Free Pass #1
I know this month is about relationships. But, I am with my daughters and wife on a trip for a gymnastics meet and limited on time, so I’m going to have to take a pass on a full email. I know you all understand. Extending myself a free pass is probably more for myself, but thanks for understanding. 

I do want to quickly introduce one concept, though. I started forming some of my thoughts on mentoring and realized it was a lot of opinion. I’ve found that stating an opinion can help propel me to test it and determine if it is a valid opinion. It actually is part of my personality type.

A Framework Matching My Personality
There is actually a framework for this. It was codified by a man named Paul Saffo and it is the Strong Opinions Weakly Held framework ( https://www.saffo.com/02008/07/26/strong-opinions-weakly-held/). I also found this more complete post on the framework or process ( https://medium.com/@ameet/strong-opinions-weakly-held-a-framework-for-thinking-6530d417e364). 

Leadership requires us to make decisions and have opinions. However, being willing to change and discuss or challenge those opinions draws others in. Having strong opinions weakly held can be a powerful technique, but everyone needs to know that it is a process. 

Starting With Myself
While I may eventually try this framework with a group, I’m going to start with myself and my internal processing of ideas and opinions. I will use this phrase to remind myself that jumping to opinions isn’t bad, but I must be open to changing them as I test the opinion. As I become more adept at doing this, I also hope to be better at expressing opinions to others and communicating a willingness to change and explore new ideas.

See you next week!