2023: The Year of ‘Not Helpless’

My biggest regret this year was not attending a memorial service for someone I knew who died unexpectedly.

Despite our distant connection, my grief was real, but fear held me back. I worried about navigating the unfamiliar customs of their faith and feared saying the wrong thing to their family, whom I had never met before. Additionally, I was concerned about how others would perceive my attendance, given our weak ties.

Upon reflection, none of these fears justify my absence, and this regret has been a poignant lesson for me. It seems so obvious now, but I actually have some control over how I react to fear. Nothing but myself was stopping me from making a different choice.

I am glad that even though I feel regret, I have learned something from it: My ignorance is my responsibility and under my control. My irrational fears are my responsibility and under my control. My boundaries and response to social anxiety is my responsibility and under my control. These are all hard, to be sure, but I am not helpless.

—

I’ve now proven to myself that I can do better. This is my greatest accomplishment of the year.

On vacation, where work stress dissolves into the Gulf of Mexico's salt, I find myself more patient with my sons. In the last two months, gratitude journaling helped me realize that I was unfairly expecting my sons to manage my frustrations. This insight has made me a better listener, helping me see them as they need to be seen - closer to how God sees them.

On vacation, when the stress of work dissolves into the Gulf of Mexico’s salt, I am more patient with my sons. In the last 2 months of the year, when some gratitude journaling I did finally made it click that I’m expecting my sons to help me manage my own frustrations, I am better. I am a better listener and I finally see them in the way they need me to - closer to how God sees them.

Now, I know, I can do better - I just have to do it when the world around me feels chaotic and when we’re out of our little paradise and back into our beautiful, but very real, life. This will be extremely difficult, but I know I can do it, because I’ve already done it.

Once I am better - as a listener, as a father, and as a husband when Robyn and I work through this together - I start to talk to them different. I’m curious. I’m asking questions. I’m taking pauses. I’m no longer trying to control and react, I am the powerful wave of the rising tide that is firm but gentle, enveloping them and their sandy toes until they are anchored again.

I change how I talk. Instead of saying - “stop it, now!” I start to say, with a full, palpable, sense of love and confidence in them - “you are not helpless.”

—

Over the years, Robyn and I have taken exactly one walk on the beach together during our Christmas vacation.

We saunter away for 30 minutes at nap time, letting the masks we so reluctantly maintain as parents and professionals fully drop. It's just us, speaking to no one except three young girls who earnestly and eagerly approach us, asking, “Excuse us, but would you like a beautiful sea shell?“

Some years, one of us is weeping as our grief and frustration finally is allowed to boil over. This year though, we are incisive and contemplative. I am honestly curious. We struggled so much this year, how is it that we aren’t more frustrated with each other?

By the end of our walk and our conversation, I see her differently. She is more beautiful, but that’s how I feel everyday. Today, I also feel the depth of her soul and resolve more strongly. Her gravity pulls me in closer.

We have fought hard to get here. All the hard conversations we’ve had and all the conflict resolution techniques we’ve studied and applied have made a big difference. Yes, we have put in the work.

But at the root of it, is something much deeper and strategic. We have seeds of resilience that we have planted consistently with every season of our marriage that passes. We plant and reap, over and over, not a fruit but a mindset. We have vowed to be in union. We are dialed into a single vision that is bigger than both of us. We are committed to make it it there and we have jettisoned our escape pods, figuratively speaking, we have left ourselves no choice but to figure it out.

And with every crisis, we feel more and more that we can figure it out. With each year that passes, the difficulty of our problems increases, but so does our capacity to manage them. More than ever, as the clock strikes the bottom of the hour and we end our saunter, I remember - we are not helpless.

This year was hard. But the silver lining was that I finally internalized something so simple, but so important.

When the going gets tough - whether it’s because of death, our children growing up, or external factors adding stress to our marriage - nobody is coming to save us. We are on our own. But that’s okay, because we are not helpless.

Every runner has a story

The energy at the start line of a marathon - half or full, doesn’t matter - is absolutely electric.

I think that’s because to run a half or a full marathon it takes training. And to train for something as miserable as a long race, you have to love running and you have to have some greater purpose.

The last races I did were in honor of my father. He would always encourage me to stay fit. And he’d always rib me about running and ask me how long the distances of my training runs were. The last races I did were, in retrospect, part of my process of grieving. It would’ve been so meaningful to give him a big hug at a finish line. But alas, it will never be.

This race today was for me. Rather, for an older version of me, 30-40 years in the future. That guy is depending on me to stay healthy so he can be around for a long time. That guy wants to be around and energetic for retirement. That guy wants to play, laugh, and adventure around with his grandchildren. That guy needs me to be an athlete, now.

