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“I am not afraid of my truth anymore and I will not omit pieces of me to make you comfortable.”

—

Alex Elle

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So. Being yourself is a tricky topic. In business, Life & deciding what you want to do.

I know <I know>.

Seems like “being yourself” should be simple. Like ‘breathing’ type simple.

But it’s not. It’s not because there is a constant struggle between an internal part <’who am I’ type shit> and external <figuring out how ‘who am I’ should actually act in public>.

For example, one of my favorite young writers, Jamie, describes herself this way:

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I’m a writer, pretty much by process of elimination. I am also a professional aspirationalist.

That’s not a word, but I’ve made it into one, since there was nothing that could quite describe me because I didn’t want to say I’m a “professional dreamer” because that sounds like some hippie shit.

I have aspirations, like, lots of them. If you’d like me to create a TV show, get in touch with me. How about publishing my memoir? Get in touch. If you are from The Ellen Show, I will, of course, accept your interview and would be delighted to dance it out with my girl, so long as she doesn’t prank me by making me eat cilantro. In fact, I want no cilantro in anything.

<Jamie Varon>

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Professional aspirationalist. Not ‘professional dreamer’ nor ‘professional pragmatist.’

Ok.

Professional aspirationalist is just awesome.

If I could ever vote for a new term, that would be it. It’s fucking awesome. It captures the essence of restlessness & hope & striving & unlearning &, well, all the things I believe are good and healthy with a person seeking to be better tomorrow than they are today.

What I truly love about it is that she came up with a term to capture her “self.” I love it because being yourself, and even recognizing who ‘yourself’ is, is hard. And when I say hard think even harder than maybe becoming a Navy Seal type hard.

……….. self …….. an entanglement of nuances ………….

It is incredibly hard because the truth is that ‘my truth’ , more often than not, is most likely an evolving tangled web of characteristics which, as it evolves, simply becomes more tangled <rather than untangled>.

Yourself is constantly adapting to new learning, new learning about things and new learning, and unlearning <changed beliefs, opinions, attitudes, perspectives>, about oneself.

That’s why I love professional aspirationalist.

True north on Jamie’s compass is defined. And its not a destination, but rather it is a direction.

Aspirationalist is a moving target. It is restless and unmoving at exactly the same time. It is an adventurer with some pragmatism. It’s not being on Ellen <although she would be delighted to do so> because once that happens there will always be something else.

Being an aspirationalist means not only having dreams, but dreaming … oh … and doing.

Yeah.

Doing. As in doing lots of different shit.

Uh oh.

That also means … well … increasingly more and different dreams <and aspirations>. And increasingly doing more and different shit. Dreaming and doing. Lots of different dreaming and doing.

In the end <to me> being a professional aspirationalist means being a restless soul. Restlessly seeking, traveling, doing, thinking. Professionally constantly in motion <mentally or physically>.

I love it because it captures my personal belief that becoming ‘better’ as a person is experiential rather than tangible <although tangible ‘doing stuff’ is certainly a component>.

I love it because it isn’t for the faint of heart.

And isn’t what truly being yourself is all about? Having some courage to even suggest ‘I will not omit things just to make you comfortable.’

Professional aspirationalist reminded me of this other quote:

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“I am a world that cannot be explored in one day. I am not a place for cowards.”

Caitlyn Siehl

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Yes.

Being a professional aspirationalist means you are not a place for cowards.

Anyway.

I wish I had come up with this word, but I am not as talented a writer as Jamie.

I like it for its sense of Life’s paradox. Paradox in that it is independent and dependent at the same time.

I like it for it’s sense of Business’s paradox. Paradox in that success in business is a combination of stillness, at the right times, and movement/restlessness at all times.

I like it because at its core it doesn’t mean shunning the world and simply being a dreamer. It has rich & royal hues of reality threading its way through its fabric.

I would like to believe I am also a professional aspirationalist.

Now.

To be clear <because Jamie is correct the word selection was thoughtful to avoid the ‘hippie shit’>. Pragmatically, we aspirationalists do seek <some> approval and acceptance <ohhhhhhhhhhhh shit>.

Accept what I just wrote <that last sentence>. Don’t fight it <even if you are one of those who say ‘I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks”>.

Because you do care.

Whether you like it or not, whether you think it is right or wrong, whether you think it is a good thing or bad in that it makes you ‘weak’ in some way, just get it set in your head – in some form or fashion – we care.

Don’t worry … we all care <not just aspirationalists>. We all care what the people around us think about us. And by ‘people’ I mean everyone from those closest to you <who would most likely accept you in any shape and form you ended up in … but you don’t want to disappoint them> to society overall <there is some value in gaining credit for who you are and what you do>.

Some acceptance from others feeds our self-esteem & self-worth <and all that Maslow stuff>.

Ah.

Please note I used the word “feeds.” Approval and acceptance is not the only nutrition necessary for a healthy esteem and worth.

It is simply one part of the diet.

Even we aspirationalists need a balanced ‘self diet’. We do not seek sole value from proving ourselves to others. And we don’t accept sole value in and of ourselves.

Being an aspirationalist is … well … the paradox. Independent dreamer with some dependence on external cues as to the value of our aspirations.

We want to fit into the world on our own terms.

Regardless.

What a description:

                       Professional aspirationalist:      I am not afraid of my truth anymore and I will not omit pieces of me to make you comfortable. I am a world that cannot be explored in one day. I am not a place for cowards.

We need more of these people in our world — in Life & in business.

Me? I will continue living life, trying to do good shit in Life & business, as a Professional Aspirationalist.

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“A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.”

John Shedd

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“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

MLK

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 The arc of history is irrelevant to most of us. Ok. Maybe better said is that we are relatively indifferent to the arc of history.

