Everyone has real struggle

Struggle is a part of life. The question is how will I deal with it?

One path is a transfer. This is when I take my pain and suffering and put it into someone else’s shoulders.

Another path is self-transformation. This is when I improve my own ability to deal with pain and suffering.

A third path is denial. This is when I delude and distract myself so I can pretend the pain and suffering doesn’t exist or isn’t that bad.

The fourth path is collaborative. This is when I work to alleviate or better handle my own pain and suffering in a way that helps or teaches others do the same.

I don’t know if there is an always “right” path. There are probably times and places where each path is the most right (or most possible).

What I’ve realized to be true is that every person, no matter what phase of life they are in, is struggling in some way that is significant. Whether rich or poor, young or old, healthy or sick - everyone has some real struggle.

If that is true, however, some of the four paths seem less reasonable than others. If I know with certainty that the person in front of me is struggling, how do I dump more on them or deny the struggle in the first place?

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Jealous of Bo

I am jealous of my son.  

I wish his childhood was mine, or that mine were more like his.  

He is surrounded by family. He has a deeper relationship with his grandparents, and more time with them already, than I did in my whole life. He has met 3 great grandparents.  

He knows his aunts, uncles, aunties, Godparents, and great aunts & uncles. He even knows the family friends of his grandparents.  

He lives in a mixed-race community. His mom is home with him twice during the work week. God willing, he will have a sibling in a few months. He has an older dog-brother.

He has so much that I didn’t.

We spend so much time as men, at least my buddies and I do, thinking about being providers and feeling the pressure of that identity.  

And yet, even though we are MUCH wealthier than my parents were at his age. That has rarely crossed my mind.  

Perhaps jealous is the wrong word. Gratefully envious is perhaps better. But whatever that word is, thank God that I’m it.  

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Imagine if at work...

Imagine if at work...

...there were no emergencies when you got there in the morning, and were generally rare…

...meetings started and ended on time…

 ...competition for promotions wasn’t a clobberfest…

...everyone spent nearly 100% of the time on something that was valuable…

...priorities and anti-priorities were clear…

 ...saying please and thank you were common and sincere…

...when you arrived and left was flexible and predictable…

...interruptions were always important and worth it…

...everyone knew, believed in, and worked the bugs out of the plan…

...the customer’s voice was loud and clear…

...the product was so valuable that margins were comfortable and the customer sold it for you…

...you could always count on everyone to act with integrity…

…and no heroes, all-stars, or herculean efforts were ever needed because we had the right team in place all along.

Imagine if work - that is important, valuable, and sustainably profitable - is actually what happened at work.

For work to actually happen at work, there are three absolute musts: product-market fit, a sustainably profitable business model, and talent-role fit. Strategy is the process to figure out these three things, which makes strategy indispensable too.

Selfless Storytellers

I would’ve never expected Jimmy Fallon’s children’s books - Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada and Everything is Mama -  to be among my favorites to read at Bo’s bedtime. They are so simple, elegant, and fun. Bo can follow-along and participate in telling the story. They’re charming and illustrated well. The premise of each is simple but impactful. I like them.

His books don’t heavy-handedly convey a life lesson, either. They just get out of the way of themselves, and still do convey a simple, but special idea, in a way that’s really lovely.

The books we have by Philip and Erin Stead are the same way. We have three (well, four, but one is for bigger kids and we haven’t read it yet), thanks to our friends Mike and Jenny - A Sick Day for Amos Mcgee, A Home For Bird, and Lenny and Lucy. They all are about friendship in one way or another. But they don’t ever explicitly say “friendship is important and great”, they just show it in a way that lasts in your mind.

I bring this up because it’s such a generous way to tell a story. It lets the story be ours. It lets Bo figure important things out on his own. It takes the spotlight off of the author’s opinion. It leaves room for discovery and contemplation. It’s so selfless because it puts the emphasis on the story instead of the author.

There are plenty of children’s books that aren’t like this. Some beat you over the head with an idea. These stories are presumptuous and boring. Other stories are mindless and unrooted in any sort of theme.

Bravo to the storytellers out there who put the story ahead of themselves as the author. It’s hard to explain without reading the story, so here’s a link of Jimmy Fallon reading one of his books.

