The Unlock Moment Dr Gary Crotaz PhD

There’s a Taoist proverb in my book The IDEA Mindset. We cannot see our reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
For most of my career, my mindset was running water, the bubbling brook, the racing stream, sometimes the whitewater rapids. I considered it my superpower that I could go fast, manage complexity, be decisive. It was in the pandemic that circumstances forced me to slow down. And when I began my coaching training, I started to appreciate all that begins to become clear when you still your mind and find that inner silence.
In this Box of Keys episode, reflect on what might change if you can find the silence.

Today’s episode is really an incredible story. A rising star in the hedge fund industry in New York, in 2019 Mike Ott experienced a near-death event that in just one moment changed everything. Today we’re going to hear from him about his journey of rehabilitation, recovery and reinvention and how it transformed his outlook on life. This is an episode you will not want to miss.

Tayo Rockson calls himself a polymath-in-progress. He is a writer, speaker, consultant, podcaster, poet, professor, co-founder and brand strategist at UYD Management, a strategic consulting firm that empowers organisations to incorporate sustainable diversity and inclusion practices. In this short extract he talks about his philosophy in life and how a dramatic life event gave him remarkable clarity about the path ahead. Enjoy this Unlock Micro-Moment with Tayo Rockson!

In my book The IDEA Mindset, I wrote “Freedom is the day you realise that it’s ok not to be good at everything. Choose the path that plays to your strengths.”
It sounds so obvious, but often the simplest things are the ones you need to pay most attention to.
I spent a lot of my life trying to overcome my weaknesses and fill my gaps. I noticed what I couldn’t do much more than I noticed what I did really well. It led me down a lot of divergent paths as I saw myself as some kind of human multitool that needed to do a bit of everything.
This week's exercise is about acknowledging and activating your strengths. In it you’ll find some freedom. And with that freedom you’ll start to unlock some of that potential that’s been stored up - ready for the day you can open the box and let it fly.

Whatever we do in our work or in our life, we're all selling something. Influencing others is selling. Getting buy-in is selling. Teaching is selling. Sharing an idea you're passionate about is selling. And when you ask people who they think is the best salesperson on the planet, alive or dead, most commonly they say 'Martin Luther King Jr.', 'Steve Jobs', 'Jesus'. Selling isn't only about selling products and services.
Colin Coggins & Garrett Brown sought out some of the most successful people from all walks of life, CEOs, entrepreneurs, doctors, trial lawyers, professional athletes, military leaders, and countless others in the hope of understanding why they're so extraordinary. They found that as different as all these incredible people were, they all had an eerily similar approach to selling. It didn't matter if they were perceived as optimists or pessimists, logical or emotional, introverted or extraverted, jovial or stoic - they were all unsold on what it meant to sell and unsold on who people expected them to be.
Colin and Garrett’s book 'The Unsold Mindset - Redefining What It Means To Sell', just newly published, reveals a counterintuitive approach to not just selling, but life. This book is a journey toward an entirely new mindset — because the greatest sellers on the planet aren't successful because of what they do, they're successful because of what they think.
Colin and Garrett are now professors at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. And they teach a fantastically popular class, Sales Mindset for Entrepreneurs. They’ve both worked in a variety of emerging technology companies and were senior leaders in an identity management software as a service company called Bitium which was acquired in 2017 by Google. They’ve been on an incredible journey ever since.

My name’s Dr Gary Crotaz, award-winning author of ‘The IDEA Mindset’. In this Unlock Micromoment, you’re hearing a short extract from one of my top guests on The Unlock Moment podcast.
Nick Novak is a good friend, a social impact entrepreneur, an investor, non-executive director and consultant. With over 15 years of driving growth for social enterprises across the UK, US and Africa, Nick is passionate about building customer-centric organisations that deliver positive impact. In this short extract he talks about how a conversation in the car helped him recognise and respond to burnout, finding remarkable clarity about the path ahead. Enjoy this Unlock Micromoment with Nick Novak!