Adult Bullying

There are four basic responses to being bullied: confront, ignore, retreat, and assimilate. Being bullied is a terrible thing, so basically everyone responds to it in one way or another.

Confronting a bully is what most of us aspire to do, like in the movies. In a moment of glory, we resist the bully’s actions and once we stand-up to them, they stop. This is hard, especially if you have no support or real power.

Ignoring a bully is also hard. When choosing this response we just keep doing what we’re doing and don’t give the bully the satisfaction of a response, despite the harm they’re inflicting on us. Eventually, they move on to a more participatory target.

Retreating is when we fold back into our crew and go back to our circle of support. Retreating is not necessarily “weak”, it’s simply a strategy of avoidance and getting back to a community where we’re protected. Strength in numbers, I suppose.

Assimilating is the, “if you can beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach. If the beefy football player is your bully, become an even beefier football player. If the bully is cruel and wicked toward the weak, assimilate to also become cruel and wicked. In this scenario you get out of being bullied by becoming a bully.

What I’ve just tried to invoke are the feelings we had in middle and high school, when basically all of us were either a bully to someone, bullied by someone, or both. Adolescence is where we see explicit bullying, at least in America. 

But I don’t think we leave bullying behind once we graduate high school. Even if it’s not as overt, I’ve come to see that there is adult bullying.

How is talking about a colleague’s flaws and failings when they’re not around that different from trashing how someone was dressed at the Homecoming dance? Put downs are put downs, no matter how old we are when it happens.

How is flashing images of an expensive house or expensive hobbies that different from lifting weights to get big biceps and wearing a varsity jacket (literally everywhere)? Asserting dominance is asserting dominance, no matter how old we are when it happens.

How is yelling at a customer service rep on the phone that different than picking on the “unpopular kid” in the cafeteria? Verbal abuse is verbal abuse, no matter how old we are when it happens.

How is humble bragging about the big promotion we got, that different than humble bragging about who we made out with over the weekend? A pissing contest is a pissing contest, no matter how old we are when it happens.

I used to think that the reason why I’ve been obsessed with career trajectory, my resume, Google self-search results, and all that stuff is because of social comparison and this basic human need to keep up with the Joneses or something. I thought it was just “psychology.”

But I’m wondering now if it’s just a response to adult bullying. Like, maybe I feel bullied by what other people are saying and doing and I’m trying to make the pain stop by getting a promotion of my own.

Thinking of my existential angst about career as an assimilation response to bullying instead of an inevitability of human psychology is a very different ball game. 

Because if I’m intentional about it, I can choose to respond to adult bullying in someone other way than striving to become an adult bully myself. I can choose to respond differently.

The Ballet Mindset

Training as a dancer, particularly in ballet, influenced how I move through the world. The way I’d describe it is a “joyful and graceful intensity.”

Ballet cultivates this mindset in a dancer because…

Ballet is emotional. In ballet you are expressing, through movement and the body, deep emotions. Ballets tell moving and powerful stories, that dance on the boundaries of human experience. Telling those stories takes a special type emotional labor, because expressing emotion and telling stories without dialogue is a unique challenge.

Ballet is technical. Dancers don’t seem to float, soar, and spin effortlessly because they’re “just born with it”. It’s practiced and drilled. As a ballet dancer, I spent almost half of all my classes at the barre, developing technique. And during a ballet class the first skill you practice, over and over, is learning is to plié - which is literally just learning how to bend your knees. Seriously, as a ballet dancer you spend a remarkable amount of time learning something as simple as bending your knees properly. And from there it builds: it’s technique around pointing toes, posture, moving arms, jumping, landing from a jump, body positioning, body lines, turning, and so on.

Ballet is athletic. Miss Luba, my Ukrainian ballet teacher, used to say that as a dancer you could be doing the hardest jump, lift, or arabesque, but to the audience it always has to look easy. To do that takes tremendous strength, power, body control, and endurance. Ballet is so hard on the body. Of all the sports I ever played, a really tough ballet class was a special kind of physical and mental beatdown. If you don’t believe me try it. Stand on your toes on one foot, hold your arms out from your shoulders, or just jump continuously and see how long you can do this without stopping or grunting in anguish. There’s a reason why ballet dancers are jacked.

Trying to be emotional, technical, and athletic all at the same time takes intense focus, To boot, ballet dancers cannot just go through the motions or rage uncontrolled through a recital. They must perform: physically, mentally, emotionally, artistically, and technically. And the ballet dancer’s craft shapes their mindset into one of joyful and graceful intensity.

As Americans, our culture often emphasizes winning, aggression, strength, dominance, and power. At extremes, I wonder if that encourages, bullying, hostility, and violence.

Being king of the hill isn’t the only way to live and make a unique contribution. It’s one of many choices.

For me moving through life with a ballet mindset, rather than one of dominance, is a contribution in itself. Because acting joyful and graceful intensity is what brings beauty into this world.

I’m grateful to my teachers and dance peers. Because of them, I know that a seemingly paradoxical orientation of joy, grace, and intensity is even possible.

Reactions Make Culture

Typically, at work…

When a project goes “red” the team is usually made to feel embarrassed. What if the executive sponsor thanked them for raising the problem quickly instead?

When someone is promoted there’s often a department wide email talking about their accomplishments and new role. What if we celebrated their mentors just as vigorously?

When someone goes out on vacation they usually leave an out of office message. What if the email administrator turned off their email access while they were away as a matter of protocol, too?

Email signatures usually include a job title. What if that line was instead used a sentence about the team’s purpose or why the sender is personally invested in the organization’s mission?

Project meetings often start with some version of a status update. What if they started with, “what’s something important we learned this week” instead?

Maybe it’s not always clear whether it’s better to light a candle or curse the darkness. But the lesson remains: how we react shapes, defines, and amplifies the culture.

And not just at work, but in families, churches, book clubs, soccer leagues, marriages, and political discourse too.

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.

What sin will end with me?

As your father, I worry about the sins I will pass to you kids. And maybe sin is the wrong word. Perhaps by “sin” I mean a combination of bad habits, character flaws, insecurities, and underlying sinful tendencies. I don’t want you to deal with my failings as a man and a father. I’ve come to terms that I will not fully succeed in this, but it still haunts me, in the deepest crevices of my intellect.

Unfortunately, the passing of tragic flaws is part of what it means to be a father.

I never spoke with him about it directly, but I know my father - your Dada who you will never meet in this life - contemplated this challenge and was motivated by it. There were certain sins he did not want to pass to me, and he worked exceptionally hard to make good on that intention.

I still am in awe of the impact he had on changing the trajectory of my life and yours, and honestly for all of his progeny. In a single generation, he outworked the poverty and struggle of his youth, emigrated to the world’s most prosperous nation, and succeeded in creating a life where his family and me, his only child, could flourish.

Even though by his standards, his outward success was only average, the impact he made on our family’s future generations cannot possibly be reproduced. I wonder often if I can do something in my life - for you kids, your mother, or for society - that is substantially good and pathbreaking enough to escape his legacy.

And yet, despite the size of the shadow cast by his love and accomplishments, he still passed intergenerational flaws to me. Even great men, of which your Dada certainly was, are still mortal men. All we mortal men can hope for, and I as a mortal man can hope for is to have the generations that follow us be modestly and measurably better people than we were.

And so I’ve been thinking. Obsessing, really, and meditating deeply; if I only have one shot to take at this, what is the one sin that I’m absolutely determined not to pass on? What am I going to wrestle with and take to the grave with me, so that it ends with me and never passes on to you kids, your kids, and their kids after? What sin will end with me?

The unmeasured life

The way I think has been a bit of a trap, at least historically.

I have a lot of angst, shame even, that I am not as professionally successful as my peers. No matter how hard I try, even on vacation, I can’t get away from thinking about whether I measure up - either to my peers, or even to the career trajectory I thought I would be on.

