—

“… not even the best magician in the world can produce a rabbit out of a hat if there is not already a rabbit in the hat.” 

=

Boris Lermontov

—

Ok. I admit. I often get a little crazy when I hear “well, you pulled that one out of your ass” <this generation’s version of pulling a rabbit out of a hat>.

Well. I apologize. Only 99%+ of the time I go crazy. I account for the less than 1% of the time to the fact sheer dumb luck can happen.

I say I go crazy because when someone makes a surprisingly good ‘in the moment decision’ or uncovers a relatively surprisingly insightful idea, in most cases, the fact they are surprising people does not mean they just made something up out of the ether. And pulling a rabbit out of a hat <or out of your ass> implies you created something from nothing.

Here is a Life truth, even a business truth, so maybe let’s just call it Truth: You cannot create something from nothing.

Sure. Sometimes the connections between ‘what was’ and ‘what ends up being’ are blurry <if not even visible and sometimes appears to come out of the proverbial ether>, but everyone needs to have a solid base of knowledge before making the connections <thinking or tangible things> to create something. That knowledge can be within <your own pea like brain and its experiences and thoughts> or without <tapping into other people or things>.

Anyway. Here is the full quote reference.

Livy Montagne:

“You’re a magician, Boris. To have produced all this in three weeks, and from nothing.”

— 

Lermontov:

“… not even the best magician in the world can produce a rabbit out of a hat if there is not already a rabbit in the hat.” 

Again. You can’t create something from nothing; you can only create something from something else <or something elses>.

Another Truth?

Wrap your head around this: Ideas exist … and don’t exist <simultaneously>.

Yup. Physicists have found something <particles and things that move around that we cannot see> can simultaneously exist and not exist. In other words, some things are capable of existing in several different states.

Any physicist can correct me, but I believe it is the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics which suggests particles are allowed to travel along all paths and exist in all possible states simultaneously.

What changes uncertainty? The simple act of measurement. Measurement, or the simple recognition of what actually is, instantly forces it into just one path or state and it is no longer uncertain. I believe it is called something like ”collapse of the wave function‘” in physics.

Yeah. It is the same in thinking, doing or whatever.

Random knowledge collapses upon itself until it creates something. The ‘nothing’ is just a bunch of somethings yet to be consolidated.

I have been to far too many ‘brainstorming’ or ‘creative thinking’ or even ‘the power of visualization’ workshops <so many that my brain cannot storm and I cannot think straight let alone creatively> and I cannot visualize shit.

Every time I walk out of these mind numbing events I grab my copy of James Webb Young’s “Technique for Producing Ideas” <published in 1937 and still relevant today> and flip thru the pages to remind myself that ideation is all about cramming bits & pieces of ideas & information & thoughts into your head until you can either assimilate it into a ‘rabbit’ or you interact with someone else and inspire them to create a ‘rabbit.’

So. With that. Two thoughts.

Accumulate knowledge: the more you learn the more you can pull out of your ass <consistently>.

Practice: the more you use what you have learned the easier it is to pull something out of you ass.

Sorry. There is no such thing as divine inspiration. There is no such thing as pulling rabbits out of hats <unless there is already a rabbit there>. We all have a gazillion thoughts, observations, and information <parts, pieces or whole> bouncing around in our heads either in our subconscious or conscious mind. There are a myriad of possibilities existing with regard to possible outcomes.

The nothing is all these pieces and parts not assembled.

The something is when assembly is achieved.

Now. Not everyone is good at “assembling” or even implementing from the nothings floating around in their heads but that is a different post for a different day. If you feed your mind, you will end up with a boatload of rabbits in your hat.

But, please, something from nothing? Not even a magician can do that.

Remember. Most people who do good things & say good things are not pulling a rabbit out of some hat … they have worked hard, thought hard & done the work necessary to insure there is already a rabbit in the hat.

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

“We laughed and laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn’t think about my life at all.”

―

Jonathan Safran Foer

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

Someone (Gerad Petherbridge) recently asked what makes a great advertising agency culture. I flippantly answered “an uncompromising vision to do great, smart, work.” And you know what? I stand by that. And I stand by that not just for advertising but for pretty much any business. To me, that is the core of a principled culture. I’d wrap two other principles around that:

• Progress (better today than I was yesterday).
• Integrity (no ethical shortcuts).

