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Jess Cisco
Jess is the founder, managing partner, and main facilitator for ActiveLeading. He lives a life that mirrors what ActiveLeading is all about: continual improvement in leadership, work processes, and health.
He's eager to learn about your needs. Together, let's design solutions for you or your organization.
Click here to schedule an appointment with Jess.
Life is busy. People, projects, processes, endeavors--life demands our limited attention.
But what is most important? What choices and actions will bring us the most happiness and success? Where should we focus to reach our vision for life?
Our answers are important for ourselves and for society: “Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries and inventions, and of all achievement.” ~Claude M. Bristol
Evidence is all around us.
"We live in a world filled with rapid change: governments topple, people rise and fall, and technology has created a connectedness the world has never experienced before. Joshua Cooper Ramo believes this environment has created an “‘avalanche of ceaseless change,” explains this Farnam Street post.
Some research suggests the modern world is bad for the brain: link.
In The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance, Steven Kotler explains, "Not only is the distracted present a miserable place to be, it's also the worst kind of self-handicapping. Study after study shows that we're terrible multitaskers. By trying to improve performance by being everywhere and everywhen, we end up nowhere and never. The sad truth is that our lives are pulling us in every direction save the one where we're most effective."
Life's constraints increase the pressure.
But we are expected to stay connected: In Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport explains: "…the now ubiquitous culture of connectivity, where one is expected to read and respond to e-mails (and related communication) quickly. In researching this topic, Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow found that the professionals she surveyed spent around twenty to twenty-five hours a week outside the office monitoring e-mail--believing it important to answer any e-mail (internal or external) within an hour of its arrival."
Perlow's research explores a key question that ActiveLeading finds critical: "Does it really help your work to be constantly connected?"
Newport, quoting another author (science writer Winifred Gallagher), captures just how important focus is: "Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you live--is the sum of what you focus on."
We experience the impact in our lives.
Our focus in life impacts so much: our sense of autonomy (i.e., say into those things that directly affect us), our feelings of being involved in meaningful work, and our sense of mastery. Ultimately, our choices at (and outside of) work impact our sense of well being and happiness with our lives.
Our cognitive abilities are taxed. This article mentions, "research found that being in a situation where you are trying to concentrate on a task, and an email is sitting unread in your inbox, can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points." "Repeated task switching leads to anxiety, which raises levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the brain, which in turn can lead to aggressive and impulsive behavior."
But instead of producing fewer but more-important results, we stay busy: doing more that results in less. Cal Newport says, "In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner."
ActiveLeading's solutions can help.
Our goals are to share content and create experiences that add value. To do so, we serve our clients in three ways:
We provide consulting services: through ActiveLeading Consulting (link), we coach individuals and teams; develop and facilitate soft-skills workshops (we call them subtle skills) and workshops that align teams around core values and clear strategic plans; and build custom content when organizations have more-specific needs.
We create destination adventure trips: through ActiveLeading Experiences, we create trips for those who want to enjoy beautiful destinations that offer ideal conditions for surfing, foiling, mountain biking, scuba diving, and snowboarding. We bring people together for shared experiences that involve adventure sports, food, and remarkable locations. Check back or contact us if you want to know what we are planning next.
We rent high-end gear: through Gear FLX, we rent high-end mountain bikes, snowboards, wakeboards, wakesurf boards, hydrofoils, and wings for foiling. With our gear, you can try sports that are new to you, or you can continue your progression in sports you know by accessing our high-end boards and bikes. Great Gear. Insta-worthy Experiences. Online, real-time. Standard.
Whether you want to take our gear out on your own, join us for an adventure, or could use some help at your company, we are excited to help you reach your goals.
Jess Cisco, Founder
"To build your working life around the experience of flow produced by deep work is a proven path to deep satisfaction," explains Cal Newport, quoting psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Allow us to create a custom program that meets your needs.
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