Which is all foolish, by the way, because I don’t even care that much about career. Where I intend focus most of my energy is family, community, and character. And yet, because I have been trained in the realm of organizations, business, management, and leadership I am always going back to that foolishness of measuring myself up. 

Because that’s what many of us who are professionals by training - whether in business, law, public service, health, athletics, or anything else - do. We measure things and maximize them, because in our professions the result is what matters.

Again, for me this thinking is a trap. It’s the relentless pursuit of more, and my ego wants me to be cooler, professionally speaking, than I am. And if I use my peers (and my own egotistical visions) as a yardstick, I don’t measure up to that expectation. 

And so I try to cope, probably in a way that’s irrational. Because I try to cope with the fact that I don’t measure up professionally, by counting the ways I think I measure up in other domains. I always think - “I have a loving marriage and family. We have a dog. We have a home we like. I get along with my parents. I have a BMI that stays at a healthy level. We have kids with good hearts. I may not have a fast-track career, but I measure up. I measure up. I measure up.”

And that is the trap. Measuring my non-professional life is the trap. Because what I’ve realized is that, my life is not an enterprise judged by it’s measurable results. My family is not a business unit. It isn’t in the nature of a soul to be benchmarked, standardized, or process-mapped to ensure it has optimal peacefulness.

And by trying to “measure” my non-professional life, I’m propagating this pernicious, unsustainable mindset that my life must be measured. I’m locking myself into a mindset that keeps me anxious and makes me live in a constant state of needing to quench my egotistical desires.

The whole mistake I’ve been making is to try applying the principles and methods of my profession (i.e., focusing on measurable results) to my life. I can’t live at peace with my own thoughts if I try to replace the measurable career results I’m not achieving with an attempt to measure love, family life, children, happiness, faith, peace, experiences, stories, or moments of ordinary joy. Doing what I’m doing locks me into a place where I’m always on the verge of a stomach ache. What I need to do instead is let go of measuring my life.

Because life is something, I think, that cannot be measured.

The problem is, I want so desperately to be able to grab hold of something. My lesser self wants some morsel of incremental progress to remind me that I’m not wasting my life. Some mile marker along this long walk that makes concrete the messy path of life I have ahead and the road I have already traversed. Some interim report card that shows I am doing well at living out the life and that I won’t fail the final exam on my deathbed.

And this is the trap. It’s akin to the plight of Sisyphus. He was rolling a rock up a hill that could never be summited, and I trying to measure my life - something that is not only immeasurable, but that defies measurement.

But after all these years of acculturation and training - how do I resist the near-natural urge of measurement, and instead live an unmeasured life?

I admit now that I should not try to look for mile markers, or anything that charts progress along a fixed path toward a final destination. Because after all, my life has no fixed destination, duration, distance, or pace. Life defies measurement.

But perhaps there is some consolation.

If we know how to look for them, there seem to be where God gives us a window into our inner-compass, to remind us whether we are heading north toward home, or whether we have veered from the righteous path. 

The other day, I had one of these moments. Myles got into a spat with his older brother. He, as a 1.5 year old occasionally bruises his nearly four year old brother. And Bo was sad. And we said, “Myles, that was not nice. It is not kind to hit your brother. You need to say sorry.” And he pondered for a minute. Bo gave Myles a glance back, unsure whether Myles was heading in his direction for reconciliation or to continue the bruising.

But there Myles went, arms outstretched, toward his brother. And it was, without any words or babbles, as sincere of an embrace as I’ve ever seen between two people. It was a moment where my soul reminded my body that it was still in there. It was a moment where God gave me a look at my inner-compass, and it reminded me I was on the right path. 

I never know when those moments are going to come, and sometimes they’re reminders that I’ve veered. But when those moments happens, I am consoled. Because even though they aren’t the mile markers of progress that my egotistical self craves, they are reminders that I am on the right path, heading toward home.

And as much as I would like to, I can’t put moments like that into some sort of scorecard or graph. Those sorts of moments,  where God shares the light see my compass, and reminds me to look, defy measurement. There are so random and nuanced, they can’t be counted or formed into a pattern.

But at least those glimpses are there, consolations to help orient us in a life we want to measure but can’t. It’s still so hard. Because we, who were once young men, are trying so hard not to waste this life, and trying so hard to put one foot in front of the other and eventually reach home. All I want to do is measure something to prove I’m not failing, but what I’m realizing I’m left with is unexpected trail markers which signal whether I’ve veered from the right path or not.

Because at the end of the day, life defies measurement.

Rotation of Powers

Separation of powers is a brilliant idea.

Managing power in organizations and institutions is a huge problem. Because when power is concentrated and left unchecked, tyranny happens. Separation of powers (and checks and balances) solves this problem brilliantly in the US constitution. By turning power against itself, it keeps any one part of government from dominating the others. The US Constitution is a gold standard case study in the management of power to prevent tyranny.

To me, preventing tyranny is among the most important organizational problems there are. Because under tyranny, people waste their talents and do not flourish. Because under tyranny, people suffer and have their basic human rights violated. Because under tyranny, culture decays rather than grows. Preventing tyranny is a huge deal.

In this essay, I offer Rotation of Powers - an alternative approach to managing power in organizations. I offer this idea in addition to separation of powers, not as a replacement to it, for two reasons. One, the challenge of preventing tyranny is so important we ought to be working on many solutions to this difficult problem - diversity and redundancy create long-term resilience. Two, because of information technology and advances in our understanding of management, the alternative of rotation of powers is possible in ways that were not even conceivable 10-15 years ago.

What is Rotation of Powers?

In hierarchical organizations, leadership and power is role-based. Power lies in the principal and senior executives of an organization. The idea of rotation of powers is that the people in power go into their reign expecting that they will rotate in and out of their role as “leader”. I take a turn, then you take a turn, then our colleague takes a turn being the “boss”. And then eventually, I know I’ll have to take a turn again. And we rotate, on and on, and let others join and leave the rotation as we go.

So unlike separation of powers, where the idea is to split up the power into different branches that can check each other, the idea of rotation of powers is to not let anyone stay in power long enough to become entrenched, and, to make them them feel the externalities of their decisions - both because they’ll be under the power of someone else soon, and, if they leave someone else a mess it’ll come back around. Instead of checks and balances, the operating principle of Rotation of Powers is “incentivize positive reciprocity”.

Here’s an example of how this might actually work.

I’m on team at work. Let’s call them the Knights. And without going to to too many details, the Knights try to improve our processes so that our customers are happier. It’s a team that formed from the “bottom-up”, so to speak, and operate using the principles of agile software development, more or less.

At the beginning, there were about 3 people who operated as Scrum-Masters for the team, which we call “Lance-a-lots”. The role of the Lance-a-lot is to facilitate our sprint planning sessions, and elicit input from the Knights to determine which projects folks think are important. Knights then self-select onto project teams for the 6-week sprint and the Lance-a-lot leading that particular rotation checks-in on teams to make sure progress is happening.

The group of Lance-a-lots meets weekly and consults with each other on how things are going, and how to manage the team more effectively. Anyone who wants to be a Lance-a-lot is free to join the rotation, and the Lance-a-lot group has grown from 3 to 5 in the 6 months this team has been around.

Right from the beginning, we rotated the role of the person serving as Lance-a-lot. Which means, in practice, that the person running the meeting and responsible for ensuring forward motion changed every 6 weeks.

The success of the Knights remains to be seen. It’s a nascent team, and kind of like a startup we’re trying to lock-in to a value proposition that works. But that said, it’s an incredibly uncommon organizational form and the culture of the team feels different than the traditional, corporate, hum-drum, hierarchical working group. It feels less top-down and tyrannical, more equal and democratic. Relatively speaking, at least.

Why might Rotation of Powers work?