Note I have not used the word “values” yet. I will not in this frame of reference <but I will in a different frame later>.

A culture, or community of people working together, or maybe better said, the things that create a well-connected, group of people tend to be bonded in a more nebulous vision. Shangri-La, values, principles, attitudes, whatever labels you want to attach (and there are gobs of people and books and coaches who will) that we always want to identify, evaluate and ‘formula-ize’ even though it is actually something that’s actually more magic in a bottle. Yeah. Shangri la as it were.

I would suggest all those labels are just stupid shit.

That doesn’t mean there are into underlying practices that can facilitate a consistent desired output, but it means you really cannot create it; you simply create scenarios in which it can occur/emerge.

I will say my opening one sentence paragraph may be my definition for togetherness & my definition of the best business culture one could imagine. It captures the essence of what togetherness should be for everyone perfectly. It embodies culture. This is what a well aligned business focused on a similar vision & purpose should feel like. I find it interesting because I believe we now this in our youth and the as we forge our way thru the business world we get stripped of this, what I would call the substance, in our pursuit of ‘getting shit done’ & ROI & results.

“People are energy sources to be activated, not depleted, to maximize businesses. We flippantly discuss jobs as mundane and boring which only makes the people doing them feel meaningless and mundane.”

Bruce McTague

Many people smarter than I have discussed meaning of work and the fact people want to work toward something, not just for something (like money).

To me this is about a vision which everyone gathers around. I call it a campfire.

The odd thing to me with the campfire concept is that it implies a bit of “thoughtful gathering of fuel to build a campfire” (some purposeful planning & thinking) and, I will admit, as a leader I never really thought much about purposefully sharing any real substantive value to the people who elected to follow me nor do I purposefully share any substantive value to people I wanted to join whatever merry band gathered around that campfire. I never thought about trying to create some compelling message or try and be compelling. I solely focused on my convictions, my attitude & beliefs and I imagine I thought of it as “I have a campfire, come sit down … and I hope you stay <if you want>.”

Ok. This leads me to Values.

My POV: a business does not have values, they have principles. People have values, individual to themselves, and tey bring them to work every day and a business places principles at the front door so the people can coalesce their behavior around those principles.

Beyond the fact Values statements do not define behavior tossing around values in a flippant fashion seeds an organization with cynicism.

But here is most possibly the toughest challenge developing a business Principle ‘campfire’ — it takes a leader group with real guts. Why? The thing is that Principles have the uncomfortable task of encouraging personal & organizational success all the while fettering how success is achieved. Let’s call Principles the reins you tug and release on the organization.

Why does that matter? Well. As Napoleon said: “Success is the most convincing talker in the world.”

Success, in and of itself, is the one thread wish holds together almost every organization. We can discuss purpose and we can discuss integrity but, in the end, the function of an organization is to be successful.

And success is a cat’s cradle clash of personal versus the organization.

This is where I bring in ‘empathy’ and ‘mirroring.’

Empathy is a connection between feelings. Its strongest connection is when one’s feelings toward another mirror what the other is actually feeling. Let’s call it empathy alignment.

But.

——-

“Mirroring alone does not lead to empathy. We still have to choose to believe another person’s feelings matter.”

The Anatomy of Empathy

——–

If someone’s personal employee identity is defined by the culture, the principles of the culture need to be aligned not only with the personal values, but also the success value or it all gets negated, wiped out, and makes the employee feel lost, maybe isolated and, at its worst, feel less worthy as a person <questioning not only hier abilities but also how they are going about using their abilities>.

Then there is the organization itself. Success and identity <values> clash in a fear of being cast out from the collective <either by being fired or by not fitting in>.

Humans are tribal by nature and organizational culture feeds into that <and principles are maybe the key aspect of foundational culture aspects>. Obeying principled behavior, even if you have differing individual values, is the price to pay for staying in the tribe. In exchange you get to enjoy the perks, protection and personal actualization found within the organization.

Lastly. In the end.

Here is the most powerful aspect of culture.

