Mastering the Mind: How Artists and Athletes Think and Feel Simultaneously

Have you ever wondered what sets elite artists and athletes apart from the rest of us? I sure have.

Over the years, I’ve reflected on their mindsets, which, on the surface, appear quite different. (Check out this post on athletes and this one on artists).

But there’s at least one big thing that elite artists and athletes have in common: they can think and feel at the same time. Let’s take the example of a tennis player and a stage actor.

A tennis player has to think and make snap decisions with every stroke, fluidly, in real-time. When you’re playing tennis, you’re constantly thinking about your game plan, your opponent, the match's momentum, and your tactical strategy—and then putting it into action on every single point.

Additionally, a tennis player must manage their emotions because the sport is an emotional roller coaster. Clinging to bad shots or failing to ride the momentum can hinder their performance. To be a great tennis player, you have to be able to think and feel at the same time.

Consider a moment in a high-stakes tennis match. The player is down a set and facing a break point. The crowd holds its breath as the player takes a deep breath, silencing the noise in their mind. In that instant, they must trust their training and instincts, feeling the weight of the moment while calculating their next move.

A stage actor must also access their emotions. Characters become believable and storytelling compelling only when it comes from a genuine emotional place. As a stage actor, you have to delve deep into your inner world to tap the emotional reservoir necessary for an outstanding performance.

At the same time, a stage actor has to think deeply. The actor has to think about their lines and their cues, of course. But also, the stage actor has to think about their technique, body movements, intonation, and their interplay with all the other actors onstage - especially if something goes wrong and the ensemble has to start improvising. To be a great stage actor, you have to think and feel at the same time.

This skill of simultaneous thinking and feeling applies to many domains of our lives. As a parent, we have to think about our actions and principles while deeply empathizing with and listening to our children. At work, we have to think analytically about problems but feel and attune to human dynamics and emotions within our teams. This skill - which artists and athletes possess - is broadly applicable.

The trick lies in the “how.” How do we cultivate this dual skill of thinking and feeling simultaneously?

As I contemplate this, I think of two martial artists who spar inside our heads: “The Thinker” and “The Feeler.” The key, I believe, is letting these fighters go at it. Not in an antagonistic way, but in a symbiotic, we’re-on-the-same-team, iron-sharpens-iron kind of way when we do hard stuff.

In practice, this means two things. First, we have to do novel, challenging things. We need new, difficult stuff for The Thinker and The Feeler to work on. Maybe it’s a new project at work, or training for a race, or resolving to be a more patient parent.

Second, we have to ensure that The Thinker and The Feeler aren’t just going through the motions. We can’t let ourselves go on autopilot and do things the way we always do. The Thinker has to be trying new stuff to become a better thinker, and The Feeler has to be trying new stuff to be a better feeler. In any novel situation where we’re trying to “train,” we should periodically ask ourselves, "Am I on autopilot, just going through the motions? Should I be?"

If we aim for excellence in any field—be it artistry, athletics, parenting, or our vocation—we cannot afford to be pushovers. We need The Thinker and The Feeler in our minds to be strong, agile sparring partners, ready to tackle any challenge in real-time. By continuously training both, we forge a path to mastery.

Who should help us measure our lives?

Who should help me measure my life?

By that I mean, whose eyes should I look through to understand my contribution to the world and the type of person I am? Who should I lean on to confirm whether my life has meaning or is wasted? Who can help me evaluate the parts of myself I can’t see?

To me the answer is simple: the people who know the full extent of who I am. The people who should help us measure our lives are the people that know us intimately. The people who see us in the trenches and up close. The people we cannnot hide our true character from, even if we tried. The people who should help us measure our lives are the people who can see our intent, our thinking, our emotions, our habits, our behaviors, and all the other invisible things we are that are.

Who should help us measure our lives? The people who actually have a 360-degree view of the relevant data about who we are.

By this definition, those are people like our spouses, our families, and our closest friends. Maybe it could also be our colleagues or neighbors who we trust enough to let down our masks and armor. Hopefully we know ourselves in this way, too.

And maybe, it could also be looser ties, who are with us in our most joyous and trying moments - like moments of grief, struggle, sacrifice, or hardship, like doctors, pastors, social workers, or public servants who help us in crises. If we’re lucky, we might also find those people from a team we were on that was trying to accomplish something difficult or of great import - whether that’s our high school theatre group, a soccer team, or a team from our professional life, working on a difficult and meaningful achievement.

What this implies, is that the vast majority of people we’ve ever met aren’t well equipped to help us measure our lives. The people who usually only interact with us based on what they see on LinkedIn or Instagram? Not qualified. Our colleagues? Mostly not qualified, unless we have a generous and transparent relationship with them. Our contemporaries from high school or college? Mostly not qualified, unless they were the people we stayed up all night bonding with, who know us at our best, worst, and most honest.

***

After many years, my inner voice was finally able to bring words to my angst about life and career.

“I am so much more and greater than what my accomplishments suggest. All these people who look at my LinkedIn profile, my job title, and even what I post on facebook don’t know the full story of what I am.”

To be sure, this sentiment causes me and has caused me a deep turmoil and angst. I just get so frustrated because I feel so capable but I don’t have as much to show for it as others. My peers from school (at every level, but especially college and grad school) are objectively a lot more successful and probably more wealthy than me. My peer group has people, too, who have made substantial contributions to the world. Even at work, within my own company, I feel like I have so much untapped potential and ability to create results than the title, rank, and level of respect I currently have.

This, honestly, causes me this deep, churning, in-my-gut kind of angst. I feel sometimes that I’m wasting my talent. On my worst days, I feel like I’m wasting my life.

What I finally realized this week, is that it’s illogical to expect these people to see the full picture of who I am. It’s unreasonable to expect the vast majority of people to help me measure my life, especially because I haven’t let down my guard or had enough time with the vast majority of people for them to see who I am, fully.

There’s no reason for angst about this, because the people that I’m seeking validation from and wanting to help me measure my life, can’t possibly give it.

