Practical tools for creating space and keeping your head while navigating a changing world

1. Courage, Curiosity, and
Connection:
Practical Tools for Creating Space and
Keeping Your Head While Navigating a
Changing World

2. Introduction

3. Getting Stuck in Distress
• Something is going to happen
• That Happening is going to be awful
• That Something is Going to Be My Fault
• (Repeat)

4. Tools of the Trade
• Uniqueness of the Practice
• Seek and Present Information
• Work on Your Own
• Avoid Risk and Find Certainty
• Think Criticially (With Skepticism, Pessimism)
• Compete
• Follow the Rules

5. How Do You Use the Tools?
• Seek Compensation, Clients, Advancement
• Get Affirmation (from Clients, Decision-makers,
Higher-Ups)
• Avoid Blame in a Zero-Sum Game
• Extrinsic and Linear

6. How Are The Tools When Things
Don’t Go As “Planned”?
• When The Rules Change (Or There Are No
Rules)?
• In Your Personal Relationships?

7. And The New Tools?

8. Responses to Distress (Or the
Perception of Distress)
• The need to try and control it
• Suffering=Pain x Resistance
• Getting Stuck
• The Open Loop

9. What is Missing When Distress Hits?
• The Capability to Manage Emotion
• Space to Consider How to Respond And Adapt
Rather Than React
• Context/Awareness
• Cooperation/Collaboration/Communication
(Listening)

11. Another Tool
• Actively notice new things -->puts you in
the present -->makes you aware of context
• Awareness creates space (and vice versa)

12. One Definition
• Mindlessness- the application of yesterday's
business solutions to today's problems
• Mindfulness- attunement to today's
demands to avoid tomorrow's problems
• If you want to change it, you have to see it
for what it really is.
- Ellen Langer

13. Creativity= Curiosity>Fear

14. Be Aware of Your Blind Spots

15. Be Aware of Your Blind Spots

16. Change Your Mind
• Put some space between stimulus and
reaction
• Intrinsic Rewards
– Get quiet
– Get outside
– Get on a different schedule
– Get out and play

17. Fight Perfectionism

18. A Plug For Work-Life
Integration
• Treat yourself, at work or play, the same
way
• "You must have work-life balance"

19. Create Space in Your Day
(Build Energy)
• Exercise
• Leisure Time – Flow
• Reduce Distractions/Build Habits and
Routines
• Allow for Rest and Recovery

21. Get Some Space from Your and
Computer Technology
• Attention Is Fuel, Fallible, and
Finite

22. What Fuels/Preserves
Attention?
• Fewer Decisions
• Fewer Distractions
• Sustained Focus/Awareness

23. Make Space for the Good Stuff
• Document a Process Well One Time,
Never Have to Document it Again
• Documenting a Process- Fewer ?s
• Accept coaching and criticism

25. Benefits of Checklists
(Documented Processes)
• Delegates
• Reduces Mistakes
• Promotes and Standardizes Best Practices
• Stays with the Organization
• Encourages Revision and Improvement
• Capable of Application in Other Areas
• Rewards Input and Collaboration

26. Create Space with Computer
Tools
• Evernote
• Headspace
• Moment
• Podcasts

28. Find Some Space By Giving Time
(Connect)
• Be Generous of Your Time and Your Knowledge- Without
Expecting Anything in Return
• If You Are Taking Care of Yourself, You Will Take Care
of Others
• Build Empathy

30. Questions?
Jack Pringle
Adams and Reese LLP
(803) 343-1270
jack.pringle@arlaw.com
@jjpringlesc
http://pringlepracticeblog.blogspot.com
1501 Main Street, 5th Floor
Columbia, SC 29201
www.adamsandreese.com

31. Resources
• Baba Shiv, How Do You Find Breakthrough Ideas?, Stanford Graduate
School of Business, http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/baba-shiv-
how-do-you-find-breakthrough-ideas
• The Resilient Lawyer http://theanxiouslawyer.com/rl-23-jack-pringle/
• Farnham Street https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/
• One You Feed With Michael Taft http://www.oneyoufeed.net/michael-
taft/
• Tim Ferris with Brene Brown
http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/08/28/brene-brown-on-
vulnerability-and-home-run-ted-talks/
• On Being With Ellen Langer http://www.onbeing.org/program/ellen-
langer-science-of-mindlessness-and-mindfulness/6332
• You Are Not So Smart http://youarenotsosmart.libsyn.com/062-naive-
realism-lee-ross-0

32. More Resources
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande
http://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/dp/0312430000
Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better,
by Clive Thompson
http://www.amazon.com/Smarter-Than-You-Think-Technology/dp/1594204454
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D
http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Success-Carol-
Dweck/dp/0345472322
Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, by Adam Grant
http://www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Helping-Others-Success/dp/0143124986