Employees are greatest advocates for what they believe in. And. The holy grail of the ‘future of work’ is having employees (people) believe in themselves & believe they offer value every day. Brands <what you sell or just simply the company you work for> reside in minds of customers. Employees just show people what they can believe in. In other words. Productivity increases in tandem with greater brand/business value <a version of the Halo Effect>. So if the employees produce great work imbued with integrity and people like it and find value in it you have created a loop of highest value.

I admit I worry about wording it this way because inevitably some business person will think “how do I measure that and motivate that” when the power in this is only measured in the looped feedback mechanism. Ponder.

————————————————-

“It’s messing people up, this social pressure to “find your passion” and “know what it is you want to do”.  It’s perfectly fine to just live your moments fully, and marvel as many small and large passions, many small and large purposes enter and leave your life.   For many people there is no realization, no bliss to follow, no discovery of your life’s purpose. This isn’t sad, it’s just the way things are.  

Stop trying to find the forest and just enjoy the trees. “

=

Sally Coulter

———

“Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.”

=

Mark Z. Danielewski

—

I originally wrote this piece, Don’t Find Your Passion, in September 2014 and it is possibly my most unpopular piece I have written to date. Yesterday I felt slightly vindicated when Psychology Today just published a piece called “Why ‘Follow Your Passion’ is Terrible Advice.”

I have always struggled with the ‘find your passion’ advice. Ok. In fact. I believe most ‘find your passion’ advice is bullshit. I say its bullshit mostly because passion and excellence are not inextricably intertwined. In fact. Passion and purpose are not inextricably linked. In other words, I may be passionate about something, but may actually suck at doing that ‘something’.

I may be passionate about something, but it doesn’t feed some grand purpose <in the world or even to myself>.

Ok. The sucking thing I mentioned. Think about it this way – maybe I don’t suck at it, but maybe it is just not what I am best at doing.

Let me be clear. I am very happy for those who have a passion for something specific. And I would like to think everyone should be passionate about something. My point is that, unfortunately, the ‘something’ just may not be the thing you build your career and life around because you just may not be good at it enough to master it enough beyond maybe simple competence (but you can still enjoy it).

What makes me think I am qualified to say this whole follow your passion is bullshit? I am not sure I personally have a singular passion … except for thinking. And, boy, let me tell you, that is not a skill you can be paid for in the business world.

Does that mean I have to settle? Of course not.

Getting paid for thinking is a bonus.

But I assume I get paid <when I do get paid> for something I must be good at <or someone wouldn’t pay me>. In other words, I have to actually do something, not just think.

Does this mean I am grumpy or unsatisfied because I am not ‘following my passion’? Nope.

Practically speaking, I understand that what I am passionate about:

<a> there are more brilliant thinkers than I out there in the world, and

<b>  thinking without doing has significantly less value than thinking & doing. And by value I mean value to others and, frankly, value to self. The doing shows value. It shows the thinking wasn’t simply some pie in the sky rhetoric which ends up in some ‘nice but impractical’ idea folder gathering dust in some vacant office.

Next. I think the whole ‘find your passion’ or ‘find your purpose’ is overly simple in its guidance because following your passion is tricky.

No.

Let me take that back.

It is actually dangerous. If you are not careful, it can empty you.

——-

 “They told me to pour my heart into everything I do. So that’s what I did, I poured and poured and poured. 

Now they ask me why I’m so empty.”

(via florential)

———

This is why I am always hesitant to flippantly suggest ‘do what you are passionate about’ or ‘find something you love.’ I tend to suggest ‘find something you are incredibly good at … and see if you love it.’ In fact if you do that not only do you find out what you are really good at, but you also start jettisoning things you don’t like <or are passionate about>.

Next. I sometimes hear people suggest they are passionate about ‘results’ <sales, money, some outcome>. Well. Sorry. That is bullshit <to define passion that way>.

Ok. Maybe it is just lazy living. Lazy in that you take the easy way out when discussing passion or purpose by suggesting a result as validation for value in life and life pursuits.Lazy in that you are using results because you just don’t want to admit you may not exactly like what you are doing.

Sorry.

Some things just cannot be measured. Like … well … passion.

Ok. That said. I am going to let the ‘I am passionate about results’ people off the hook today because the real issue is that society shouldn’t be forcing people to even have to HAVE some grand passion or purpose.

Let’s be clear. Neither passion nor purpose needs to be grandiose.