Me and that older version of me don’t have longevity in our genes, so we run. This race today was for us.

—

The purpose of other runners is palpable on the course. For some runners, training for a half is how they stay connected and find community in a running club. For others, it’s their way of changing their diet, lifestyle, and attitude. For others, they love the freedom and energy of running, or the discipline that training brings to their lives. For others, I’m sure, they’re recovering from devastating illnesses, like cancer, and running is their reminder that they beat the disease.

What I love about these races is that nobody cares if they are the winner, or have the best time. Everyone runs with their own purpose and their own goal in mind. Basically everyone, save for the most elite of runners, is mostly running to be a better version of themselves. “Winning the race” really isn’t the point.

I value this attitude greatly, because it’s honest. So little of our lives is actually a competition with others. We may perceive it to be, but that’s not really true. For the majority of the situations in our lives - whether at work, at home, or in community - all we need to do is grow and be better than the person we were yesterday. Most of the time, just like at a marathon, winning is not the point.

For this race, I had a lot of help to train properly. I had my best race yet, and it’s thanks to the Nike Run Club and the virtual coaches there. I had the right training plan, and I became a smarter and more technically sound runner. But not only that, I learned so much about being an athlete.

Coach Bennett is the global head coach of the Nike Run Club (NRC), and I felt like he was my personal coach because of the guided runs I was able to do with him. He and the other NRC coaches are emphatic about reminding the athlete of two things: 1) that they are indeed athletes because they’re working to get better, and 2) that if we’re running, we chose to run. We got through all the obstacles and got up on that starting line, which is a victory it itself.

This was a huge reframe for me.

Our mission is not to get to the finish line, for a race or even just a workout. The mission is to run in such a way that we get on the next starting line. Because only if you keep running do you keep getting better. Because only if you keep working at it do you become a better version of yourself. And that’s the point, becoming better - physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually - with every stride and every workout. I’ve found this philosophy to be so powerful, and not just while training - but at work and in family life too.

So many times during my training, and during today’s race, I would even yawp, “I’M AN ATHLETE! LET’S GO!”, to remind myself of this important lesson.

There were over 10,000 people that ran an event as part of the Detroit Marathon weekend this year. To be part of that is so humbling. Because there are 10,000 people who have stories and purpose, just like I do. That’s what I love most about Marathon weekend. It’s as much a running race, as it is a celebration of the truth that every runner has a story and so does every person.

Congratulations to everyone who raced Detroit this weekend, have raced before, or will do their first race next year.

See you at the next starting line.

Photo Credit: Robyn Tambe

Learning to Win Ugly

What it takes to “win” is different than what it takes to “win ugly.” In sports what it means to win ugly can be something like:

• Winning a close, physical game

• Winning in bad weather or difficult conditions

• Winning without superstars

• Winning after overcoming a deficit or when your team is particularly outmatched

• Winning by just doing what needs to be done, even if it’s not fancy or flashy

But winning ugly is also a useful metaphor outside sports:

• In a marriage: keeping a relationship alive during adversity (e.g., during a global pandemic) or after a major loss

• In parenting: staying patient during bedtime when a child is overtired and throwing a tantrum

• In public service: improving across-the-board quality of life for citizens after the city government, which has been under-invested in for decades, goes through bankruptcy (I’m biased because I worked in it, but the Duggan Administration Detroit is my thinly veiled example here)

• At work: finding a way to reinvent an old-school company that’s not large, prestigious, or cash-infused enough to simply buy “elite” talent

The point of all these examples is to suggest that it’s easier to succeed when circumstances are good, such as when: there’s no adversity, the problem and solution are well understood, you’re on a team of superstars, or you’re flush with cash. It’s something quite different to succeed when the terrain is treacherous.

I’ve been thinking about the idea of winning ugly lately because as a parent, the fee wins we’ve had lately have been ugly ones.

Generally speaking, I’ve come to believe that winning ugly is important because it seems like when the stakes are highest and failure is not an option - like during a global pandemic, or when a city has unprecedented levels of violent crime, or when the economy is in free fall, or a family is on the verge of collapse after a tragedy - there’s usually no way to win except winning ugly.

I’d even say winning ugly is essential - because every team, family, company, and community falls upon hard times. In the medium to long run, it’s guaranteed. But honestly, I don’t think most people look at this capability when assessing talent for someone they’re interviewing for a job, or even when filling out their NCAA bracket. 