Most of us get up, drink our coffee and get going doing what we need to do that day. In doing so we cannot see any fucking arc, we just see what is in front of us. The arc can only vaguely be seen when we look at the news or talk with friends or maybe see some high falutin’ presentation on trends that supposedly impact our business in terms of sales and shit like that.

And we wonder why the world can seem so cold sometimes? Geez. That is our view for the most part. It is our daily grind (responsibilities) interspersed with some outside news filtering in for some perspective.

I would suggest any arc seems like it can almost be a straight line rather than any arc we can see. It can sometimes seem like a straight line of no change, or, a lot of bad shit with small drops of good shit mixed in.

But that’s not reality. The reality is that time and … well … our lives … do arc.

Just like when you are a ship in a harbor thinking about leaving the horizon looks flat and finite. And, yet, once you leave the harbor you realize that the horizon was simply a reflection of where you were and where you stood and that the reality was the world, the universe, arcs and bends to things you could not see from where you once stood.

Yeah. Sometimes that is hard to see.

Yeah. Sometimes we don’t have any time to think about it.

Yeah. But we should … at least on occasion. Because the arc occurs whether we see it or not. You have to be able to figure out how to get done whatever has to be done or the arc will show you what has to be done <or at least the context within which you will make your choices of what you will do>.

Look. I buy the fact that the arc of time bends toward justice. But I think it neglects to point out that people inevitably define the arc. It neglects to point out justice, or ‘good’, is not simply part of the ether, but resides in the hearts & minds of people. Well. What that means is the arc resides within us. All of us. Not just someone standing up in front of us trying to tell us what the arc is or should be.

I sometimes think we mistaken society, a country or a civilization is like a big tanker and we hire someone or elect some to jump onto the bridge of the ship and lead it out of the harbor. That is not so. You would be mistaken to think that. Each one of us is a little ship. We are a fleet of a variety of ships, boats and scows restlessly bobbing in the harbor from which we can actually leave or stay as we wish.

When we hire a leader, or elect someone, we – we little fleet of ships – are actually seeking a flagship. Someone who dares to leave the harbor and lead us over the arc of the horizon. Lead us beyond the current routes we take, lead us beyond the fishing grounds we have always used and lead us to new lands that maybe we had only heard of before.

But. We, we little fleet of ships, also control the voyages because within the hearts & minds of each of the captains resides justice and what is good & right and decide to follow, float or seek freedom.

Therefore we control the arc and bend of justice. No leader does.

I will suggest, consciously or subconsciousnessly, people tend to follow, or guide, based on justice therefore the arc will bend — sometimes too slowly — toward the goodness which resides in humankind. Just like a ship in harbor looking out from a harbor that goodness can sometimes be difficult to see when looking at the horizon but, I can guarantee this, if you leave the harbor it is easier to see.

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“We all have one foot in a fairytale, and the other in the abyss.”

—–

Paulo Coelho

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My anger at the world coils inside of me. It’s a directionless seething, there’s no name or face to aim at.”

————–

Claire Zorn

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Well. Life demands us to draw a lot of lines.

And more often than we would like to admit it demands we place one foot on one side of a line and the other foot on the other side of the line.

That may not sound … well … right.

Or maybe the best thing to do.

It may even sound like I am suggesting you ‘straddle the fence.’

Nope. This isn’t straddling, this is about being grounded or balancing oneself.

Balancing? If you don’t place one foot solidly on either side, you can be quite easily consumed by the extremes of Life which are, more often than not, found on only one side of a line.

If you don’t place one foot solidly on either side, you can be quite easily consumed by others who seek to consume what you may think you don’t really care that much about <but you should … and actually do when you care to think about it enough>.

If you don’t, you can be quite easily consumed.

I guess what I am saying is that Life demands you pragmatically be active in drawing some lines so that you have some sense of when you are getting too, well, “too”. It helps if you can have some sense of where to actually place your feet that is meaningful.

Maybe what I am saying is that many of us have no problem ‘making a stand’, but if you really aren’t sure where your line is then it is quite possible you aren’t really sure you are taking your stand in the right place.

Okay.

Maybe think of it this way.

It’s kind of like making sure you have things in perspective when you take a stand.

It’s kind of like demanding realistic hope.

It’s kind of like demanding some hopeful despair.

It’s kind of like demanding you believe in some fairytales and some abyss-like darkness.

It’s kind of like demanding lines for yourself so you can deal with the lines Life is going to demand of you.

Look.

I don’t really believe there are angry-only people. They just have so much anger within themselves that their line is drawn differently than others.

I don’t really believe there are dreamer-only people. They just have so much imagination within themselves that their line is drawn differently than others.

But here’s the deal.

You have to draw some lines.

There has to be some reality to ground some imagination.

There has to be some truth to ground some questioning.

There has to be some principles to ground some rebelliousness.

There has to be some fairytaleishness <I made up that word> to balance out some of the inevitable abyss.

You do have to have one foot somewhere other than where your other foot resides.

I know.

I know.

That sounds a little of whack from conventional wisdom because far more often you hear “both feet on the ground” and shit like that. But if you have two feet on the line … well … you have chosen to stand on a thin balance beam and will teeter your entire life. That is tiring & dangerous. But if you have two feet, one on each side, you have chosen a life of fairytales AND a life in the abyss.

All that said.

Yes.

There are times you draw a line and make a choice to shift both feet solidly onto one side. I would suggest this is a situational decision and not a “living Life” type decision. Situational like:

That is right and that is wrong.

That is good and that is bad.

That is normal and that is not normal.

Those are most likely the moments in which Life says “now, in this time and place, here is the line … on which side to you choose to stand?”

I would suggest sometimes we fuck this up by confusing a ‘Life one foot here & one foot there’ decision and a contextual situational decision. What I mean is that in that time and place you may try and keep your fairy tale foot in place and your abyss foot in place … and mistakenly take on a different type of decision demanding a different type of line.

That would be a bad decision.

The good decision?