What you’ll notice about the Knights example I gave above, is that rotation happens in two ways. One, the “Lance-a-lot” rotates every 6 weeks. Second, people move in and out of being part of the Lance-a-lot rotation. That creates an interesting dynamic that prevents power concentration.

First, no one person has the title of “leader” of the team. Nobody can lay claim to it. Nobody is burdened with an ongoing responsibility or could even lay claim to holding power if they tried. And, the role of Lance-a-lot is wide open because anyone who wants to can opt-in to the rotation. So, in practice, it feels like an organization that has leadership, but doesn’t have an absolute leader. And a sort of selection effect occurs as a result of this, anyone who is driven by the prestige of being an exclusive, role-based leader and having power wouldn’t want to opt into the rotation, because they’d never be the absolute leader of the team.

Second, at meetings of Lance-a-lots you really have a positive pressure to make good, collaborative decisions. Because Lance-a-lots have opted-in, their reputations amongst the team are especially on the line for doing a good job. And, because you know you’ll be the Lance-a-lot in a few rotations it pushes you to make a contribution and get your ideas out now - you don’t ever want the team to be in bad shape, so when it’s your turn you can make progress.

The dynamic of Rotation of Powers makes two things very clear: one, that power will, by definition, take turns so there’s no reason to be an ego-maniacal jerk about it. And two, that if you do right by the team and others you’re going to reap the benefits, and that if you leave a mess you’re shitting where you eat, so to speak.

What are the operational implications of Rotation of Powers?

Of course, this approach has trade-offs and operational challenges. Here are a few “must-haves” that I would assume have to be in place for a scheme of Rotation of Powers to work.

• A compelling, clear mission - Rotation of Powers doesn’t have the benefit of glory and spotlight. So for anyone to opt-in to the leadership rotation, they have to really care about the mission. Defining a clear and compelling mission is not easy, and would have to explicit and well understood, I think, for Rotation of Powers to work. Otherwise, nobody would opt-in to the rotation.

• Knowledge Management - For Rotation of Powers to work, the rotation has to happen quickly enough so that any one person cannot entrench themselves in power and seek rents. Transition is not easy. And in a scheme of Rotation of Powers, there would have to be good systems of knowledge and decision management to ensure transitions happened smoothly. If not, the organization would always be in a cycle of onboarding, and never have forward momentum.

• Trust and Collaboration - Similarly, if rotation is happening there has to be strong trust and collaboration among the rotating leadership team so that the direction of the team is one that has enrollment. A team would fail if with each rotation the particular leader during that rotation took the team in a whole new direction. The people in the rotation have to be on the same page for Rotation of Powers to work.

• Transparency and openness - A big challenge would preventing the people in the rotation from becoming insular and eventually self-aggrandizing. So, the leadership rotation would have to have transparency and openness to ensure what they were doing was appropriate. And, the people in the rotation would have to change over time so that the same old people don’t end up losing touch with what’s happening on the front line.

And so this approach maybe doesn’t work well in all contexts. Maybe it’s especially suited for mission-driven organizations (I happen to believe that all organizations should be mission-driven, but that’s a different blog post). And maybe it doesn’t work well in an environment where there’s a lot of specialized knowledge that’s accumulated over time, or ones where compliance to rules and protocol is really important.

But I could see something like this working for cooperatives, B-Corps, and maybe even larger public or social sector organizations. Additionally, it’s an approach that could be used within large corporations, in functions where innovation and dynamism is needed and more democratic styles of management which allow for experimentation are a strategic advantage.

Why now?

Like I said before, having more tools in our toolbox for managing power to prevent tyranny seems like a good idea because the stakes are so high. But this idea of Rotation of Power seems much more feasible than it did even 10 years ago. 50 years ago, this approach to organization design probably wasn’t even possible. Here are a few reasons why:

• Information Technology - the sort of transparency and knowledge management needed for Rotation of Powers simply was not possible before advances in information technology. Doing things like recording decisions, meetings, and real-time, cross-location, communication simply wasn’t possible because it would be administratively overwhelming. Now we have all these tools to collaborate and manage knowledge decisions, and expertise, which mitigates one of the most difficult operational implications I listed above.

• Understanding of Bureaucracy - The bureaucratic form of organization and management of large enterprises is a relatively discipline. We now know much more about how to manage organizations and establish missions and purpose, it’s actually something we can start to teach. So, now we actually know better how to create purpose-driven organizations, which again, mitigates a key operational challenge I mentioned earlier.

• Upskilling of Talent - Lots more people have higher levels of education and leadership experience. And if you have to rotate, the talent level of the team has to be sufficiently high and skills need to be sufficiently developed. A lot more people probably have those skills than they did 50 years ago. And honestly, rotating power probably accelerates that upskilling because more people get more reps leading teams.

• Emerging Technology - I’m intrigued by the use of blockchain technology and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Using software-based rules could automate some of the management of new forms of organizations (including Rotations of Power) that reduce administrative burden, and ensure that rotations are fair and that the tracking and tracing of decision rights can be effectively managed. I’m not a blockchain expert, but these sorts of ideas make the idea of experimenting with Rotations of Power seem more realistic.

Conclusions

Overall, I acknowledge that this is really a thought experiment. But I think it’s an interesting one that’s worth doing - as the world changes we need more ways to manage power and prevent tyranny, because separation of powers might not work forever. Our freedom and welfare is too important to depend on what will eventually become an old idea.

And, yes, the criticism of “that’s a cool idea, but it would never work in real life” is a valid criticism because I don’t know that it would work, especially at scale. But I would argue that we probably didn’t realize if separation of powers would work at the beginning, and we evolved it as we went. The same has been and would be true of any organizational form.

At a minimum, I hope this thought experiment validated that there are alternatives to separation of powers, to solve the problem of unchecked power and tyranny. It’s a big problem that’s worth thinking about and experimenting with.

When men dream bigger

As a man in America, I feel like I operate in a bit of a no-man’s land between the cultures of men and women.

On the one hand, there’s the culture of men. It’s the culture of ambition, being the king of the hill, and dominating others. It’s the culture predicated on the notion of “might makes right.” Some people call it patriarchy, some call it locker room culture, some call it toxic masculinity. 

I don’t really care to call it anything, I just know that I am alienated by it. I’m not particularly “macho”. I tried to fake it for awhile when I was younger, but as time passed I’ve realized that I don’t want to partake in that particular culture that groups of men tend to devolve into. Even though I often feel like I have to fit that mold of a man to be respected and rewarded for my efforts, especially in professional settings, I don’t want to be like “one of the guys.”

At the same time, the community of women is not a haven for me either - I don’t fit in there, even though it’s fairly inclusive and I’d like to. 

But even though I feel solidarity with thinkers and organizations like Brene Brown, Melinda Gates, the US Women’s National Team, Mary Barra, Michele Obama, and Reese Witherspoon’s Book club - and if I’m being honest, look to them as role models - I just never feel quite like I can belong there, even if the issue is my own mindset. For example, if I participate in something that’s by-women, for women (like a Women’s Leadership Development group event at work) I personally feel like I must participate as an advocate / ally, rather than as a beneficiary - even though I feel alienated by the patriarchy and limited by the glass ceiling, too. Even if it’s in my own head, I just can’t be part of that tribe.

Between those two spaces is where I feel like I operate - I don’t want to be part of the dominant men’s culture, but don’t feel like I belong in cultures by women, and for women, either. That place of invisibility is my no-man’s land. I don’t have any empirical evidence of this yet, but my intuition is that a growing number of us men feel like we are in this invisible, voiceless, no-man’s land too. That bothers me.

—

I can think of two ways to make this no-man’s land into a place that feels more like home.

The first path I can think of is diversity. I’ve noticed that when I’m among a diverse group of men (in any and every sense of the word) the dominant male culture feels tempered. It’s like the pressure to compete is off if the dudes around you aren’t even trying to fill the same niche you are. 