***

I wish that I could measure my life on my own. Honestly, it would be much simpler if I could see myself clearly enough to make my own adjustments. I want to measure my life, in some way at least, so that I can live a life of integrity and some amount of contribution and meaning. If I evaluate myself, I can make adjustments to be better

The problem is, I can’t adequately self-evaluated because I’m biased. I am a mortal man who has ego. I am not fully enlightened. I need help to see myself as I am. I need the feedback of the people who really know me, deep down, to help me make adjustments so I can be a good guy in a stressed out world. I live enmeshed in a social world, and a community of others - how could I not need help to measure my life if my life impacts the lives of others?

For others to help me measure my life, then, I need to exhibit full-scale honesty: honesty with my self and honesty with others. If I want help measuring my life I have to let people in, and I have to have at least some confidants with who I don’t hid the full gamut of good, bad, and ugly.

This is one of the things I find so compelling about a belief in God: God is someone who there’s no reason to lie to. Because if you believe in God, you believe they know you intimately and fully - there’s no incentive to hide the truth, because God already knows. Similarly, this is why I love journaling - the journal is a safe place to tell the full, completely naked truth. There’s no reason to lie in our journal, if it’s private. If we don’t have people we trust enough to be ourselves, can at least be honest with God and the journal.

What does this all mean? I’m still grappling with this as it’s an entirely new idea for me. What I think this means is two things.

First, I have to be fully honest with myself and with at least some others. And two, I can let go the pressure I feel to be like my more successful peers, because those means of evaluation - social media, my work performance review, or my social standing - is an incomplete picture anyway. I can lean on the people who know me fully to help me measure my life and help me evaluate whether I’m the sort of person I seek to be.

We all can.

I promise to not be a superhero

As a father, I am angry about something almost every day.

To be clear, I don’t like being angry. For me, constantly being angry is the hardest part of being a parent, even harder than changing diapers or staying up all night with a sick child.

Sometimes I feel angry because of something one of my sons did, say, punching me in the stomach while having a tantrum. In that case, I am angry at them and their behavior.

What I’ve realized, though, is that I am not usually angry at them as much as I think. The aftermath of a series of sibling “incidents” this weekend was a good example of this.

I realized I was angry because I’m feeling inadequate as a father right now. One of our sons is going through something painful - he wouldn’t deliberately abuse his younger brother if he wasn’t in some deep emotional spiral - and I haven’t been able to help him. He’s a good kid who needs the care of a father, and I’m failing.

It makes me angry that he throws Hot Wheel cars at his brother without provocation, sure. But I’m not angry at him, as much as being angry at myself.

I’m angry that he’s going through genuine suffering about something. I’m angry that I don’t know what it is. I’m angry that I can’t help him. I’m angry that Robyn has exhausting days at home intervening to mitigate the effects of volatile behavior, on top of her heavy work schedule.

I’m not angry at him, I’m angry at myself for letting the side down.

This seems obvious, but it has been a revelation. Practically speaking, it’s a much different parenting strategy if I’m angry at him vs. if I’m angry at myself. If I’m angry at my son, that’s a negotiation and a coaching moment. But if I’m angry at myself, I have to focus on getting my own emotional state stable.

After all, how could I help him if I’m not even sturdy? It’s the airplane principle applied to parenting: if I want my son to be calm, so he can realize it’s not kind to spit on my shirt, I have to be calm enough to help him chill out.

This weekend, while reflecting on this, my long-running feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and shame finally surfaced. When my oldest asked me, “will you love me after you die?” Is when I finally lost it.

I love these kids so much, I thought, how can I fail them so badly? How am I struggling so much, even after learning valuable skills in theraphy last year, like “special time” and emotional coaching?

He deserves better.

And yet, I know my self-flagellation is ultimately hypocritical. I’m so particular about telling my sons that, “mistakes are part of the plan, all we need to do is learn from them.” And yet, I have been reluctant to take my own advice, for months now.

I am not a perfect man. I am not a perfect husband or father. My family does suffer, on my watch. The world tells me that this is not what good men and good fathers let happen. Failing at what I care about most - being a husband and father - makes me angry, and honestly, ashamed.

And yet, we cannot allow ourselves to go down this road as fathers or as parents. We cannot be angry at ourselves for not being gods or ashamed that we aren’t superheroes. To do so would be the definition of futile and irrational, because we are not gods nor are we superheros. It is simply not possible.

What we can do is adjust. We can choose to stop being angry at ourselves. And then we can choose to examine ourselves and really listen to the kid in front of us. And honestly, I think an act of adjustment can be as simple: take a pause, do some box breathing, and then ask, “is there something that you’re having a hard time saying?”

Because even though our kids don’t come with a handbook, they, luckily, are the handbook. And then, finally, we can change our posture and try something different.

We can let all that anger, guilt, and shame go so that we can stop making ourselves into crazy people. And then, we can use the energy and clarity we’ve gained to do better.

Let’s say it together, my brothers, today and every day, “I promise not to be a superhero, but a father who listens, who learns, and who loves, even in the midst of my anger.”

Photo by Lance Reis on Unsplash

The dance between expression and empathy

The game escalated real quick.

I was in the backyard gardening and weeding. Suddenly, Myles was zooming around as Gecko and deputized me as Catboy, which are both characters in PJ Masks, one of his favorite television shows.

Within minutes, we were both zooming around, in character, from end to end across the backyard. Myles quickly made the Fisher Price table the Gecko-mobile and Robyn's minivan our headquarters. For nearly 20 minutes, Myles, with a full-toothed smile, would proclaim, “to the Gecko-mobile!”, giggling every time.

About 10 minutes into the game, I realized Myles wasn’t pretending. The table was actually the Gecko-mobile and Robyn’s whip was actually our Headquarters. The world inside his head had become real. Myles had fully expressed his inner world and made it his and my outer world.

—

When disappointed, Myles lets out a sound that we call "the shriek," which resembles the yelp of a pterodactyl.

Recently, this happened when we were scrambling to get to Tortola for a family vacation that was two years in the making. The airline canceled our 6:00 AM flight at 6:00 PM the night before. So we rushed, mobilizing within 90 minutes, to rent a car so we could go to Cleveland to make a flight the next morning. But after waiting in line at Avis for an hour, we discovered that the airline only rebooked half our party. At 11pm, after hours of scrambling, we told the kids we may not be going to the beach.

