Jacob DeNeui's Blog

The house landed with a thud.  She slowly picked herself up from the bed, visibly shaken.  You would too if a tornado had picked you up like a dog’s chew, tossed you back and forth, and then violently launched you to the other side of reality.  Slowly, she walked to the front door, terrier in hand.  As she turned the knob and pulled back the wooden door, a new Techni-color reality which Dorothy could have never imagined while in her previous black and white paradigm emerged. While this gripping scene from the Wizard of Oz was certainly not the first use of color in motion picture films, it will forever remain one of the most enrapturing moments in cinematic history for the way in which it delivered such an incredible depth of emotion likely never before.  

 

It’s such an intriguing effect that color has upon our souls, and in it we find a dynamic metaphor for the way in which we orchestrate human dialogue regarding controversial topics.  Dorothy’s transition from Kansas to Oz reveals to us the way in which black and white film, while competent at illustrating shapes, shades, and movement, quite literally paled in comparison to the powerful effect which Oz’s exquisite golds, luscious greens, and vibrant blues had upon Dorothy and, simultaneously, the movie viewers.  While time has seen the transition from black and white to color in the realm of cinematic technology, it is unfortunate how culture has metaphorically reversed that trend. With the rise of social media in our lives, it feels as if we are approaching the final seconds of its death hold on our human civility and propriety.  In his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, author Lyman Frank Baum describes the Dorothy’s Kansas home as a place where “the sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass”, “the same gray color” was everywhere, and “even the grass was not green.”  Substitute “Kansas” with “social media culture” and you’ll see the sad state of their similarities.

 

In our black and white land of social media dialogue, while we are more capable of shouting our thoughts louder and further than ever before, their depth is tragically lacking. This monochromatic poison is slowly weakening our ability to communicate about controversial topics in a productive and healthy way.  Character limits and emojis have become the caps upon the most colorful layers of what makes us human.  To illustrate my point, imagine being tasked with illustrating a rainbow using nothing but different shades of gray markers.  It would be impossible!  When forced to communicate the depth which color brings using only black and white, emotional and intellectual constipation is inevitable (yes, I just said “emotional and intellectual constipation”).  The repeatedly failed attempts to communicate a rainbow with only black and white will certainly leave both the artist and observer in a state of tense frustration.

“Character limits and emojis have become the caps upon the most colorful layers of what makes us human. ”

 

 

In our current epoch of unlimited access to information, we are experiencing first hand the destructive result of what happens when the rainbows of human thought and emotion are forced to be described through social media’s gray scale spectrum.  Frustration results from being misunderstood, which leads to violent and aggressive words being typed in a way that likely wouldn’t be if they were spoken audibly, and our souls are paying the price.  Conversations regarding contentious and disputed topics have been, are, and always will be unavoidable, yet now it appears many of these conversations are happening within a human experience vacuum, leaving us without the safety and security which in-person connection once provided to us.  The nuclear power of our social media platforms appears to be destabilizing us at our very core; our humanity depends upon addressing this clear and present danger.

 

With the problem laid clearly before us, it becomes clear that the solution will require nothing less than the intentional reinsertion of color into our crucial dialogues.  To this point, I must clarify that I do not believe the solution is a complete ban on all social media for all people (although I highly recommend occasional hiatuses).  In the same way that black and white films are still cherished for the value that they bring to cinema, so social media holds unheard of potential for increased potency in our ability to connect with others.  So since elimination will not suffice, the return of vibrancy to our most important conversations will only come through an intentional modification of the way in which we utilize the tool of social media. This is where the strength of our leadership is drawn into play.  While bad leaders utilize social media in a way that draws people into a destructive reality characterized by division, hostility, and violence, good leaders harness social media to inspire others toward an optimal reality of dialogue, unity, and connection.  In what ways can we as leaders influence this trend toward a more optimal reality of connection and unity?  Well, if we return to our metaphor of the wonderful land of Oz, you may recall that the greatest threat Dorothy and her fellow sojourners faced was the wicked witch.  While we as leaders may not be overly concerned with witches that fly on brooms and command legions of flying monkeys, there are three “whiches” that we do need to address.

 

“While bad leaders utilize social media in a way that draws people into a destructive reality characterized by division, hostility, and violence, good leaders harness social media to inspire others toward an optimal reality of dialogue, unity, and connection.”

 WHICH Tone 

The first “which” we must address is understanding which tone we should employ in our dialogue.  One definition of tone is “a style or manner of expression in speaking or writing”.  Ironically, another definition of tone is “the effect in painting of light and shade together with color”, reinforcing our underlying connection to the power of color in our controversial conversations.  Often times we aren’t even aware of the negative affect our tone has upon those who read our posts on social media, failing to recognize the color we lack while we remain stuck in the gray mass, the place where even the grass is not green.  We think we are communicating capitally but in reality, our words are interpreted as hostile and divisive, whether we intend them to be or not.  As I have observed different tones of voice used in controversial social media conversations, I have identified two different tones should be avoided:

 SARCASM“I’m so excited ______________ was just elected.  I’ve been waiting for the world to end for a while now.”  

Sarcastic posts like this hypothetical example might come off as funny to some and may make you feel good in the moment but good leaders are more focused on using their words to unite their people and bring about a desired outcome than self-gratification and appeasing a certain group at the expense of another.  

EXAGGERATION“No one from the _____________ party has ever done this world ANY good!  All they want to do is destroy our country!”  

Just like sarcasm, exaggeration tends to invigorate one group of people while offending another.  The danger of exaggeration is that it is typically a flashing red DANGER light indicating your opinion has started to digress from the yellow brick road toward false conclusions fabricated from inaccurate paradigms.  Avoiding exaggeration is how good leaders keep their people on the yellow brick road of healthy human dialogue.

 

I will clarify that using a healthy tone doesn’t inherently mean the oppression of your opinion or conviction.  Rather it is a modification of our approach to the subject in order to create emotional safety for those involved in the discussion.  Leaders must learn to tackle the challenging issues of our time with mutual strength and grace by simultaneously not straying from communicating what must be said while also employing a tone that fosters a spirit of unity and growth.

 

WHICH Words

No, this section is not a justification for using “colorful” language in your use of social media. Instead, it is a call to carefully guard against words which unnecessarily cause division.  While there might be a word you would like to use that would give full weight to the negative emotions you feel (i.e. “idiot”, “nincompoop”, “cotton-headed-ninny-muggin”), understand that using charged words might allow you to blow your opinion as loud as you want across a dry and lifeless social media landscape but they will keep you from stepping into the colorful depth of rich, human dialogue.  Instead of using emotionally charged words that gratify yourself, consider using more neutral words like “questionable” instead of “hair-brained”, or “I disagree with their beliefs” vs. “They’re all idiots”.  Both communicate the important facts but the latter options maintain greater emotional safety encourages connection and not defensiveness.  

 

One last point: absolutely no name-calling.  It is never appropriate to call anyone derogatory names, especially if you call yourself a leader.  Period.

“Leaders must learn to tackle the challenging issues of our time with mutual strength and grace by simultaneously not straying from communicating what must be said while also employing a tone that fosters a spirit of unity and growth.”

  WHICH Platform.

Last but far from least, you must choose which platform to utilize for engaging in dialogue.  In making this choice, first identify your ideal outcome (hopefully it is something along the lines of dialogue, unity, and connection).  Then ask yourself if the platform, whether Facebook, Twitter, MeWe, face to face, etc., is likely to produce that outcome.  Once you’ve identified which platform you believe will give the best chance of achieving your desired outcome, use that platform.  You will still face the other two Which’s even in one-on-one dialogue so you must still be intentional about which tone and words you use on that platform.  With this point in mind, never forget that you always have the choice to refrain from dialoguing on any form of social media regarding a certain issue.  I’ve semi-recently made the choice to not post anything political on my social media because I’ve found little success with productive dialogue there.  This is a decision we must each make for ourselves.

 

Choosing Color

Sometimes it feels like our world is nothing but a colorless wasteland of hostility, anger, and opposition. Social media has great power which, if left unchecked, can easily leave us trapped in a less than optimal black and white reality.  Dorothy had the choice of whether or not to remain inside the comfort of black and white, which was all she had known until that point, or to step out into the unknown world of color, mystery, and discovery.  By intentionally choosing WHICH tone, WHICH words, and WHICH platform to use in our dialogue, we can lead those around us and rebuild the bonds that bind us by boldly stepping into the colorful new world of Oz.  The choice between empty fields of dry gray mass and the glimmering yellow brick road is ours alone to make.

 

WHICH will we choose? 

Have you ever had someone, with all the best intentions, share with you what they had decided was the perfect solution to the problem you were facing?  “What you need to do is just get this degree,” “You’d solve the issue if you just got this job,” or “You two would be so perfect together!”  Why is it that these proposed solutions so often fail to address the root of the problem?  After all, the solution makes so much sense to the one offering it; how could it not work?  To answer this question, we have to first understand what the words  “problem” and “solution” actually mean.  

A problem is defined as “a source of perplexity, distress, or vexation.”  On the flipside, a solution is defined as “an action or process of solving a problem.”  At first glance this seems like a cut and dry issue: a problem exists and a solution is simply the clear choice to fix the problem.  However, if we only observe the “denotation” (the literal or primary meaning of a word) devoid of its “connotation” (an idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning), we miss an intrinsic understanding of why the solutions we are often offered fall short of actually solving the problem.  If we look closer at the connotation of the word “problem”, we find that it communicates something different than just an objective source of perplexity, distress, or vexation.  Attached to the word “problem” is the reality that we can’t help but view them through the lens of our own limited perception.  We describe how a certain part of government is failing and then describe the solution to the problem.  The “problem” is (pun intended) that oftentimes the solution we propose is inherently flawed due to our limited understanding of the matter (more on this soon).  In fact what we perceive to be the problem might not be the actual problem, so when we go to propose a solution, it crumbles from the start because its foundation was built upon the sands of an incorrect perception of the problem.  I like to call this a “prolution”.  A prolution is a tainted solution derived from an inaccurate perception of the problem.  In other words, it’s an attempt at a solution that ends up polluting the environment of its application because it was created with an inaccurate perception of the situation.  While prolutions may be helpful in the short term, they are inherently flawed due to their unstable foundation, which means eventually the cracks will show in their effectiveness at solving the problem.  And while the line between “solutions” and “prolutions” is blurry due to their distinction being subjective and sometimes contentious, there are still definitive ways we as leaders can advance in our sojourn from prolutions toward solutions.

