Friday Question & Framework: July 28, 2023

Hello and welcome to the Curiosity Chronicle Friday edition. In just three minutes, I will give you one question and one framework to leave you thinking going into the weekend. Without further ado, let's dive right in A question on what's holding you back? What are the boat anchors creating a drag in your life? As you push for growth in your life, there will be people, actions, behaviors and things that stand ready to inhibit your progress. I call these inhibitors boat anchors. In your life, you are running the engines full steam ahead, but these boat anchors are lodged firmly in the ocean floor, creating an immense drag that holds you back from your optimal performance and course. Examples of boat anchors include people who you allow in your life, who laugh at your ambition or tell you to be more realistic. These same people are often focused on the past and want you to remain in the same place you were when your relationship first developed. Small actions or behaviors you adopt that are subtly hindering your growth. Suboptimal environments that you allow to linger too long. It's easy to ignore the boat anchors if you're still making forward progress, but the drag they create is meaningful and effectively prohibits you from operating at your full potential. So this weekend, ask yourself these questions. What are the boat anchors in my life? What are the things silently holding me back? How can I slowly, methodically cut these lines and unleash my full power A Framework for Considering Relationships My friend Tim Urban crafted this painfully brilliant visualization, which you can see at the website for considering relationships in a 2014 post on his famous Wait, but why Blog. The simple idea is that every relationship in your life can be placed within a two by two matrix based upon 1 how healthy it is and 2 how enjoyable it is. So all relationships fall into one of four types. Q1 relationships are healthy and enjoyable. Q2 relationships are healthy but not enjoyable Q3 relationships are enjoyable but not healthy Q4 relationships are not enjoyable and not healthy. Since reading it for the first time, this idea has become a core framework for how I think about relationships. Focus more energy and time on Q1 relationships. They are few and far between. Cherish the Q1 relationships. As for the Q4 relationships, scrub them from your life. That's all for today. I hope you learned something and I hope you'll share it with others. As always, until next time, stay curious, friends.