The news took a minute to sink in. And then, as we started to all head back to the airport parking lot, we heard it - the shriek reverberated and echoed off the surrounding concrete. Honestly, all eleven of us wanted to shriek a little.

The shriek moment was the inverse of our afternoon playing PJ Masks in the backyard. This time, Myles internalized the realities of the outer world and his inner world transformed because of it.

—

We all face this predicament. Our inner and outer worlds are constantly in tension.. Sometimes, we want to take our inner world and impose it on our outer world - this is what we call expression.

Other times, we take the realities of the outer world and allow them to shape our inner world - this is what we call empathy.

Our day-to-day lives are a constant negotiation to bring our inner and outer worlds into balance. It’s a dance between the two worlds we all occupy.

Failing to dance and balance our inner and outer worlds has dire consequences.

If we express too much of our inner world onto the outer world, it oppresses those around us. If we don’t express enough of our inner world, we end up subduing and subjugating our own souls.

Excessive empathy and external influences can overwhelm and crush us. But if we empathize too little, we must sacrifice intimacy and human connection.

We have a choice. We can either snap from the tension between our inner and outer worlds, or we can learn to dance the dance which brings our worlds into balance.

I suppose there’s a third choice, but I think it’s the worst option of the three: suppress and numb. When the tension between our two worlds gets too strong, we can just rub some dirt on it. We can distract ourselves with substances or thrilling pleasures. We can pretend our troubles don’t exist.

Maybe suppressing and numbing is okay for a time. I do believe that nothing in the world can take the place of persistence and that sometimes we need to keep calm and carry on. But I have never met a sane person who can live like that indefinitely. Eventually we all snap - it’s just a matter of when.

In retrospect, this is exactly what happened in my early twenties: I suppressed, then numbed, and then eventually I snapped. Only after that snap did I learn to dance.

This is one of our greatest responsibilities we have as parents. Our children need us to help them learn to dance. Otherwise, the only way they will deal with the tension between their inner and outer worlds will be to suppress and numb, or snap. Luckily, as millennial parents, we have the data and research to know and do better.

I aspire to do better for my three sons, so they can navigate the balance between self-expression and empathy, without having to suppress, numb, and eventually snap. Instead, I must help them learn to dance.

Overcoming Ivy League rejection, finally

I was rejected by the Ivy League on three separate occasions. Twice while applying for undergraduate studies and once for grad school. The best I could manage was getting on the waitlist of one public policy school.

The Ivies were not my dream or my “league”, per se, but the league everyone, it seemed, wanted me to be in. Everyone around me implicitly signaled that Ivy League admission was the symbol of being elite and on a trajectory of success and respect. I don’t think I could've had an independent thought about the matter because the aura of the Ivy League was so insidious and pervasively woven into my psyche while I was growing up. Everyone else put their faith in the Ivy League, so I did too.

Ever since, it has been the source of whatever inferiority complex I have. I believe I am dumber than other people because I didn’t get into an Ivy League school. I thought I had to catch up, prove myself, and show everyone that I’m elite, too.

In a way, the Ivy League mythology is probably true. Extremely talented and capable people gain admission into Ivy League schools. And if I had too, I assume my career would’ve been easier and simpler. My “network” would have probably been more powerful and able to open stubborn doors. More people would’ve probably been knocking on my door, instead of the other way around.

And perhaps more importantly, I would’ve believed in myself more. It would’ve been a self-fulfilling cycle. If I had been admitted to the Ivy League, I would’ve believed that I was somebody. And because I believed that, I would’ve spent all that time I was insecure and engaging in negative self-talk actually being somebody. All the times I told myself stories about how I was too down-to-earth to go to the Ivy League, I could’ve been making a contribution.

The biggest trap of all this was not whether or not I got into an Ivy League school, but that I spent so much time in my life thinking about it, questioning what I was, and wondering what might’ve been. What a waste of time and energy.

What I realize now is that life and career are instances of product-market fit. Being able to make an impactful contribution is not just a matter of being talented but a matter of applying one's talents in the most impactful way. That is what I envy so much about Ivy Leaguers; nobody seems to tell them what they should do and what they should be. They seem like they have more mental freedom to just go in the direction they want, without too much questioning.

Even me, going to a relatively elite public university twice, people signal to me what I should be and what I should do all the time. They think they can fit me into the mold they want me to be. They think they can force me into their narrative. That’s what it feels like anyway.

Maybe none of this is true. Maybe nothing would’ve been different had I gotten into Harvard, Columbia, or any other Ivy League school. But putting this all on paper is proving to me that the mythology of the Ivy League has been in my head, rent-free, for a long time. I’ve been waiting for someone to validate my intellect, talent, and capability for so long.

—

The West Wing is probably my favorite television show of all time. I was turned onto it by Lee, who was one of my managers and role models when I was a consultant at Deloitte.

The funny part is that Lee was Canadian, and I figured if someone who wasn’t even born in the US was undeterred in his enthusiasm for a show dramatizing the American presidency, I would probably like it too.

One of my favorite moments of the show is the scene where the Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry, talks with the President and outlines a new strategy for the administration: “Let Bartlet be Bartlet.”

I think that's the lesson here: all of us need to find that moment when we find our footing. We should stop trying to be someone we're not. We need to accept that we should focus on being who we are, instead of obsessing over Ivy League admission, promotions, or awards.

I think we all need that moment when we realize we can embrace our individuality, whether it's "Let Tambe be Tambe," "Let Paul be Paul," "Let Detroit be Detroit," "Let Smith be Smith," or any other iteration that our identity requires.

This whole time, I've been depending on the Ivy League to give me permission to be myself. This whole time, I've been dangling my feet out, hoping for my choices to be validated by someone else.

The greatest lesson in all this has nothing to do with the Ivy League. The lesson here is that we need to create this moment where we grant ourselves permission to be ourselves.

In my case, the turning point came when a role model at work told me about his circuitous path and how he embraced it, reminding himself that sometimes "you've got to bet on yourself."