 

“A prolution is a tainted solution derived from an inaccurate perception of the problem.  In other words, it’s an attempt at a solution that ends up polluting the environment of its application because it was created with an inaccurate perception of the situation.”

 

I Have a Problem

To begin with, we must have a sit-down with our self and discuss some things.  You see, we have a problem, and the problem is we often don’t know what the problem is.  I know, it’s a problem.  But why is this when we often feel so convinced about how correct we are in the moment?  Call it our gut, our reason, or our feelings, but whatever the source is, we just KNOW that we have the right perspective of the issue.  As an architect, I’ve learned a thing or two about perspective.  Perspective is defined as “the state of existing in space before the eye.”  It is a strange phenomenon in which our minds literally create a representation of reality as our best attempt to perceive and interact with the world around us.  The only problem is that it is only that, a representation of reality and not reality itself.  Perhaps if I put it into perspective for you (pun still intended), to think that our brains could flawlessly perceive the reality of all three dimensions of our physical world, the likes of which expands infinitely in every direction, through two little balls each equipped with a lens smaller than a penny is at a minimum humorous if not outright preposterous.  Yet despite the absurd odds of our grossly underequipped eyeballs understanding the intricacies of the problem and, hence, its appropriate solution, we continue proposing solutions to our and others’ perceived problems and wonder why their application fails to end in success, which leads us to our next point.

“To think that our brains could flawlessly perceive the reality of all three dimensions of our physical world, the likes of which expands infinitely in every direction, through two little balls each equipped with a lens smaller than a penny is at a minimum humorous if not outright preposterous.”

 

 

It’s Complicated

 Prolutions are easy, solutions are not.  Prolutions happen quickly and don’t require us to admit that there might be more to the picture than we realize, whereas solutions are birthed from a place of humility and respect for the vastness of reality which our two eyeballs fervently strive to accurately report on (it’s okay, eyeballs, you’re trying).  Chances are that, as a leader, you’ve made decisions which have been questioned by others who claim their solution would have been much better.  At times they may be right, but many times it is simply an example of how, without the context that only the leader is privy to, their prolutions would not solve the actual problem.  

The first thing we can learn from understanding that solutions are complicated is to not jump to conclusions.  Whether you are the leader or the led, take a moment next time you think you know the solution and pay context some due respect.  While it is true that good leaders must be careful not to fall prey to “analysis paralysis”, too often I have seen the harm that results in leaders mistakenly jumping into a solution because they didn’t do the leg work to develop an effective solution.  Try taking just a little bit more time to learn more, maybe get other peoples’ perspective on the matter.  I like to think of this way: if I know that someone is perceptive and intelligent and they have a different point of view than me, it’s probably wise for me to try and understand how they came to have that point of view.

 

“Prolutions are easy, solutions are not.”

Second, have grace for people who disagree with you.  After all, it’s complicated.  If we keep in mind the inherent limitations in our ability to perceive reality, we can begin to arrive at a place of understanding for those who don’t see the world the same way we do.

“If I know that someone is perceptive and intelligent and they have a different point of view than me, it’s probably wise for me to try and understand how they came to have that point of view.”

 

Finally, be wary of easy solutions.  I’ve found that leaders often try and paint our nuanced world in black and white, as if every vote, every bill, every plan were a cut and dry matter, but that’s rarely the case.  Solutions can be simple but only prolutions are easy.

 

 Creative Work

 Once we understand that our ability to perceive reality is limited and that problems are often complicated, we can get to work at creating solutions, and believe me, it’s a lot of work.  It used to be so easy for me to prove someone wrong who disagreed with me (in my head, that is).  I was perfectly content describing what a forest looked like with my nose buried in the bark of a single tree.  Only once I began to step back did I begin to understand how much work it would take to describe the forest as my retreat began to reveal to me things I had not seen with my nose buried in the bark.  But how do we do this practically?

The best solution I’ve found to improving our solutions is to learn from the scientific method: Observe, Research, Hypothesize, Experiment, and Conclude.  First, “Observation”.  This is our initial perception of a problem (we’ll find out later whether it is perceived or actual).  After observing the problem, you then “Research” the issue.  This could be asking for others’ opinions, reading books or articles on the matter, whatever helps you better understand the complexities at hand.  Just be sure not to leave out the opinions that you might not agree with.  You then “Hypothesize” a possible solution.  It might be that your solution is actually a prolution, which you will find out once you “Experiment” and test whether or not your solution works.  Very rarely do we get things right the first time, so you might discover you unintentionally gave a prolution and you need to go back and do some more research.  One tip on how to increase your chances of discovering the solution sooner is by asking lots of “What if?” questions.  “What if I had been born into her circumstances?”, “What if I he knows something I don’t?”, or “What if there’s a hole somewhere in my train of logic?”.  Only once we’ve done the hard work of overcoming the flaws in our ability to perceive reality by accepting the complexity of the situation can we “Conclude” that our solution really is an effective one.

 

Takeaways

 We might never have the ability to perceive reality from all points of view, but there are ways we can begin to move away from creating prolutions to creating solutions.  Here are three C’s for you to remember:

 Accept COMPLEXITY

Solutions can be simple but only prolutions are easy.  Accepting the fact that there are a lot of facts is a great place to start.

Delay CONCLUSION.  

Developing a good solution requires doing more work.  Utilizing the scientific method will guide and challenge you in creating effective solutions.

Embrace CREATIVITY

Creative people are able to perceive patterns and then act on them.  Asking “What If” questions is one way to help you perceive something you might not have otherwise.

 

Our world seems to be so full of leaders enacting prolutions that leave us continually facing the problem we thought we had addressed.  Accepting complexity, delaying conclusion, and embracing creativity are three powerful ways to expand your capacity as a leader so that you can create solutions that actually address objective needs.  It’s time to stop settling for mediocre results when we have the ability to create a better world through our leadership.

 

It’s time to trade prolutions for solutions.

(Note:  This blog is the second of a two part series.  Click Here to read part one.)

 

Union ChapelVancouver, WAMonday, July 15th, 2019 

It was only slightly overcast that morning but not enough to dampen the creative spirits about to enter into the unknown.  Cars were beginning to park in front of the Union Chapel in order to drop off their elementary aged cargo.  Today was the first day of Design Camp and each boy and girl could hardly wait.  Once inside, attendees quickly climbed the stairs and entered the large, open room where their activities for the week would be held.  As the students raced toward the tables and chairs set up in the center loaded with supplies for their week’s design work, I suspect their minds were quite fixated upon imagining what creative fury they were about to release upon their yet undersigned architectural masterpieces.

 

This was the second year of Riff Creative’s Design Camp, a five day period of creative exploration for children ages 7-12.  The creative energy in the room was nearly palpable.  If excitement were an aroma, I like to imagine the room would have smelled like sweet and sour chicken, the kind where you can’t decide if it’s more sweet or sour, you just know you like it and want more.

 

Vida Internacional El Suyatal, HondurasSaturday, March 14th, 2020 

 “This isn’t how I wanted it to end,” she thought to herself as she hurriedly packed her bags.  Airports and even countries were quickly shutting down and there was no guarantee that Elena could make it out in time to fly home to Washington before the whole world settled into a deep stillness of an unknown duration.  She had only just arrived in Honduras on January 13th to volunteer as a 2nd grade English teacher at the Campos Blancos school an hour and a half outside of Tegucigalpa, yet here she was packing her bags and trying to book a flight home.  Oddly enough there were no rebel forces advancing upon the grounds, no forest fires, no flash floods.

 

There was only COVID.

 

Elena Anunciado had just finished all of her coursework for her degree in Public Relations/Graphic Design shortly before leaving for Honduras and she was eager to knock on life’s door to discover what was on the other side.   Now, however, after having been given but a small glimpse at what that might be, it felt like that door had just been slammed shut by a mysterious global pandemic, a pandemic that would soon have her packed into a car on the bumpy road back to the airport.  No goodbyes, no tearful hugs, no exchange of cards or gifts or “Muchas Gracias”.  Just a lonely car ride that was as solemn as the new reality beginning to open, like a door that, unfortunately, could not be slammed shut.

 

Riff CreativeVancouver, WAMarch, 2020

 

Like Elena, many of us found ourselves en route to an ideal preferred future before COVID sucker punched us in the face.  Visions had been cast, goals created, and investments made.  The only thing we needed from life was for her to keep unfolding in a calm and orderly fashion.  

Life then laughed and asked us to hold her beer.  

This is where Riff Creative also found itself.  Despite all of the success they’d had with Design Camp in the past couple of years and the plans they had to continue it in 2020, it was simply impossible to offer Design Camp the way it had been offered previously due to the social distancing restraints.  The team was quick to cancel the event but they knew there had to be another way to continue offering the camp while remaining safe and respecting health guidelines.  So, after the team wrapped their minds around the new challenges they faced while exploring the myriad of tools available to them, they had an idea.  With all of the different types of subscription products in the world that required no social interaction, there was no reason they couldn’t use that same delivery method for Design Camp.  If they couldn’t bring the kids to Design Camp, they would bring Design Camp to the kids! 

That’s where Elena comes in.  Having recently moved back to her hometown of Vancouver, Elena was now in need of a new job as her previous plans had dramatically fallen through.  With Riff in search of a talented graphic designer to bring their new subscription design product to life, it was an obvious fit.  It was bittersweet that both Riff and Elena had found their trips to their preferred destinations simultaneously cancelled.  Yet while hopes of arriving in one destination had been derailed, life was about to print both of them a new one-way ticket into the exciting unknown.

