Welcome to mindful manager! Today we’ll explore 2 ideas I’ve been recently pondering / playing with:
I want to give you my take on why I started incorporating cold showers in my daily routine (no fluff)
I’ll share a fun and useful thought experiment I use to improve my decision making process, leveraging the minds of people way smarter than me
Enjoy 🙏
My Take On Cold Showers
For the last 3 months more or less, I’ve been taking a cold shower everyday. I wash myself normally, and before going out I set the temperature to cold for about 2 minutes. Before you label me as a “self-help guru” let me give you my take on this little habit.
There seems to be benefits (both physical and mental) to cold exposure, but for me the important part is what the cold shower represents, which is a daily practice of discomfort. I deeply believe success (in any form that might suit to your life) comes from being able to push against discomfort when it’s needed. It could be refusing the invite to eat at fast-food if you’re on a diet, or making those 100 calls a day if you’re a salesman.
The training is not under the cold. It’s the moments before the practice: that minute when you’re relaxing in hot water and the last thing you would like to do is turning the temperature to cold. When you start thinking of any excuse to skip it today for a “valid reason” and you push nonetheless, that’s the training part. And I love the fact that even after 3 months of doing it, it’s not becoming easier. Everyday sucks (and it should).
Cold showers are not the only way to train yourself against discomfort. Working out at the gym, in a sense, is the same thing, and also deciding to not scroll social media for the entire morning if you notice you’re “addicted” to it. The important aspect is that you don’t get used to it, and of course that you don’t hurt yourself.
I’m interested in your experience 😉 let me know if you’ve ever tried this habit or similar ones!
Having a Mental Board of Advisors
Honestly I don’t remember where I heard about this idea in the first place, but nonetheless I think it could be a useful tactic to put in place when you’re facing an important decision.
The rationale is this: companies (big or small) have leveraged the use of external advisors for decades. The idea of someone experienced in your field giving you advice is sound and proved to be a good one. Even better if that someone is not directly tied in some way with your company (no direct role or stock options bonus).
If this is useful and done repeatedly for businesses, why can’t we do it for our personal choices and life? Here comes the idea of building a mental Board of Advisors. A list of a few people you admire and would like to receive advice from: could be your entrepreneurial idol, a phylosopher from the past, or the high school teacher you loved. Naturally it’s all a mental excercise, but this doesn’t make it less useful. By reading or remembering how these people behave, you can start building an idea of the suggestions they could give you when asked for advice. Anytime you’re about to take an important decision, you can spend 30 minutes imagining being in a conference room with them and asking for their opinion on the subject.
I know it might seem silly (like many of the tactics I try to share in this publication) but the rational goal is to use a framework for writing things down and try to reason on things from a different perspective. This idea of a mental board of advisors is simply a narrative way of doing that with an added bit of fun 😉 if you tried it, or if you want to know my board members, shoot me an email here: riccardo@caneve.it