Maybe we can't will ourselves, completely on our own, to grant self-permission for self-authorship. It's okay and expected to need help, support, and encouragement. But I don't think we need an institution to "pick" us, either. I never needed the Ivy League to "Let Tambe be Tambe," though maybe that would've sped up the process. All I needed, and all that I think any of us need, is someone to remind us that the choice to grant ourselves permission is one that we're allowed to make.

The path is ours to walk if we're willing to claim it as our own.

Photo by Tim Alex on Unsplash

Fatherhood and The Birmingham Jail

Bo tells me what’s on his mind and heart, when it’s just him and I remaining at the dinner table. It’s as if he’s waiting for us to be alone and for it to be quet, and then, right then in that instant he drops a dime on me.

“Today at school, Billy kicked me, Papa.”

This time, thank God, I met him where he was instead of trying to fix his problems.I asked if he was okay, which he was. I passed a deep breath, silently, as I remembered that this is the way of the world - there are good kids that still hit and kick, and there are bullies, and that on the schoolyard stuff does happen. This, I begrudgingly admit to myself, is normal - even though it’s not supposed to happen to my kid.

So I started to ask Bo questions, trying my best to keep my anger from surfacing and making him feel guilty for something he could not control.

Bo, has learned how we do things in our family, what we believe. And in our family, we have strong convictions around nonviolence. He was sad, but he told me that he didn’t hit back. He didn’t meet violence with violence. This is my son, I thought.

I told him how strong he was, and how much strength it takes to not meet a kick with a kick; how strong a person has to be to not retaliate. I said he should be proud of himself, and that I was proud too.

But as we continued, I realized just how much like me, unfortunately, he really is. It also takes strength, I added, to draw a boundary. It takes so much strength to say something like, “I want to be friends with you, but if you continue to kick me, I will not.” It takes so much strength to confront a bully, even an unintentional one.

I talked Bo through the idea of boundaries and how to draw them as best I could. It made him visibly nervous - his five year old cheeks admitting nervous laughter as he tried to change the subject with talk of monkeys and tushys. Boundaries are so hard for him. He really is my son, I thought.

Boundaries have always been hard for me. I haven’t been able to draw them, to say no. They still are. For so long, I couldn’t keep my work at work. I haven’t been able to advocate for my own growth in any job to date or to reject an undesirable project which was unfairly assigned. When a dominating person tries to take and take, I may not roll over, but I don’t challenge them either.

My instinct to please others is so instinctual, I hardly ever know I’m doing it. This inability to draw boundaries is my tragic flaw.

One of my core beliefs about fatherhood is on this idea of breaking the cycle. I think there’s one core sin within me, maybe two, that I can avoid passing on. For me this is the one. This inability to draw boundaries and please others is what I want to break from our linage for all future generations. This is the flaw that I want to disappear when I die. Even before our sons arrived, I promised myself, this ends with me.

As I searched for answers and wisdom in the days that followed, my mind went to Dr. King and the ideas of nonviolence articulated by him and his contemporaries, like Gandhi, who were the only heroes outside of my family that I ever truly had.

I remembered this passage, from his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail (emphasis added is my own):

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

This letter from Dr. King has always resonated with me. I believe deeply in its ideas of nonviolence and am so humbled by the way Dr. King was able to articulate the point of view so personally, simply, and persuasively.

But I had never before connected the ideas in the letter to my conception of fatherhood. The prose was so relateable and resonant with fatherhood, I found it almost damning.

I do not want my sons to bear the weight that I have borne. I want this flaw - the inability to draw boundaries - to end with me. Others, I’m sure, have others crosses that they bear that they do not want to pass on, whether it’s emotional vacancy, substance abuse, or the fear of failure. Everyone’s tragic flaw is surely different.

But what’s true for me is true for all: I need to lead by example. I will pass what I do not wish to my sons, unless I walk the walk. I need to do the self-purification that Dr. King talks about. I must make a deep change within, if I want to see the change in Bo, Myles, and Emmett.

I cannot simply say to Bo that he must draw boundaries, I must also learn to draw boundaries. I cannot simply coach Bo on how to stand his ground, I have to stand my ground. I cannot simply tell Bo that he has to say no, even when he’s intimidated, I must say no to those that intimidate me.

To break the cycle, I must engage in self-purification that results in direct action.

Dr. King’s conception of nonviolence seems to get at what the essence of fatherhood is for me. It’s a process of trying to be better, in hopes that if we are better they might be better. That they might have one less cross to bear, one less flaw to resolve.

The flaw my father sacrificed for me was that of self-expression. He found it so difficult in his life to articulate what he was thinking and feeling. And that’s what he pushed me to do.

He encouraged me to sing, act, and dance. Even though it was expensive and we didn’t have a ton of extra money growing up, he and my mother never said no to the performing arts. He always showed up, every recital and performance.

But more importantly, he worked to be better himself and I saw that, up close. He joined the local Toastmasters club for awhile. He took online courses in Marketing. Towards the end of his life, he even tried to open his heart to me.

What my father did, was the journey all fathers seem to take. When we are young, we are invincible and full of swag. Then, along the way, we realize and then accept that our fathers are not superheroes, but mere mortals. Then, whether voluntarily or by the hand of life’s misfortunes, we realize that we are flawed, too - before we have children if we’re lucky.

And then the rest of our life is the singularly focused story of overcoming that tragic flaw. The sin we must not pass on, for no reason, perhaps, other than that we must, because that’s what father’s do.

And then there’s our final act, if we are lucky enough to see it. Our children are grown, and are on the precipice of having children of their own. And we hope, with all our hearts, that we have conquered some sin, that we’ve overcome that tragic flaw enough to not pass it on.

Then we pray, with what energy we have left, that our children forgive us for what we could not manage to redeem.

Photo Credit: Unsplash @polarmermaid

We do not have monsters inside us

The first time I had the delusion, was probably around the time I started high school. I don’t remember what preceded it, I just remember thinking, “there’s something untamed and dark inside me.”

As I’ve aged, I’ve come to realized that I’m not the only man who has felt the grip of something inside them, small to be sure, but something that feels like evil.

For decades now, I’ve believed this about myself as a man: I have this tiny little seed, deep down, in my heart. That seed is a little root of evil and I must not let it grow. I know there is a monster within, and I must not let it out.