 

INTO THE UNKNOWN

While a victim mindset would have been an understandable response for Elena given the way COVID had tread on her, she instead saw a beautiful opportunity to grow her capacity as a designer at Riff. Elena had previously been accustomed to following someone else’s design directives on creative projects, but now she was placed in charge of imagining an entirely new product, a phoenix from the pandemic’s ashes.  All she was given was the idea that design camp would now be rebranded as a subscription based experience.  From that generic directive, “Into the Unknown” was born.  

First, picture a magical snow princess singing and dancing as she stares longingly into the frozen mountains.  

Now stop because this has nothing to do with “Frozen 2”.  

Instead, imagine an 8 year old girl who just received a box in the mail.  It is a brown box with pictures of colorful leaves and toucans scattered on each of the six faces.  On the top of the box are the words “Into the Unknown” and underneath that is the word “Jungle”.  Excitedly the girl opens the box and gasps with delight as she pulls out…well, I can’t tell you what’s inside because each box is a surprise.  But what I can tell you is that inside are all the tools she will need to design her architectural solution to help fight deforestation in the rainforests.  

Once she’s finished designing that, she’ll receive another box, except this one will say “Outer Space” instead of “Jungle”, and rockets and planets will have replaced the trees and toucans.  In it the girl will be given the tools to design and build a product that will aid astronauts in their extraterrestrial adventures.  

Finally, upon completion of those two design assignments, she’ll receive her final box.  The “Underwater” box will share with her a road map to aid her in creating a logo for a nonprofit that helps keep the oceans clean. COVID could have easily robbed this girl of her design camp experience but creativity found a way to apprehend the tragedy and restore hope to a tired world.  In Elena’s words, “It’s all about how you lean into the pain and discomfort of life to see what your creativity can produce.”  In Elena’s case, her creativity produced not just boxes but a small return to normalcy for many of their customers.

 

“It’s all about how you lean into the pain and discomfort of life to see what your creativity can produce.”

— Elena Anunciado

 STRENGTHEN

Outside of the tangible fruits of her creative labor, COVID also produced in Elena the strength to make quick decisions and act upon them.  In their book “Extreme Ownership”, authors Jocko Willink and Leif Babin call this the ability to “prioritize and execute”.  In the midst of chaos, the ability to prioritize and execute is imperative.  Fear and confusion have a tendency to take our ability to think quickly and rationally and throw it into the blender, leaving us with nothing more than a soup sandwich.  Stories of triumph in the midst of chaos almost always involve the rescue of our rational decision making mind.  The leader who cannot quickly and rationally identify what fire is most important to put out and then douse it will be left with nothing but the ashes of what used to be. 

“Fear and confusion have a tendency to take our ability to think quickly and rationally and throw it into the blender, leaving us with nothing more than a soup sandwich.”

 HONE

Elena also took the season of disruption and used it to hone her creative capacity.  Riff Creative’s sudden need for a total makeover of their product provided Elena with the perfect opportunity to acquire new skills.  Working on the Design Camp rebrand gave her the opportunity to learn how to manage a project, create a marketing strategy,  run a product-specific social media platform, and work with a team.  While much of what Elena needed she already had from her training in school, there was still room for her to hone her abilities.  Unless you also take advantage of pressure to hone your unique skill set, you may find someday that the abilities you possess aren’t enough for where you want to go.

 

“Unless you also take advantage of pressure to hone your unique skill set, you may find someday that the abilities you possess aren’t enough for where you want to go.”

REIMAGINE

Before working at Riff, Elena had always seen herself as an executor of someone else’s creative vision.  However, when Riff placed her in a role of both executing the vision AND creating it, she found that not only was her new role as the visionary strenuous, it was also fulfilling.  “I think coming up with the big picture was something that was more daunting to me earlier in the process but as I look back on it now it’s probably the part I’m most proud of.”  What she was asked to do was no small feat, yet she and the team at Riff found a creative way to make a hard pivot from what they had created in the past in order to lean “into the unknown” of what COVID held for them and their customers.  In situations like this, the difference between a creative and non-creative person is that when a wall blocks the path, the non-creative person says, “What an insurmountable wall that is” and walks away, while the creative person says, “What a lovely bridge that could be” as they kick it down and walk across.  Through Elena’s unexpected role in rebranding Design Camp, she found the opportunity to reimagine where she could go in her career.  She now entertains the idea of possibly continuing her role as a project visionary, a career direction she might not have considered without COVID.  

“The difference between a creative and non-creative person is that when a wall blocks the path, the non-creative person says, “What an insurmountable wall that is” and walks away, while the creative person says, “What a lovely bridge that could be” as they kick it down and walk across.”

 

 

SIPPING THE BEER

While Elena still works from home and admits they have no idea what Design Camp will look like next year, stories like Elena’s show us that when life asks us to hold her beer, we can either passively obey while doing nothing or we can leisurely sip the beer while creating something remarkable.  Perhaps it feels like the slamming doors and insurmountable walls in your life have stuffed you into a box, but if Elena’s story can teach us anything it’s that even a box can help us strengthen our skills, hone our abilities, and reimagine our future.

 

Good luck in the unknown. 

“When life asks us to hold her beer, we can either  passively obey while doing nothing or we can leisurely sip the beer while creating something remarkable. ”

 

Creativity is essential in leadership because it serves as the bridge across a great divide which was previously uncrossable.  Without creative leaders, we would forever be stuck in the place we currently are.  Someone once said that “creativity is the ability to detect patterns.”  In other words, it is the ability to observe the world and notice things that repeat, like noticing that a certain tone of voice tends to elicit a specific emotional response, or that a discovery in one field of industry could fit a need in another, or that certain sounds played in a particular order tend to evoke contemplation.  All of these are examples of creativity.  

“Creativity is essential in leadership because it serves as the bridge across a great divide which was previously uncrossable.”

 

 

2020 will forever be engrained in our minds as a year of hardship and adversity.  Yet while these trying times have been far from optimal, one thing 2020 has done for us is provide us with the opportunity to rise above the storm by drawing upon deeper levels of creative fortitude in order to serve our world.  That is, after all, precisely what leaders do.  Thankfully we don’t have to look too far to find leaders who have taken 2020’s lemons and turned them into lemon cheesecake (which, by the way, is several levels of epic beyond mere lemonade).  Over the next two months I want to share with you two stories of creative pivots that two leaders have made in order to not just survive but thrive in these “unprecedented” times (the only thing more unprecedented is the number of times I’ve heard the word “unprecedented” this year).  These stories will both inspire and challenge you to apply creative solutions to your own unique circumstances by learning how to hone your ability to identify and utilize the patterns that exist all around you.  

 

I hope you enjoy this month’s tale of pivot. 

SHUTDOWN

“Take a good look around because this is probably the last time we will be in a setting like this for a LONG time.”

 

When Alice Clark spoke these words on March 11th 2020, her audience nervously chuckled at her seemingly overdramatic statement, unsure of how else to respond.  Little did they know that on that very day the World Health Organization would declare COVID-19 a global pandemic.  Alice is Bellingham’s Executive Director of Downtown Partnership and she, like many across the world, had just received word that the corona virus had reached a high enough threat level to warrant the largest shutdown our generation has ever seen.  This shutdown would lead to one of the worst global recessions since the Great Depression, leaving many businesses in stunned silence.  One of those businesses was Veritas Media.

 

In 2011, Josh Burdick had a dream of starting a film company that could tell the stories of his Bellingham community in a truthful and authentic way.  Out of that dream Veritas Media was born, a small but now integral business in the Bellingham community.  Over the years Veritas has accrued a reputation as being the place to go for local businesses’ marketing, sales, training, and customer service video needs.  So much so that they were nominated by the Bellingham Chamber of Commerce for the 2017 Business of the Year. Over the preceding years, Veritas continued to work and deliver quality services to their clients, the likes of which included oil companies, ministries, solar power companies, and the Bellingham Chamber of Commerce.  In the Fall of 2019, following a consistent season of growth, Veritas expanded their portfolio with Bellingham Tonight, their first ever live talk show.  The first three pilot episodes were a hit and showed great promise.  With sponsors lined up, a beautiful new office and studio in downtown Bellingham, and an exciting amount of momentum ready to propel them into next year, Veritas was dreaming big about 2020.  “We were poised to push forward and really make some things happen this year” Burdick said.  “Then COVID stripped all that from us.”

Overnight, the business lost $100,000 in contracted work for the year.  One week after Alice Clark’s ominous words were spoken, Veritas was forced to furlough all five employees.  As many will recall, the future at that time was as clear as mud (and that might not be giving mud enough credit).  With no solid understanding of the disease’s potential or how long the shutdown would last, Burdick, like countless other business owners, was forced to wait as he wondered whether or not his business would weather this storm.

 

Yet thanks to a combination of luck and a few creative strokes, Veritas managed to beat the odds.  With the influx of a few small projects in the first few weeks after March 11th, the compnany was able to cauterize the wound and stabilize their revenue for the time being.  Thankfully, with the help of the government’s Paycheck Protection Program loan, or PPP, Burdick was able to rehire his entire staff after just four weeks of layoffs.  However, the problem of finding substantial work for the team to do still remained.

 

ROAD BLOCKS

When leaders face roadblocks, there are only three possible outcomes: Destruction, Apathy, or Innovation.  Trying to solve the problem the way you’ve always done it (that is with a now outdated and ineffective method) typically results in destroying the very thing you’re trying to protect.  Another option is to remain paralyzed by the obstacle.  This apathetic response might feel like a good solution at first since it avoids immediate pain but that relief will soon drift away as you’re left on the sinking ships watching others sitting safely in their lifeboats.  The only other option left is innovation.  This is the place where creative leaders decide to create a solution from the very raw materials they were given (to learn more about this concept, I recommend reading my book Design Before You Design or subscribing to my updates for a free PDF of the chapter where I describe this concept in more detail).  Creative leaders are those who, when most see a wall, they see an opportunity to climb higher in order to broaden their perspective.  So instead of resigning himself to “rona rage” (if that’s not a term it should be), Burdick did three things that set both him and Veritas up for success.