In that time. in that place. In that moment. You shift your feet.

Sigh.

I never suggested lines were easy. Just that Life demands we draw a lot of lines. I would suggest that if you do not draw some lines you will find yourself lost in anger coiled within, or maybe constantly living a less than fairy tale life dreaming it all away, or stuck in some dark abyss seeing no way out.

Yeah … lines come in pretty handy at times. Pretty handy in managing Life. I can tell you <for sure> that lines can be pretty handy at helping you decide when something should end … and something should start.

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“Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.”

—

Josephine Hart

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“There are only two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Albert Einstein

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Experience matters.

And I don’t mean some high falutin’ job or some responsibility given but rather mistake experience.

That said.

I like people who make mistakes.

I like people who have made mistakes.

I like people who have had some significant failures.

I like people who have tried doing a variety of shit and have a list of shit that just didn’t go so well <or as well as they had wanted>.

I like the people who realize you survive 99% of the time you go out and try something without holding back.

Everyone who has survived some failure or mistake comes out of that experience damaged in some way. Most times that ‘damage’ is found in expectations or, maybe better said, plans or ‘how I envisioned it would go’.

While it has been a long time for me I vaguely remember when I first jumped off the cliff professionally. I vaguely remember doing so with a plan and a planned path in mind.

Some people would call that “rationale for taking a professional action.”  

Well.

The plan and path went to shit fast.

But I adapted and got to where I wanted to go. I survived. But I survived with damage.

The first damage is related to ‘the rationale.’

You start questioning how smart you are or how insightful you may be with regard to business organizations and what matters. I mean … what the hell … you thought it out, weighed the options and chose a course. Only to end up face first in some mud puddle that was never in your rationale.

Your ‘rationale thinking’ gets nicked up a bit.

The second damage is related to a harsh understanding, and semi-surprising revelation, that business mirrors Life.

You tend to believe business is more orderly and less chaotic than Life in general. Business offers a solid construct and when viewing the organizational chart you can easily envision paths and plans and people. You quickly learn that organizational charts are the biggest lies in business. They look static, they look flat and they look solidly structured,. The truth is that they are constantly shifting, they are multi-dimensional and ‘structure’ actually means ‘power’ can reside not in the box towards the top but rather in some inane responsibility in some department you never even paid attention to.

But.

All the damage offers some benefits.

The scars actually strengthen an aspect of who and what you are.

The biggest benefit is that your “I will survive” mentality shifts from a belief & hope to proven truth.

Yeah.

That experience matters.

Once you know you can survive, Life becomes different particularly in the business world. When you first step into professional life most of us step carefully. We watch each step and recognize, more often than not, survival and success is more about a battle of attrition than it is actually doing something superior. And, yet, the longer we stay in that mode of behavior the more likely doing something, anything, starts taking on a larger & larger looming presence “doing that could ‘kill you.’

And maybe that is why I love damaged people.

They respect the danger, but do not fear the danger. They have met danger, been damaged, and understand that being damaged is not the same as being killed.

Damaged simply means “I have survived with some scars to show for it.”

Just as I would prefer picking up a sword which has some nicks rather than a new shiny unused one as I went into battle I prefer the nicked & used people to be on my teams as I go into the business battle.

And maybe the real reason is a little more philosophical <with a little humor attached>

In business, once damaged, you have a little more sense that it is not only a miracle you survived, but that it is a miracle anything good actually happens in an organization of any size.

That may sound slightly cynical, but I would suggest it is slightly pragmatic.

Success in business is almost like running through a series of double Dutch jump ropes.

A little good sense of timing, a little miracle or two, a little smart instinctual actions and smart experience driven maneuvering. And absolutely some damage.

To conclude.

I like my people a little damaged. They not only know how to survive but know they can, and will, survive moving forward and taking steps.

I like my people damaged. They tend to not mind, well, getting damaged and are willing to do some spectacular things along the way.

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“One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.”

—

Victor Hugo

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“Our ideas, like orange-plants, spread out in proportion to the size of the box which imprisons the roots.”

—

Edward Bulwer Lytton

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Well. Whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not, we are all ignorant. Now. Our ignorance can come in a bunch of different sizes – supersized, snack sized and everything in between – and sometimes even selective (know a lot about something and little about other things). That said. We are all ignorant.

Look. It is impossible for us to know everything about everything (let alone even a specific topic), therefore, we have ignorance boxes <different topics> in our heads just sitting around collecting dust waiting to be pulled off the shelf.

Now.

Those ignorance boxes are interesting boxes.

They come in different sizes and shapes and depths.

In addition. Ideas are an interesting seed to plant in the ignorance box.

Why? The roots of ideas will inevitably end up in conflict with the box they have been planted in.

That is the inevitability of the invasion of ideas … conflict.

That is the inevitability of the invasion of curiosity … conflict.

One territory, let’s call it ‘the country of what you do not know’, is always being invaded by an army of ideas and thoughts <some true and some untrue>.

Yeah. I focus on invasion because there are winners and losers in this whole ignorance, knowledge, curiosity & ideas battle of which you, yourself, can be victor or vanquished <that is, basically, the battle between ignorance – which suprisingly has a lot of ammunition – and something seeking to kill that particular ignorance>. The only thing you can be sure of is you will always be in conflict and always be at war.

That is one of Life’s biggest truths.

Curiosity comes with a price … and a reward.

I wrote once:

‘far too often we place curiosity in some unequivocal good or bad space … “curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning” or “curiosity killed the cat” … but, truthfully, curiosity embodies both good and bad. And I say that as one who is unequivocally in the camp of “knowing more of anything is good.’

The constant invasion of ideas seems to revolve around two things near and dear to my heart:

• Positive friction.
• Enlightened conflict.

The first is based on curiosity plus friction equals better ideas and thinking. This means the friction has a net positive effect. I could even argue that even bad thoughts that are well thought out and well articulated is positive friction. Ok. I imagine  could argue any thinking is better than no thinking.