I think my closest high-school guy-friends are a good example of this dynamic. We run the gamut of professions, life experiences, politics, religiosity and interests. Between us we have: a corporate drone (me), a bar manager, a federal public servant, a software developer, a quant, a show-businesses tech, and a priest. We cover three different races, most of the political spectrum, and live in four different states now. 

When we’re together, I feel almost none of that dominant male culture. We have no reason do anything but celebrate and support each other because we’re not trying to be the king of the same hill.

The other path out of this no-man’s land (that I can think of, at least) is dreaming bigger. 

I was lucky to get to know one of the OGs of Detroit - I’ll call him Mr. B here, when I was working for the Detroit Police Department. He was one of our close community partners, and he would often speak at community events associated with the gang violence prevention program I worked on. He had endless energy, motivation, and wisdom. One of his ideas that I’ll never forget is that, “it’s a dangerous thing when a man stops dreaming.” I’ve reflected on this idea for years now.

If we, as men, dreamed bigger and more generously I feel like we might be able to create a different culture for ourselves. Because when you are dreaming of bigger things that raise up ourselves, our communities, and our world - we realize that the same-old hill we’ve been trying to become a king of, is small-minded. When we set our sights on a compelling vision that’s generous, virtuous, and benefits others we have a reason to stop thinking about one-upping other people and trying to get to the top of that same imaginary, one-dimensional hill. The dream expands our horizons and gives us the chance to transcend our our personal egos. 

When we, as men, dream bigger, we have better things to do than be assholes that behave aggressively and try to dominate others - because any time that’s not spent on reaching that big, difficult dream is wasted. It’s just a whole different dynamic when we’re dreaming big (assuming that dream is not selfish or ego-driven) because instead of fighting over the same hill, we realize that the world is a big place, there are hills for all of us, and that we can help each other on the climb.

For me at least, the challenge of a big dream gives me a reason to break the boundaries and chains of the culture I’m in and an implied permission to create a new culture. Which is why I think (and hope) it’s a path out of this no-man’s land.

I feel this tension and alienation from the dominant male culture damn near every day of my life. It’s grueling and exhausting. Some days I want to just give up and let myself fade into that dominant male culture. But I just can’t. We just can’t. We will get out of this no-man’s land if we stick with it.

High Standards Matter

I’ve been part of many types of organizations in my life and I’ve seen a common thread throughout: high standards matter. 

Organizations of people, - whether we’re talking about  families, companies, police departments, churches, cities, fraternities, neighborhoods, or sports teams - devolve into chaos or irrelevance when they don’t hold themselves to a high standard of conduct. This is true in every organization I’ve ever seen. 

If an organization’s equilibrium state is one of high standards (both in terms of the integrity of how people act and achieving measurable results that matter to customers) it grows and thrives. If its equilibrium is low standards (or no standards) it fails.

If you had to estimate, what percent of people hold themselves to a high standard of integrity and results? Absent any empirical data, I’ll guess less than 25%. Assuming my estimate is roughly accurate, this is why leaders matter in organizations. If individuals don’t hold themselves to high standards, someone else has to - or as I said before, the organization fails.

Standard setting happens on three levels: self, team, and community.

The first level is holding myself to a high standard. This is basically a pre-requisite to anything else because if I don’t hold myself to a high standard, I have no credibility to hold others to a high standard.

The second level is holding my team to a high standard. Team could mean my team at work, my family, my fraternity brothers, my company, my friends, etc. The key is, they’re people I have strong, direct ties to and we have an affiliation that is recognized by others.

To be sure, level one and level two are both incredibly difficult. Holding myself to any standard, let alone a high standard, takes a lot of intention, hard work, and humility. And then, assuming I’ve done that, holding others to a high standard is even more difficult because it’s really uncomfortable. Other people might push back on me. They might call me names. And, it’s a ton of work to motivate and convince people to operate at a high standard of integrity and results, if they aren’t already motivated to do so. Again, this is why (good) leadership matters.

The third level, holding the broader community to a high standard, is even harder. Because now, I have to push even further and hold people that I may not have any right to make demands of to a high standard. (And yes, MBA-type people who are reading this, when I say hold “the broader community” to a high standard, it could just as easily mean hold our customers to a high standard.)

It takes so much courage, trust, effort, and skill to convince an entire community, in all it’s diversity and complexity, to hold a high standard. It’s tremendously difficult to operate at this level because you have to influence lots of people who don’t already agree with you, and might even loathe you, to make sacrifices.

And I’d guess that an unbelievably small percentage of people can even attempt level three. Because you have to have a tremendous amount of credibility to even try holding a community to a high standard, even if the community you’re operating in is relatively small. Like, even trying to get everyone on my block to rake their leaves in the fall or not leave their trash bins out all week would be hard. Can you imagine trying to influence a community that’s even moderately larger?

But operating at level three is so important. Because this is the leadership that moves our society and culture forward. This is the type of leadership that brings the franchise to women and racial minorities. This is the type of leadership that ends genocide. This is the type of leadership that turns violent neighborhoods into thriving, peaceful places to live. This is the type of leadership that ends carbon emissions. This is the type of leadership, broadly speaking, that changes people’s lives in fundamental ways.

I share this mental model of standards-based leadership because there are lots of domains in America where we need to get to level three and hold our broader community to a high standard. I alluded to decarbonization above, but it’s so much more than that. We need to hold our broader community to a high standards in issue areas like: political polarization, homelessness, government spending and taxation, gun violence, health and fitness, and diversity/inclusion just to name a few.

And that means we have to dig deep. And before I say “we”, let me own what I need to do first before applying it more broadly. I have to hold myself to a high standard of integrity and results. And then when I do that, I have to hold my team, whatever that “team” is, to a high standard of integrity and results. And then, maybe just maybe, if the world needs me to step up and hold a community to a high standard of integrity and results, I’ll even have the credibility to try.

High standards matter. And we need as many people as possible to hold themselves and then others to a high standard, so that when the situation demands there are enough people with the credibility to even try moving our culture forward. And that starts with holding ourselves, myself included, to a high standard of integrity and results. Only then can we influence others.

Gratitude and grief for slow-feeling time

My thirty-third year was not actually longer or shorter than any other trip of mine around our sun. Every day I was thirty three, still had 24 hours in it and it still had three hundred sixty five whole days, each with a sunrise and sunset.

And yet, thirty three will be the age I held onto the longest.

It was the year that we put everything on hold. We held off on house projects and trips. We held off on swim lessons and soccer practices. Instead, it was just us, our family, our close friends, and our neighbors. And  everything was slow-feeling. It was like we could savor each day just a little more because we were holding off on letting our lives change with the seasons.

But I don’t think I’ll remember this longest-age-I-ever-was year, exactly as the year of “slow-feeling” time. I’ll remember the year that our boys realized they were brothers. I’ll remember the year Myles became a walking, talking, bruiser and Bo got his big-heart and his imagination. I’ll remember the year Robyn and I had so much time together, and we started this ritual of turning to each other and saying, “Hey babe, it’s a good life.” I’ll remember the year Riley finally trusted me enough to become father and son.

It was all so slow-feeling because we were just stewing and simmering in all of it - all the muck and the tantrums and the love, tears, chocolate chip cookies, and all the grief and singing and hugs, and uncertainty and glorious monotony. That is what I will remember from the age I held the longest.

The day I turned thirty-four we played tennis at the park. It was our immediate family. Our boys running to and fro, Robert minding the net with his new racket, for the first time. And perhaps symbolically, I literally ran out of the soles of my shoes. And none of us said it, but playing tennis as a family was like the unofficial end of this year that was stewing, and simmering, and slow-feeling. We pulled the pot from the stove and that was that.