 

“When leaders face roadblocks, there are only three possible outcomes: Destruction, Apathy, or Innovation. ”

 

RELAX

The first thing he did was RELAX.  Burdick describes how he needed to “take a step back, take a deep breath, and evaluate.”  It is all too easy to panic in stressful situations like this and just start doing things instead of sitting back, breathing, and taking stock of the situation.  “Doing” without first “thinking” is a surefire recipe for the destruction we mentioned earlier.  Sometimes the best thing we can do when we’re hit with a catastrophic gut punch is to force ourselves to relax in order to prepare our mind, body, and soul for the challenge that lies ahead.

“Creative leaders are those who, when most see a wall, they see an opportunity to climb higher in order to broaden their perspective. ”

 REVIEW 

The next thing Burdick did was REVIEW.  In taking stock of the assets Veritas had at the time, he saw some opportunities that held promise.  While it was no longer possible to gather large audiences for the Bellingham Tonight show, they had discovered a desire for connection amongst the community, a desire that would only grow stronger over the coming months as social connection opportunities would be in short supply.  So the first thing Veritas did was to take the time to revamp the website while considering ways to continue the show during the shutdown.  And while, at first glance, the recent acquisition of their downtown office and recording studio seemed to be all for not, Burdick began ideating ways in which it could continue to produce revenue for the business.  

 

RESPOND

Finally, Burdick was ready to RESPOND.  With a healthy state of mind and a fresh account of where their best opportunities lay, the Veritas Team was able to make strategic moves that effectively saved the business.  First, they launched Bellingham Now, an offshoot of the Bellingham Tonight show that featured online interviews with local business owners and leaders.  The new format of the show allowed the interviewees to share their stories of trial and triumph with the rest of Bellingham.  And not only did the virtual episodes maintain the show’s momentum, they also brought in new business from the exposure they gave Veritas.  In addition, thanks to a willingness to creatively alter their methods of production, Veritas reacquired their contract with the Bellingham School district to live stream the city’s very first completely virtual graduation ceremony.  “In a lot of ways we were inventing this new format in collaboration with the schools.  Quarantine had put us in this mode of innovation because we had to problem solve” Burdick said.  And finally, after Phase 1 of the quarantine was over, Veritas was able to once again offer their recording studio to businesses and nonprofits in need of new communication tools to reach their customers.  They were able to maintain this revenue stream by adapting their practices to comply with ever-changing health and safety standards.  In fact they found that the greater restrictions forced upon them allowed them to deliver products more efficiently due to the requirement of having less people within close proximity, which inherently reduced the amount of resources required to create each video.

 

EATING GLASS 

Like all of us, Veritas is far from out of the woods, as there is still no clear end in sight to the challenges of COVID.  Yet their story so far can serve as a candle to illuminate our path and give us hope for the possibilities that lie within our own unlocked creativity.  Sometimes these trying times can be, in the words of Elon Musk, “like eating glass and staring into the abyss,” yet there is always hope.  Like Burdick, if we choose to RELAX first and then REVIEW our situation, we will be able to RESPOND with a solution we never could have imagined if we hadn’t run out of all our other options.  The next time you’re tired of chewing glass and staring into what feels like black nothingness, remember that the patterns which you can harness to creatively achieve success are all around you. You only need the boldness to act on them. 

 

Now go be epic and make lemon cheesecake.

 

On April 25th 2015 at 11:56 (NPT), Nepal was struck with the worst natural disaster the country has experienced in over 80 years.  The 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck in the heart of the country’s Gorkha region, just 50 miles to the northwest of the capital city of Katmandu, killing 9,000 people and injuring nearly 22,000 others.  Shortly after the disaster, an investigation was launched into the earthquake’s affect upon the local buildings.  It was concluded that the majority of the structures that were partially or completely destroyed were constructed of brick or stone masonry with little to no seismic detailing whereas the buildings designed to withstand seismic shock (i.e. reinforced concrete buildings) were largely undamaged.

 

Many of us remember this day.  Having walked those very streets just two years prior to the earthquake, I remember viscerally feeling the pain of the thousands that died or had their lives forever changed.  It made me question why so many had to die.  The unfortunate fact is that, while many died outside the cities, the majority of the lives lost were lost due to buildings collapsing, a failure that could have been avoided.  As the previously mentioned investigation revealed to the world, the buildings that were constructed with greater care and cost were the ones that protected their inhabitants and the innocent civilians surrounding them when the disaster occurred.  The buildings that were erected in haste and without proper safety precaution, on the other hand, were the villains in this tragedy.  The question then becomes: why were so many killed?  

 

If we look at the primary reason behind why many of those buildings were built in a manner insufficient to withstand catastrophic forces of the earthquake, we see the essence of man’s nature.  In the same way that a river flows down a mountainside, we naturally allow ourselves to be directed in the path of least resistance.  In terms of buildings, it is only natural to bypass obstacles of cost and time when doing so will bring about a more desired immediate outcome.  Yet don’t think this tendency applies only to architecture, for when we look inside ourselves we see that that very same habit to avoid what we dread lies within us all.

 

If we are honest with ourselves, when given the choice between doing something we are afraid to do and something we aren’t afraid to do, the latter tends to be more appealing.  Whether we are afraid of discomfort, success, failure, or rejection, we often avoid these things by fooling ourselves into believing that doing so will lead to our thriving.  The reality is that such avoidance only brings about a worst outcome.  In the same way, leaders also face the constant temptation to avoid the things they dread the most, whether that’s admitting a mistake they made, investing in a new tool or product, or having a difficult conversation with a team member.  In the moment it feels so much easier to sweep the error under the rug, stick with the tools you’re used to, or pretend there isn’t an elephant in the room.  The problem with this is that avoided fears never dissipate, they compound.  While we might think that avoiding our fears will decrease our pain, the only thing that will decrease is our character.  

“Avoided fears never dissipate, they compound.”

 Snoozing

Excuses and obstacles for leaders are not in short supply.  The most common obstacle to overcoming our fears is delaying challenges instead of gratification.  Full confession here: I LOVE delaying getting out of bed.  Some call it snoozing, I call it gracefully transitioning into consciousness.  If I’m being honest, though, I really wish I was more disciplined about getting up on time.  I know those few (*cough* 60) minutes add up over time and make it harder to achieve my goals for the day.  It just feels so gratifying to sleep in, so I often pick that over the challenge of biting the bullet and getting out of bed. 

 

“The most common obstacle to overcoming our fears is delaying challenges instead of gratification.”

 

A second obstacle in overcoming our fears is believing false narratives.  False narratives are any kind of false, self-limiting belief (i.e. a scarcity vs. abundance world view or an inaccurately low self-esteem) that keep you from acting effectively from a truthful paradigm.  They have a fiendish way of subtly undercutting every part of our leadership, making it nearly impossible to find the direction or strength necessary to overcome our fears. 

 

Identify

 In order to rise above the obstacles that hold us back from facing our fears, I’ve found three things to be very helpful.  First, we must IDENTIFY the false narratives we believe and begin telling ourselves a new narrative that is based on fact, not fiction.  Identify the lie you believe about there not being enough time in the day and replace it with the truth that we are all given the same 24 hours, or the lie that we don’t have the natural charisma or personality to be successful and replace it with the truth that we all have the same opportunity to mold our character into what we desire it to be, or the lie that you could never recover if you tried something new and failed and replace it with the truth that you will never know the extents of your power unless you open your soul to the uncertainty of success or failure.  It’s sad to say but, given the way we coddle and prioritize our fears over courage, you would think they were our best friends!  This is unfortunate and we must find the strength to kick our fears where they belong: to the curb.  In the words of Jack Hayford, “How would you treat a friend who lied to you as often as your fears did?”.  

 

Boom.

 

List

 After we identify the false narratives we have come to believe, it’s time to make a list: The To Dread List, that is.  I shamelessly stole this idea from author and blogger Chris Guillebeau who describes how, in order to force himself to do the things that he knows must get done but he dreads doing, he writes them all down on a list and then requires himself to do those things before he starts on the things he wants to do.  As Guillebeau put it, “instead of pushing it off, just start sitting with it”.  

 

“How would you treat a friend who lied to you as often as your fears did?”

— Jack Hayford

 

I hate beginning to write.  That’s correct, I just wrote that I hate starting to write.  Finishing a writing project is awesome, but there’s something about that first step of beginning the process of turning an idea into a literary reality that is often very slow and painful.  I’m rarely inspired to write when I need to start, which is why it is all the more important that I put it on my To Dread List.  If I were to wait until I felt inspired, I would never meet my goals.  As one person said, “inspiration is a fickle friend.  It may visit you every day for a month and then disappear for an entire year.”  

Feel

 In order to give our vehicle enough fuel to move from the place we are at (our fears) to the place we are going (overcoming our fears), we must find a way to ensure that we feel the negative consequence that will result from not facing our fears.  If we do not viscerally FEEL these negative consequences, we will never make the choice to overcome that fear.  In the same way that an architect or builder is unlikely to spend the extra time or money constructing a seismically resistant building when those upgrades will not lead to an immediate and tangible benefit (or the avoidance of an immediate and tangible consequence), so leaders are also unlikely to face the fears that ultimately keep them from building an organization or business that is strong enough to resist the quakes of life.  

 

“Inspiration is a fickle friend.  It may visit you every day for a month and then disappear for an entire year.”

— Unknown

 So how does one go about “feeling” these consequences?  One way to achieve this is to artificially imitate the consequences of avoiding the “to dread” list.  I’ll give you an example.  When I decided I had had enough of sleeping past my alarm, I decided to creatively take advantage of my competitive nature by creating a system of rewards and punishments for my behavior.  You see I just wasn’t feeling any strong enough negative consequences from oversleeping to warrant the work it would take to quit, so I knew I had to make my own consequences if I wanted to change. I placed two glass jars beside my bed and each morning, whenever I woke up on time, I would place a quarter in the “good boy” jar. However, if I chose to sleep past my alarm, I would put a quarter in the “bad boy” jar.  At the end of a certain period of time, I would reward myself by spending the money in the good jar on some kind of treat like eating out or something.  