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I am not a perfect being. I will never be a god. I will die. ​

I am not a perfect being. I will never be a god. I will die.  

I need to write it. And say it, out loud.  

I asked this on Facebook: 

I judge myself unfairly, painfully, and harshly. You might too. Why do we do this?

One friend shared that  “We beat ourselves up first so it doesn’t seem so bad or hurt when others do it to us.”

Another reminded me that self-perfection is a myth. What’s only possible is self-mastery, being our best selves. As he put it, if we condemn ourselves after mistakes, we are agreeing with “the lie.”

I spend my life wedged between these two ideas. I expect self-perfection and thrash myself before others do, because I know it isn’t possible.  

And I want to be perfect because praise has turned out to be a toxic element in my life. But more than that - deep down I know that being perfect is the only way to live forever, to not die. And death intimidates me to the point of fearing it. It is, perhaps, the root of all my fears.

Which is why I must say it, out loud.  

I am not a perfect being. I will never be a god. I will die.

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Highs and Lows

Every night (almost) at dinner, Robyn and I talk about highs, lows, and proud moments*.

Heres how it works: 

• One us asks - “What we’re your highs, lows, and proud moments?”

• That persons shares

• Then we switch

This is a nice ritual for us for a few reasons: 

• We catch up on the day

• We get to read each other’s emotional state and energy

• We get to vent if we need to and move on

• We get to cherish life’s sweet but little moments

But more than anything it’s a lens into our values and a check to ensure that we’re not valuing the wrong things.  

For example, if I said my proud moment is “I made a lot of money today”, I’m revealing something about what I’m valuing. I’m forcing myself to say it out loud and acknowledge it.

And in that moment, I can correct myself and choose to find a different moment to be proud of that aligns with my true values instead of society’s. And that course correction retrains my brain on what I want to and should be proud of.

It’s a great reflection practice that’s very effective, but very quick and easy.  

*March 16, 2020 Edit - In recent months, we’ve shifted from “what were your proud moments?” to “what did you learn today?”.

Technology, power, and ethics

Technology is growing and accelerating. That allows humans, in particular those who have technology to do more.

This creates power asymmetry because technology requires capital, and capital is unevenly distributed and inconsistently used. This causes an uneven distribution of technology.   

And technology is a form of power. If you have better technology you can do more than the person next to you whether that doing is making widgets, building relationships, learning, or fighting wars.  

Which I think is not inherently a problem. But when there are large imbalances of power between people, people often act dangerously. 

What worries me about technology is not the power asymmetry it creates, per se. Rather, it’s that cultural interest in technology isn’t accompanied by an equal or greater cultural interest in ethics, morality, and the development of human character.

If technology gives us more power, then we need to get better at wielding that powerful technology responsibly. Or else, we will probably treat each other more and more dangerously.

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Murder doesn’t make sense

Murder doesn’t make sense. I hope you don’t ever have to make sense of it. In fact, I pray that you don’t.

Because it doesn’t. 

And if you try to make sense of it, and justify it or rationalize it, it steals a part of your soul. 

Someone I know, one of my colleagues and teammates was murdered this week. And I only met her a few months ago.  

But it still doesn’t make sense.  Nor should it. Because murder is senseless. It’s incapable of sense.

Murder doesn’t make sense.  

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American work counter culture is special.

Taking a moment and a breath to forgive “you”, American work culture, was something I wish had done much sooner. 

Besides feeling human again, instead of just angry, It’s opened my heart to remembering that as much as I struggle with American work culture, there are moments where I am grateful for it.

Because just as there is a strong work culture in America, there’s also a strong and growing counter culture. If you’re someone who resists the dominant culture non-violently, thanks for doing what you do.

I have been part of moments of extraordinary humanity at work. Like when my father had a heart attack. Or when people have hit major milestones. Or when we’ve stumbled upon an “aha.” Or when someone made a huge difference to a customer and we’ve received a letter back. Or when I’ve received deeply personal and sincere advice, feedback, or criticism.

I have deep gratitude for how you have shown me extraordinary kindness, acted with integrity, and treated me with dignity. Thank you.

If you’re part of the counter culture, let’s keep slowly but surely making things more human and more humane.  

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Our son’s laughter

Children make a lot of sounds. A lot.  

