Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Dear Friends!
Welcome to #4 of my newsletter. If you missed the first three you can find them here.
Some of you have asked me how I find time to listen to lengthy podcasts or read all that I read. Well, I guess, like everything in life, it is a choice. But there are "tricks". One is to keep a list on your phone of "to read", "to watch" and "to listen to". So whenever you get a free moment, you know where you "want" to go versus just turning on what is in front of you. Remember that most apps on your phone are designed to tempt you and win over your attention with little red dots, notifications and various messages of urgency. You can turn them off! Lastly, and the great part, you don't have to consume all of this NOW. Store these or other newsletters in a folder that you can access when you want. They won't expire. Unlike fresh food they will taste great whenever you open them!
Bridge over troubled waters...
Most of us alive have never experienced a more troubling reality causing more hardship, anxiety, and uncertainty than what we are experiencing right now. I for one, have a love-hate relationship with uncertainty. However, I try to remind myself often that I "prefer the misery of uncertainty way more than the certainty of misery".
Upon further reflection, I do think we all recognize that we have a mixed feeling of new vs old. We love the new. We love when things turn out different than what we expected. We don't like too much predictability, monotony and consistency. We get bored with sameness. But at the same time we don't like too much change, too much uncertainty. Lagom, [lah-gom] is a great Swedish word capturing exactly where on this continuum we'd like to be. Somewhere in the middle, with sufficient distance to the discomfort of too many unknowns, yet comfortable proximity and reach to the possibility of new opportunities.
The author Elizabeth Gilbert is someone who has inspired me for many years. She has a profound ability to bring humanity, humor and deep insights into the very essence of dealing with uncertainty and most recently grief.
In the Tim Ferriss discussion below she quotes T.S. Eliot's incredible poem East Coker from Four Quartets. Perhaps this Pandemic might help us deal with something we are not so good at. Waiting. Patience. Delayed gratifications. We live in a microwave, instant reward, clickstant lifestyle. But life doesn't really work that way. Life is a journey that can only be lived forwards but understood backwards (to paraphrase Danish Philosopher Kierkegaard). Therefore "waiting" and finding ways to enjoy every moment, regardless of what they bring you, might be the greatest skill of all.
"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting"
T.S. Eliot
Lastly, a word on canceled vs reimagined
In this season of weddings, graduations, and celebrations, I like many of you have had to change many plans for celebrations. While the change of plans is disappointing it's important to remember the reasons for those celebrations. And those reasons still exist today and perhaps are even amplified by what we are living through. So my hope is that we can still keep the commitments to our dreams while changing the nature of our celebrations.
Oprah Winfrey did a great job capturing these sentiments in her global FaceBook Graduation ceremony. Take a listen here.
The Martin Luther King Jr Quote she referenced has perhaps never been more true than in the midst of this pandemic.
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Stay safe!
Elizabeth Gilbert gave an incredible TED talk from 2009, now seen by 20 million people that rocked me to my core. I was there and still cherish the emotions I felt then. This TED interview with Chris Anderson (head of TED) from last year is also excellent. Here I am sharing the latest interview with Liz on the Tim Ferriss show. It's more broad and wide than the talks above but a great place to start if you are not familiar with Liz's work. Then you can go back to the talks above. I find her way of navigating humanity towards grace, love, and mercy to be what the world needs more than anything. Click here to get to Apple Podcast or find the Tim Ferriss show on your favorite podcast apps.
This will be my first "cliffhanger" test. I am sharing the first interview of 2 with Angela Ahrendts. Here, Reed Hoffman is doing a great job capturing the unique leadership qualities of Angela. She is truly an elevated leader who brings a mission and meaning to her brands whether at Burberry or Apple. I have had the great privilege to experience, feel and witness these qualities in person and in her case these qualities are not just aspirations or declarations. They are rooted deeply in her soul and therefore comes from a place of authentic self which is why it is so inspiring. I can't wait to the next episode! (Thank you to Carolyn Tear for making our connection awhile back!)
Atul Gawande is an American surgeon who also is a prolific and beautiful writer. I've been inspired by his writing ever since I read the Bell Curve in 2004 since it's about Cystic Fibrosis (I lost my sister Erica from CF in 1976). His subsequent books have all helped shape some of my own thinking relative to health care and management and perhaps most so his Checklist Manifesto book from 2009. This article from the New Yorker is a helpful overview of what we all can do to limit risks of getting or spreading the virus. Practicing and applying these 5 elements (Hygiene, Distancing, Screening, Masks and Culture) will radically reduce societal risks while we wait for science to do the rest.
Ending with a great piece by my friend Philip K Howard whose work I have been trying my best to support for many years. His organization Common Good is here and his great TED talk from 2010 pretty much lays out his thesis. Our political system has become unmanageable due to "legal concrete buildup" and the only way to make real progress is to cut red tape and empower and enable people to actually do the job there were elected to do. We invest way too much hope (and money) on the idea of a singular political person to change our system instead of changing the system itself. It's time we changed our systems. Click on Image or here to read his latest article.