In short spurts I’ve noticed this gift of slow-feeling time starting to fade away. Our friends are starting to become busy again. We are running more errands or heading into offices every once in awhile. We’re talking about swim lessons and soccer practices like we were 18 months ago. We’re doing house projects and planning trips. Our friends and family are starting new jobs, moving cities, and making moves again. The sizzling and crackling of fast-feeling time is coming back.

And I have had this chewing feeling that I haven’t been able to put my nose on until today. It’s grief. 

I’m thirty four now and the year of my longest held age, in all it’s muck and wonder, is over. With all the relief of vaccines, and reopening, and reunions, life has resumed it’s forward motion, yes. The year of slow-feeling time is over.

And I know I can’t hold onto my boys at this wonderful age any longer. They’re going to make up grow their way through lost time. Robyn and I will have more days where we are ships passing in the night. Riley’s snout will get grayer, and so will I. Everyone we love will be busier.

And it won’t be any faster or slower than it ever was. But it will feel faster. It will feel like I’m having to let go more. It will feel like a changed season and a new era. And it all will feel too fast, just like it did before I was thirty three.

And I guess what I’m asking for, Father, is a blessing. A blessing of friendships that endure as the seasons change. The blessing of having time feel slow every now and again. The blessing of gratitude for glorious monotony. The blessing of memories and stories and celebrations we can remember as our hair grays. 

Thank you, Father, wherever you are out there, for the gift of slow-feeling time and the chance to understand it so early in life. Please bless us with more birthdays to cherish and the good sense to age with grace.

The rare second chance we all have

As our family “gets back to normal”, I’m having to relearn how to get on with other people. Like, literally yesterday we had a few people over for a 5k and pancakes after and my muscle memory was rusty; I shook hands without making eye contact. I’m just out of practice, and I think most of us feel this way.

As I’ve gone through these growing pains, I’ve come to be skeptical of this idea of “getting back to normal.” After all, prior to the pandemic I was not a perfect husband, father, citizen, or friend. And if I wasn’t the best person prior to all this, why would I wan’t to just get back to living that life or back to being that guy?

Most of us crave second chances in life, and now we all, simultaneously, have one. We all have a mulligan on our relationships. We all have an opportunity to make a new sort-of first impression. We all had a long pause our social relationships and now we have the chance to be better versions of ourselves as we rekindle old ties and nurture new ones. We, all at the same time, have this rare opportunity to have a soft-reset in our social and community lives. 

Instead of just “getting back to normal”, I want to be a better friend than I was before. Because, how often do second chances come along?

I want to not let rekindled relationships with college friends just fizzle out. I want to stay open to meeting new neighbors while on walks, instead of just waving hello and keeping it moving. I want to be a better listener, and put my phone away when I’m with others. I want to send more, “hey, I was just thinking about you” texts. I want to be more courageous and really share deeply and make others feel safe enough to share, too. I want to keep deepening with the family and friends that we leaned on (and leaned on us) in the past year.

And before the pandemic, too many of my social were relationships were comfortable, because most people I know act like me, think like me, and talk like me. Maybe that’s not what I want to do from now on. Maybe I could really dig in and pen my heart to those people that are good souls, but make me uncomfortable in some way. And maybe too, I can let go of relationships of obligation faster and let some folks simply pass by on their journey; it’s okay to just cross-paths once with some.

And yet, before the pandemic I started to subscribe to the idea of “no new friends.” Because honestly, I felt stretched and I couldn’t nurture the friendships I had enough. Maybe, just maybe I can dig deeper and find a way to nurture whatever friendships I have - whether they’re strong or weak ties - in a way that is sensible and caring, without hiding behind a door that’s closed to new people. 

Maybe this time around I can be better than the friend I was before. 

It’s just astounding to me how rare a second chance like this can come around - it’s a chance to be better without the fear and shame that can often come in tow with personal and cultural transformation. 

Instead of thinking of this spring as the time we all “got back to normal”, I would rather think of it as the time we, after a long and lonely winter, emerged wiser than we were, and got back to the important work of creating a world we are proud to pass on.

Preparing to be married indefinitely

Love songs use words like “always” and “forever” but indefinitely is all we get.

I always want to think that Robyn and I will be married and love each other always and forever. Including in the afterlife, and all through whatever comes next, until there is no more next left to have. I want to believe this, even though we really don’t have any say in the matter.

Living for indefinitely is a bit of a paradox. Because you have to plan for forever, not knowing whether you’ll make it past next week. And so much can happen between now and next week - I could be vaporized by a laser, eaten by a dinosaur, or drowned in a pool of chocolate pudding, or undergo one of many more conventional methods of death. We could do something so cruel to each other that our marriage dissolves. The universe might must...stop. We don’t really know, because nothing is definite.

I always have thought of the phrase, “live like there are 10,000 tomorrows all of which that may never come” as a paradox that fits when contemplating how to live a life.

But how? How do we prepare for a life, marriage, and maybe and afterlife together that lasts indefinitely. How do we prepare for anything that is indefinite?

All I can think of is a two principles: make adjustments and manage exponential growth.

Making adjustments to me, is all about the process of realizing our marriage is imperfect and trying to change the underlying behaviors which lead to fissures. To me there’s certainly a process for managing these fissures (we use temperature check, for example). Certainly things like “communication” and “conflict resolution” are important skills.

But the more important, overlooked factor here I think, is the humility it takes to acknowledge that our marriage needs to be worked on every day. Every interaction we have is a chance to work on our marriage. We cannot take days off. Processes like temperature check don’t work if we don’t humbly believe we actually need to utilize them.

And the principle of managing exponential growth, to me, is the understanding that both good and bad things can snowball quickly and that we should act accordingly.

Of course, it’s obvious that problems in a marriage can spiral out of control quickly. And so, obviously, it’s important to solve problems quickly, before they get big. The old adage of “never go to bed angry” is a good rule of thumb that Robyn and I really believe in.

But exponential growth can also be positive, and we need that reserve of goodwill to carry us through hard times. Just as we can’t let problems spiral out of control, we can’t let opportunities to strengthen our marriage and create joy - even little ones - pass by.. Little things - like writing a little note, or making a special treat, or saying I love you at an unexpected time - these all build on each other to create joy and love.

There are probably hundreds of these tiny little interactions every day, and those opportunities for joy and love can’t be wasted. We need to give positive exponential growth a fighting chance to happen. We can’t wait for grand gestures to grow our love and trust - they’re not enough to help our marriage at least, last indefinitely.

As it happens, the idea of managing exponential growth also is rooted in a mindset of humility. Because by trying to managing exponential growth, we’re acknowledging that negative exponential growth could crush us and that our marriage is not naturally dynamic enough to survive without positive exponential growth, either.

It seems to me, the key to a marriage that lasts indefinitely is to deeply and truly respect the challenge and then act accordingly. For many years I have wondered where that sort of humility comes from. Like why do some people have it and some people don’t? Humility, to me, seems like one of the most important dispositions to have when participating in human relationships.

It’s the subject of deeper reflection, but I think listening and observing the world around us (even the ugly parts) and experiencing real pain and loss are two things that help humility to germinate in a person.

Kegerators, Enrollment, and Becoming Better

There are two general strategies for making the world we live in better: make better systems or make better people.

More on that after the break - first a story about a kegerator.

—

We took a walk during our neighborhood yard sale and stopped to chat with some neighbors we know from a few blocks over.

“Did ya’ll sell anything?”

To which they replied energetically, “yes, we finally sold our kegerator!”

“Who was this person that bought it? Were they fresh out of school or something?”

”No it was actually an older guy, who was landscaping in the neighborhood. He already had one and he’d been looking for a second one for a long time. He bought it and threw it in his trailer.”

