BE AS EXCELLENT AS YOU CAN BE The book draws together 50 ingenious thoughts to improve your attitude, your approach to life and work, the questions you ask, the decisions you make, and even your timing. Attitude, approach, timing, questions and decisions are all covered, with ten provocative thoughts in each area.

1. 50 WAYS TO BE YOUR BEST

2. WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
50 WAYS TO BE YOUR BEST

3. FIVE AREAS
1. ATTITUDE
2. APPROACH
3. TIMING
4. QUESTIONS
5. DECISIONS

5. • Are you hidebound by
one particular approach?
• Do you need a new one?
• Should you disenthrall
yourself?

6. • What are you willing
to struggle for?
• Can you act your way
into a new way of
thinking?
• What actions prove
your attitude best?

7. • What is your feisty
spirit?
• What mountain will
you conquer?
• Can you turn
adversity into
inspiration?

8. • What are you afraid
of?
• What tricky situations
do you face?
• Fight or flight?

9. • What’s the problem?
• Who have you told?
• Who can help you out?
• How can you resolve it
immediately?

10. • What are you interested
in?
• Who else is?
• If no one, do you have
the determination to
carry on anyway?

11. • What are your abilities?
• Who or what is
interfering?
• What distractions can
you remove?

12. • Are you a pessimist?
• Are you an optimist?
• Could you be a possibilist?
• What ways forward can you
see?

14. • Are you constantly
doing something?
• Are you comfortable
doing nothing?
• Could you just sit and
be?

16. • What is your definition of
success?
• How hard are you
prepared to work for it?
• Are you just in love with
the reward at the end?

17. • Do you have
entrenched behaviour?
• Do you engage in self-
protecting activity?
• Can you change your
approach?

18. • On which project could
you deliberately reduce
budget?
• What could you do that
is completely free?
• Is the idea truly good
enough?

19. • Which ideas are not that
exciting?
• Which ones are interesting
but unrealistic?
• Which are both exciting
and doable?

20. • Are you constantly
typing?
• What is your note taking
method?
• How can you do
something with new
information?

21. • Do you thoroughly
investigate everything?
• What could you find out
more about?
• What new experience could
you pursue?

22. • Which inflexible constructs
do you consistently use?
• How could you try a more
fluid approach?
• Are you comfortable with
ambiguity?

23. • Are you happy in your
own company?
• Do you work better on
your own or with others?
• How do you do your best
thinking?

24. • Do you moan about
problems or own them?
• What big problem are
people currently failing
to admit to?
• What big problem can
you own?

25. • What routine have you
slipped into?
• How can you break it?
• How can you be more
inquisitive?

27. • How many days have you
got left in your life?
• Or years, months, or
weeks?
• How will you use your
time?

28. • What is your
perspective of time?
• How do your
colleagues view it?
• And your clients or
customers?

29. • What is your view of the
past?
• How do you view the
future?
• How do you view the
present?

30. • How does time work in
your company?
• How does your team
work with deadlines?
• How can you have more
influence on how time is
viewed in your work?

31. • Do you multitask?
• Does it work well?
• What are the switching
costs of moving between
jobs?
• Do one thing properly,
then move on to the
next.

32. • Is there a sequence to
what you are doing?
• Does there have to be?
• Could you start in a
different place?

33. • What can you change?
• What can’t you change?
• Do you actively like
starting new things?
• Could you precrastinate?
• Can you ‘act as if’?

34. • Are your predictions
usually wrong?
• What unforeseen
problems can you
foresee?
• Are you guilty of
hindsight?

35. • What is your attitude to a
crisis?
• Can an apparent crisis
actually be a decisive turning
point?
• How could a crisis inspire a
new approach?

36. • Write yourself a postcard
from the future.
• What year is it?
• What happened?
• How will you get there?

38. • At the beginning of any task
or project, ask the question.
• If the answer is suspect,
discuss the implications.
• Or if you are in charge, stop
the task.

39. • Pose the question.
• Have you stopped asking
questions?
• Are there smart people
doing stupid things?
• Do you know why you are
doing what you are doing?

40. • Where can you steal
from?
• What can you take?
• How can you adapt and re-
apply it?
• Where can you take it to?

41. • Define the extremes of a
project.
• Where is the Goldilocks
Spot?
• Is too much being disrupted
unnecessarily?
• Define a little disturbance,
but not too much.

42. • What preparation are
you going to do?
• How can you be a
mental magpie?
• What are you on the
lookout for?

43. • Recall a time when
you were very worried.
• Did it help?
• How can you adjust
your emotional
reaction next time?
• Would it help?

44. • Do you listen to reply?
• Can you listen and
learn?
• Can you concentrate
properly on a
conversation without
checking your phone?

45. • Wouldn’t it be good
if…?
• Fill in the rest of the
sentence.
• Dream a little.
• How will you get there?

46. • What is your definition
of enough?
• For you or the business?
• How will you know
when you are there?

47. • Does this problem really
have a solution?
• If not, is it actually a
fact?
• How can we cope with it?
• Is it time to move on to
something else?

49. • What exactly do we
know?
• What do we not know?
• What don’t we know we
don’t know?
• Are we ignorant of our
ignorance?

50. • Are we putting too
much emphasis on
planning?
• How accurate is our
plan?
• How can we be more
adept at dealing with
developments as they
occur?

51. • What do we have that
is vague but exciting?
• Can we widen our
distance and prepare
to be wrong?
• How can we test our
assumptions?

52. • How well are you
managing your
attentional filter?
• What will you decide
not to do?
• Choose one thing and
give it your full
attention.

53. • What’s your best idea?
• How easy will it be to
get permission to
pursue it?
• What will happen if you
just go ahead anyway?

54. • What do you do that
you don’t like, or that
doesn’t work well?
• What would happen if
you stopped doing
those things?
• Or can you think of
better ways to do them?

55. • What circumstances are
changing around you?
• Are you reacting
sufficiently fast?
• At what point do you say
enough is enough?
• What should you change?

56. • Could you adopt
assertive inquiry?
• What do I think?
• What do they think?
• What am I missing?
• “I have a view worth
hearing but I may be
missing something.”

57. • Do you have bar code
days?
• Do you play endless
ping pong on email?
• Can you break the
chain with a call?

58. • Can you quit something
to win elsewhere?
• Can we go upstream to
see what’s going
wrong?
• What should you stop
trying with?

59. 50 WAYS TO BE YOUR BEST