Anyway.

The second is that  any conflict of thought & ideas will enlighten in some form or fashion. I tend to believe the arc of conflict leads to true knowledge. But “arc” is the key word. I think we get a little hasty with regard to people and thinking and this constant war. We forget it is a battle by battle thing and not a ‘battle which embodies the outcome of the war.’ We look at someone who we deem as ‘ignorant’ rather than viewing them in the midst of battle and somewhere on the arc of true knowledge.

I can honestly say there are few people I will not debate with, discuss with or have a discourse with. I will discuss anything with anyone and listen and respond. Yes. I will “go to war” in other words. Yeah. Other than purposeful ignorance I tend to view ignorance as simply the opening gambit in the battle of the day.

Regardless.

I am definitely a curiosity guy.

And, well, I guess I am definitely a conflict guy <when it comes to ideas and thoughts and issues>.

And I love the thought that I am not actually seeking ideas or ‘working hard to learn’, but rather ideas and thoughts are constantly seeking to make battle with us … constantly invading our space, our ignorance, and … well … we go to this war because it is a war worth fighting. It is a war for knowledge.

Look.

I have heard many people say “I want to know everything there is to know on this topic.” I often wonder if they are up for the battle that will need to take place to make that happen. And I am relative;y sure they haven’t really thought through what it would actually take to ‘know everything.’

I know someone can know a lot.

As a corollary.

I absolutely know that you can know enough to be dangerous.

That said. I am 100% unequivocally clear that knowledge is a never ending battle. Even on one topic you probably don’t have enough hours in a lifetime to know everything there is. I guess that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, but suggesting you know everything is not only silly but may actually be a reflection you do not understand the extent of the conflict at hand.

My site is called Enlightened Conflict.

My motto is ‘seek truth.’

And I do feel as if I am constantly fighting a war and fighting on the side of Truth.

Do I believe I know truth let alone all the truth? Absolutely not.

But. As any warrior would tell you, I get closer to be the best I can be as a warrior every time I fight. It is the conflict which fights ignorance and seeks to enlighten in victory or maybe just survival of the battle of the day.

Maybe that is why the two quotes I opened with interested me.

The conflict of ideas does not have to reside in any open debate. You don’t even need another person. Ideas invade in any number of ways. They plant themselves in boxes you have forgotten you even had. They grow to a point where you cannot ignore them anymore and begin to battle existing ideas you have to get out of the box they were planted in. It becomes a war between what you knew and what you now know.

I would point out that in winning a battle you have destroyed a box and enlightenment occurs. Uhm. but then begins the building of a new box. See. It is a never ending war between what you know and the constant invasion of ideas. It is a worthy war.

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“Enlighten the people, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”

Thomas Jefferson

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“If you dig deep enough, you’re going to find that everyone’s a sinner.”

Logan Echolls

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This about the fact people are imperfect, rarely 100% good, and the fact we all may be a sinner but still good.

** note: I am not using sinner in a religious framed way.

I agree with Logan (who was a character on Veronica Mars) that if you work hard enough you will find something bad, dubious, possibly unethical, in everyone’s past or even present. But you know what? It doesn’t really have to do with ‘sinning’ or being a sinner.  It is just that we all have flaws. Just to be clear. It is most likely if you dig deep enough you will also find everyone is basically the same and we all have hopes & dreams & insecurities. That said. If we accept the fact everyone is a sinner, our past is flawed in some way in which the standard human being would judge it is ‘guilty of something’ then you have to accept the fact no one is innocent.

“No one is innocent … Life is more about how you bear the guilt.”

Jacques Silette

Uhm.

No one is innocent.

Ponder that.

That means every one of us sinners carry some burden of ‘not innocent’. This seems relevant as:

• more and more people in today’s world are meticulously rummaging through other people’s pasts to find moments in which they were ‘guilty’ of something
• more and more people in today’s society appear to investing a lot of energy suggesting they are guilty of little, if not anything

Well. That is kind of bullshit. No one is innocent. We are all guilty of small, medium and even some large things. Therefore. It within that last sentence of the quote in which resides the larger Life thought.

Your life can be defined by how you bear that guilt.

It is the larger Life thought because “defined by” is actually “choices”. All the choices we make everyday in the little and the small as well as in how we judge ourselves, and our actions, and other’s actions. So we make all of these choices, one by one, dozens & hundreds over time, all the while accumulating some aspects of non-innocence.’ From that point on it becomes how we define it:

Do you ignore it?

Do you make excuses?

Do you deny it?

Do you worry about it?

Do you keep it secret?

Do you use it to motivate?

These are questions that reside within each of us <whether we elect to admit that they exist or not>. These are the questions that define how people bear the guilt.

Oh.

The one that is probably most important?

Do you even recognize you are not innocent?

I think in today’s world where we seem to rush to blame people and judge them guilty of something <often justly> we tend to push our own lack of innocence, in whatever degree it may exist, into some dusty corner of our mind. But I also believe there is an even more dangerous thing many people do and that is justifying their own past behavior & actions as ‘not so bad’ which is basically assuming, well, innocence.

What that means is, I imagine, there are many more people who don’t even know they are ‘not innocent’ of something than there are those who bear the guilt. I imagine this because bearing some guilt is a burden. A burden not just as a weight, but it also can bear some emotional erosion aspects if you are not careful.

While those who bear the guilt can sometimes be eaten away from the inside as they think about it, I would suggest there are many more minds being eroded by the unseen, unrecognized & unaccepted shadow of guilt which dogs each step one takes.

This comes to Life in a variety of ways.

It erodes in a way that when shit happens to them <because the guilt actually affects their behavior in some seemingly small ways> they scratch their head and wonder why.

Some of these people think fate is against them.

Many of these people think Life isn’t fair.