I don’t know from whence this deluision came. But it came.

The delusion reawakened when I started to seeing press about a new book, Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves, which is about the crisis among men we have in America. I haven’t read the book, yet, but here’s some context from Derek Thompson at The Ringer:

American men have a problem. They account for less than 40 percent of new college graduates but roughly 70 percent of drug overdose deaths and more than 80 percent of gun violence deaths. As the left has struggled to offer a positive vision of masculinity, male voters have abandoned the Democratic Party at historically high rates.

Or this from New York Times columnist David Brooks:

More men are leading haphazard and lonely lives. Roughly 15 percent of men say they have no close friends, up from 3 percent in 1990. One in five fathers doesn’t live with his children. In 2014, more young men were living with their parents than with a wife or partner. Apparently even many who are married are not ideal mates. Wives are twice as likely to initiate divorces as husbands.

I come away with the impression that many men are like what Dean Acheson said about Britain after World War II. They have lost an empire but not yet found a role. Many men have an obsolete ideal: Being a man means being the main breadwinner for your family. Then they can’t meet that ideal. Demoralization follows.

For more than a year, before this book was released, I’ve been grappling with some of its core themes. I might not call my own life a crisis, per se, but I struggle with being a man in America today.

I have been wanting to write about “masculinity” or “the American man” for some time, but have struggled to find the right frame and honestly the guts to do it.

A different version of this post could’ve been about how lonely, and isolated I feel and how hard it has been to maintain the ties I have with close, male, friends from high school, college, and my twenties. Or I could’ve written about the pressure of competition in the workplace and the way other protected groups are supported, but I and other males are not, though we also struggle.

I might’ve written about the confusion I feel - I am trying to operate in a fair and equal marriage with Robyn, but we have no blueprints to draw from because society today and what it means to be a man feels so different from the time I came of age. A different version of this post might’ve be political and angry, pushing back against the stigma I feel when I’m gathering with other men - for example, sometimes I feel like getting together in groups of men is something to be ashamed of because it’s assumed that groups of men will devolve into something chauvinistic or destructive and “boys will be boys” and masculinity is “toxic.”

[Let me be clear though: abusive, violent, exploitative, or criminal behavior is absolutely wrong. And the many stories that have been made public about men who behave this way is wrong. And I’d add, men shouldn’t let other men behave that way, toward anyone. I do not imply with any of the struggles I’ve referenced above that any person, man or women, is exempted from the standards of right conduct because they are struggling.]

What I do imply, is that the struggles that are talked about in public discourse about the crisis of men is real to me, personally. My life does not mirror every statistic or datapoint that’s published about it, but directionally I feel that same struggle of masculinity.

As I’ve searched for words to say something honest and relevant about masculinity, what I’ve kept coming back to is that delusion I’ve believed that there is an evil and dark part of me, even if it’s small and buried deep down, that exists because I am a man. The negative ground that all my struggles of masculity come from is the belief that there’s a monster inside me, and that the balance of my life hangs on not letting him out of the cage.

For me at least, this is the battleground where the struggle of my masculinity starts and ends. No policy change is going to solve this for me. No life hack is going to solve this for me. No adulation or expression of anger is going to solve this for me.

If I want to get over my struggle with my masculinity and difficulties I feel about being a man in America today, I have to dispel the belief that there’s a monster inside me. I have to prove that I am not evil inside and that belief is indeed a delusion. The obstacle is the way.

But how? How do I prove to myself that there’s not a monster, that I was born, inside me?

—

Our neighborhood is full of old houses, built mostly in the 1920s. And fundamentally, there are two ways to renovate an old house. You either paper over the problems, or you fix them and take the house all the way down to the foundation and the studs if you have to.

As it turns out, the only way you really make an old house sturdy is to take it down to the studs, and build from there. Papering over the issues in an old house - whether it’s old pipes, wiring, or mold - leads to huge, costly, problems later. The only way is to build a house is from good bones.

With that model in my head, I thought of this reflection, to hopefully prove to myself - once and for all - that I do not have the seeds of evil and darkness, sown into me because I was born a man.

The rest of this post is my self-reflection around three questions. I share it because I feel like I need to try out my own dog food and demonstrate that it can be helpful. But more than that, if you’re a man or someone who cares about a man, I share all this in hopes that if you also believe the delusion that you were born with a monster inside, that you change your mind.

For sure, every person is capable of terrible things. But we, as men, don’t have to believe the delusion that we were born with a monster inside us. We have to stop believing that. We can build our identity as men around the parts of us that are most good.

—

What are the broken, superficial parts of me that I can strip away to get down to the core of the man I am?

I can strip away the resentment I have about being raised with so much pressure to achieve. I can strip away the bizarre relationship I have with human sexuality because as an adolescent the culture around me only modeled two ways of being: reckless promiscuity or abstinence, even from touching. I can strip away the anger I have because as a south Asian man, I am expected to be a doctor, IT professional, and someone who never has opinions, something to say, or the capability to lead from the front. I can strip away the self-loathing I have about being a man - I can be supportive of womens’ rights and opportunities without hating myself. I can strip back all the times I tried to prove myself as a dominant male: choosing to play football in high school, doing bicep curls for vanity’s sake, binge drinking to fit in or avoid hard conversations, trying to get phone numbers at the bar, or talking about my accomplishments as a way of flexing - I do not need to be the stereotypical “alpha male” to be a man. I can strip away my need for perfection and control, without being soft or having low standards.

I can strip away all pressures to prove my strength based on how I express feelings: I do not have to exude strength by being emotional closed, nor do I need to exude strength by going out of my way to express emotion and posture as a modern, emotionally in-touch man - I can be myself and express feelings in a way that’s honest and feels like me. I can strip away the thirst I have for status, my job title and resume is what I do for a living, not my life. I can strip away the self-editing I do about my hobbies and preferences - I can like whatever I like, sports, cooking, writing, gardening, astronomy, the color yellow, the color blue, the color pink - all this stuff is just stuff not “guy stuff” or “girl stuff.” I can strip away the pressure I feel to be a breadwinner, Robyn and I share the responsibility of putting food on the table and keeping the lights on, we make decisions together and can chart our own path.

