Category: Everything else

An idea I’ve found myself referencing a lot of late as we navigate change is “short term messy, long term good.”

My belief is that we can all handle a bit of messy as long as our expectations are set right. And navigating that mess as a team – with emergent direction and eyes wide open – typically results in good outcomes in the long run.

It is always challenging navigating the messy part.

But, on the flip side, these experiences often tend to be learning-rich and transformational.

No pain, no gain.

There’s a concept Nest’s founder Tony Faddell calls out in his book, “Build,” differentiating Babysitter CEOs and Parent CEOs.

Babysitter CEOs focus on keeping the status quo and changing little. Rocking the boat is not on their agenda and, while many drive incremental growth, many drive companies to the ground as well by not making the changes organizations need to survive.

Parent CEOs, on the other hand, are all about doing whatever it takes. That often comes with a recognition of the risk of sticking with the status quo and the associated (large) upside/downside. It also speaks to the toil these leaders go through – it isn’t easy being a parent.

I think the concept applies to all kinds of leadership. Sometimes, even as parents, it can be tempting to just play the role of babysitter – especially on a bad day if we just decide to turn on the TV and the kids run wild. It takes a lot of effort to be present, to push for the change we seek thoughtfully and tactfully, and to ensure we’re leading from places of wholeness vs. our wounds.

Leadership in every organization or team works like that too. We face babysitter vs. parent choices all the time –

• Do we make the calls we’d make assuming we’d still be around for 5 years or are we going for the quick win?
• Do we have the hard conversation or look to keep the peace?
• Do we try to land that point and risk looking like a fool?
• How much accountability do we take for what’s happening?

And so on.

Babysitter or parent is a lovely metaphor for the choice that we make. Renter or owner could be another.

Either way, it takes a combination of thoughtfulness, emotional labor, and guts to consistently make good long term choices.

And we are presented with the option not to every time we go to play. It’s just a question of what we habitually default to.

As someone shared in response to my note about standards the other day – First, we make our habits. Then our habits make us.

Today, let our energy impact the people we talk to, as opposed to the other way around.

Then let’s do it again tomorrow.

We recently experienced a day when little went our way. So many things went sideways – it went from “what is going on” to amusing very quickly.

The one nice thing that happened, though, was that none of us lost perspective. So we kept exploring options at every obstacle and attempted to make the most of the circumstances. The mood was upbeat throughout.

In the final analysis, it wasn’t the kind of day we’d call “great.” It couldn’t be. Far too many things had gone wrong.

But, despite the problems, we made something of it.

It reminded us that there are so many circumstances that are out of our control. It also reminded us that we can control our response to them. And that we can make that response constructive – if we choose to do so.

Maybe it was a great day after all.

The simplest way to break existing patterns of thought is to break existing patterns of action.

It is why new experiences – especially the kinds that involve nature – regularly spur new ideas and alternate ways of thinking.

Gratitude and the circle of influence have a snowball effect in common.

If you’re focused on what you control/influence and on the things in life you’re grateful for, you’ll find that there’s a lot more of both. There’s so much to be grateful for. And we have more agency than we often assume.

Do the opposite, however, and you’ll find yourself feeling powerless and never having enough.

A key to learning to communicate with large groups is accepting that it is near impossible to perfectly land a message on-the-fly to any group greater than 5 people.

There’s always someone who is going to misunderstand your message or doubt your intent.

The benefit of this realization is that we give up on perfection, accept that mistakes are part of the process, and just focus on reflection and response.

That’s way more constructive than the alternative and results in us gradually improving the chances of landing a message the next time we try.

“The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.” | Madam de Stael

It resonated.

The more changeless our core, the easier it is to confront change.

Clarity on who we are and what we stand for inspires the ability to be agile and flexible in response to a new context.

That in turn enables us to learn from new situations and change how we operate.

(H/T: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)

Cory Muscara shared a fascinating thread with insights from his time meditating with Buddhist monks. Here are a collection that resonated –

A sign of growth is having more tolerance for discomfort. But it’s also having less tolerance for bullshit.

Procrastination is the refusal or inability to be with difficult emotions.

Desires that arise in agitation are more aligned with your ego. Desires that arise in stillness are more aligned with your soul.

Your mind doesn’t wander. It moves toward what it finds most interesting. If you want to focus better, become more curious about what’s in front of you.

The moment before letting go is often when we grip the hardest.

You don’t find your ground by looking for stability. You find your ground by relaxing into instability.

There is no set of conditions that leads to lasting happiness. Lasting happiness doesn’t come from conditions; it comes from learning to flow with conditions.

Real confidence looks like humility. You no longer need to advertise your value because it comes from a place that does not require the validation of others.

Your mind doesn’t wander. It moves toward what it finds most interesting. If you want to focus better, become more curious about what’s in front of you.

There are 3 layers to a moment: Your experience, your awareness of the experience, and your story about the experience. Be mindful of the story.

One of the deepest forms of peace we can experience is living in integrity. You can lie to other people about who you are, but you can’t lie to your heart.

Monks love to fart while they meditate. The wisdom of letting go expresses itself in many forms.

You can’t life-hack wisdom. Do the work.

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Thank you for sharing, Cory!

That last one gets to the difference between reading these, thinking about them, and copying my favorites over. It will take a lot of work for these to truly be “learning.”

You can’t life-hack wisdom indeed.

I meditated 15 hours a day for 6 months straight with one of the toughest Buddhist monks on the planet.

Here's what I learned: pic.twitter.com/E3DntSxwDY

— Cory Muscara (@corymuscara) November 21, 2022