Of course, I thought. A pretty good predictor of who might buy a kegerator is someone who already has one. For whatever reason, they’re already enrolled in the journey of having a kegerator. Maybe they brew beer. Maybe they like throwing parties. Maybe they are amateur chemists who have to keep large vats of liquid cold.

Whoever they are, kegerators are already part of the journey they are on. They’re already sold on them.

—

I believe there are two general strategies for making the world we live in better: making better systems or making better people. And by my observation, there are plenty of people trying to make better systems and not that many people trying to make better people. And also by my observation, good, honest, kind, loving, respectful, courageous, persistent people tend to to be better at making systems and cultures better.

And so that brings me to the journey that I am on. I am trying become a better husband, father, and citizen - at home, at work, and in my neighborhood. That’s my life’s work. It’s my jam and my struggle. It’s my hard, long, lifelong slog. That’s why I write this blog. It’s a journal reflecting on this long walk that I’m on to become better.

Why I share this blog is for others - those on a long walk of their own, or those supporting someone trying to become a better husband, father, or citizen. It’s my attempt at being a lighthouse. By sharing what I have learned and connecting with others my hope is that all of us rise together.

I’ve proven to myself that I’m committed to this journey. For the first time in 15 years of blogging, I’ve published consistently. This post is well beyond my 52nd consecutive week of publishing a post. I’m in it for the long haul.

If you’re on this long walk to become better what can I do for us? Is it writing more or going deeper? Is it getting us together on a zoom call so we have support? Is it starting a book club? Is it organizing a conference? Is it creating software to solve a common problem we face?

There is no meetup for people like us. There is no seminal volume for people like us. There is no watering hole for people like us, that I’ve found at least. Right now, we’re isolated, venturing into uncharted territory, wondering who else is out there that’s on this long walk too.

I am eager to hear from you so we can all rise together. You can leave a comment here, find me on social media (linked on this website) or email me at neil.tambe@gmail.com. There are others, and I’m committed to bring us together in a meaningful way over time.

-Neil

A choking son; My brother’s keeper

I knew it was only a matter of time until one of our sons had a real choking scare. And it finally happened yesterday, when one of our boys put a quarter into his mouth, playfully, but then couldn’t breathe.

It was while I was cooking breakfast. The boys and I were in the kitchen and I was turning some hash browns over in a cast iron pan. And my back was turned to them for maybe 10 or 15 seconds. When I turned to check back, he was doing the sort of quiet, gasping head bob when you’re trying to dislodge something in the throat.

I struck his upper back sharply once. Then twice. And the quarter - and I’ll remember it forever, it was one of those state quarters for Idaho - popped out. And just like that, in another few seconds, it was over. My son and I melted into each other, him in shock, me trying to be stoic and calm, even though I was coming back from a feeling of free-fall inside.

It was the shortest worst moment of my life. I was about the same age when I choked on a hard candy lifesaver and I remember it vividly, still. He and I will both remember this, forever, I think. I woke up from sleep last night and couldn’t stop replaying it in my head for 30 minutes straight, until I tried reimagining us taking that quarter between both our palms, while on our knees intertwined in the kitchen, using magical energy to make it disappear away.

—

The scariest part of choking is that it literally makes someone helpless. As in, the act of choking makes it impossible to shout for help, and therefore makes one help-less. To even notice someone is choking you have to be very close to them, any more than a few yards away, literally or figuratively, and you can’t see or hear their signals.

I knew this day would come, someday. So when I’m on duty with the kids, I don’t like being away from them for any measurable period of time. Even if I’m immersed in something, like cooking breakfast, I always have one eye and one ear in their direction. Because I knew this day would come, and knowing it would has haunted me since our first son was born.

The scariest part of someone choking is that it makes them helpless. To notice someone is choking you have to be around to notice them. That’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past day straight.

And it has led me to reflect more broadly. Who am I choosing to notice? It is just my wife and kids? Is it my family and close friends? What about my neighbors? What if I, literally or figuratively, saw someone choking and help-less at a park or while out shopping? Would I notice them? Who am I noticing? Who am I choosing not to notice?

This whole experience of choking - both living through my son’s scare and reliving my own - has got me thinking about my relationship with the world outside myself. And I think this idea of noticing rhymes with the spirt of the phrase “I am my brother’s keeper.” Who we choose to notice is our brother or sister, someone we don’t cannot be. Who we choose to notice matters. Who I am choosing to notice and not notice matters.

There’s a chasm between who I ought to  notice, who I choose to notice, and who I actually notice. It’s humbling and intimidating to think how big that chasm might be.

This chasm, it seems, is one way to represent the challenge of trying to be a good person, day to day, in the trenches of real life. Who am I choosing to notice and not notice is an indicting, messy, moral question. But it’s one, I think, worth walking toward, with intention into the unknown, instead of running away from.

Equality begins at home

Women are not treated fairly in America.

The splitting of daily domestic responsibilities is one way that this unfairness manifests (there are many more), and it’s the one area I kinda sorta understand so I’ll stick to this narrow subject.

In the past year, two unexpected things happened to help me learn this unfairness existed, even in our own home. First, I was furloughed from my job. My wife became our primary breadwinner and I picked up the role of lead parent, plus 20 hours a week of contract work. Second, Robyn became my office mate and I began seeing up close the tax domestic responsibilities put on her.

I never actually understood “mom brain” until I was trying to do what Robyn had been doing since Bo was born: juggling like 5,000 different details and bids for her time. It’s more than a full time job. But beyond that, it shreds your brain and zaps energy.

I lost a measurable amount of weight within week of becoming lead parent. It was hard to be at my best, because I was mentally and physically blitzed, every day.

And, I felt less valuable, honestly, despite Robyn’s best efforts to make me feel honorable and appreciated. Our culture doesn’t make domestic work heroic, even though it is.

Women bear a disproportionate amount of these domestic responsibilities in America. This is a fact. I liked to think I was some sort of exception and this was not true for us, that somehow our distribution was fair despite the odds.

Wrong. I was lying to myself. Our split of home duties wasn’t egregiously unfair, but they weren’t fair. Which we are working on and have been for the past year. It was tough to read as a man, but if you’re interested in this idea, check out the book Fair Play for a ton of stories and a framework for working toward a fair arrangement.

Of course, what “fair” looks like varies by family. A family with historic gender roles can be as fair or unfair as a family with both partners working outside the home. Both can be great setups, but both can also be unfair - usually for women.

This unfairness makes women pay a tax on sharing their talents with the world. It’s just much harder to contribute something - whether at work, through community volunteering, or through a hobby or passion - when you have a case mom brain induced by an unfair balance of domestic responsibilities.

Robyn, still, gets interrupted more when I’m on duty with the kids because she’s the one they want to kiss their boo-boos. Robyn, still, gets her day hijacked more by “emergencies.” Robyn, still, gets more judgement if we have a messy house, messy kids, or miss some sort of caregiving responsibility.

And so she’s taxed on being able to contribute her talents fully. And because she’s my officemate now, I see firsthand how she has to work harder at everything to make the same contribution I can. Which isn’t fair.

The worst part is what the world is missing out on, by treating women unfairly. Whether it’s through a job, a hobby, or community effort, our culture taxes the gifts and talents of women. The loss of that taxation of talent is probably measured in the billions and trillions of hours, dollars, or quality of life years.

So what do we do differently? And by we I mean my brothers, because I’m writing to other men - husbands and fathers, specifically - today. I think we have to do the work with our partners to determine what’s fair in our own families. Because I’m convinced equality has to begin at home.

And it’s for real really uncomfortable to talk about, because even though we may think we have a fair situation going (I did), we probably don’t (we didn’t). And I felt a lot of guilt realizing Robyn was paying a tax on her talents, directly because of me. I was unintentionally harming her. And owning up to that sucks, but don’t we owe that to our partners and the other important women in our lives?