Once I strip away all the superficial parts of me, and get down to the studs, what’s left? What’s the strong foundation to build my identity, specifically as a man, from?

At my core, I am honest and I do right by people. At my core I am constructively impatient, I am not obsessed over results, but I care about making a better community for myself and others. At my core, I am curious and weird - that’s not good or bad, it’s just evidence that I have a thirst to explore no ideas and things to learn. At my core, I value families - both my own and the idea that families are part of the human experience. At my core, I care about talent - no matter what I achieve extrinsically I am determined to use my gifts and for others to use there, because if the human experience can have less suffering, why the hell wouldn’t we try? At my core, I believe in building power and giving it away and I am capable of walking away from power. At my core, I care most about being a better husband, father, and citizen.

Now that I’ve stripped down to the studs, what mantra am I going to say to replace my old negative thought of, “I was born with a monster inside me that I can’t let out of the cage?”

I was born into a difficult world, but with a good heart. I am capable of choosing the man I will become.

Photo Credit: Unsplash @bdilla810

Dealing With it When Our Kids Act Ungratefully

My most guttural resentment comes when sacrifices are insulted. These moments, when an unrestrained, vindictive, anger emerges from my otherwise even temperament are also when I’m most ashamed as a father.

This weekend, I have been angry so many times I have a lingering headache as I’m penning this entry. I’m lost my temper, so many times this weekend, despite it being the first beautiful weekend of the season and we haven’t had any adversity or hardship.

It goes like this.

One of our big kids will just do something mean, either to me, Robyn, or his brother. And then, I feel such acidic resentment.

I did not skip my shower today so you could pour soap onto the carpet during your nap. I did not go out of my way to buy a coconut at the grocery at your request so you could spit on the floor or on me. I did not quit a job I liked, was proud of, and found meaning in so you could throw magnet tiles at me or punch me in the privates…I actually did it so I could be a more present father to YOU.

Your mother did not work diligently to create a part time work schedule so you could intentionally pull your brother off a balance bike on our family walk. Three off your grandparents did not leave their home countries in search of a better life so you two could terrorize each other or deliberately destroy books in front of my face because you know it makes me angry. Are you not grateful? Do you know how good you have it?

It’s damning. It hurts so badly and makes me so angry when my sons - or anyone really - takes the sacrifices I’ve made, the sacrifices that I’m trying to make quietly and keep quiet, and throws them back in my face. It’s insulting, infuriating, and maddeningly saddening.

My sons don’t realize any of this, of course. They don’t realize the gravity of the sacrifices that their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents have made so they could live the life they have. Hell, I didn’t get it at their age and probably don’t fully comprehend the degree of my ancestors’ sacrifices, even now.

Most of the time, I don’t want to tell them either. I, nor my parents and grandparents, made sacrifices in our lives to be able to tell great stories about ourselves and seek the applause of others. 

I wouldn’t want my sons to feel some deep shame about their fortunate circumstances, either. After all, it’s not their fault they were born into a loving and prosperous family. And, I don’t want them to have to know what it feels like to be broke and wondering whether our family will lose our house. So yes, I don’t want to throw the sacrifices I’ve made in their face - spiking the football is not what we do, so to speak.

At the same time, hearing stories of my parents sacrifice - especially from others - gave me a halo of sorts. I felt so loved and so compelled to honor their sacrifice by working hard and not taking it for granted. It’s part of being the children of immigrants - when we hear about the sacrifices of our parents and ancestors it is a unique kind of affirming love, that motivates us to try to be better and to not let their sacrifice be squandered. Honoring their sacrifice, builds confidence and inner strength.

I often worry about this at a societal level. 

Every person knows, deep down, I think that the most celebrated people on earth; the people who are loved, respected, and admired are not really exalted because of their accomplishments. They are lauded because of their sacrifices. This is as true for common people as it is for celebrities.

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like our species has this radar and fascination with people who make sacrifices for something larger than themselves. We don’t, after all, tend to celebrate people who are born rich or with some sort of advantage from genetics or birthright.  We celebrate people who work hard and make huge sacrifices to contributed whatever it is that they’ve contributed. We may fixate and envy the successes of others, but we don’t revere the successes themselves. We revere those individuals’ capability for sacrifice.

Making sacrifices builds character and confidence. If I can make a sacrifice for something bigger than myself, if I can endure suffering. If I can persist for the greater good, if can do deed cut from this cloth of sacrifice, I have proven my inner strength. Nobody else has to know it, so long as I know it.

Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. If I haven’t made sacrifices, I also know that. I know that I am untested. I know my inner strength is unproven. I know that I might be weak. And that’s a devastating,  absolute lead balloon for building confidence. And I would imagine that lack of confidence and inner strength has to be compensated for somehow. If I know I am weak on the inside, I have to make up for it with my outward presentation to the world.

At a societal level, I think this has huge consequences.

Imagine if one generation of parents made big sacrifices during their lifetime and prepared them to make sacrifices during their own lifetime. Imagine if another generation tried to build the most comfortable life possible for their children, protecting them from ever having to make sacrifices for others. Those two generations, I think, would leave monumentally different marks on the world.

It’s such a paradox, I think. I don’t want to make noise about the sacrifices I’ve made, but I don’t want my sacrifices to be insulted by ungrateful children. I don’t want my children feel deep shame or know intense suffering, but I also want them to have opportunities to build inner strength. In some ways I need to tell stories about sacrifice, but in other ways that’s counterproductive. What’s a parent to do?

The only solution I can think of is to tell stories about the sacrifices of others. Instead of talking about my own sacrifices, I can tell my sons the sacrifices that their mother and grandparents made. I can let others tell my story, or let my sons ask me about my story and tell them the truth when they do. This is at least one way out of the paradox.

I hope, too, that elevating and honoring the sacrifices of others helps me to relieve myself of this searing resentment I have when our kids are so unintentionally insulting of the sacrifices we’ve made for them.

The Power of Goals We Can’t Achieve

The difference between non-verifiable goals and verifiable goals are the time-scales under which we’re operating. Verifiable goals are goals that we can measure and accomplish during our lifetimes. 

