And Now For Something Completely Different…

Introduction

From time to time on this blog I will exercise “author’s prerogative” and deviate from what would otherwise be the expected/scheduled post topic. This post was planned to be the 3rd installment of the burnout series and for a variety of reasons, I didn’t particularly feel like finishing that post. I suppose I could chalk it up to a number of things. Perhaps it could be blamed on my AI writing partner/editor prompt and I having a fundamental disagreement about the tone and content of the post, resulting in absolute garbage drafts near publication time. It could be that I’m burnt out on burnout and would prefer a break, but that seems a bit “dad joke-ish” even for me. I think that a coincidence of timing is the most likely culprit – I’ve celebrated a milestone birthday since the last post, and given my recent interest in the idea of “psychological richness” I think a solid personal reflection is of immense value.

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Milestones

Milestone birthdays don’t come often, and they are somewhat arbitrarily resultant from our species having 10 fingers and our numerical system being base 10. Just because they happen to be an accident of biology, history and culture doesn’t make them invalid – unless you want to embrace the fallacy that biology, culture and history are somehow invalid. If you’ve read this blog before, you know that one of my principles is that reality is undefeated, so obviously invalidating biology and culture is just not going to fly here. Here I am, a year older and a new decade of years to start counting, and so, yes, I will take the opportunity to share some random reflections, thoughts, and pearls from all of these accumulated years and even project a little future oriented thinking. It may seem a bit random and haphazard in its organization—after all, it’s my blog and nobody is forcing you to read it.

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A Note of Gratitude

I’d like to begin with some thanks – firstly to my readers and subscribers. I’m so grateful for your faith that this endeavor has enough implied value that you allow me to periodically pollute your inbox. It’s been nearly 5 years since Paul and I conceived of this project, and I’m just now into the 3rd year of steady writing and posting. We banked on the idea that what we’ve learned through experience, examination and education would be of value to our audience—if we could ever connect with them. We appreciate those of you who jumped on board with us from the beginning. Again, thank you.

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Some pearls from this past decade

This past 10 years has been an eventful one to be certain. I started with a promotion to a career aspirational job and rank in the military, only to lose both and have to rebuild and retool my reputation, leadership toolbox and career focus. Some of the most valuable lessons and insights I’ve gained in that decade have been from the recovery process from my own missteps, mistakes and mishaps. Here are the highlights that continue to serve me.

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Do you want to be right, or do you want to be effective?

This “cognitive frying pan” was wielded by my thought partner and peer mentor Paul. Feedback fell on deaf ears prior to this knocking me upside the head—it was seen as a threat to authenticity. Paul was able to help me reframe the purpose of feedback, so that it became a vital necessity to seek out, and not something to explain away. Thank you my friend – your wise words shall surely serve me well in the next decade as they have in this past one.

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Your comfort zone will kill you.

A mentee of mine gave me a coffee mug as a gift with these words emblazoned upon it. These words were so powerful, both as a daily reminder of what a growth mindset is really all about as well as a personal mark of the ultimate success as a mentor—my mentee absorbing the mentoring so well he was able to give it right back. Mitch, this gift was so powerful that my wife and I suspended our household ban on new mugs and made room in an otherwise overstuffed cabinet over the coffeemaker. Grazie mille mio amico.

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If the relationship is right, you can say anything.

If you want the gist of “The Outward Mindset” and the Arbinger Institute training that accompanies the book, this pearl will take you far. For that matter it does a decent job of covering Crucial Conversations and Radical Candor. This seminal idea embodies trust, psychological safety, and tough love—a combination of caring and honesty—all at once.

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Perfection is a paradox: pursuit of it helps move you forward, as long you accept that you’ll never actually achieve it.

This is a huge realization that comes from the passionate pursuit of a growth mindset as a life default. Settling for not being better, and driving oneself to the point of harm to become better are the extreme misinterpretations of this pearl. Rather, be inspired by the unattainable ideal to keep pushing beyond where you are, while accepting that you’ll forever have areas to pursue it. Don’t fight the paradox, just roll with it.

If everything is important, nothing is important.

There are lots of variations on this theme. Replace “important“ with “a priority” and it still works. Thanks to Steven Covey ripping off Eisenhower, we can all work the 2×2 table of important vs urgent. No matter who gets credit for the practical application, this pearl is one of my favorites. I simply can’t do everything, everywhere, all at once. This pearl is another explanation of why I deviated from my blog publication schedule. My milestone birthdays and their reflections come once a decade…blog posts come every two weeks. If everything is important….

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Future Ramblings

I’ve always wanted to write a piece about men and masculinity. It seems to be a baffling topic for many, and equally baffling to me that it remains controversial that we ought be discussing it. Nevertheless it is. I just watched half of a documentary this week about “The Manosphere” on Netflix. I was appalled, but not surprised. There has definitely been a drastic re-evaluation of the roles, expectations and ideals for manhood over the course of my life, and more so over the last decade or two. There has been interesting and thought provoking work done on the changes to what it means to be a man, and the uncertainty and controversy over what it means to be a man is real; very real in the sense of the consequences in the lives of young men growing up in our culture. The statistics measuring those consequences are real, and the lack of direction and meaning in men’s lives is apparent in the success of the rise of the toxic manosphere clown car. It’s worrisome to be sure, but hardly surprising.

Paul and I also plan to do more content creation in the audio and video realm. We have frequent brainstorming chats to get these posts worked out, and topics for future collaboration decided. After each one of these free-form discussions, we always regret not recording and sharing the raw processing of it all. I think the first one we are thinking of is a discussion of when hard-nosed and demanding mentors turn toxic—go watch the movie “Whiplash” and “Miracle” to get a sense of some of the substrate we’ll be reacting to.

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More gratitude

Thanks to my wife and family for putting up with my offline rants that result in this content, and no exaggeration when I say my family is my greatest fondest achievement. Thanks to my guitar teachers for insisting on nudging and shoving me out of my comfort zone (I mean singing? Seriously, what the hell?!). Thanks to my parents for raising me and providing me an example of what right looks like, and my in-laws for raising my wife and treating me like family from the start. Thanks to my brothers for being there – enjoy your upcoming milestones as well! 

This has been a wonderful few years on this journey, and I’m looking forward to the next milestone for an opportunity to reflect. Thanks to you dear reader for coming along for the ride. Please feel free to share what’s been your favorite of our posts, what the pearls above mean for you, or what future directions you’d like us to explore.