Hey there

Got this in my inbox the other day from my friend Gary and figured it'd be great to share today:

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As you work on achieving your goals...here's a productivity tip that can save your bacon.

A dominant belief for many of us is that limitations and constraints make us less creative, unproductive, and unhappy.

If there was ever a time to re-frame that belief…now's the time!

Sure, we might think we want more time, bigger space, and more responsibility.

But constraints if used wisely…

Empower us to think differently, stay focused, and actually be more productive and creative.

Perhaps, a real life example will help clarify a few things…

Theodor Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist who published children’s books under the Dr. Seuss pen name.

He started using it in 1927 as a joking reference to his father’s wish for him to become a doctor.

Geisel’s success is a remarkable story of the triumph of constraints and the direct response to a personal challenge.

BACKSTORY

By the mid 1950s, Geisel had already achieved a fair amount in his career, but nothing like what was to come.

His accomplishments included thirteen children’s books under the Dr. Seuss pen name.

While the books had received critical acclaim…they only experienced modest sales.

Around the same time...

Parents and educators began to fear that American children were falling behind their European counterparts in terms of their educational achievement.

It was a widely held belief that they watched too much TV, and children’s books were too boring to captivate them.

Concerns about the poor state of early childhood education even became a national security concern.

In stepped William Spaulding, then director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin.

He too was concerned about this issue, and he was in a position to do something about it.

Spaulding had an epiphany and approached Geisel with a constraint-based challenge.

Spaulding had identified 348 words that all first graders should know.

He challenged Geisel to write an imaginative and captivating book using only those words.

Geisel initially considered the challenge “impossible and ridiculous”, but he decided that it was a challenge worth pursuing.

The resulting book…The Cat in the Hat, only used 236 different words, but those 236 words started a phenomenon.

The Cat in the Hat was published in 1957 and became one of the bestselling children’s books of all time.

Within three years, the book had already sold one million copies.

Today, more than fifty years after publication...it remains a bestseller with more than 15 million copies sold.

Emboldened by the success of The Cat in the Hat’s parsimony, Geisel took this austerity of words even further.

Another publisher, Bennett Cerf from Random House challenged him that he could not write a book using just 50 words.

Geisel took on that challenge and delivered another iconic children’s book which consisted of just 50 words, Green Eggs and Ham.

Nearly twenty-five years after his death, Dr. Seuss continues to dominate the world of children’s books to an astonishing degree…

And, it all started due to his willingness to re-frame his beliefs and turn an impossible goal into inevitable success.

THE EUREKA MOMENT

Dr. Seuss learned many things about himself and his ability to deliver…

But the biggest thing he discovered was the transformative power of self-enforced constraints.

Allow me to explain how you can apply this idea to your life.

By intentionally setting limits for yourself…

By purposely reducing your options and putting yourself in a straight jacket — whether that involves the time you have to work out, the money you have to start a business, or the number of words you can use in a book — delivers better results than “keeping your options

open.”

I believe Dr Seuss’s story is your story…

Because it’s only by being challenged, by being tested and pushed to your limits that you find out what you are really capable of.

And not just physically challenged.

We all need intellectual, leadership, spiritual, relational, sales, and any type of performance challenge that...

Stretches us, forces us to overcome adversity, tests our character and commitment...

And inspires us to turn constraints into great success stories.

I’ll close with a challenge along with this extraordinary observation by Soren Kierkegaard…

“A solitary prisoner for life is extremely resourceful; to him a spider can be a source of great amusement. Think of our school days; we were at an age when there was no aesthetic consideration in the choosing of our teachers, and therefore they were often very boring — how resourceful we were then! What fun we had catching a fly, keeping it prisoner under a nutshell, and watching it run around with it! What delight in cutting a hole in the desk, confining a fly in it, and peeking at it through a piece of paper! How entertaining it can be to listen to the monotonous dripping from the roof! What a meticulous observer one becomes, detecting every little sound or movement.”

At this moment in time we are all experiencing constraints…constraints of time, money, space and more…

How are you going to use your current constraints to make this the most productive time of your life?

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Till tomorrow

Play a bigger game.

CTM

PS:

• This week Saturday will be our very first #hpenconnect meeting. We'll be talking about how to competition proof your practice. It's an opportunity to learn and connect with each other and it promises to be fun. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER