether we’re in the middle of a meeting or a family dinner. Join Kari Granger and Paul Adams as they propose an alternative to the haze of all-the-things-there-are-to-do-and-handle.

In This Episode:

00:56 – Introducing today’s topic: How to Free Up Your Brain and Your Life

01:26 – The counter-intuitive way accountability creates freedom

02:50 – The reason we think of all the things we have to do when driving or taking a shower

03:02 – The alternative to living in the haze of all-there-is-to-do-and-handle

04:46 – How to create a “state of completion” even when things are not yet done

05:48 – The symptoms of living in a cloud of incompletions

08:31 – Seeing through the lens of completion

09:30 – How to have vulnerable and brave conversations

12:05 – Taking on one thing at a time

13:39 – Maintaining our internal trust account

14:21 – Dealing with the ‘cognitive load’

16:00 – Our forgetfulness requires we set up completion structures

18:29 – How to get complete on something that’s not done yet

19:44 – Clear agreements and calendaring

21:55 – What calendaring makes possible

23:24 – Strategic planning in real time

24:09 – We can only ever take action in the now

25:48 – Recommended practices

Quotes:

“Accountability isn’t about explaining why things are incomplete.” – Kari Granger 

“The more we become awake to all the things there are to do and handle, all these incompletions become like a mountain we have to carry on our backs. That’s why we think of all the things we have to do when we’re driving or taking a shower.” – Kari Granger 

“The ultimate practice is to be able to say, ‘No, I’m not going to do that. I want to do that. I’d love to do that, and it would be irresponsible for me to take that on at this point.’” – Kari Granger 

“If we remembered everything that ever happened to us, we would be absolute basket cases. We have to forget stuff; it’s the only thing the mind does dependably. That stress of trying to remember our to-do’s is what creates cognitive load.” – Paul Adams 

“When all of our commitments exist where they need to exist, we don’t have to remember a thing. It allows us to be present in the moment with whatever we’re doing.” – Kari Granger 

“Create completion with all the incomplete things by either saying, ‘I’m not going to do it,’ or defining a time and place when you will do it.” – Paul Adams 

 

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Acknowledgements:
Our work is mosaic art. We read, study, and practice many philosophies, methodologies, and modalities of human performance, to ensure that our approach best serves our clients. We would like to acknowledge all of the thought leaders and organizations, whose ground-breaking work has influenced the TGN Consulting approach – especially Fernando Flores, Jim Selman, Michael C. Jensen, Julio Olalla, Pluralistic Networks, The Newfield Network, and the Strozzi Institute.

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