Through the leadership coaching sessions I've been part of in recent years, I've noticed one type of leverage that consistently increases the effectiveness of working with people and provokes major breakthroughs in one's life: depth.
When trying to understand ourselves, life, or the world, it's easy to get stuck on a superficial level of effects. We often spend time understanding effects and symptoms rather than causes, working only on a shallow plane of existence.
Yet, ultimately, the real insights and 10x breakthroughs are gained at a much deeper level. Everything we observe is rooted in something profound. This root cause often seems plain and simple, yet it's the actual source of many more complex phenomena we observe as we move up in depth.
For example, instead of merely contemplating the phenomenon of avoidance when facing a major next step in your life, there's something more primitive that's the source of this avoidance. In most cases, avoidance is an intelligent abstraction of a core emotion, typically fear. When working on breaking through barriers, the most effective approach is to go as deep as possible, removing abstractions wherever we can. This way, it becomes painfully obvious what the true barriers are—often things that were unconscious before.
When thinking about becoming effective in the world, using depth as a paradigm for the conversations you have with yourself and others is a powerful lever. Depth is what allows for meaningful breakthroughs. But it doesn't come naturally. You need to relentlessly remind yourself to simplify things and continuously ask "why" to reach the ultimate, primitive drivers and causes that are the source of all symptoms and effects you consciously observe.