+ Intent: The idea of intentionality is to focus on the experience we want to create, being mindful of the impact of our thoughts and actions.
Taking a purposeful approach to something has been driven into to me as an athlete by all the coaches I've been fortunate to have - each drill, practice, running session was built around a specific purpose = to help us show up best on game days.
My parents introduced intentionality to me in many ways, but the one that sticks out the most is healthy eating - they always led me and my two sisters and brother to really think about what we were eating and how it made us feel.
The first step in my career in sports, with the single most influential mentor on my career, was at ground zero of Canadian Sport 4 Life, a program developed by Richard Way and Istvan Balyi that promotes the intentional delivery of sport to improve the quality in Canada. Over the last 10 years or so, their framework has been adopted by a majority of Canada's national and provincial sport organizations.
My first full-time job, was shaped around the "intentional use of sport to teach kids life skills and build communities" (Right To Play). Sport can be an instrument of great (positive) influence especially when used intentionally, and Right To Play's programs are prime examples.
While studying an MBA (at the best school on the planet, the University of Portland :), I was introduced to the idea of Strategic Intent. It inspired me in a massive way. It's about setting bold audacious goals that allow us to envision the future. Then, we operate from the future backward, to create the future. The idea proposes, from a biz perspective, that companies should expand their resource base to meet its ambition: "Realistic goals promote incremental moves; only unrealistic goals provoke breakthrough thinking." Hamel and Prahalad (1989, HBR).
This is a pretty powerful idea to infuse into our lives too - envision what your ideal life looks like, connect the dots from the now to the vision, and then go about making it happen.
Intent, it's might just be one of my favourite words.