They cry, scream, shout, and such. But I didn’t realize until we had Bo, how much they laugh, giggle, whisper, and yawp, too.  

I understand now why people love to have kids in a house. When kids are around a house has the sounds of life. Tables and chairs don’t make a peep. Children do. And those sounds indicate that there’s life there.  

I really love it when our son laughs, and he’s got a great laugh. But I don’t mind so much when he cries, either. Because the sounds of children make a house feel like a home.  

We can do this

Guys, we can do this. 

We can raise our sons to be good men. I feel it’s impossible sometimes, like I will be the one to drop the ball and dishonor my lineage. Like the world is just too crazy and I can’t counteract its influence.  

Like there are just too many pressures or moments I can’t control. That I may let him down and that’s terrifying. But we can do this guys. We can be the fathers our sons need.  

And we matter. We can’t believe that we’re supplemental figures in our sons’ lives, and that we’re only nice to haves. Mothers are essential and so are we.  

That is a weighty responsibility, because it means we can’t let ourselves off the hook. But we can do this.  

We can show them what it means to be honest. We can show the how to make sacrifices. We can show them how to pray and apologize. We can do this.  

We can show them how to treat their partners, friends, and family with respect. We can show them how to love. We can show them how to listen and persist through suffering. We can show them how to express their deepest feelings.  

We can do this.  

I don’t offer advice or wisdom. Just a word, and the affirmation that we’re in this together.  

We can do this fellas. We can raise our sons to be good men.  

In any job this should be clear and compelling

If you use a version of this with your team, please let me know how it goes so that I can improve it.

The customers we serve have a deep conviction that __________. 

As a company we are committed to providing __________ so our customers are able to _________. Our customers want to be treated by us __________.

As a team, we are the folks in the company people come to for ________. Our work is important because ________.

My job is to deliver _______ to _______ in a manner that is ________. Our customers are happy to pay for this because ________. 

 ———

If this isn’t clear and compelling it’s likely that ________.

There are so many roses, if only we stop to smell them

There are so many roses if only we stop to smell them.

When my father went ahead, it laid me out. After nearly thirty years of being busy and “hustling” for something or another, everything stopped. I had no choice but to stop, it was involuntary. I couldn’t help but stop.

And that, as weird as it sounds, was a gift. Because stopping, fully stopping, after my pops went ahead made me really thing. And I realized that I was living the way society expected me to - aspiring to be rich, powerful, and popular - instead of listening to my own heart. When I stopped to listen, my own heart was telling me that I wanted, more than anything, to be a good husband, father, and neighbor.

And when I stopped to listen to my own heart, the rest of my senses did something too. They helped me grasp, in full measure, the roses. Life’s roses. And there are so many roses. There are so many roses if we only stop to smell them.

There is the rose of marriage, and deep intimate relationships. There is the rose of new friendships, and rekindling old ones. There is the rose of children - our own and our nieces, nephews, and neighbors’ kids. There is the rose of learning, and really thirsting for knowledge and truth. There is the rose of peace, and prayer too.

And there are even everyday roses. Hot coffee. A good laugh paired with a good beer, amongst friends. A walk with our pup around the neighborhood. Family dinner. The same kiss goodnight, every night we can. A late night conversation about something important with someone you love. A stolen afternoon nap. Chocolate. These are all roses.

To be sure, stopping is scary. Pressing through boredom and being left in the dark tunnel of my own thoughts is downright terrifying, if I’m doing it right at least.  

But for me it’s been so worth it. Because after stopping, and wallowing in my own thoughts I learned to smell. And I began to see that there are so many roses, if only we stop to smell them. 

Undoing toxic work culture

I’ve written previously about work culture, and boy can it be rough. I’ve put in some thought as to how to roll it back, and there are no easy or obvious solutions.

Ultimately, it can start with us. We control the stress we feel and how we deal with it. So that’s a choice worth starting with.

But then we have a second choice, do we let our stress roll down hill to the people that work for us? Because nearly every company on earth is some version of a hierarchical bureaucracy. And in bureaucracies, rolling work down is what’s supposed to happen. 

Do I let myself be stressed by others’ demands, and how do I filter the stress of those demands to the people who work for me? Those are the choices we all face. And those are the same choices our boss has, and their boss has, and their boss has, all the way up to the CEO of the company. And then the CEO (together with the company's board) face those demands from investors and customers.

