Minute With Mallon! Pull the Weeds!

Jun 1

Welcome to Minute with Mallon!

Something I Taught:

I was working with a leader a few weeks ago, and we were talking about his team. He told me that because of the toughness of the economy over the last couple of years, many of the people on his team no longer felt like they could win the way they once did.

Over time, they'd developed self-imposed limitations. They had slowly begun believing that certain goals were no longer possible for the and now for the company.

In other words, before they lost externally, they had started losing internally.

I told my friend about a little book called As A Man Thinketh by James Allen. It’s over 100 years old, written in old English, and very short—but it contains some incredibly powerful ideas.

One of the ideas in the book is that we need to become the “master gardeners” of our minds.

In other words, when negative, limiting thoughts begin to grow, we need to recognize them quickly and pull them out like weeds in a garden. If we don’t, they slowly spread and begin choking out the good things in our lives.

But we can’t stop there.

We also have to intentionally replace those thoughts with strong, healthy, productive thoughts—thoughts that produce something good and life-giving.

My friend and I discussed how to begin doing this with his team. Over the next several months, he is intentionally going to help them change the way they think so they can break through the limitations they have placed on themselves and begin to feel like winners again.

Then I asked him if he had watched the Kentucky Derby.

It was an unbelievable race this year. The horse that eventually won the Derby was actually in last place during much of the race.

LAST PLACE!

I told him his team would probably be the same way.

Some people would take to the new ideas quickly and begin growing almost immediately. Others would struggle more because changing the way we think is not always easy—especially after disappointment, stress, or discouragement.

But if he stayed consistent…

If he kept encouraging…

If he kept helping them uproot the weeds…

…some of the people who were currently struggling the most might eventually become some of his top performers.

Just like that horse in the Derby.

The people who come out of the gate slow are not always the ones who finish slow.

By the end of our call he had a huge smile on his face because he knew exactly what he needed to do.

So how about you?

What are some self-imposed limiting thoughts you’ve allowed to grow in your own mind?

What thoughts are keeping you from becoming the person you could become… from doing the work you could do… from living the life you could live?

Maybe it’s:

“I’m too old.”

“I’m not disciplined enough.”

“I could never do that.”

“I’m too far behind.”

“I’ll never change.”

Those are weeds.

Pull them out.

Then replace them with thoughts that produce courage, growth, action, faith, and possibility.

What is one limiting thought you know you need to uproot right now?

Send it to me.

I won’t hound you, but I can promise you this:

The moment you name the weed, you begin taking away its power.

Something to Ponder:

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

Naguib Mahfouz

Something I Learned:

I'm reading a great book called The Great Mental Models by Shane Parrish.

I'm going to paraphrase something that I recently read in it:

”One thing I learned recently is that the higher people move up in leadership, the easier it becomes to lose touch with the real consequences of their decisions. In large organizations especially, leaders often make decisions that are carried out by layers of other people. The further removed we are from the actual impact, the easier it becomes to assume our decisions are right without ever truly feeling the friction, frustration, or unintended consequences they may create for others.”

This matters because leaders who stop receiving honest feedback often stop growing. Over time, distance from the front lines can quietly create blind spots, overconfidence, and poor decision-making. One of the best ways to combat this is to intentionally stay connected to the people closest to the work by asking questions, listening carefully, encouraging honest feedback, and regularly putting yourself in environments where you can directly see the impact of your leadership decisions.

What could you do this week to get closer to the real-world impact of your leadership decisions?