One last point on this: you’ll need accountability! In order to solidify my commitment to waking up on time, I recruited help from a friend to hold me accountable to this commitment.  It’s amazing how high we can soar when we fly together and how low we can fall when we fly alone.

“It’s amazing how high we can soar when we fly together and how low we can fall when we fly alone.”

 

 

Out of Breath

 Just like 9,000 people did not need to die in that earthquake in Nepal, so leaders do not need to resign themselves to a life of stagnant character growth.  Few things in this world are unchangeable but one thing that will never change is our ability to choose our character.  No one, not even yourself, can ever take away your choice to see through the weak façade of fear.  One band described this fear as nothing more than “a liar running out of breath.”  

It is important to point out that while the tools we just discussed are powerful allies in our fight against complacency, they are not a magical genie in a bottle who, when rubbed, can simply wish all of our struggles away.  Only you hold the power to reframe your narratives as you become the type of world-changing leader you were made to be.  With that said, let us choose to walk, not in a spirit of fear, but rather a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.

 

Let us do what we dread.

 

Have you ever changed a dirty diaper?  And I’m not just talking about a “Johnny-took-a-little-tinkle” diaper.  I’m talking about a “This-baby-just-excreted-a-nuclear-bomb” kind of diaper.  Oddly enough, the metaphor of changing a dirty diaper has some powerful correlations to leadership for us to grasp.  Dirty diapers are an unavoidable part of both parenting and leadership (hopefully only one of those applies literally).  In the metaphorical sense, “dirty diapers” are everywhere.  They are the explosive divide between people of differing opinions spurred on by political elections.  They are the deeply embedded prejudices we harbor, sometimes unbeknownst even to ourselves.  They are the clash in personalities that, built up over long periods of time, morph from smoldering embers into violent volcanos.  Just like parents must face the stench and discomfort of dirty diapers in order to keep their babies clean and healthy, leaders are also charged with protecting and defending their organization’s culture from the devastating affects of these “dirty diapers”. 

 

Unfortunately, these ticking time bombs of character excrement are often so overwhelming to leaders that we tend to default to destructive leadership practices.  But before we go there, we first need to return to our analogy to learn why we respond in these ways.  Like all of us, diaper changers are gifted with five primary senses: hearing, smell, sight, touch, and taste.  One typically utilizes all but that last one to effectively accomplish this task (try not to think about it).  First, our diaper changer (we’ll call him Sam) must be alerted to the fact that his baby has a sanitation issue.  This is typically made known thanks to the first two senses of hearing and/or smell. The baby will either cry because of his or her discomfort or Sam will smell the diaper’s dirty contents.  Great, he has been alerted by the sound or the smell of a problem.  But now what?  Sam can’t smell or listen the baby into a clean diaper!  That’s why he must now move on to the use of touch and sight as he picks up his baby and lifts him or her onto a changing surface, takes off the clothes, and opens up the diaper.  Wow!  Houston, we have a problem.  Now Sam’s eyes can see just how bad the problem was that he heard or smelled earlier. 

 

Now that there is no disagreement amongst the senses, it’s time to fix the problem.  Yet while smell and sound executed their roles perfectly by triggering the alarm, they are unfortunately now out of their element. Their strengths were just what was needed to identify  the problem. However, they can now do very little to fix the problem, which is why touch and sight swoop in to save the day!  Sam now utilizes these two senses as he grabs a wipe, cleans up the toxic waste, opens up a new diaper, and offers new life to his once soiled child. 

 

In the same way that Sam’s senses of smell and sound alerted him to the fact that his baby’s diaper needed to be changed, it is often our emotions or feelings that sound the first alarm to the presence of a culture  problem within our organization.  Whenever there is a dirty diaper amongst the ranks, our emotions are a powerful tool for identifying threats to our people and organization.  If you are a leader and there is a feud between your people that is causing you feelings of anxiety, anger, or fear, those emotions are useful and must be heeded if you want to maintain a healthy culture in your organization!  And just like it was Sam’s sense of touch and sight that enabled him to change the diaper, it is our logic that is often responsible for devising a solution to the problem.   While detecting problems through emotions is often a messy and chaotic process, fixing problems is often best done with the calm, cool, and collected nature of logic.

 

Overwhelmed

Wouldn’t it be great if leaders tackled their dirty diapers by utilizing both their emotions and their logic in the proper order?  Unfortunately leaders are too often overwhelmed by the stench of the diaper and then resort to using the one which they feel most comfortable leading in.  Leaders on one end of the spectrum tend to remain fixated on the use of emotion to address the issue.  They start off doing a great job of acknowledging the feelings of their people which helps them build what I call “relational equity” with them.  They are able to truly smell and acknowledge how stinky the situation is.  But then they try to change the diaper by continuing to listen and smell even more.  As the stench and crying become more odious, leaders in this category will actually start to add to the problem, not fix it.  Emotional responses may be necessary to acknowledge our emotional needs, but when left unchecked, emotion has a fiendish habit of hijacking all attempts at redeeming the situation.  

 

“While detecting problems through emotions is often a messy and chaotic process, fixing problems is often best done with the calm, cool, and collected nature of logic.”

“Emotional responses may be necessary to acknowledge our emotional needs, but when left unchecked, emotion has a fiendish habit of hijacking all attempts at redeeming the situation.  ”

 

On the other end of the spectrum are the leaders who champion the power of logic.  Logic is often seen as the protagonist who holds the sole power to vanquish the threat at hand.  The problem with exclusively employing logic is that it might be great at solving problems but probably not so great at identifying them.  So while logic is like the eyes and hands that were able to actually change the dirty diaper, leaders who try to address culture problems purely with logic and without emotion will find themselves missing the whole point while possibly adding to the frustration of those struggling with their problem because what they needed more than a logical solution was simply for their leader to understand them.    

 

Shots Fired

Let’s imagine one possible scenario where this would apply.  Imagine that you are the designated team captain of a city league softball team.  Even before the season began, two of your teammates have had it out for each other.  Jimmy thinks Johnny is an arrogant glory hog and Johnny thinks Jimmy is a passive aggressive door mat.  Not a game goes by where shots aren’t fired between the two, yet you are hesitant to step in as you are holding out hope that they will eventually just “grow up” and work things out between the two of them (because grown-ups don’t have problems).  Then it happens.  During one of the final games of the season, Jimmy fires out a nasty insult at Johnny and Jonny fires back in return.  

 

The proverbial straw has just broken this fed up camel’s back.  

 

With a frustration that has built up over weeks of these two children’s immature banter, you shoot up from the bench pointing your finger at the two as you shout, “That’s it!  I’ve had enough!  You two are benched until you can learn to behave like adults and not whiny little snowflakes!!”  Their bewildered eyes aren’t the only ones staring at you now, but you don’t care!  You feel totally justified.  After all, it’s not your fault!  They’re the ones that pushed you to the breaking point.  If the two of them can’t act their age, perhaps they should try out for a T-ball team to find some players more their maturity level.

 

“Only once we are able to heed the direction toward which our emotions point us while simultaneously reminding them that they are not in charge of our actions will we become effective in nurturing a thriving culture.”

What happened here?  Well for starters, your emotions were right about one thing: there was a dirty diaper in that dugout!  The frustration that you felt was an indicator that your team was unhealthy because Jimmy and Johnny’s feud was probably affecting the whole team, which meant you as a leader needed to step in.  The problem is that you stepped in using the wrong tool.  Emotion warned you that something needed to change but logic would have probably been a much better tool for devising a solution.  Someone once told me that “emotion is a terrible leader but a powerful friend.” Only once we are able to heed the direction toward which our emotions point us while simultaneously reminding them that they are not in charge of our actions will we become effective in nurturing a thriving culture.

 

 Let’s return to the dugout.  This time, instead of losing your cool after Jimmy and Johnny’s most recent episode, you decide to put on the logic ballcap.  “Jimmy”, you say with complete composure, “what you said was inaccurate.  Johnny’s face looks nothing like the backside of a constipated monkey.  And Johnny, what you said was also untrue.   Jimmy’s mom’s scale couldn’t have told her ‘One person at a time please’; scales can’t talk.” You smile as you congratulate yourself in your head for addressing the problem.  “Why become emotional when you can simply solve the problem logically like I just did?” you think to yourself.

 

How much do you think your comments helped alleviate the tension between Jimmy and Johnny?  Yeah, probably not much.  In fact the way you brushed over their feelings of hostility and pretended there was no dirty diaper likely added more fuel to their frustration.  Talk about making a crappy situation worse!

“Dirty diapers are poison to potential and it is the responsibility of leaders to employ both emotion and logic in cleanly removing them.”

 

 Each of us is wired to lean more toward one side of the spectrum than the other.  I veer toward logic more than emotion and that’s okay!  What’s not okay is being okay with just okay.  You are a leader which means people are counting on you to empower them change the world in whatever way they’ve been charged to do so.  Dirty diapers are poison to potential and it is the responsibility of leaders to employ both emotion and logic in cleanly removing them.  If you can learn to celebrate emotion’s ability to pinpoint the problem and logic’s skill at ideating a solution, there will never be a threat to your culture that you can’t vanquish.  

 

Let’s go change some diapers.

 

(Note:  This blog is the second of a two part series.  Click Here to read part one.)

Last month I shared on the potential growth and development we can capitalize on when we are squeezed by pain, pressure and change.  Just like squeezing a lemon reveals what is actually on the inside, these three “squeezes” have a way of bringing out our greatest weaknesses.  I shared the embarrassing story of when I tried to usurp the authority of our worship team leader during a practice one week after my patience had been squeezed and I, out of weakness, acted out as if running practice my way was more important than maintaining unity in the team.  This month we continue the conversation as we explore the other lesson I learned that night at the practice: aligning actions with vision.