Non-verifiable goals are also measurable, but are intended to not be achievable until well after our lives have ended. Reasonable people disagree on the practical definition of concepts like “mission”, “purpose”, and “task”, but here’s an illustration to make the concept of a non-verifiable goal less abstract.

Because non-verifiable goals, by definition, are goals we don’t expect to be around to see the fruits of, some interesting things happen when we set them.

One, we can dream bigger when we set non-verifiable goals because we aren’t constrained by needing or expecting to achieve the goal within our lifetime - we’re free to swing for the fences. Two, non-verifiable goals tend to be other-focused because by assuming we’ll be dead by the time they’re achieved, we’re less anticipatory of the way our achievement will make us feel personally - we’re free to think about results, ideas, or causes bigger than ourselves.

Finally, we tend to apply more discretionary effort and act more courageously in pursuit of a non-verifiable goal. If we expect to be long gone we don’t spend our days worrying about being recognized for our work. people and teams accomplish incredible things when nobody cares who gets the credit. When setting a non-verifiable we’re free to focus on doing the work, and making as much forward progress as we possibly can - we don’t care as much about who get’s the credit if we know we won’t be around for the victory party anyway.

It is a bit morbid to talk about non-verifiable goals - death is an uncomfortable topic - but we should set them for ourselves personally and for the enterprises we lead. Non-verifiable goals obviously don’t replace verifiable goals that operate on shorter time-scales, but they are important complements.

As an individual, setting non-verifiable goals - that are so big that I can’t even hope to accomplish them on my own or during my own lifetime - is transformational. In a sentence, pursuing a purpose makes life feel meaningful. This is consistent with what’s broadly reported (and accepted) on finding meaning and purpose in our lives, so I won’t argue the point further here.

In enterprises, non-verifiable goals are also transformational.

Non-verifiable goals that transcend products, services, profits, and promotion discussions provide a “north-star” that all stakeholders in an enterprise agree on and care about. Once that north-star is clearly articulated, it allows every stakeholder to make decisions more autonomously and with greater confidence because there’s alignment on the bigger purpose everyone is striving to achieve.

Non-verifiable goals which appeal to something bigger than the enterprise’s products, services, and profits also tend to be more motivating - because they are of greater consequence than simply making money and skew toward being other-focused. As a result, a company’s stakeholders give discretionary effort beyond the bare minimum needed to avoid getting fired. The increase in alignment and effort that comes with setting a non-verifiable goal tends to makes enterprises perform better and people feel better about their contribution.

A relevant question is, “how do I set a non-verifiable goal?” Practically speaking, non-verifiable goals still benefit from generally being SMART (maybe not as time-bound, though), but it helps to ask a different set of questions. When setting a non-verifiable goal for ourselves as individuals those questions might be something like:

• What’s a result I care about so much that I don’t care if I get credit for it, as long as it happens?

• What’s something important, that’s so big that I can’t possibility be more than one small part of it?

• What’s something important, but so difficult that not even the most powerful person in the world could achieve it on their own?

• What’s something that will take decades, if not a century or two to solve? Of those challenges, which ones have I already made sacrifices for without even knowing it?

• What’s something important enough to try contributing to, even though I’ll more than likely fail?

• What is so important that I’m committed to not just doing the world, but mentoring the next generation that follows?

For enterprises the questions might be along the lines of:

• What a societal measure (e.g., murder rate, obesity rate, suicide rate) that we want to positively impact when we do business?

• What’s an ideal or cause we have competence in that all our stakeholders - employees, owners, customers, and communities - care deeply about?

• What’s an important challenge that will take the consecutive efforts of several CEOs/Senior Management teams to make a dent in?

• Does this enterprise need to continue existing for the next 100 years? Why? What contribution do we need to make to justify our very existence?

• What’s something that our stakeholders a hundred years from now will be grateful we started working on today?

• What’s something important enough to stand firm on, even if it meant a bottom-line hit in the short-term?

One of my favorite white papers, The five keys to a successful Google team, was published by Google’s People Operations group in 2015. The first key, psychological safety, relates strongly to the process of setting non-verifiable goals. In the paper, the researchers describe psychological safety in the form of a question, “Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?”

In my experience, it’s impossible to even contemplate a non-verifiable goal without starting from a place of psychological safety. If we’re scared - whether it’s because of uncertainty about our next meal, or whether our boss will harass us, or if the people around us will twist our words into a weapon - we focus on the tasks immediately ahead of us to survive. Only once we feel secure in ourselves and our surroundings can we contemplate what is worth contributing to beyond the timescale of our lifetime.

For me personally, getting to that place of psychological safety took trimming luxuries to reach a more sustainable household budget and convincing myself it was okay to not get promoted as quickly as my MBA classmates. It took having children and being forced to find simple joys in moments that my 23 year-old self would find boring. It took coming to terms with the grief of losing my father and retraining my mind to measure success by my inner scorecard instead of by what I thought society defined as successful.

In an enterprise, maybe creating psychological safety starts with getting profitable or reducing enterprise complexity so every day is not a fire drill. Maybe it means holding managers responsible for developing their teams and demanding that they don’t suck. Maybe it means ensuring hiring and promotions decisions are made fairly and with integrity. Maybe it’s exiting some non-core markets or categories so the enterprise can focus on more than just keeping the lights on.

You know your enterprise better than me, but the point is consistent - start with psychological safety before attempting to set a non-verifiable goal.

Over the course of years, I’ve talked to others about how they view their purpose in hopes of better understanding my own. I’ve come to see my own purpose as two-fold: creating generations beyond me that act with love and integrity, and, helping America become a nation where people trust each other.

And no matter who I’ve talked to, their experience with finding and acting from a place of purpose is similar to my own: discovering and acting on a bigger purpose is life-giving, motivating, and grounding. It’s hard, time-consuming work but worth the effort many times over.

Naming our holiness

My friend Nick was recently ordained as a priest in the Greek Orthodox Church, but fortunately for me, he’s been a spiritual guide to mine for a long time. He recently told me a parable he heard:

A man went to see a monk. And he asked the monk, “Brother, I have a problem and I seek your guidance. I am at a crossroads, should I become a doctor or a lawyer? What does God want me to do?”

