As six of us walked to dinner in the city, my friend announced, “Just so you know, I’m not leading us; I’m just in front.”

It’s a good reminder. Sometimes we assume that the person in the front knows where he’s going. That’s not always true.

It’s also good practice, more generally, to be candid about our roles... especially if people are following us and we don’t know the way.

Sometimes, being exceptional doesn’t require being extraordinary. Sometimes, it just calls for a little extra.

A little extra effort. A little extra time. A little extra thought. A little extra intention.

Don’t discount the possibility for “a little extra” to become quite remarkable. It’s often the case.

Plenty of things give us temporary happiness. A little bit of joy. And it’s tempting to think that if we can just line those things up, back to back, we can string together a happy existence. If we can just have enough of those things that bring moments of delight, we’ll enjoy happiness that lasts.

Thing is, a long series of temporal joys is not the same as lasting happiness, and our hearts know it.

A colleague of mine charged his phone all night. Ten hours. In the morning, the battery was still dead. Turns out, one end of the cable was plugged into his phone, and the other end was plugged into nothing.

We can be very careful to connect ourselves to a channel or a network, but establishing that connection doesn’t mean we’re being fed. We need to pay attention to what’s flowing through those pipelines... if anything at all.

The clever doctor, when she needs a four-year-old to open his mouth, or to take deep breaths, also asks that he...

• kick his right foot.

• wiggle his rear end.

• raise his pointer fingers alternately.

• choose a favorite ear.

She knows that the best way to get what she needs is to blend it with what the child wants, which is to have fun and to be a little silly.

You don’t get to be that kind of professional by punching the clock. You get to be that kind of professional by showing up with your whole self. Your joyful self. The best version of yourself.

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There’s this thing about buying a new car (or researching one). You start to notice that kind of vehicle more often. Your purchase of the car didn’t produce more of them on the roadway; you just start to notice them wherever they are.

I think it’s the same with opportunities. They’re always available. It’s just that when you’re looking for them, you see them. When you’re focused on opportunities, they seem to be all around you.

We look for misspelled words. Misused words (and malapropisms). Grammatical errors.

But we can make errors in the spaces, too. Five spaces between sentences can be nearly as ugly as a misspelling.

The bigger picture? Just as much as we can err in what we say, we can err in the times we’re silent.

At the end of the carousel in the Chicago O’Hare baggage claim, a man swiftly turns each piece of luggage coming off of the conveyor belt. He’s careful to arrange each piece so that a handle faces outward, making it easy for passengers to lift their bags off the moving apparatus.

One airport employee performing a simple task, making an entire operation work smoothly, and taking a little burden off hundreds of travelers. Little by little.

A screw can only withstand so much torque before it shears or the threads are stripped.

A certain amount of torque is optimal.

Tighter, therefore, is not always better. More is not always best.

The hard part is knowing when to stop. The hard part is having the discipline to stop turning before you break something.

There’s a metaphor here, and I’m sure you can think of an area of your life where it applies.

Before the show begins, the house lights go down and the audience instinctively quiets itself.

There’s a sense of anticipation. Of expectation.

Dimming the lights is a signal: something great is about to happen.

In your own projects, presentations, and events — public and private — what do you do to create that feeling?

Music, lighting, furniture placement, clothing, gestures... any one of these can be used, with intention, to create that light-dimming feeling of, “something special is about to occur.”

“I’ve upgraded your room.” (The room is exactly what I reserved.)

“Would you care for some coffee? Here’s a voucher for a free cup.” (The coffee shop is currently closed.)

* * *

A hotel check-in that would normally be unremarkable now tempts one to be disappointed.

When you’ve promised to do a special thing, make sure you’re not actually doing the regular thing.

Each of us is a conduit for creativity, and work intends to flow through us.

But if we don’t tend to that current... if we don’t nurture its outlet with respect... then an internal burden builds.

Like increasing, unreleased pressure in a pipe, a burst is inevitable… and that brings an unfortunate mess to what could have be a beautiful fountain.

The case of bottles without an opener.

The television without a remote.

The prepared contract without a pen.

The dessert without a spoon.

Seeing the big picture is important, but the details matter.

There’s always room for improvement. There’s always a shortcoming — even if only minor. There’s always a detail to critique.

But if you’re always bringing that critical element to the conversation, you might not make for great company.

When someone says something in another language or with a thick accent, and you nod your head as though you understand (perhaps to seem polite or to act as though you fit in quite seamlessly) you might walk away with a whole milk mocha, and not the double espresso you ordered.

Sometimes nodding and smiling works out OK. Sometimes it’s the dim-witted thing to do.

Airports are excellent laboratories to study status roles. Who’s first. Who’s last. Who’s new. Who’s well-traveled. Who has money. Who doesn’t.

But very little of what you observe can be certain.

The man sitting in first-class by way of a happenstance upgrade.

The multi-millionaire flying coach.

A woman using the phrase, “Do you know who I am?” at the customer service counter.

As I waited to board a recent flight, two scenes were memorable: the group of people impatiently waiting for business-class to board first, and a smartly dressed young lady at the very end of the economy line, rolling an iconic $1,000 piece of aluminum carry-on luggage.

It’s all fascinating to watch, and the stories we invent about the people we see make for great fictional musings.

When kids are learning to play basketball, there’s a tendency for them to crowd around the ball during play. One player holds the ball while nine other bodies are in close proximity.

At this age, if another player wants the ball, she gets as close as she can to the player who possesses it. The result is a clump of jerseys jammed on the court.

The thing to do — if you want a teammate to pass the ball to you — is to get open. To find a part of the court away from defenders, where the ball can be passed to you.

It’s somewhat counter-intuitive… to distance yourself from the object you want. But that’s the way it works: you’ve got to set yourself apart, and to present yourself as a safe option. A good pass.

I’m going somewhere with this, as you’ve probably guessed.

When we’re working with teammates, colleagues, and partners, there are times when we have to get open. When crowding close to the person on the critical path is not the best way to help the project. When instead, getting ourselves in order, away from distraction (and ready to accept a pass) is the most useful thing to do.

It’s very likely that when you put on a jacket, you do it the same way every time.

That is, you always begin with the same arm in the same sleeve.

Try it. Put on a coat, noting which arm you put in first. Then, take off your coat and try it the other way: put your other arm in first.

Strange, right?

There are some things we do so habitually — so unconsciously — that we’re unaware of the pattern. It’s just the way we do things.

It takes a specific instance of us doing something quite differently to recognize that indeed, there was a “normal” way.

(Credit to my friend, Jeff, whose shoulder injury led us to discuss this curious jacket-sleeve phenomenon.)

There’s a quiet, but steady narrator in the mind.

Whose voice is it? The voice of the problem, or the voice of the solution?

With a bit of practice, we can choose the one that speaks.

Sometimes, in the midst of a non-emergency, a group of people operate in emergency-mode.

The leader that merely says, “This is not an emergency,” misses the point.

The fact that your team is unnecessarily in emergency-mode is itself an emergency.

Solving that problem is a critical first step.