 

Unacceptable Leadership

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Americans spend more than $15 billion on corrective eyewear each year.  When your safety and effectiveness at everyday tasks depends on your ability to see objects that are far away, clear vision is a must (#2020vision).  Yet while we “clearly” see the need for good vision, we as leaders often fail to revere the sacred burden of clarifying our vision for our people and then acting in accordance with that vision.  How sad it is that we so strongly value the ability to read road signs yet when it comes to nurturing our vision for our people, we quickly accept  mediocre nearsightedness.  I know that this is far too common, as is evidenced by how I exchanged the vision of team unity for one of team control.  Nearsighted leadership is understandable but it is not acceptable.  Perhaps that comes off as harsh to some, but is it really?  After all, we are talking about the difference between floundering and thriving!  The world needs effective leaders and organizations too much to allow nearsighted leadership to become acceptable.  

“Nearsighted leadership is understandable but it is not acceptable.”

  Short vs. Long

This tension between clarity and nearsightedness is often described with the metaphor of playing “short game” vs. “long game”.  These terms are often used to explain whether our actions are supporting what feels right in the moment or what we know will help take us where we ultimately want to go.  Why, you might ask, is this a problem?  When we hear these two compared to each other, it seems obvious that the wise and effective leaders should remain focused on playing long game rather than short game.  So what keeps us from doing so?

 

The answer is delayed gratification.  We hate it. Put a bowl of candy in front of a child and ask them to wait to eat the candy for five minutes in order to get even more candy and you’ll see what I mean.  Our desire for the pleasure we receive from saying or doing what feels right in the moment seems almost overpowering.  We want gratification and we want it NOW!  My friends, this is a ticket to the Minor League short game and I guarantee that is not where any leader should play.  In the short game, players might play with the passion, speed, and strength  of elite athletes.  The only problem is they don’t even know how to win the game.  When I tried to take control of our worship team practice that night, I was charged and ready to knock it out of the park on Sunday morning!  You might say I scooped up the ball and threw it as hard as I could, thinking that my intensity and drive would win the game. It’s just that I threw it in the wrong direction.  You see I live for the high that efficiency gives me.  Unfortunately, this desire for efficiency can often suffocate my relationships. For example, when I’m playing short game as a leader, I tend to treat conversations like cold showers: they’re uncomfortable and should be finished as soon as possible. At worship practice that night, my addiction to efficiency was insatiate.  I CRAVED the feeling of being efficient and I tricked myself into thinking that that feeling would be the best thing for our team.  I was playing short game.  If the practice had been a game of chess, I would have just sacrificed our team’s king for the opponent’s pawn.

 

“In the short game, players might play with the passion, speed, and strength  of elite athletes.  The only problem is they don’t even know how to win the game.”

 Grab a Jersey

If you are a leader, you signed on to play long game.  Congratulations!  Now grab a jersey because this isn’t a game…I mean it is… you get what I mean.  Playing long game as a leader means ignoring the bait of easiness and pursuing the prize of  excellence.  It means fighting to maintain the culture you have worked so hard to cultivate when everything within you begs you to satisfy your thirst for a quick “win fix” by taking out a pawn because pawns are easy and killing them makes you feel good.  

“Playing long game as a leader means ignoring the bait of easiness and pursuing the prize of  excellence.”

 

 

When I was in high school, I discovered in Mr. Neff’s geometry class that I couldn’t read the notes from the back of the room and needed glasses.  Sometimes our unaided vision as a  leader is insufficient for the task we are given.  In the same way that I was forced to admit my need for tools that helped me pass geometry, leaders also need tools to help communicate and adhere to their vision.  To assist you in delaying your personal gratification as a leader in order to strengthen the goals and objectives of your people, check out these three simple steps to help you increase your effectiveness.

 

Paint the Win 

If you start playing a game of chess without knowing that the objective is to kill the king, winning is unlikely.  However, unlike playing chess, world changing leaders get to decide for themselves the objective of their game!  To do so, you must first ask yourself what winning (or in other words “effectiveness) looks like for you and your people.  How many customers could your business serve?  What is the best culture you could imagine for your family?  In what ways would the world be better if you operated at the peak of your abilities?  (If you’d like more help on how to write a vision and mission statement, you might want to read this previous blog .)

 

Work Backwards

 Once you have “painted the win” to yourself and your people, it’s time to work backwards.  Some master chess players are able to think ahead 15-20 moves!  In the same way, we must learn to see our “checkmate” and then work our way backwards step by step until we find ourselves in the present.  Whether  you want your business to have the most hits when customers google “electricians near me” or you want your family to live in harmony with one another, you must start with that end objective and then work through each necessary step that will take you there. To help you with this process, start by filling in the blanks in the following statement:

In order to (INSERT GOAL), I/we must first (INSERT OBSTACLE TO GOAL).  

Once you’ve done this once, you then continue this process over and over until you have clarified all of the steps you will need to take and the order in which you will need to take them to achieve your objective.  By working backwards, leaders can systematically lay out each move they will need to take in order to win whatever game they have decided to play.

Sacrifice the Pawn 

I love challenging authority.  It’s the best.  It’s probably because what I lack in tact I more than make up for in tenacity (that’s a nice way of saying I am a bull in a china shop).  Yet  after many painful life lessons from teachers and bosses, I’ve finally started to realize that not every battle is worth fighting.  Just like a good general knows which fights are worth fighting, leaders must be willing to “sacrifice the pawn” when it is necessary to achieve the ultimate objective of a check mate.  While I might have felt that forcing my own hard style of leadership during that worship practice was critical for our team to be successful, wisdom would have said that protecting our team unity was worth the sacrifice of not leading my way.  If I had been playing long game, I would have seen that the value of a team where authority was respected and supported by other leaders (aka: “yours truly”) far outweighed the value of man-handling the practice so that it went the way I wanted it to.  

 

“Just like a good general knows which fights are worth fighting, leaders must be willing to “sacrifice the pawn” when it is necessary to achieve the ultimate objective of a check mate.”

Winning the Long Game

 

If you are a leader, I want to congratulate you: you made the team!  Now it’s up to you to decide which field you and your team will play on.  I admit, the short game field is a lot easier. Practice is a piece of cake or non-existent, you don’t have to run drills, and there’s no incessant reminders of plays and strategies by the coach (which is you by the way).  If letting your team play by any rules they want while they pick their nose and run after squirrels is more your type of game, have fun! But if you’re serious about maximizing the effect of your influence on your people and the world around you, you’d better double knot those cleats.

 

It’s time to play long game.

(Note:  This blog is the first of a two part series.  Tune in next month for part two)

 

Have you ever looked at a lemon and thought it looked perfectly fine only to pick it up and feel nothing but a soft, mushy ball of nasty?  Imagine for a moment what would happen if you were to grab that lemon and squeeze it.  I can guarantee what would be excreted would not be pleasant (yeah, I just said “excreted”).

 

If we leaders were lemons, many of us would have peels that appeared fresh and firm, but squeeze us and, oh boy, what comes out is far from fresh.  This unfortunate fact was made abundantly clear to me shortly after I published my last blog Hard Soft (if you haven’t had the chance to read it yet, click here to learn about the tension between hard and soft power).  I was with my church’s worship team getting ready to record the worship set for the week.  In my mind I already knew the perfect outcome for the evening: members would stand at attention behind their instrument, eyes straight ahead in obedient expectation for the worship leader to begin practice.  The leader would then orchestrate each song in an angelically utilitarian and efficient manner.  When any error was made, the band would instantly become quiet in perfect unison until the problem was fixed and the leader resumed practice.  Of course there would be no interruptions and my delightful little daydream would end with the team finishing 13 minutes and 45 seconds ahead of time so that I could hurry home and start writing a blog on how pressure reveals the true colors of our character.

 

Oh irony, how you torture me.

 

If you haven’t already guessed, the story I just described is fiction, not fact.  But before you assume the evening was a train wreck, let me assure you it wasn’t!  Looking back on it now, I can see the intentional and strategic way in which the leader orchestrated what was a continuation of a challenging season for our team (the current pandemic had forced us to make several significant changes and in very little time). The only train wreck came from my attempt to man handle the results of the night with my inclination toward hard power instead of letting her skillfully applied soft power do its work. Instead of submitting, I became impatient, irritable and tried to “save” the practice by taking control myself.

 

I had been squeezed.

 

In better trying to understand what causes us to lead in such unproductive ways, I recently conducted a survey to discover what specific circumstances people felt revealed the worst parts of themselves.  In doing so, I identified what I have called three primary “squeezes”.

 

Squeeze #1: Pain

This one seemed to be the most common and the type of pain varied greatly.  Responses included physical pain, emotional and sexual trauma, being gossiped about, missing loved ones, heartbreak, and doing things we don’t like (i.e. shopping for jeans and swimsuits).  Pain has the unmatched capacity to expose the true colors of our character, whether we like it or not.

 

Squeeze #2: Pressure

Pressure also acts as an indicator of our character.  In fact being squeezed means you are literally being put under pressure.  The pressures people communicated to me were vast, including lack of essential resources like food and sleep, stresses from work, marriage, and parenting, and even self-induced pressures from lack of self-care, unhealthy boundaries, and over commitment.  Much like dough, our mind and emotions are pliable and can be stretched to great extents.  However, the thinner they are stretched, the less pressure it takes to break them.

 

“Pain has the unmatched capacity to expose the true colors of our character, whether we like it or not.”

 

Squeeze #3: Change

When we make plans for our life to proceed a certain way only to have a wrench thrown into that plan, it can shake us up and knock loose nasty things inside of us that had previously laid dormant.  Changes that result from things like being late, car troubles, and global pandemics have the uncanny ability to squeeze us in ways that we don’t experience when everything goes according to plan.

“Much like dough, our mind and emotions are pliable and can be stretched to great extents.  However, the thinner they are stretched, the less pressure it takes to break them.”