They can be little – the trees and not the forest type of Life direction.

Because, frankly, life is mostly avoiding run face first into trees or sitting and enjoying a moment under a tree and not seeking some way to fly above and see a forest.

So what would I suggest instead of finding your passion or purpose as a guiding principle?

Seek to maximize the moments the best you can. Seek to find “good” and … well … be happy with good <and this includes just being good at what you do>.

As the initial quote suggests … larger passions and purposes will inevitably glide through different moments. Don’t worry that you do not ‘own’ the larger purpose … just enjoy the little glimpses of passion and purpose … and maybe even the variety.

—— 

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

J.R.R Tolkien

—–

What this all really means is that maybe the only decision you truly need to make has nothing to do with some grand passion or huge purpose … but rather simply deciding what to do with the time … the moment. If you do that well … I imagine you will plant a shitload of prosperous trees. And, in the end, will have built a forest for yourself you can be proud of.

Some of you may now be saying “well, shit” now. Don’t. All advice is just that, advice. Ultimately you choose what is best for you. You shouldn’t be using my advice, or anyone’s for that matter, to choose your path for you. Decide what is best for you and, well, go prosper in Life. But. I will suggest I am fairly sure you will be happier if you are doing something you are good at, so maybe start there.

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

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”

–

John Kenneth Galbraith, U.S. economist, “The Age of Uncertainty”

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

So. Whenever we discuss Elephants in business we are inherently discussing either obliviousness or purposeful ignorance. I am not sure if this is becoming a characteristic of this generation of business leaders or I never noticed it in the last generation of business leaders.

“This” is the inability to deal with the elephant in the room.

Or, even worse, is the ignoring of the “herd of elephants” stalking through an organization.

Yes.

Being a leader of an organization (and size almost becomes irrelevant) is difficult and comes with challenges.

No.

Leaders shouldn’t ignore the elephant in the room or the herds of elephants wandering the hallways.

Elephants? There are so many to choose from I couldn’t list them all. And no leader in their right mind will do an “employee survey” and expect to uncover the elephants that are seemingly walking invisibly through the hallways and offices of their company. Why? No one <employees> trusts internal surveys any more so they typically do not answer honestly <particularly on bad leadership things>.

Anyway. Here are the ‘big 3’ elephants I see leaders kind of having their head up there ass on:

–          Senior manager flaws.

For some reason leaders are becoming blind to their semi-peer flaws. I don’t know if it’s the “kinder gentler” management of this generation or if they are just focused on what is being done well because it is one less thing to worry about. I don’t care what it is, but it is elephant numero uno.

Here’s the deal.

People have higher expectations the bigger the title. And they should. A bigger title means a higher standard to live/work by. A leader HAS to set his management team to a higher standard. They cannot be expected to play by the same rules as the rest of the organization. Oddly <despite having been in so many executive meetings I am surprised I haven’t had a natural lobotomy> I have seen more times than not … leaders want to set up a standard of stricter rules for junior people and more flexible standards for senior.

It’s wacky. Senior people are supposed to be role models <at least that is what I thought>.

The trickledown effect if you permit senior people with obvious ‘flaws’ is lack of respect, a belief that management is flawed, and a belief that anyone can be a senior manager (which isn’t true) and, well, confusion on how “they” (employees) can see something that should be obvious to a leader.

–          Making specialists generalists.

The way today’s business seems to work is no matter what your responsibility is in your ‘growth’ stages you get promoted (assuming you do well) and get rewarded with a generalist management role.

Look. I am not suggesting specialist cannot become generalist nor am I suggesting that a specialist cannot assume some responsibilities as executive leaders, but I do see organization leaders permitting the title/responsibility role reward based on merit not on ability to do the reward.

And the trickle down to those decisions (beyond the obvious that many just don’t deserve that role and mismanage) is that the organization staff see it and get confused (and join the herd of elephants wandering the hallways). They get confused because it almost appears that ability doesn’t matter to ‘move up.’

–          Inability to deal with younger employee dissatisfaction.