Everyone in that cycle has a choice on what rolls down hill and what doesn’t. Everyone in that cycle has a choice on whether they’ll let the culture become less toxic or more toxic.

I am a manager, employee, customer, and investor. If you’re reading this, you probably are too. Which means we both have some ability to influence our respective cycles.  

It’s obvious that as a manager I can treat my team with respect and work hard to be a better, more moral manager so that I roll less toxicity down hill. It’s obvious to me that if I try hard, I also have some influence over my own thoughts and how I react to what falls in my lap from people higher in the hierarchy than me.

What was an epiphany for me is that I also have the ability to decide how I act as a customer and investor. As a customer and investor, I can make the cycle a little less toxic. But that requires a sacrifice from me - I have to let some things slide.  

When my flight is late, I need to not bash the airline on twitter or be rude to the gate agent. When my salad has onions and I asked for none, maybe I ask politely and patiently for it to be fixed or let it go, rather than hassle the restaurant manager and make them come down hard on the wait staff. Maybe as an investor I don’t demand results overnight so long term planning is just a smidge more likely to happen.

I complain a lot, publicly and privately, about American work culture, and to be sure, there’s a lot of big stuff that should absolutely change. And that big stuff requires way more power than I have. The buck does stop with the CEO and in some cases the government.

But at the same time - and I’ve come back to this idea a lot in recent years - maybe, just maybe, I can change the way I operate as an employee, manager, customer, and investor first. 

Indicators of a good man

For over two years now, I’ve been trying to explore what it means to be a good man. My supreme goal as a father is to help our kids become good people and the best way I know to do that is become a good person myself and be present in their lives. 

There are a lot of little rules of what a good person does - like saying please and thank you, sharing, and keeping promises - but those rules of thumb leave me unsatisfied. There are way too many rules to follow  

So I’ve been trying to reflect on a set of capabilities, rather than “skills”, that really identify whether or not I am a good man.  

The best I’ve come up with so far are truth, sacrifice, and unconditional love.

I figure if I am capable of being truthful to myself and others, able to put the needs of others on par with or above my own, and consistently love others without conditions, that’s a pretty good indicator that I’m living out my desire to be a good man. 

And imagine a world where we all were even a little more truthful, willing to sacrifice, and unconditionally loving. So many of the problems we try to remediate with government and institutions would cease to exist. 

The older I get, the more I believe that the route for true social impact is not through what I choose to do for a job, but through how I improve my own character and help others do the same.  

Running the bases: A framework for strategy development

I had a fun work meeting yesterday where we were outlining a strategy for a new initiative. Being the management nerd that I am, wanted to use a framework to help guide our discussion.  

I took the competing values framework (which was developed at Ross, go Blue), specifically Bob Quinn’s four questions from his book Lift, and put it into a baseball metaphor. The idea is to think through the problem you are solving by “running the bases” - starting from home plate - before jumping to a solution and writing a “pitch”.

Sharing it here for three reasons: 

• It was fun, and I wanted to share in case it’s helpful.
• If you have feedback, I’d love to improve it.
• if you’re willing to share, what exercises do you use to develop a strategy with a team? 

Link to a PDF

Treasured Moments

Robyn and I did our monthly date night box yesterday, and one of the activities was taking turns asking each other questions that helped us really share something of our hearts. It was great. One question, my favorite from last night, was, “what’s a moment you treasure?”

I treasure story time. Every night, when we’re all together as a family in our son’s room. Robyn in the rocking chair, Riley by her side, Bo in my lap on the floor. We hold the book together, Bo flips the pages and I read. He’s just tall enough for me to rest my chin, softly, on the top of his head. Sometimes, if we’re seated just right, Robyn and I get to hold hands. It is calm and quiet, a moment of pure love and peace. I treasure it.

There are so many other treasured moments, once I started thinking about it. Seeing Robyn come down the aisle, which actually gave me a physical feeling of lightness. Times where I’ve written something and it feels like not me writing, but some gracious being that has taken over my faculties. The dinner my pops and I had over the Thanksgiving before he died. Just he and I and we spoke for the first time, truly as friends, as well as a father and son. Or seeing my grandmother experience Disney or taking my mom to Buckingham Palace. Treasured moments.