Many of these people never look at themselves, or to themselves, as the issue … just everything else.

Many of these people just look at others as ones who should be guilty <“I never did anything that bad”>.

All of that is sad to me. Mostly because people’s burden of guilt is most likely something manageable if the person would only take the time to face it — face the guilt and eliminate that weightless, but diminishing, shadow following them and choose to carry it instead. I honestly do not know if people ignore their ‘lack of innocence’ or place their sin in a third person way <region does this> because they don’t like the thought of it or they don’t know how to explain it or maybe its simple embarrassment or it could even be they DO see the burden and do not want to accept it.

Look.

We all have guilt for something. None of us are innocent. The something could be big or it could be very small. But that is the funny thing about ‘not innocent’ — its size doesn’t matter.

Normal laws of space & weight do not apply to ‘not innocent’. A sliver of ‘not innocent’ can bear the same weight as a mountain of ‘not innocent’.

We should all take a moment, every day in fact, and remind ourselves, especially before we jump to judging others, that if you ignore the degrees & dimensions of the guilty — none of us are innocent.

But, most importantly, once you accept no one is innocent <self included> what truly matters is how one chooses to bear that weight.

“Learn to be what you are, and learn to resign with good grace all that you are not.”

Henry Frederick Emile

In the end. One of the hardest things in the world for anyone is to embrace their flaws, their sin. Each of us ‘are not’ a lot of things. Recognizing those things is actually pretty easy. We notice them all the time. I guess the difficult part is accepting them. and resigning yourself to ‘not being something’ with grace. Being able to do that is a full measure of one’s character. And maybe that is what ‘being a sinner’ or ‘no one is innocent’ is all about – character. To accept our flaws means to accept some burden possibly demands character. I do wish more people would accept we are all not innocent and begin judging people more on how they carry they bear the guilt of their sin.

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“We’re just a bubble in a boiling pot.”

———–

Jack Johnson

====================

“There’s an inherent limit to the stress that any material can bear. Water has its boiling point, metals their melting points. The elements of the spirit behave the same way. “

———–

Stefan Zweig

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Every once in awhile you find that someone has articulated an idea in such a simple wonderful way you have to stand and applaud. 212 is an example. While 212 is a marketing agency’s name it is the actual number and what it means that speaks volumes.

212 degrees is water’s boiling point.

The agency creative director (one of my best friends) of the agency I referenced earlier states it perfectly:

“we can be the difference between 211 degrees, when all you’ve got is water, and 212,or between something happening or not happening.”

That, my friends, says it all. Not just for a business, but pretty much frickin’ everything. This also has everything to do with the difference between speed & velocity.

You can spend your time and life sitting around somewhere between 0 and 211 degrees.  And it doesn’t really matter if you are freezing your ass off at 3 degrees or be hotter than shit at 198 degrees — nothing is happening (other than you are uncomfortable or maybe fooling yourself into believing something is happening). Shit ain’t happening until you reach out and figure out a way of getting to 212.

That, in a nutshell, is speed.

Then something truly happens.

Life boils. Action happens.

That, in a nutshell, is Velocity. A real change happens in that you have shifted from speed activity to velocity activity. All in one measly little degree.

Couple points:

Between 0 & 211.

Don’t fool yourself into believing that something is truly happening in your life simply because you feel something (cold or hot). You may be running hard (speed) but, for the most part, you are still just water in the pot. Real change happens when it boils (velocity). The tricky part is somewhere above 120 degrees or so you start feeling comfortable. In that comfort zone you can easily be speeding along or just be comfortably stagnant. Be aware. They can look & feel very similar.

Anyway. I purposefully use heat as the indicator for 2 reasons.

Uncomfortable. While velocity itself is exciting & challenging the shift from non boiling to boiling CAN be uncomfortable. Its a shift. Some people feel the discomfort as “uh oh bad” and some feel it as “yeah, now the action occurs.”

Action. Placid water to boiling water. That is when you know something is truly happening in your life. You shift from just water in a pot that is something someone could take & drink from to something that people approach warily & can actually use to cook something up. Speed makes you feel like you’re cooking, but velocity actually permits the action of cooking. In my terms, you have achieved the velocity tipping point.

One degree.

Life is tricky. Heck. Velocity is tricky. How tricky? The difference between speed & velocity is often one degree. Its not really a tipping point its more along the lines of applying heat properly for the appropriate amount of time. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out you can be speeding along at 205degrees for a long time and it will feel hot but you will not be able to boil diddleyshit. Speed can feel like Velocity. Oh. And. My real point is one degree can make a helluva difference.

About that difference.

There is no “about to boil” sign. The shift from speed to velocity just happens. There is no warning sign. There is no dopamine hit just prior. Nothing. It just happens. I point that out to remind everyone you are never really sure if you are 183degrees or 205degrees. It boils when it boils.

Not all velocity is good. Unfortunately we don’t always make the best decisions and best choices. Therefore, you can shift from speed to velocity and vector quickly into the bad or the good. I point that out because velocity, in & of itself, feels great so you have to be careful the velocity feeling doesn’t mask the truth you are speeding off on a bad tangent. 

Anyway. 212degrees. Ponder. Ponder because it is the difference between speed & velocity.

——

“There are many kinds of crime. I’ve always thought the most unforgivable is to have a gift and turn your back on it.”

=

Ruth Reichl

——-

I believe everyone has a gift. It may be big, may be small, may be somewhere in between, but everyone has some gift. That said. Here is what I think about having some talent and using it (or not using it).

We are truly a forgiving society.

Yes.

Quick to blame and chastise.

But. Just as quick to forgive <after bludgeoning you with some self-righteous indignation>. But society does not even have an opportunity to forgive you <or bludgeon you> with this particular crime because turning your back on a gift is actually an unseen crime <most of the time>.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

This means you can commit this crime and never be punished. Never be chastised. Oh. And never have the opportunity to be forgiven.

