Whenever I’m getting to know someone to see if we might work together, I ask a couple of questions.
The first is a pretty standard Novus Global question:
“What results would we create together that would cause you to weep with joy?”
Then I ask:
“And how quickly would you like to create those results?”
It’s not a trick question. I genuinely want to understand someone’s relationship with the future they say they want.
Are they rushing toward it? Walking toward it? Or is it on pause while they deal with other priorities?
Because wanting something and being urgent about creating it are two different things.
The Difference Between Anxiety and Urgency in Leadership
Knowing someone’s level of urgency helps me understand how hard I should push for us to begin working together.
If someone tells me, “This is really important to me,” I’m going to fight hard to get us moving. If they tell me, “This will be more important in a couple of months,” I know to back off for now.
And if a potential client doesn’t ever want to experience urgency around what matters to them, I may not be the right fit for them.
Now you might be thinking, I don’t want to live my life with a constant sense of urgency.
Neither do I… at least not if by “urgency” we mean stress, panic, pressure, and the feeling that everything is about to fall apart.
But that’s not urgency. That’s anxiety.
And there’s an important distinction between the two.
Anxiety Is Motivated by Fear. Urgency Is Motivated by Passion.
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Anxiety says:
I have to get this done or something bad will happen.
Urgency says:
This matters too much to me to keep waiting.
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That distinction changes everything.
Anxiety can be an incredibly effective short-term motivator. Fear gets people moving. But it comes with significant costs. When anxiety becomes the primary fuel for leadership, eventually we start draining the tank faster than we can refill it. Burnout, exhaustion, disconnection, and diminished creativity are often waiting on the other side.
Urgency feels different.
When urgency comes from passion, purpose, and possibility, there can be excitement and power in the work. Instead of continually draining us, pursuing the future can actually fill us up.
The question shifts from What am I afraid will happen if I don’t do this? to What matters so much that I’m unwilling to keep putting it off?
Choose a Life Worth Being Urgent About
Part of the joy of being alive is choosing a life worth being urgent about.
There are relationships worth investing in now, teams worth improving now and companies worth building now.
There are risks worth taking and versions of ourselves worth becoming… not someday, but now.
As Andy Dufresne famously puts it in The Shawshank Redemption: “Get busy living or get busy dying.”
I couldn’t agree more.
This is part of what it means to work with a Novus Global coach. Coaching isn’t simply about helping you accomplish a particular goal. It’s about increasing your capacity for urgency and cultivating urgency as a habit.
When I’m talking with potential clients, I put it something like this:
“One of the things I promise to bring to our relationship is a sense of urgency. You tell me what matters, and I will assume you want to move toward it as quickly as possible. But more importantly, I promise to cultivate that sense of urgency in you. We may start with me bringing the urgency to you, but eventually that will shift to you bringing the urgency to me.”
That shift matters because ultimately, your coach can’t want your future more than you do. Neither can your boss, your spouse, your business partner, your team, or your friends.
Who Is Bringing the Urgency?
Consider the things you say matter most to you.
How urgent are you about creating them?
Who is bringing the urgency to your family?
Who is bringing it to your team?
Who is bringing it to your company?
And perhaps most importantly: Who is bringing the urgency to your own life?
There is a kind of leadership that waits for circumstances to create urgency. The deadline gets close enough. The numbers get bad enough. The relationship becomes strained enough. The opportunity starts disappearing.
And it’s only then that we move from a place of fear.
But there’s another kind of leadership available to us: choosing urgency before fear makes it necessary.
Not because everything is an emergency or because we’re afraid, but because something matters.
The reality is that no one else can be the CUO, the Chief Urgency Officer, of your life.
That job belongs to you.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FROM NOVUS GLOBAL
- Your Noble Pursuit is where founder and CEO Jason Jaggard writes about the intersection of ambition, meaning, and what it actually means to flourish, not just perform. If this post made you think, his Substack invites you to go deeper.
- Work with a Novus Global Coach: Ready to explore what you’re actually capable of?Join us for a Free Discovery Call.
- Become a Coach: Learn more about the Meta Performance Institute for Coaching at www.mp.institute.