Short video/transcript by Brian Johnson reflecting on a parenting anecdote (building 24-piece puzzles with his daughter) to illustrate Stephen Covey’s Habit 2: ‘Begin with the end in mind.’ He uses the story to introduce a Covey-inspired eulogy exercise and to frame upcoming modules about clarity, mastery, and designing ‘masterpiece days.’
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome Back to another optimize +1. The other day we celebrated Eleanor's third birthday. Her name literally means bright shining one, so it was sweet to celebrate her wonderful brightness. Now she loves doing everything her big brother does, so we got her a few age appropriate puzzles. While Emerson and I are hammering some fun big ones. She gets to rock her 24 piece puzzles with wooden pieces that fit right into a nice wooden frame. Nice playful puzzles featuring wild animals, sea creatures and mermaids, that sort of thing. Super easy, right? Well, yeah, only here's the funny thing. The puzzles don't come with a box with a picture on the front you can look at as you build it. And we didn't realize until later that there's a sticker on the back of the wooden frame in which you build the puzzle that shows you the final creation. So without a clear sense of what you're building, that 24 piece, three year old level ridiculously easy puzzle becomes surprisingly hard to build. Seriously. And of course, as Emerson and Alexandra and Eleanor and I laughed about it together, I knew you and I needed to chat about it as well. You know what I thought of as I reflected on how hard it is to build a puzzle when you don't know what the end state is supposed to look like. Stephen Covey, habit number two of seven habits of highly effective people begin with the end in mind. He tells us that all things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation and a physical or second creation to all things. And that's today's plus one. Whether we're talking about creating a great life or a great day or a 24 piece puzzle, it really helps to begin with the end in mind. Which is why we kick off our mastery series with a Covey inspired eulogy exercise preceded by a quick trip to hell in which we get clear on what we want the ultimate end to look like for us. Then we move on to start to see our big three energy, work and love with more clarity. Before we spent two months getting more clarity on what our masterpiece days look like in our Carpe Dia module. All that to say, here's to creating the things that matter most twice. Once in our mind and then in our lives. Today.