 

 

What, then, are we to do when we experience one or more of these squeezes?  Here are three ideas on how to respond with intentionality:

 

Describe Your Lemons

Unless you first decide in the core of your being that you truly, deeply desire fresh, non-moldy lemons and commit to fight to the death for them (ok, too far), no lemonade recipe will have the power to change the outcome that your heart has already set in stone.  Desire drives direction.  Whether your soul desires comfort at the cost of excellence or excellence at the cost of comfort, rest assured it will get what it wants.  Too often the desire for comfort leads us to justify the state of our lemons.  We see that they are moldy and consider how nice it would be to have fresh lemons, but then decide that the cost of starting over with fresh lemons is too great. “It’s not that bad,” we say.  “In fact it’s probably a lot like blue cheese. There’s nothing wrong with a little multicellular fungus on my lemons!”  Unless we intentionally commit to being leaders that pursue growth no matter what the cost, we will be forced to add more and more sugar to our lemonade in order try and drown out the taste of the moldy lemons we used, all while making ourselves sick (because there actually IS something wrong with drinking multicellular fungus). 

 

“Desire drives direction.”

“Whether your soul desires comfort at the cost of excellence or excellence at the cost of comfort, rest assured it will get what it wants.”

 Identify Bad Lemons

Once we’ve committed to pursuing fresh, healthy lemons, we must learn to identify the bad lemons. This requires digging down to the root of our actions and identifying what caused our lemons to mold in the first place.  While the solution to keeping lemons fresh might be as simple as refrigerating them, identifying the root cause of our leadership failures is rarely so straightforward.  One of the requirements of mindfulness is to practice “noticing” your thoughts and feelings free of judgment.  This means not becoming angry with yourself for leaving the lemons out in the sun for two weeks (I once left an entire pot of soup out on the counter for several days because I was too lazy to put it in the refrigerator.  Bachelor move).  The wise leader knows how to sidestep the downward spiral we fall into from beating ourselves up for our mistakes by instead choosing to recognize the need for correction and then making the correction.  I could have easily beat myself up that night for making some of the same mistakes I’ve made as a leader in the past.  Instead, I chose to observe that my decision to try and usurp authority stemmed from my impatience and fear of not being in control.  By identifying those emotions and not condemning myself for making them, I was able to make a plan to overcome those weaknesses, which leads us into our third point.

 

“The wise leader knows how to sidestep the downward spiral we fall into from beating ourselves up for our mistakes by instead choosing to recognize the need for correction and then making the correction.”

 

Protect Your Lemons 

Now that you’ve described your lemons and identified the bad ones, it’s time to protect your lemons. Again, the solution of refrigerating the lemons is probably much simpler than when we apply it to leadership (although cooling off is ironically exactly what we need sometimes to keep from saying something stupid in the heat of the moment).  Protecting your lemons means making a strategy to grow past your weaknesses. Benjamin Franklin once said “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”  Here are a few tips on how to plan:

 Partner 

Be proactive by beginning a dialogue with your people before you find yourself being squeezed. Trying to create a game plan on how to keep your lemons fresh while in mid-squeeze is pointless.  After recording our worship set that night, I approached the leader and (after apologizing for my anarchy) discussed ways that we could partner together to help me avoid making the same mistake.  Now that we are on the same page, that leader will be better equipped to help me overcome my weakness and will also be more motivated to help since I initiated the conversation and humbled myself enough to admit my need to grow. 

Listen

Often times our bodies provide clear and observable physical symptoms of when our emotions are on the verge of overpowering our deepest desires of being a good leader.  Learn to identify what happens to your body when the emotions that usurp your desire for fresh lemons start to take over.  Several signs I have noticed in my own body are shortness of breath, feeling cold, and elevated heart rate.  I also begin losing patience much more quickly.  A good plan to protect your lemons should include learning to identify the signs that you’re likely about to act in a way that is inconsistent with your desire to be a good leader

Wait

Once you can identify the signs that your lemons are at risk of molding, often times we just need time to cool off (get in that refrigerator!).  Having grown up in the martial arts, I can attest first hand to the power of taking deep deliberate breaths in helping me cool down and clear my head.  When our brains are starved for oxygen, irrational decisions are much more likely. Instead of responding right away, try taking a few deep breaths, ask a colleague to check your email for any inappropriate words or tones, or simply postpone a conversation to give yourselves time to think clearly and overcome the grip of emotion.    

In this life, no one can keep from being squeezed.  Yet while being squeezed is painful, it is also painfully ironic that it is exactly what gives us the opportunity to become the type of leaders we’ve always dreamt of being.  That’s something no coma of comfort could ever do.  So what will you do when pain, pressure, and change wrap their strong fingers around you?  Will you watch the mold spill out, shrug your shoulders and admit defeat?  Or will you choose to intentionally pursue only fresh lemons, identify what keeps you from them, and then fight to protect them?

 

Let’s embrace the squeeze. 

 

 

(PS:  Tune in next month for a tangential exploration into the pursuit of long game vs. short game leadership objectives)

In the late 19th century, a martial art was born on the Japanese island of Okinawa.  Goju-Ryu, literally translated “hard-soft style”, was officially brought into existence by its founder Chojun Miyagi (not to be confused with the “wax on, wax off” Miyagi). Its name was chosen because of how Miyagi blended moves and philosophies from both “hard” and “soft” martial arts. If you aren’t aware of the definition of “hard” and “soft” martial arts, picture the difference between Karate and Kung Fu.  The former employs direct and linear moves whereas the latter uses techniques that are more indirect and circular.  For example, karate and other hard martial arts focus on meeting force with force (i.e. blocking a punch).  Kung Fu and the soft arts, on the other hand, focus on redirecting their opponents energy  (i.e. parrying or “brushing aside” a punch).  While virtually opposite in their strategies and methods, both camps of martial arts are equally formidable and effective in achieving their desired results. 

 

Does the fact that the overarching goal of victory can be achieved by completely opposite means blow your mind as much as it blows mine? By nature, I find this just as hard to believe as if someone told me I could summit a peak by either climbing or descending its face.  That simply doesn’t make sense!  Yet I have a feeling that author and leadership guide Tim Author wouldn’t be phased by this seeming oxymoron.  In his book The Power of Healthy Tension, Arnold describes these opposite yet equal forces as “polarities” (if this sounds familiar, I discussed this concept in my previous blog The Trampoline Principle). He defines a polarity as “a situation in which two ideas, opinions, etc. are completely opposite from each other, yet equally valid and true”, or “a situation in which two opposing ideas exist in seemingly impossible tension.”  With this understanding, we can better understand how the soft and hard styles form a polarity where two camps of thought are simultaneously opposite yet also commensurate.  

 

Much like martial arts practitioners, leaders are similarly required to choose which style of power they will employ to carry out the mission they have been given.  Through the martial arts, I have learned that there are times when strong, linear energy is required.  For leaders this may look like applying stern consequences when important rules are broken, writing strict policies in order to ensure safety and quality, and clearly and directly communicating expectations to those being led.  I have also learned that there are times when soft, circular energy is the most effective.  In certain situations, leaders can find longer-lasting success by taking the time to have casual conversations with people they lead, giving grace when rules are broken, and using body language that communicates harmony and equality (still working on that one).  Now take a moment to reflect.  Try to recall both a time when you were positively impacted by “hard power” and a time when you were positively impacted by “soft power”.

 

Seriously, think about it!

 

 

 

I’m guessing we can all recall times when leaders positively influenced us through both.  Maintaining the tension between the soft and hard power is simultaneously the privilege of leadership as well as its bane.  Yet when I look at the common face of leadership today, I sadly see not a tension between the two but rather one of two dysfunctional applications of power.  I can think of no better way to describe these dysfunctional images to you than using a teeter-totter as a metaphor.  

“Maintaining the tension between the soft and hard power is simultaneously the privilege of leadership as well as its bane”

 










































 Brute Force

Above is an image of the “all-the-more-to-love” guy (aka: hard power) holding his weight over (under?) the featherweight champion (aka: soft power).  This picture illustrates the way in which many leaders overwhelm others with the excessive employment of their hard power while subsequently emasculating the effectiveness of their soft power.  An example of this is when leaders manipulate and intimidate those who resist them by using overbearing body language, threats (both explicit and implied), bribery, etc., in order to get what they want.  It can also happen when leaders spend too much of their time reprimanding and not enough time encouraging those that they are leading. While these leaders are typically gifted in situations that call for hard power, they fail to embrace the opportunities to bring a “softer” approach.

 

Weak Force 

The second scene, while perhaps less common, demonstrates when soft power is exclusively employed at the cost of degrading hard power.  In the image above, both hard and soft power are equally weighted, yet soft power refuses to give up the high ground, thus disrupting the proper tension between the two. As in the first scenario, there is an imbalance of power but in this case it is due to the soft power’s refusal to embrace the value of hard power.  This imbalance could take many forms such as a manger ignoring disruptive problems between employees instead of orchestrating hard but necessary conversations between them, trying to follow everyone’s suggestions with the quasi-purpose of valuing everyone’s opinion (i.e. “death by committee”), or allowing employees or organizations to be bullied or abused by others.  The abusers of hard power might be the low hanging fruit to pick on but leaders who refuse to acknowledge the equality between hard and soft power are no less to blame for their ineffective leadership.

 

“The abusers of hard power might be the low hanging fruit to pick on but leaders who refuse to acknowledge the equality between hard and soft power are no less to blame for their ineffective leadership.”

 Sharpen Your Wisdom

Though opposite in nature, soft and hard power are equal in value.  One is not complete or effective without the presence of the other.  In his book The Book of Five Rings, Japanese warrior and philosopher Miyamoto Musashi says to “sharpen your wisdom, distinguish principle and its opposite in the world, learn the good and bad of all things,…This is the heart of the wisdom of the martial arts.”  If we share a common vision of becoming better and more influential leaders, I propose that it will require the sharpening our wisdom by not only strengthening the style of power which guides our leadership but also humbly embracing that style’s counterpart.  In conclusion, allow me to share two practical ways we can achieve this.

“Sharpen your wisdom, distinguish principle and its opposite in the world, learn the good and bad of all things,…This is the heart of the wisdom of the martial arts.”