What I mean is that even if society does notice it may simply cast a glance at you wasting your gift and forgive you despite the fact you are actually cheating the world of your gift. This is the crime of missed opportunity (the world’s opportunity to gain from your gift). Let’s call this “ignorance is bliss.”

On the other hand.  Yourself? The unforgivable crime is really to oneself.

I could list all the reasons why someone ignores their gift, some may seem silly and some may seem realer than anything in Life, but ignoring is ignoring. Period.

Let me be clear.

Having a gift does NOT mean that Life is any easier. In fact it may make it tougher on occasion and you certainly would have to learn to say ‘fuck you’ to critics & doubters &, well, a shitload of people who do not have a discernible gift.

Hell.

You even have to say ‘fuck you’ to even people who recognize you have a gift. I will say that having a gift can be construed as a burden because it comes with some pressure. Oddly I wrote about this burden & pressure aspect awhile back citing Andy Roddick of all people.

But.

The list of ‘why we ignore‘ doesn’t matter.

Good reasons or bad reasons it is a crime to turn your back on your gift.

I am so unequivocal on this because while I do believe all of us have something to offer and all of us can contribute in some form or fashion in the world, not everyone has the same gift.

Sorry to tell people that.

Some of us schmucks just muddle thru Life doing the best we can with what we have. We have no real gift that impacts beyond a very small impact or have some spectacular talent other than maybe being able to survive the grind successfully with character & a good moral compass <which ain’t bad by the way>.

But if you are one of the happy few who do have a gift that CAN make a larger impact you can’t simply say “uhm, I would like to return this gift” … shit … you cannot even regift it.

Once you have a gift it is a non transferable non returnable gift exclusive to you.

Do not use? It never gets used. Once again. This may sound sad, even disappointing, it is neither, it is an unforgivable crime.

Ok. But why do most people ignore their gift? I imagine is really is not fear, it is simply about waiting until it is too late.

It’s kind of crazy, isn’t it?

We have a habit of believing a future moment will end up being more important than the present. We simply keep holding off for some better time or moment we are sure <see: imagine> will be better to display the gift we have.

—

“Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one.  But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.”

Eckhart Tolle

—

Anyway. Whether it is natural to wait for a better moment, or some ‘more important time to step up in the future‘, suffice it to say that not using a gift you have in the here & now — this special talent given to you and only you — is not a waste. You are simply committing a crime in the here & now.

And that crime is truly unforgivable if you know you have this gift and simply ignore it.

Shit.

Just think about what I have written a little.

If you truly have a gift, a gift you are fairly sure can contribute to a greater good in some way, ignore all the reasons to not use your gift.

Ignore all the reasons to not foster your gift.

And be the best you can be. Why? Because while it is a crime to deprive the world of the potential your gift may offer it the biggest crime is to yourself – you will not maximize who & what you could be. Now THAT is a crime.

 =================

“The belief that the commonplace is really worth looking at, and the courage to look at it with a minimum of theorizing”

John Szarkowski

================

This is about business culture collaboration in business, organizational structure and customer relationships. What do they all have in common? If you treat them in a transactional way, you will not only have limited value you will have fixed value.

“Transactional relationships have a fixed value (i.e. the end goal) and an expiration date (i.e. when the end goal is achieved – or not). There is nothing beyond them. Change value for values and a transformation takes place because it adds a common, shared fluidity to them.”

David Amerland

This may sound obvious, but I would bet 90% of middle management exists in a transactional relationship world (albeit couched in structural, cultural verbiage). Heck. I would bet 75% of senior leadership thrives in a transactional relationship mindset.

We talk a good game on ‘soft skills’ and ‘the importance of culture’ and any number of non cause-effect measurable sales/revenue topics, but the reality is most of business is transactional – do this by then, what is ROI, KPI index, etc., i.e., simplistic cause-effect. Why? Its easier. Its ‘measurable’ (albeit sometimes dubiously measured). This is incredibly dangerous. Dangerous because in a complex business world an effect could be the result of multiple causes and an individual ‘cause’ can create multiple, often ripples, effects.

Here is the issue. A lesson I believe marketers, customer-centric, branders, organizational, etc. should ponder more often. While cause-effect is simpler, reality is much more fluid.

The former is finite value. The latter is infinite value.

I several thoughts:

Hopes and fears

Look. We promise according to our hopes; we perform according to our fears. This important from a finite AND infinite standpoint.

Somewhere along the way they began to see fears as assets and hopes as liabilities. That’s because, in a transactional world, fears drove measurable finite game type results and hopes seemed immeasurable in finite and too distant, transactionally, in the infinite

The fear of ‘death’ (failure) is the affirmation of the finite.

“From where you are you can hear their dreams. The dismays and despairs and flight and fall and big seas of their dreams.”

Dylan Thomas

Somewhere along the way business, addicted to measurement & short term results (the finiteness of business), fear became the organizational emotional energy. That is bad. That is transactional. That is a fixed value relationship with people and time. I will say fixed value is limiting and un-fixed value is limitless.

Collaboration

I’ve always argued forced collaboration was waste of time. Why? Because, in today’s business world, more often than not its transactional.

We have entered a new age. I could argue as business organizations modeling has entered into a new age (grudgingly so), collaboration has also. Unfortunately, business, as business does, has mostly failed to shift attitudes, and modes of, toward collaboration as their organizations have shifted. We continue to supply the same flawed remedies for a new disease.

The truth is that real collaboration creates opportunities to escape the constraints and perceived barriers to address complex issues and access expertise on a broad scale. Yes. Using technology, business can certainly re-imagine collaboration. But (and this is a big but) to create the conditions in which collaboration can occur a business has to shed a transactional relationship with collaboration. Yeah. I just said that. Yeah. I seriously doubt any business will embrace that.