But gender equality is really good for us, too. We have more social permission to be part of home life. Like being fathers or caregivers. We can say, “yup, I can work on this, but after dinner and bedtime”, or, “no, I can’t make the call because my wife has a commitment and I’m watching my kids” with less stigma.

I think if we do the work at home, more equal public policy like paid family leave, childcare support, or reforms to prevent harassment and domestic violence probably follow in spades. Because we’ll have walked that road with our partners and will be emphatically motivated to advocate their interests, because now we understand more of the tax they pay.

This year has opened my mind to the win-win generated by gender fairness and equality, however that’s defined for our individual families. The sacrifice is us doing the difficult work to make things fair at home. But that sacrifice will be so worth it if we choose to make it.

Coaxing my best self to show up

Historically, the time between hitting the snooze button on my alarm and getting out of bed has been the worst part of my day.

One of two things usually happens. One, I might immediately open my phone and start scrolling through facebook, which gets me amped because of the memes and sensational posts. Or, my mind starts to run through my to-do list, and I feel like garbage out of the gate because I’m always behind and that’s the first emotion I’m feeling to start the day.

Either way, I never fall back asleep, which makes me feel even worse because I’ve wasted 9 (or 18 or 27) minutes of my day on top of putting myself into a bad mood. This cycle repeats, every day. 

And every day our culture is like Lucy pulling the football out from under me, and I’m Charlie Brown thinking today is different and ending up on my ass before I’ve even put my slippers on.

This past week, I’ve been trying an alternative snooze cycle.

I’m in bed, my eyes are closed, and I’m cycling through my day. But instead of dreadfully asking, “what do I have to do today?” I’m thinking, “what would my day look and feel like today if I were being the best version of myself?”

And I visualize in my head, myself, going through my day at my best. Hour by hour, I’m feeling my attitude and my body. I’m imagining how I am treating others. I’m thinking about how I’m approach the day’s work if I’m at my peak. I’m thinking about times when my day is going to spiral out of control, and I’m feeling in my bones how to bring it back to balance. I’m thinking less about what I have to do, and more about how I’m going to act.

It’s a dress rehearsal for the day. And it takes about 3 minutes.

I remember from dance recitals  growing up, what dress rehearsal feels like. It’s different than rehearsals at the studio, because you’re in the space you’ll be performing and you’re actually wearing the clothes and costume as if it’s the real thing. It’s as close to the real thing as it gets without performing in the actual show.

But there’s less pressure because it’s not the recital; you know it’s not the real show. Which makes it a risk-free rep. But dress rehearsals are amazing because they help your body know what the real thing will be like, for the most part. So when the real show happens, you’re as ready as you can be.

I tried “dress rehearsal for the day” visualization once, and I was hooked. I’ve done it every day since. As I went throughout my day, after the first morning of doing this exercise, I felt like I was in a prepared posture instead of a defensive one. When things started going badly during my day, it’s like my mind and body had muscle memory kick in to recognize that something was wrong and self-correct.

The truth is, I have not been at my best for the past few months. I have been getting angrier at my children more quickly. Resentment piles up faster when I perceive an affront of disrespect from my family or at work. I am more overwhelmed by my to-do list. I have been in a state of general malaise more days out of the week, then I was a year ago. And like most mortal men, when tension piles up, it leads to conflict more often than it would otherwise.

And I don’t want more conflict in my life. I don’t want to be that resentful husband. I don’t want to be that angry father. I don’t want to be that self-absorbed neighbor or colleague.

The problem is, life has trade offs. In addition to not wanting to feel so much tension, I don’t want to give up on the priorities I care about that give me this tension in the first place. Nor do I want to to accept this tension and have a short fuse basically all the time.

There’s one way I see out of this trade off, and that’s to be my best self: behaving with a better attitude and a clearer mind throughout the day. Because my best self is better equipped to deal with this tension than my average self is. My best self creates growth and love from tension, my average self gets washed over by it.

But it’s not easy to get him to show up all the time, even though I want him to. Which is not unique to me, I think. I think a lot of us want our best self to show up more often.

This dress rehearsal visualization has helped my best self show up more regularly (at least a little), which is why I wanted to share it with others.

Riley’s lesson in fatherhood

Riley couldn’t stand to be alone with me for at least three solid months after we first adopted him. Riley happens to be a dog, by the way. We don’t know exactly why, but we suspect he had some bad experiences with men before he became part of our family.

I remember one morning, I was feeding Riley before work. At the recommendation of a friend, I had been in the habit of feeding Riley from his bowl with my hand. Apparently, that’s a technique used by handlers of military and police dogs (or something like that) that builds trust between the dog and their partner.

This particular morning, Riley was refusing to eat. He wouldn’t eat anything from my palm. I distinctly remember, I was on the linoleum floor in the kitchen of our tiny apartment, literally on my hands and knees, trying to coax Riley to eat. Dude wouldn’t budge.

And so we sat there. 5 minutes went by, then 10, and 15. Maybe even 20 minutes had passed. I was fuming because Riley was refusing to eat and I needed to hop in the shower to avoid being late for work. And yet, nothing. Kid wouldn’t eat, and would just point his snout in the opposite direction, rebuffing my offer of kibble for breakfast. I was losing my mind, and getting progressively angrier.

When I was at my wit’s end, I had this idea. What if I “spoke Riley’s language” and growled and howled at him. I figured that if I showed enough aggression, it might startle him into eating - you know, put him on the defensive.

In retrospect, this was obviously a terrible idea and a horrible approach to even contemplate. Looking back on it, I can’t believe I even tried it, because it’s obviously callous. Unsurprisingly, it had no effect. Riley still wouldn’t eat.

And during this excruciatingly stupid experiment, I had an epiphany. I realized that I couldn’t control Riley. Even though he was a dog, and even though I had pretty much all the real power in our relationship, I literally couldn’t control him - I couldn’t make him eat.

But in addition to not having the ability to control Riley, I realized that I didn’t want to control Riley. Because as I growled and got in Riley’s face on our kitchen floor, I realized that to control Riley, I might have to go the distance. I might have to make him submit to me. I might have to get in his face for weeks. I might have to yank his collar and threaten him or shame him with persistence. Because in Riley’s case, I knew he wouldn’t budge easily; it was clear his issues with men were deep-rooted.

To control him, I realized, I might put myself on a slippery slope that started with a desire for obedience but ended in physical or emotional abuse. Because if Riley kept refusing food, for example, I’d have to increase the intensity of whatever control tactic I was using. And if I had to exert dominance to control him for something like food, some other behavior of obedience was probably next. And then, what would be there to stop me from crossing the line from control to abuse?

The alternative, I decided in that moment, while I was literally hand-feeding Riley on my knees in our apartment, was to treat Riley as an equal. Not equal in the sense that he was a peer - after all, I do have a duty and responsibility to take care of and raise Riley - but as someone worth of equal treatment and respect.

Which is a radically different perspective, especially for a dog. And it looks really different to raise and care for a dog if I’m trying to treat him with equal respect, rather than trying to control him. In practice, it meant that I had to earn his trust to eat from my hand, rather than trying to bully him into it. I had to be incredibly consistent with trying to calm him down on walks in the neighborhood rather than yanking him around on his leash every time he stopped to smell a rock or chase a squirrel.

As is said by Mary Poppins, in the iconic film, I had to be “always firm, but never cross.” And that takes tremendous patience, nudging, trust, and self-control. And honestly, everything takes so much longer when you’re actively trying not to control him. And it took months to even get Riley to show any signs of progress or positive feeling toward me.

And, if I’m being transparent - there have been lots of  times since that morning in the kitchen where I’ve exploded at Riley and regressed into this dynamic where I utilize control tactics instead of tactics governed by the principles of equal treatment and respect. 