— Miyamoto Musashi

  Empty Your Cup

In order to more fully embrace the value found in our power style’s counterpart, we must begin by humbling ourselves.  Zen teachers would call this process “emptying your cup”.  In order to be filled with more tea, a full cup must first be emptied.  Do you actively seek feedback on your leadership performance?  If someone were to ask the people you lead that question, how would they respond?  Epictetus once said, “It is impossible for a man to learn that which he thinks he already knows.”  If we are unaware of our faults and flaws because we have not asked for that feedback, the ineffectiveness that results is completely on us.  In order to empty your cup, start by humbling yourself and finding ways to not only allow but also encourage feedback on your leadership style.  This can be achieved through numerous ways including one-on-one conversations, performance surveys, seeking outside perspectives, etc.  It is important to point out that this may take time.  Victories are not won overnight and neither is trust completely built or restored with mere words.  Be patient, continue to request honest, constructive feedback, all while creating emotional safety for people to do so.

 

“Victories are not won overnight and neither is trust completely built or restored with mere words.”

 Mountains and Seas 

In The Fire Chapter of The Book of Five Rings, Musashi explains that “if you use a technique on your opponent and it is not successful the first time, it will have no effect to attack him once more with the same move.”  In our journey of exploring the powerful polarity between hard and soft power, we will experience both successes and failures.  There will be times when we attack the problem at hand with hard power, or “mountains” as Musashi would put it, but to no avail. That is when we must reach into our toolbox and employ “seas”, or soft power.  We must accept that at times we will use the wrong power style for the situation.  Don’t feel like a failure when  this happens (notice I said “when”, not “if”).  We are all human.  After you have humbly emptied yourself in order to receive feedback, the next key to strengthening the healthy tension in the polarity of soft and hard power is to have the flexibility to shift and adapt when need be.

Diligence and Strength

All of this talk about martial arts and polarities got me thinking about Mulan (stay with me here).  If you remember the story, during boot camp, the soldiers being trained by Captain Li Shang are given the challenge of climbing a wooden pole. However, they must climb it while carrying two heavy weights, one representing Diligence, the other Strength.  Many soldiers try in various ways, all of which fail.  However, Mulan who eventually discovers the key to climbing the pole is grabbing hold of the ropes attached to the weights and interlocking them to act as a counterbalance to the climber.  In the same way, my hope is that you take hold of the heavy weights of hard and soft power and swing them together with all the strength and humility you can muster so that you can climb your way to greater leadership effectiveness.  

 

Embrace the pole-arity of the hard and soft.

What do killing lions, amnesia, and reuniting mystical relics to goddesses have in common?  If you know the stories of Hercules, Jason Bourne, and Moana, you know that these all represent the struggles found in epic stories where the hero of the story is faced with an obstacle which he or she must overcome for the story to end in “happily ever after” (fun fact: in Spanish, the literal translation of “happily ever after” is “they lived happily and ate partridges”. You’re welcome).  

 







































 

There is a reason every great storyline follows the same predictable outline yet we never grow tired of the template.  Humans were made to crave stories.  Every desire in our heart longs for story, whether that is from the work we do, the movies we watch, or the avenues in which we serve.  We crave being a part of a story so much that we continually seek new books, songs, companies, or movies to satisfy the insatiable desire within us to live out our own story.  If you don’t believe me, imagine yourself waiting in eager anticipation in the plush, velvety seat at your favorite movie theatre, a tub of greasy popcorn in your hands and your eyes glued to the screen.  As the movie starts, you are reintroduced to Jason Bourne (you’ve already seen the 23 previous Bourne films).  Much to your bewilderment (or lack thereof), you find that Bourne’s life has taken a dramatic turn for the better since the previous movies.  He has made peace with the government that had previously wanted to eliminate him, reunited with and married his high school sweetheart, bought a home in the Swiss Alps, and now has a beautiful, harmonious family with four kids, two dogs, and a fuzzy llama named Dolly.  He earns a solid living working for a successful investment company (remotely, of course), helps his kids with their homework in the evening, and even volunteers with his local fire department (though he is never actually called because his safe and responsible community has never experienced an emergency such as a house fire).  And that’s it.  The movie ends.  Sound exciting?  Not even my grandma would find that story the least bit engaging!  The question then becomes why is it that this is the story we often seek for ourselves?

Deeper Story

At the time of me writing this blog, our world is being faced with a global health crisis that we have not experienced in perhaps a century.  Thousands, perhaps millions, of people have lost their jobs and have been forced to lock themselves inside of their homes in order to keep from contracting or spreading the contagion.  Many have already died from this invisible enemy and many more will likely lose their lives to it.  It is undeniable that we do indeed have reason to fear.  To many it may feel as if the very fabric of our society is on the brink of disintegrating which leaves many of us feeling trapped with no other option than to react in fear and panic (there is no clearer evidence of this panic than the countless empty rows where toilet paper once dwelt).  Is this, then, the best we have, a scattered society threatened by an invisible enemy which has managed to sow fear and despair into our very souls?  Is there not a deeper, more meaningful, story which we long to be a part of?

The Remedy 

The human spirit is an indomitable one, but it is only capable of maintaining such a characteristic when it is inspired by the power contained within story.  As Hercules, Jason Bourne, and Moana show us, nothing will light the fire within us like the timeless beauty of stories that are filled with challenge and heartache.  These stories represent not just a desire of ours to observe but also to participate in these tales of perilous journeys and courageous exploits.  Whether we are reading classics such as The Epic of Gilgamesh or The Iliad, or the more modern favorites such as Finding Nemo or The Lord of the Rings, the purpose of story is to stir within us a resilience to our own challenges and fears.  It is the only remedy to the affliction of purposelessness.  

 

“Nothing will light the fire within us like the timeless beauty of stories that are filled with challenge and heartache”

 The Epic

The Greeks can take credit for giving name (and perhaps developing) several formulaic versions of story including the epic.  An epic derives its name from the ancient Greek adjective “epikos” meaning “a poetic story”.  It is a long narrative poem which typically involves the bold acts of a person with inspiring courage and bravery.  The hero often represents the values of a culture, race, religion, or tribe and their success or failure directly impacts the success or failure of those he or she represents.  The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of our earliest and most noteworthy recorded examples of an epic.  The story tells of a cruel and selfish king who was 2/3 god and 1/3 man (don’t ask). When his people cry out to the gods for rescue from his tyrannical acts, they respond by creating a primitive but powerful man named Enkidu to challenge the selfish king in order to humble him and change his ways.  After the two face each other, they surprisingly become best friends.  The trials and challenges that the demi-god duo face afterwards become the driving forces behind the transformation of Gilgamesh into a good and compassionate king.  However, this outcome would never have come about if the king had not been forced to walk through great trial and tragedy first.

 Epic or Monologue

As we face our own pain and fear, we must learn the lessons that the epic has for us if we are to truly live the “epic” life we all crave.  First, we must decide whether we will live our lives as an epic or a monologue.  One begins with adversity and ends in triumph. The other begins at a certain point…and then hangs out there.  A hero never starts out with “happily ever after”.  Such a story (like the terrible Bourne prequel I shared) inspires nothing within us except the hope of a refund.  Fire and fury are born not from the freedom of stagnation but from the flames of suffering. Whether your suffering is not knowing how you’re going to put food in the mouths of your children, feeling defeated from a crippling battle with mental illness, or simply feeling lost in your search for purpose, we each have our own hero’s journey before us.  It may seem daunting, perhaps impossible.  But you must ask yourself, and answer honestly, whether what you long for the most is truly the purposeless plateau or the painful peak.  Just know that your answer will determine your response when life ignores your answer and throws suffering your way whether you chose to embrace it or not.

“Fire and fury are born not from the freedom of stagnation but from the flames of suffering.”

  Story Gaps

Second, we must decide whether we will face or ignore the problems that stand between us and what we long for.  If you choose to live the monologue life, you will likely still face the same gaps between you and your desires, yet you will face them defenseless.  In story terminology, this distance between the character and what he or she wants is called a story gap.  Jason Bourne has amnesia….but meets Marie!  Then they are forced to flee from the bad guys…. until he gets his feet underneath him and takes the fight to them!  Story gaps are continually opened and closed throughout the entire story to maintain interest.  Without them, it would simply be a plateau. Expert story teller Donald Miller explains that “as soon as the conflict in a story is resolved, audiences stop paying attention.”  If we want our lives to be epics and not monologues, we must see each of our struggles as a story gap within the epic of our life. Embrace these gaps and learn to trust, in faith, that what lies on the other side of the gap is not just desirable but also achievable.

 

“As soon as the conflict in a story is resolved, audiences stop paying attention.”

— Donald Miller

 The Villian

Finally, we must decide how to paint our pain.  It is one thing to accept that that you have recently experienced a setback in your health. It is another thing completely to paint that setback as a villain in your life which must be thwarted at all costs. While we never have complete control over all of the forces in our lives that seek to see us defeated, we always have a wide enough sphere of influence to overpower and defeat the true enemy.  This means that that there will be setbacks in life that we simply cannot avoid.  Tragedies such as cancer, bankruptcy, or divorce are often simply outside of our control.  Yet when we open our eyes to see the even more terrifying enemy at hand such as apathy, golden handcuffs, or lack of relational intimacy, we discover that there is no story gap we cannot close.  To do this requires revealing the identity of the true enemy in your life’s epic and then treating it as such.  Do whatever it takes to slay the real dragon or knock down the actual giant within your story!

“While we never have complete control over all of the forces in our lives that seek to see us defeated, we always have a wide enough sphere of influence to overpower and defeat the true enemy.”

  Fire and Fury

Pain in life is unavoidable. No matter how much we may try to flee from it, it will always find us.  Thankfully, we can discover the power within the story narrative to embrace the pain and suffering life throws our way and transform it into the fabric which weaves together the tapestry of our epic lives.  By choosing to live out our lives as an epic and not a monologue, interpreting the problems we face as the story gaps which make our lives more meaningful, and painting our pain as an enemy which must be defeated at all costs, we can discover the incredible and epic adventure that is our lives.  It has been said that pain is a gift only when it is not wasted.  Grab hold of your pain, seizing it strongly by the horns, and let it fill you with the fire and fury of a hero in the heat of the battle.

 

Go live your Epic Life.