The truth is that, as Hamel & Prahalad said (in Competing for the Future, 1994), management needs to shift as systems shifts – and business has failed miserably on this front. One of the consequences to this failure is a continuing failure in Collaboration.

The promise of collaboration, in a technology world, is that it can occur across functional teams within an organization or across organizations. To realize the promise of collaboration, leaders and collaborators alike, need to learn to think strategically and critically about the most appropriate ways to choose tools, adapt processes and work in virtual spaces. Part of that challenge is there is no formula in that the tools, and collaboration itself, changes how we work as well as we change how the tools work for us.

I will admit that components of collaboration should meet ‘finite game’ business needs (leaning toward a transactional need), but collaboration should be emergent, therefore, not transactional in and of itself, but rather opportunistically result driven.

Organizational structure

As Stowe Boyd said: ‘Designing culture’ that has taken hold in the short-circuited world of startup entrepreneurialism. It’s now a given – not subject to discussion or reflection – that

1. organizational culture is an object, a thing subject to design and crafting,
2. leadership should decide what the business culture ought to be,
3. and impose that idea on the organization like an architect designing and constructing an airport, a hospital, or a shopping mall.

I am making up this %, but I would bet 90% of business culture is grounded in a transactional web of connective tissue. There will be values & ethics & a bunch of vision/Purpose-like narrative, but productivity, or proof or performance, is what connects it all. For good or for bad, the default state of any business is ‘we produce or die.’ Yes. That is, at its core, a transactional relationship. Yes. That means business, by default, seeks a fixed value state (which seems kind of nuts when viewed). Organizational structure IS shifting, systems are shifting, but I would argue the transactional tissue is viewed as the glue by leadership. That, my friends, is like putting a governor on a potential Lamborghini engine. That, my friends, is nuts.

Lastly.

Customer relationships

Business has talked about ‘loyalty’ forever. The value of ongoing relationships. Yet. If you tear off all the pretty packaging almost every business views customer relationships through a transactional relationship lens. Its grounded in a “maximize each interaction” mentality. That, in and of itself, ensures a transactional fixed value. Just ponder.

In the end.

All successful organizations adapt by effectively deciding what is necessary to preserve and what should be let go. This is next to impossible to do if the business survives on ongoing transactional relationship mentality – thru culture, thru collaboration, thru structure, thru customer relationships. Period.

 =========

“Stagnation is self-abdication.”

―

Ryan Talbot

=============

“The moment we stand still, we begin to decay.”

―

Erich Fromm

==============

“If you’re stationary, you’ll die.”

—-

Gen. Mark Milley, Joint Chief of Staff

================

Ok. I tend to believe any reasonable business person recognizes stagnancy leads to inevitable death <although at the same time many reasonable business people also have an unhealthy relationship with tried & true systems & processes, mitigate risk taking to such an extreme level that change almost seems indiscernible and views any change as something that needs to be analyzed from every view imaginable before undertaking it>.

I thought about that when I scanned a fantastic article on WarontheRocks discussing the army strategy of the future. Within it was a phrase that caught my eye – “disciplined disobedience.”

It first and foremost reminded me that businesses can view stagnancy in a variety of ways in their attempt to “not change what works” while seeking “change what needs to be changed” <all of which simply means “something within your business is not dynamic and there are scraps of stagnancy slowing you down”>.

It secondly reminded me that back in august 2010 I wrote something called ‘discontinuity for successful company continuity’  in which I shared an organizational idea called “controlled autonomy” <others may call it a version of a self organized organization or a decentralized organization or a variety of ‘decentralized-like employee empowered’ terms> … and suggested that was the organization of the future.

—————————-

A continuous discontinuous organization?

Controlled autonomy.

Controlled in that there is a vision, a focus and a functional understanding of what is it we do well.

Autonomy in that outside the ‘control developers’ people can do different shit.

Controlled autonomy is certainly an organizational shift from the past.

But even IBM has looked at this concept.

A past IBM research report suggests that the best analogies for businesses in the future may no longer be the command structures of the military but the self-organizing networks found in nature: schools of fish, flocks of birds and swarms of insects.

Well.

I don’t know about the birds & bees thing but I do understand they are suggesting some decentralization (or autonomy at the employee level).

The struggle with this is that this agility I am discussing is a process where the leadership is not omnipotent.

And further struggle continues with autonomy (and the ensuing agility) as there will be enablers and blockers within the organization therefore the leadership must factor in internal organization limitations (and possibilities) when judging the best plan of action.

What that really means is that no matter how you slice it … organizations are ‘tense anxiety-driven’ structures.

Employees typically oppose new ideas because they perceive they are unworkable (and sometimes they are if the ivory tower doesn’t have their shit together) and bad for profits (or it appears to on the ground people they aren’t making as much money).

And yet we also know that employees always have a large stake in the future success of any organization. Some hesitancy is due to fear or laziness but it can also be due to good judgment.

This is where autonomy comes into play.

It’s not just about diverse views in planning (which obviously highlights opportunities and obstacles) but also some permission of diversity in on the ground decision making.

And autonomy in an organization helps address the truth that is there is a difference between ‘intended’ strategy at the corporate level and ‘realized’ strategy on the business level, i.e., what management wishes to occur, and what is in fact carried out.

That is also the dynamic portion of businesses that permits change to meet changing markets.

Sounds awful difficult to control? (or manage) Sure it is.

But that is why a leader should be paid the big bucks.

———————-

Uhm. I still believe that.

At the most simplistic level any business faces two basic demands — it must execute its current activities to survive today’s challenges and adapt those activities to survive tomorrow’s.

This means executing and adapting at exactly the same time. This also means, within your business, there is a constant competition for resources, money & time in order to meet executional demands and adaptation opportunities <therein lies a significant portion of the ‘tense-anxiety’ dynamic of a dynamic organization.

I am not making this up.

