In 2012, I was fully committed to simplicity, but something was missing.
My toolbox was noticeably incomplete. My skills and my impact were not where I wanted them to be. I couldn’t ignore it. I realized that simplicity, while invaluable, was not enough. A fog of stubborn confusion hung around my commitment to simplicity.
Though I’d committed to simplicity, I still lived and worked in increasingly complex environments. Not everyone shared my belief in simplicity. The complexity around me did not fade just because of my commitment. The issues I faced and the goals I was trying to reach did not suddenly make themselves simple. I was struggling to impose and apply simplicity onto my reality.
Complexity leads to uncertainty. Uncertainty in complexity creates confusion. Confusion leads to hesitation, weak effort, and second-guessing. That’s exactly what I was struggling with.
I needed more than simplicity. I needed clarity. I needed more than clarity. I needed conviction. I needed clarity to eliminate confusion and conviction to eliminate hesitation.
So, I committed myself to a standard I call Extreme Clarity.
Extreme Clarity is the conscious and disciplined effort to simplify any issue to the point that it eliminates confusion as much as possible. I call it a conscious and disciplined effort because I discovered that clarity starts to fade without those qualities, and confusion grows, even with simple things.
We need a level of clarity that ignites conviction. That is the purpose of Extreme Clarity.
Where do you have Extreme Clarity? Where are you still hesitating because you lack the conviction of Extreme Clarity?
Brick by brick. Do the work.
Share your thoughts