Sean DeLaney

I'm obsessed with a modern day polymath. A man who surfs at sunrise, studies Egyptian hieroglyphs, writes music, and quietly compounded capital for 17 years at rates most managers will never see. His name is Chris Begg. Here's how he thinks 🧵

"Finally, how do we arrive at excellence and mastery by honoring win-win constructs, aligning with infinite game players, and benefiting from the positive feedback loops of doing well by doing good?" ~ Chris Begg whatgotyouthere.com/the-dist…

“What . . . what game?” “The only game. The game of thrones.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

Your business had an exceptional year. But your kids barely saw you. Most founders I work with experience their own version of this. So to help, this winter I'm taking six people through a private year-end review with me, December through February. Applications close December 1. Apply here - year-end-strategic-counsel.n…

Have you become the bottleneck? There comes a point where your greatest skill has become the thing holding other people on your team back. As a leader, reflect on this: Are you enhancing your organization's capabilities or creating dependency on your skills? Sean DeLaney, private advisor to founders, CEOs and investors.

Are you playing the right game? I wonder how many of our greatest abilities we never discover simply because we never find ourselves in the environments that would develop them. Or how many people spend years questioning their abilities when the real issue is the game they're playing. I've spent a lot of time exploring this relationship between our nature and the games we choose. I call it Nature–Game Fit. I've just released a presentation on the idea, and I hope it gives you a different way of thinking about your own potential. youtu.be/h9pkjSt58Lk

Boyd Varty (@boydvarty) on the cycle of self-judgement: "I should do something great and powerful and amazing, but I'm not doing that. So then I judge myself and criticize myself and don't start." From our conversation on What Got You There.

Cultivate the conditions. The performance follows. One of my favorite lines in leadership comes from the conductor Sergiu Celibidache: a leader's job is to create the conditions that allow the result to appear by itself. You cannot force a garden to grow. You can prepare the soil, plant in the right place, and tend what emerges. Sean DeLaney, private advisor to founders, CEOs and investors.

Which problems can I spend the next decade of my life fixing? Because if I'm not interested enough in it to spend a decade fixing it, it's probably not worth pursuing. ~ @eldsjal

There are always more pieces on the chessboard than you think.

I was asked by a @UNCMensLacrosse player the other night what my favorite books were. Here are some that I would recommend to a college athlete. Main themes I'd focus on: Develop a mindset that's your greatest asset. Identify what matters and then have the courage to live it. Learn how to live with integrity and by your deepest values in the face of adversity. Often suffering is our greatest teacher. The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. It comes down to deep relationships with a handful of people. You're capable of more than you can imagine, go find out what you've got inside yourself. My favorites are not necessarily what I would recommend to them but these are ones that would connect with me back then and I feel their themes still resonate with me today. List is incomplete but here's what was in my library. What book had an impact on you at that age?

Ever feel like success is just one more achievement away? I think one of the great illusions of ambition is believing that somewhere out there is a level of success where we finally "arrive". A certain amount of money. A particular job. A place where you can finally relax and feel like you've made it. I've spent a lot of time with people who've reached the places others are desperately trying to get to. And while the circumstances of their lives may be extraordinary, they're still navigating uncertainty, difficult relationships, self-doubt, fear, and the question of what comes next. There is no escaping the human experience. There's nothing wrong with wanting more from life. But I think we have to be careful about postponing our ability to enjoy it until we've arrived somewhere that doesn't actually exist. There is no arrival. Sean DeLaney, private advisor to founders, CEOs and investors.

A hallmark of lasting performance? It starts with authentic self-expression. Performers who last whether they are athletes, leaders, or innovators always let their true selves shine through. Consider Steve Jobs: Apple is a direct reflection of who he was. Phil Knight's vision birthed Nike, and Walt Disney's essence created Disney World. Sean DeLaney, private advisor to founders, CEOs and investors.

How @boydvarty built internal trust: “I could let the ideal go and attend daily to doing the next smallest thing that I knew to do... I started to build that internal trust.” From our conversation on What Got You There.

Are you capturing your value? Many people create enormous value but capture very little of it. After years of hard work, they realize they’ve built something that benefits others while they see little to no upside. I have seen a lot of people make others enormously wealthy without capturing any of that upside themselves. Just because someone can create enormous value doesn't mean they're actually benefiting from it. Sean DeLaney, private advisor to founders, CEOs and investors.

The one I will become will catch me.

Stop bringing force to a leverage fight. Imagine two people trying to cut down a hundred trees. One swings an axe all day, while the other shows up with a chainsaw. Who do you think will cut down more? In life, we often celebrate hard work without questioning if we're using the right tools. We assume that to achieve better results, we need to put in more effort. But we live in a multiplicative world. Take a founder trying to grow their business. They can hire more salespeople and spend more on marketing, or they can recognize that one well-structured partnership could open doors that would take years to build otherwise. The first founder looks busy and productive, but the second achieves more with less effort. Sean DeLaney, private advisor to founders, CEOs and investors.