Enhance Your Focus & Presence During Times of Transformation.

By asking the right questions, keeping an open perspective, and tapping into your creativity, you can enhance your cognitive agility to be focused and present. The Reality Check Newsletter can help you achieve this by offering weekly insights in under 5 minutes every Sunday.

Previous Issues of Reality Check

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: For communication to happen, you need to start communicating.

Are you communicating or talking?

90% of the time, we want to communicate, but we are not communicating. And that’s because we often mistake communication for talking and speaking. And in reality, it is not either.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: Pause and resolve deficiencies rather than expanding into them.

Are we expanding into deficiencies or resolving them?

Our innate behavior is to expand and fill the space. A problem arises, and instead of taking a moment to resolve it correctly, we flow into it. It is difficult to resist the urge to expand, especially when the issues seem easily addressable.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: When all else fails, the understood structure is the best fit, not the right structure.

Are you seeking the right structure or the understood one?

We build and adopt structures to fix problems. Yet sometimes, the best system is that which is implementable and understood. You build a house to fit your needs, not the other way around.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: If we want to connect, we need to create the space for a connection to happen.

Are you leaving a space for a connection to happen?

Even when connecting with ourselves, we undermine the power of space. The pause in between. The silence. We assume that action and constant movement is where connections happen, yet in the busyness of what already is, something new cannot flourish.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: Your voice is not ugly, and it needs to be heard.

Are you holding your voice back?

“My voice is ugly” is the first response I get when I tell someone I took singing lessons. Well, my next answer to that is usually always that you are dead wrong.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: Unity & animosity often go hand in hand, yet they don’t have to.

Is your unity conditional?

We love stories. And in them, we worship heroes and what they stand for. We rally behind them and look up to them as they ward off evil. In their cause, we unite. We unite against... Let me interrupt you just right there.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: When scared, we seek safety in the bunker of constraints, not realizing that we just cornered ourselves with no way out.

Are you running away into the safety of a prison?

A wolf is chasing you down. You find a cave, and you crawl inside for safety. Yet the cave has no exit; the deeper you go inside, the more locked in you become. You probably think we are too old for wolf stories, but I can guarantee you that we are exhibiting the same behavior at work, at home, or in our community today, and we are oblivious to it.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: Momentum has many faces, yet most are not easy to recognize or encounter.

Can you recognize and face momentum when it’s not what you expected?

When push comes to shove, momentum shows its face in the most unexpected ways. It’s hard to distinguish because often it’s not wearing a flowery dress or accompanied by a big smile.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: As a leader, every decision you make is a decision someone else could have taken.

Are you scalable or a centralized machine of decision-making?

The prowess to decide is a taxing activity. Consolidated in one place, it creates a bottleneck for organizations and individuals. It comes with a promise of power and control, yet it often leaks. With too many dimensions and stimuli to capture, the cognitive load eventually overflows, making it hard to scale, especially when it is concentrated in one place.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: For every moment, you are as ready as you could be for it, so just be.

Are you ready to fall into the moment?

For every moment, you are as ready as you could be for it, so just be. The latter statement is hard to swallow for the perfectionists and type A personalities where yours truly spent most of his life.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: Sometimes all you need is a listening ear.

Who will you listen to today?

Sometimes all you need is a listening ear. It is not the red pill nor the blue pill. It’s the magic pill. It’s not red because there is no revelation that will happen outside the reality you exist in. It’s not the blue pill either because you won’t return to the same experience that you were in.

Quote by Carlo Mahfouz: When your potential is greater than you, it often overwhelms you.

Is your potential overwhelming you?

Have you ever had this nagging feeling or question you could not understand? It felt so true, but you still couldn’t resolve it wherever you searched for it. It drove you nuts, and you became more and more obsessed and frustrated. Until eventually, you gave up and drifting to the back of your existence; you let it go to preserve your sanity.

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