Moreover, as I’ve reflected on it, I’ve realized that my whole life, I’ve been coached, actively, to avoid ugly situations. I was sent to lots of enrichment classes where I had a lot of teachers and extra help to learn things (not ugly). I had easy access to great facilities, like tennis courts, classrooms, computer labs, and weight rooms (not ugly). I was encouraged to take prep classes for standardized tests (not ugly). I was raised to think that the way to achieve dreams was to attend an Ivy League school (not ugly).

If I did all these things I could get a job at a prestigious firm that was established, and make a lot of money, and live a successful life.

What I’ve realized, is that this suburban middle class dream depends on putting yourself in ideal situations. The whole strategy hinges on positioning - you work hard and invest a lot so you can position yourself for the next opportunity. If you’re in a good position, you’re more likely to succeed, and therefore set yourself up for the next thing, and so on.

If you don’t think winning ugly matters, this is no problem. But if you do believe it’s important to know how to pull through when it’s tough, the problem is that the way you learn to win ugly is to put yourself into tough situations, not easy ones. The problem with how I (and many of us) were raised is that we didn’t have a lot of chances to learn to win ugly.

I, for example, learned to win ugly in city government, at the Detroit Police Department…in my late twenties and thirties.

There, we caught no breaks. Every single improvement in crime levels we had to scrap for. Every success seemed to come with at least 2 or 3 obstacles to overcome. We didn’t have slush fund of cash for new projects. We didn’t have a ton of staff - even my commanding officers had to get in the weeds on reviewing press briefings, grant applications, or showing up to crime scenes. Just about any improvement I was part of was winning ugly. 

By my observation here’s what people who know how to win ugly do different:

No work is beneath anyone: if you’re winning ugly, even the highest ranking person does the unglamourous work sometimes. You can’t win ugly unless every single person on the team is willing to roll up their sleeves and do the quintessential acts of diving for loose balls, grabbing the coffee, sweeping the floor, or fixing the copy machine. 

Unleashing superpowers: If you are trying to win ugly, that means you have to squeeze every last bit of talent and effort out of your team. That requires knowing your team and finding ways to match the mission with the hidden skills that they aren’t using that can bring disproportionate results. People who win ugly doesn’t just look for hidden talents, they look for superpowers and bend over backwards to unleash them.

Discomfort with ambiguity: A lot of MBA-types talk about how it’s important to be “comfortable with ambiguity”. That’s okay when you have a lot of resources and time. But that doesn’t work if you’re trying to win ugly. Rather, you move to create clarity as quickly as possible so that the team doesn’t waste the limited time or resources you have.

Pivot hard while staying the course: When you’re winning ugly, you can’t stick with bad plans for very long. People who have won ugly know that you don’t throw good money after bad, and you change course - hard if you need to - once you have a strong inclination that the mission will fail. At the same time, winning ugly means sticking with the game plan that you know will work and driving people to execute it relentlessly. Winning ugly requires navigating this paradox of extreme adjustment and extreme persistence.

Tap into deep purpose: Winning ugly is not fun. In fact, it sucks. It’s really hard and it’s really uncomfortable. Only people who love punishment would opt to win ugly, 99% of the time you win ugly because there’s no other way. Because of this reality, to win ugly you have to have access an unshakeable, core-to-the-soul, type or purpose. You have to have deep convictions for the mission and make them tremendously explicit to everyone on the team. That’s the only way to keep the team focused and motivated to persist through the absolute garbage you have to sometimes walk through to win ugly. Teams don’t push to win when it’s ugly if their motivation is fickle.

Doing the unorthodox: People who can win pretty have the luxury of doing what’s already been done. People who win ugly don’t just embrace doing unconventional things, they know they have no other choice.

Be Unflappable: I’ve listed this list because it’s fairly obvious. When it’s a chaotic environment, people who know how to win ugly stay calm even when they move with tremendous velocity. This doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t get angry. In my experience, winning ugly often involves a lot of cursing and heated discussions. But not excuses.

Sure, I think it’s possible to use this mental model when forming a team or even when interviewing to fill a job: someone may have a lot of success, but can they win ugly?

But more than that, I am my own audience when writing this piece. I don’t want to be the sort of husband, father, citizen, or professional that only succeeds because of positioning. At the end of my life, I don’t want to think of myself as someone who only succeeded because I avoided important problems that were hard.

And, I don’t want to teach our sons to win by positioning. I want them to succeed and reach their dreams, yes, but I don’t want to take away their opportunity to build inner-strength, either. This is perhaps the most difficult paradox of parenting (and coaching at work) that I’ve experienced: wanting our kids (or the people we coach) to have success and have upward mobility, but also letting them struggle and fail so they can learn from it, and win ugly the next time.