The monk thought to himself for a quick moment and quickly replied, “God doesn’t care. Become a doctor or a lawyer, to God it doesn’t matter. But whatever you choose, be holy in it. That’s what matters to God. If you become a doctor, be a holy doctor. If you become a lawyer, be a holy lawyer.”

For me, it was providential advice. I have been focused on career in the wrong way recently. Instead of worrying about promotions and new jobs, what I should be worrying about is being holy where I am now.

But of course, that’s not easy. I do not know what it means to be holy. I am, quite frankly, not holy. And, the holy people I have seen, or met, seem like they are not quite of this world. When I think of “holy” I imagine His Holiness the Dalai Lama or Mother Theresa.

I am not holy like that. I am me, in a puddle of my imperfections and selfishness. After talking with Nick, I wondered - for me specifically, what does holy feel like and look like? What is my holiness? What is the holiest version of myself?

I found it helpful to do an exercise like this:

First, I thought of a few examples of when my attitude, mindset, and how I acted was at its peak of goodness. When I felt like my most pure and good. When I felt like something about my presence was transcendent in some way.

For me that’s when I’m dancing, when I’m lost in thought on a new idea, when what I’m writing dissolves out of my fingers like liquid lightning, or when I’ve had sublime, radically honest conversations around a campfire. There’s something about my mindset that’s been other-worldly, for brief moments at least, when doing those things.

And so I picked those moments apart. What was happening in those moments. How did I feel? What was unique about just those times?

How would I describe the way my mind was in those moments? Intense. How would I describe the way my body was in those moments? Graceful. How would I describe the way my heart and spirit were in those moments? Joyous.

Joyous, graceful, intensity (The Ballet Mindset) is my holiness. That is its name.

I am a mortal man. Dealing with the reality that I will indeed die one day, has been one of the major pillars of my writing and reflection over the past 5 years. Which is why I need so dearly to name this holiness.

I am not perfect. I cannot meditate or think my way into holiness. I also cannot just mimic somebody else. Because I am not capable of being perfectly selfless or loving, I cannot just jump straight to absolute holiness. I have to struggle for it. And yet, holiness eludes me.

Which is why I think it’s so important to try to name our holiness. Like, give it something concrete to rest upon using adjectives of this world. Adjectives that regular people can be for at least a few minutes at a time. Something that we can know if we’ve found it.

I am not perfect enough to just be holy, I have to tag it with words. Most of us cannot be saints or prophets. But the rest of us can be specific.

We can put words to the embers of ourselves and our souls, capable of reaching transcendental states. We can give ourselves a few words to remember - joy, grace, intensity for me - so that when we’re in the throes of everyday life, dealing with difficult children or bosses, or stuck in traffic, or dealing with death and illness whatever, we can remember those words to help us remember what our holiness feels like.

If we can name it, we can get back to that holiness with practice. And maybe someday we will be holy enough to really feel worthy of our best moments. Until then, we keep at it, trying to be the holiness we named.

Surplus and Defining “Enough”

The idea of surplus is simple, you compare what you have to what you need. If you have more than you need, surplus exists. The concept of surplus is often linked to money or material resources, but I think of it in terms of time and energy.

I’ve thought about the question, “What am I doing with my surplus?” before. But I’m realizing that I’ve missed a more fundamental question: “How much do I need? How much is enough?”

To a large degree, how much we need is a choice.

If I wanted to live by myself and grow my own food off the grid for the rest of my life, I could probably retire tomorrow. If I didn’t want to grow in my job, I probably wouldn’t have to work as hard as I do - I could coast a bit and do the minimum to avoid being fired. If I didn’t care about the health of my marriage or raising our children, I probably wouldn’t have to put as much energy in as I do. If I didn’t have such a big ego, I probably would spend less effort trying to gain social standing. You get the picture.

Defining the minimum standard - after which everything else is gravy - is what creates the construct of surplus in the first place. Because if what I “need” only requires I work a job for 25 hours a week, I now have created 15 additional hours of surplus, for example. If it’s unclear what my bar is, it’s hard to know if I’ve cleared it. Until I define that bar, I have no basis for measurement. Defining what “enough” is is half of the surplus equation.

And I want to know if I’ve cleared bar. Because once I have, then I can use that surplus for things I care about - like traveling, leisure, writing, serving, prayer, time with friends and family, gardening, learning something new, exercising, whatever.

I’m realizing my problem is that I haven’t really defined my minimum standard, so I don’t really know if I have enough. And because I don’t know if I have enough, I am stuck in this cycle of grinding and grinding to get more even though I may not want or need to.

This uncertainly leads to waste. If I do have enough, but don’t know it, I might be wasting my time and energy working for something I don’t want or need. If I don’t have enough, but don’t know it, I am probably misdirecting my time and energy on things that aren’t high priorities.

Either way, if I’m not clear on what I need and how much is enough, I’m likely wasting the most precious resources I have - my time and energy.

For so long I’ve blamed the culture for my anxiety around career and keeping up with the Joneses. I figured that it was things like social media and societal pressures that made me engage in this relentless pursuit of more. But maybe it’s really just on me.

Maybe what I could’ve been doing differently all along is get specific about how much is enough. Maybe instead of feeling like I have no choice but to be on this accelerating cultural treadmill, I could really just turn down the speed or get off all together.

These are some of the questions I haven’t asked myself but probably should:

• How much money do we really want to have saved and by when?

• What is the highest job title I really need to have?

• How respected do I really need to be in my community? What “community” is that, even?

• How much do I want to learn and grow? In what ways do I really care about being a better person?

• What level of health do I really want? What’s just vanity?

• What creature comforts and status symbols really matter to me?

• At what point do I say, “I’m good” with each domain of my life? What’s the point at which I can choose to put my surplus into pursuits of my own choosing?

Only after defining enough does it make sense to think about the question of “what should I do with my surplus?” Because until I define “enough”, whether or not I have surplus time and energy isn’t clear. And if it’s not clear, I’m probably wasting it. And surplus is a terrible thing to waste.