Peters and Waterman <In Search of Excellence> argued that organizations must simultaneously be “tight” in executing and “loose” in adapting. I believe they also pointed out that very few do both well.

I have had many discussions with many businesses trying to convince them that an organization can be very good at both executing and adapting and how to be good at both.

It seems that many business leaders sometimes forget that the organization can sometimes forget they can actually be an organization from an aligned ‘doing’ perspective <because we put such an emphasis n vision and strategy>.

What I mean is that most good businesses have naturally incorporated a sense of autonomy and over time the organizational alignment aspects fade into a subconscious background space and individual departments and groups coalesce around the autonomous aspects <it gives them a sense of pride, empowerment & self-actualization as part of the whole>.

Everyone should note that while this is an incredibly powerful engine in a company it can become challenging with employee turnover <because there has to be some plan to assimilate new people into a subconsciously acting organization>.

Look. I believe, and vocally espouse, great alignment in an organization more often than not is actually “purposeful fragmentation.” This is the type of alignment which permits the parts of the organization <departments, divisions, etc.> to maintain some autonomy yet always be grounded in what is ultimately important to the organization.

Sure. I do believe there are things you want an organization to do fairly commonly and certainly can do if you ask the organization to swing into action. And I do believe it is imperative to get these things down and established as ‘rote behavior’ in the midst of an organizational shift/transformation. But organizations have a nasty habit of falling back on less-than-autonomy type leadership and thinking. This nasty habit occurs as we gain experience because our ‘rules & guidelines’ hierarchies fill up based on a larger collection of specific experiences and more feedback on what has and hasn’t worked.

Someone articulated the outcome of this as:

“our mental models grow into complex structures of categories, interlinked rules, and weightings. We become less likely to perceive experiences as totally new and instead try to relate them to previous ones, which we group into existing categories. As mental models become more complex over time, major rearrangements become more difficult.”

Basically, as an organization’s size and complexity increase its degrees of freedom & autonomy decrease. and while I just made a sweeping generalization I would point out something that Scott Page, University of Michigan, who studied why some organizations are complex and hierarchical while others are simple and flat concluded — organizations evolve in response to the problems they have to solve.

All of this leads me back to what the Army Chief of Staff said in the warontherocks article. Two thoughts for any business person who embraces the uncomfortable truth that stagnancy is the path to irrelevant death:

“If you’re stationary, you’ll die.”

Consolidated bases and logistics hubs will be untenable, presenting lucrative targets for an enemy with precision firepower. He noted we must “untether ourselves from this umbilical cord of logistics and supply that American forces have enjoyed for a very lengthy period of time.” Army units will have to move, set up, move, and move again — “maybe every two, three, four hours just to survive.” Fixed sites of any kind will be lethal magnets for destruction by enemies who will have a rich diet of targeting information — especially since smart phones will be even more ubiquitous. As he bluntly stated, “If you’re stationary, you’ll die.”

• Disobey Orders — Smartly

He called this “disciplined disobedience.” I believe this idea was floated by a past Army Chief of Staff back in the 1970’s but called “selective disobedience.” This suggests that disobeying orders can be justified to achieve the larger purpose of the mission.

[A] subordinate needs to understand that they have the freedom and they are empowered to disobey a specific order, a specified task, in order to accomplish a purpose. Now, that takes a lot of judgment … it can’t just be willy-nilly disobedience. This has got to be disciplined disobedience to achieve the higher purpose.

Milley added:

“disobedience, when done, must be done with trust and integrity, and you must be morally and ethically correct.”

A business competitive field has always been one of chaos and unpredictability <although we have always tried to communicate it as more static in SWOT analysis and crap like that>. And if you accept it is more chaotic and unpredictable it will become easier to understand why far too many organizations frequently lack reliable communications up and down the chain of command. As the Army recognizes, and businesses more often should, junior leaders may have to independently make quick decisions upon which battles may be decided and which may have strategic consequences.

In a controlled autonomy the leaders must become more comfortable with some ambiguity and accepting the fact that employees closer to the point of action/decision will be making unsupervised decisions to achieve the organization’s, and leader’s, intent. Simplistically, as the Army suggests is mission command — empowering leaders with the “why” of their task, but leaving the “how” to their imagination.

Well. Suffice it to say … while people like me love that thought & concept most business leaders are scared shitless of it. Frankly, most senior leaders <centralists by management nature> who seek to implement some autonomous aspects don’t set out to deceive anybody. In their heads they know that high degrees of involvement, participation, and autonomy are key elements in high organization performance. But in their hearts, they still crave orderliness, predictability, and control.

They get trapped in the wretched in-between because a central “plan” cannot dictate and bring order to a haphazard, chaotic, unpredictable, and rapidly changing business world – no matter how much we wish it would.

And. It gets more difficult.

With a continuing stress on “bottom line” or making margins as high as possible leaders fall into the financial analysis trap which encourages anything but autonomy.

Financial analysis can clearly show that consolidating and centralizing support services and functions saves money and increases efficiency <in huge PowerPoint graph slides in the conference room> therefore suggesting autonomy is less than efficient.

What doesn’t show up in these analysis are two things:

<1> consolidating & centralizing is most effective & efficient in servicing a static business (note: business is never static)

<2> the inherent alienation, helplessness, and lack of ability to connect with real time customer & market needs or organizational purpose that centralized bureaucracy often brings

I could argue for controlled autonomy for years. And I could begin with the simplest thought that efficiencies may save gobs of money but the processes to do so can be cost you the intangible people energy and passion engine within the organization <and then add in at least 5 additional powerful reasons you, as a business leader, need to suck it up and embrace some ambiguity>.

Controlled autonomy may not be the proper terminology <albeit it offers a more comfortable liminal space fr a lot of existing leadership> but I would encourage all business people to start using the Army as an example and start using “disciplined disobedience” as a management North Star.