Or even the last moment I had with my father alone, after he had died. In the hospital, I had time for a few last words and one last blessing with the touching of his feet. Some treasured moments are painful, too.

I’m not writing these for any particular reason. Just because it was a good question. And that maybe I’ll remember these moments better if I write them down.

As I reflect on it, treasured moments are not so rare, perhaps. The challenge for me, as for all yogis and peace seekers, is to look for and  find that treasure in the moment we are in now.

If life were meaningless

If life was actually designed to be meaningless there would be no need for meaning to be made. At work, with family, or at play. There would be no “search” or pressure to make something special of this existence.

And maybe that’s freeing. 

If life were meaningless we’d be able to accept it as a gift, that’s what I would try at least. And instead of working our whole lives to show God we’ve earned it maybe we could say thank you, from the deepest parts of our hearts, and continue on.

Instead of feeling guilty about the gift, maybe we could just honor it then. Honor it by savoring it. Loving it and clutching it until it’s soft and broken in. Sharing it and cherishing it. Honoring it with graciousness and generosity.

If life were meaningless, our only obligation would be to pass ahead someday. Return to the dust and father we came from. We paid no ticket, no entry fee to get into this world. We signed no contract. By virtue of being here, we are free to roam until it’s time to go home.

If life is meaningless we haven’t failed if we don’t make it more meaningful or less meaningful than someone else’s. There would be no competition for meaning or need to be more special than the rest. I don’t think anyone, God or otherwise, asks us to demonstrate we’ve deserved this life. If we weren’t worthy of the opportunity, we simply wouldn’t be here.

I’m a theist, a believer in God, but please indulge me as I wax on this if you’re not. I think the point can be more broadly made.

What if we acted as if life were meaningless, or perhaps more specifically that there was no meaning to seek. We would not have to selfishly toil and klobber our way into finding meaning or torturing ourselves if we fell short.

If there were no meaning to seek, maybe that would liberate us from the suffering of its search. And maybe then, it would free our hearts to honor, cherish, and share life as the gift that it is.

Paradoxically, if we believed life were meaningless, maybe that opens a door for a purer, nobler, more virtuous way to live.

Unconditional Love

“Unconditional” is a common adjective used to describe love. Is love really love unless it’s unconditional? 

Conditional love is not something I’d wish on anyone.  

Leadership is ultimately toxic and unsustainable

Most problems worth solving can’t be solved by one person, only by teams and organizations (teams of teams).

But organizations, especially as they get larger than six or seven people, have a problem. The goals of individuals on the team aren’t often the same as the goals of the organization (or other individuals). This misalignment of goals causes conflict between people and wasted resources (time, materials, opportunity) for the organization.   

The solution we have now for the misalignment problem is leadership. The organization designates a person who is charged with leading and managing the organization. They set the goals for the organization and are given the power to give orders and fire people who don’t measure up.

By creating leaders and developing leadership, the problem of alignment between and individual and organizational goals is solved.

Unfortunately, leaders and the concept of leadership make corruption, a different and perhaps more pervasive organizational problem, worse. 

Because we choose to live in human societies instead of the state of nature, corruption is inevitable.  Human societies have randomized and unevenly balanced resource endowments, which make imbalances of power, and therefore conflict, inevitable. We create rules to help mediate conflict, but rules require an enforcer of the rules that are established. 

When we designate people to enforce rules, it requires us to concentrate power. And because we are mere mortals, with great power comes great temptation to act corruptly.  

By creating leaders in any organization, we further concentrate power. Therefore, the more we create leaders and elevate the concept of leadership, the more we enable corruption to occur.

If leadership is our solution to the problem of organizational alignment, we should expect to exacerbate the problem of corruption.

Leadership is akin to chemotherapy to me. It attacks the cancer of organizational alignment, but is toxic because it breeds the conditions for corruption to occur.

We have to do better at improving leadership, just as we need to improve chemotherapy. I don’t disagree with that.

But at the end of the day, leadership is not a sustainable solution to organizational misalignment. Ultimately, leadership is toxic. We can do better.

In the coming months, I will share alternatives to leadership that I have been thinking about.