Flying Without a Net

CHAPTER THREE

Purpose

What’s It All About?

AS MUCH AS YOU MIGHT BE INSPIRED by Maurice Cheeks’s example and want to do the right thing poorly first, doing it in a real work situation is the challenge. As you vow to take on a stretch assignment or to plunge into some task in which you know you’ll struggle initially, something happens between the thought and the action. That something is anxiety.

More than one author has referred to our current era as “the age of anxiety,” and you don’t need to be trained in psychology to understand how deep-rooted and pervasive this mood is. While everyone suffers from the stress and strain of living in volatile times, high-need-for-achievement personalities are under particular pressure—much of it self-induced. ...