And I don’t how it would’ve turned out if I had kept trying to control him, but Riley and I do have a great relationship now - he trusts me and I trust him.  Everyday is still a challenge (especially when the mail carrier shows up in the middle of a Zoom call), but it’s okay that our relationship is still a work in progress.

The lesson from all this has been profound, as I’ve become a father to our sons. I realized the situation with Riley was more generalizable: if I want to control anyone’s behavior - Riley’s, our sons’, my colleagues’, my wife’s or anyone else - it might require me to abuse them at some point. Which leaves me with a choice: try to control someone and risk crossing a line, or, let go of wanting to control them in the first place.

But actively choosing not to control someone is difficult, as any parent would probably attest. When our sons are yelling at me, kicking me, and sometimes literally trying to spit in my face, I want to control them so that they stop. When we’re late to go somewhere, I want to control them so that they pick up the pace. At these high-pressure times It’s really hard to treat them as an equal, because it’s honestly incredibly inconvenient to do so. Having control of them would be so much easier!

And this approach of treating my sons as my equal is incredibly hard, for a few reasons. For one, sometimes my children need me to take control of a difficult situation because they’re too young to assess or handle the consequences of their actions. And controlling a situation and controlling them is a slippery slope in and of itself. But perhaps more so, I feel like I’ve been programmed to control my kids, not treat them as equals. The language and concepts our culture uses around children reinforces obedience and control. We’re expected not to have our kids throw tantrums in public. We use the words “mommy” and “papa” in the third person which reinforces the positional, hierarchical relationship between parent and child, at least somewhat. And in the back of my mind there’s always this simmering pressure of wanting my kids to be “successful” so they can earn a living and be independent someday, yes, but also because I know my children are a reflection on me. So yes, I feel like there are cultural tailwinds that encourage me to “control” our children.

But that experience on the floor trying to growl Riley into eating his breakfast left a lasting impression in my mind. I can’t shake the thought that control over someone else might require abusing them, in some way, eventually. And so I’m trying to imagine, “if I parented our sons not as peers but still as equals, what would that look like?” I’m still trying to figure it out, but it’s involved a lot of “I messages”, candor, patience, and transparency.

And honestly, I’m still really terrible at this approach to parenting. I slip into control-freak mode often with Bo and Myles, especially when we’re around hot frying pans, vehicular traffic, and sharp objects. But I think it’s worth it to keep trying. 

Because what happens when they’re adults if all I’ve done their whole lives is try to control what they do? They’ll eventually have the freedom to make their own choices, would they know how to handle that freedom if I’ve stolen the chance for them to explore it their whole lives? I feel like I owe it to them to try, and fail my way through it. Hopefully, someday I’ll get it right.

Who is low-potential, exactly?

There are lots of organizations that have programs for “high-potentials”, cohorts of “emerging leaders”, or who’s who lists for “rising stars”.

But lately, I’ve wondered: if we have programs for “high-potential” talent, who is “low-potential”, exactly? It’s audacious to me that we consider anyone low-potential. 

With the right role, coach, opportunities, and expectations, my experience suggests that just about anyone can grow and thrive and make a tremendous contribution to whatever organization they are part of. Moreover, in my experience the most important ingredient needed for someone to be “high-potential” is that they want and are motivated to grow and be better.

It seems to me that a better approach than creating high-potential programs or leadership development cohorts that are exclusive is to design them in such a way that anyone who wants to opt-in and put in the work can participate.

And wouldn’t that be better anyway? Aren’t our customers, colleagues, shareholders, and culture all better off if everyone who wanted to had a structure where they could grow to their fullest potential? Even if not everyone ends up being a positional leader, don’t we want every single person in our companies to be better at the behavior of leading?

I don’t buy the excuse that it would take too many resources to design structures for developing potential that’s inclusive rather than exclusive. Software makes interaction much cheaper and scalable. People are really good at developing themselves and learning from their peers, given the right environment. And, in my experience most people are willing to coach and mentor someone coming up if that person is eager to learn and grow.

I definitely would want to be persuaded in a different direction,.however. Because to me, employing the best ways to prevent human talent from being wasted is worth doing, even if it’s not my idea that wins.

But again, if someone is truly motivated to grow and make a greater contribution, who of those folks are low-potential, exactly?

The Artist’s Choice

To continue as artists, we have to keep making a choice to be out there on a lonely limb. Because artists, by definition I think, break new ground. Artists explore ideas and techniques that haven’t been done before. To be artists we have to create tension and push cultural boundaries further. It’s what we do and it’s our job.

The hard part about pushing boundaries is that it requires some level of independence and that cultural distance can be isolating.  We cannot do our job pushing the boundaries of ideas and culture if we’re beholden to them. And so we have to set ourselves apart from orthodoxies or operate in the spaces between worlds. For me, this  manifests in a feeling of, “I feel like I can exist almost everywhere, but I don’t belong anywhere.”

And so the choice. We can be artists that create tension and push the edges of things or we can be craftspeople that masterfully create something that’s already accepted - not both.

To be clear, I don’t apply this definition only to who we conventionally think of as “artists.” Sure, photographers, painters, actors, dancers, musicians, and sculptors are all artists. But so are the chefs, computer programmers, corporate strategists, public servants, doctors, parents, physicists, and teachers that push up against the conventional wisdom of their domains to explore new ground.

In addition to being lonely, choosing to be an artists has frustrating trade-offs. The idea of a “starving artist” captures it well. 

It’s hard to be paid handsomely for your work when you’re pushing boundaries, because the world doesn’t know it wants to pay for this weird, uncomfortable thing we’re exploring. If we’re lucky, maybe the world will develop a palate for what we’re doing while we’re alive, or even we’ve gone ahead. But maybe it never will.

I have felt this tension in my own vocation. I don’t really fit in anywhere in a corporate setting, even though I’ve always worked in them. I don’t have a career aspiration that’s as simple as, “I want to be a CFO” or “I want to run my own company.” A lot of the time, I don’t think my colleagues have any idea what to do with someone like me, because my skill set and aspirations are bizarre and hard to fit into existing functions. 

I suspect that if I told people at work, “the aim of my work is to bring goodness to the world by creating high-performing governments and help organizations to stop wasting talent.” They’d be like, “what the hell are you talking about?”

But that’s the choice, isn’t it? We could probably be wealthier than we are, or have more status than we do now by just creating what we know people already like. 

But that wouldn’t be art.

Asking for directions, when it matters

I have probably had to ask for directions while traveling, less than 10 times in my life including trips to foreign countries. This is an incredible feat. We have Google to help us with this sort of question. And because we have Google to help us with this, I think I’ve also been asked for directions less than ten times in my life. 

And by extension, I’ve rarely, if ever, had to say to someone, “I’m lost, can you help me?” And finally, to wrap up this observation, I’ve also probably never had to ask someone, “You look lost, can I help you find your way?”

And when it comes to getting to where we intend to go, like when it’s finding a new restaurant, or getting to a friend’s house in a new city, maybe it’s not a huge deal that we don’t have much practice asking for or giving directions. Maybe it’s nice that we are rarely “lost” or see someone who appears to be lost. On the surface, at very least, this seems like a good development.

But it dawned on me, what if the stakes were higher? What if we need directions on something that isn’t easily found on the internet? Say if we don’t know where to begin on a new project, and we need directions on this. What if we’re “lost” in our marriages or in fatherhood. What if our friends or family are veering toward a dark path, and we need to tell them they look lost?

These four scenarios - asking for directions, giving directions, admitting I’m lost, or identifying someone who is lost - are hard to begin with. It’s hard to ask for help, it makes me feel foolish. And it’s awkward to tell someone, “you look lost, but don’t worry, I’d like to help you.”

If I don’t have to do these things that often because we have Google, can I be sure I even know how to? It’s unsettling to think I may be out of practice asking for or giving directions. Because there are times, I’m sure, that it’s going to actually matter.