Whew. This one is a humdinger these days. This elephant isn’t even invisible and it gets ignored. In fact, many leaders just stare at the elephant and shake their head and go “oh well, there’s that damn elephant but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

It’s crazy. I have written about this before and, yes, I am going to generalize, but this doesn’t have anything to do with “this generation’s work ethic” or “young kids just don’t have the same attitude as we did” (gosh, anyone reading that I would hope feels old if they know they have said it themselves) — this is about leadership.

It’s not about being cool or wearing flip flops to work to show you ‘relate’ to the generation.

In fact, dear leader, they don’t want you to relate … they want you to lead.

A leader doesn’t have to be a ‘giant’ like I have written about before, but they have to be a leader. Employees don’t have to like you (although it helps) they have to respect you. And that crosses any generation at any time with any age employee.  Being a leader (and however that particular leader utilizes leadership-like charisma) will overcome 90+% generational issues (flip flops in the office should take care of the rest).

Ok.

Those are just three. But I would imagine the point here is that I tend to see a diminishing ability in leadership to effectively deal with the elephants within their organizations. They are either oblivious, ignore them or accept them. Any of the three are unacceptable.

Ah. The biggest argument I get from senior people? I have other things more important at the moment, I am simply prioritizing.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm …. I have a tendency to want to point out that an elephant is, well, an elephant. And they are big.

Deal with it.

Anyway. This is just a trend I seem to be seeing these days.

One last thought (because some of the elephants live outside the office building but come in attached to employees when they come to work every day):

Brian Dyson, CEO of Coca Cola Enterprises from 1959-1994
“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends, and spirit – and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends, and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.”

Nice way of looking at it if you ask me.

Okay. In the end <bottom line>.

My advice to leaders? Go elephant hunting (or they will hunt you).

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

Originally posted August 2010

====

“Some conversations are not about what they’re about.”

—

Anne Carson

========

“That’s one of the great things about music. You can sing a song to 85,000 people and they’ll sing it back for 85,000 different reasons.

—-

Dave Grohl

========

Sometimes the conversations you have with yourself aren’t the conversations you think they are.

Sometimes the music you listen to isn’t saying what you think it is.

This isn’t because we are superficial its because our brains think in depths & dimensions. Most times we begin with the instinctual response.

What someone says inspires a response. What someone musically plays inspires a response. Truth be told our instincts generally suck & truth is more often found with some depth.

This is where music really connects with us – past the instinctual and more within the depths of what resides within us. In fact. Our brains actually crave music.

———-

 “When we listen to music, we remember emotions and places that are fundamental to who we are.

It means that when we listen to music, this renewed sense of “I” empowers us to be present where we are now and within what we’re doing today.

It means that our brains crave music not just because it’s “pleasurable” or “sounds good”, but because it is a process of remembering — and we crave remembering. We crave the feeling of wholeness and integration that comes when we remember who we are now and who we were then as “I””

Lindsay Van Thoen

———————

In other words. Music has a conversation with us which really isn’t about what we may think the conversation is about.

By the way.

This is good. Not just good because it helps us reconnect with our “I”, but also because most of the conversations we have with ourselves aren’t really soul searching but rather soul wrenching.

Doubt, fears of being good enough, self-uncertainty … these are the assholes you sometimes have a conversation with when “Life happens’. And, unfortunately, they all went to a debate school and unfortunately they all like to talk a lot when given the opportunity.

This why music is so powerful. It talks when given an opportunity. More importantly, it has a conversation with you while pushing aside all those asshole feelings and taps into a lot of the things you have forgotten.

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

“It’s easy to miss and easy to mistake
For when things are really great
It just means everything’s in its place.”

Aimee Mann

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

Music has a healthy habit of sitting you down and saying “let’s talk about the things that are easy to miss & easy to mistake … the things that are really great.”  Music is real. It’s not fake. It’s not any of that ‘happy hippie-shit Secret stuff’ just, note after note, the real conversation you should have with yourself.

I would suggest the most powerful words you will ever hear from music is most likely captured in this quote:

=========

“I didn’t come this far, to only come this far.”

Unknown

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

I love the quote for its simplicity. Life happens. Inevitably we all have shitty conversations with ourselves.

Then you sit down with some music, listen, and you hear a whisper in your brain that, well, you didn’t get that far just to get that far. None of us do. And sometimes you just have to remember that and, possibly, one of the best people to talk with to remind you of that is music. It’s the conversation that isn’t the conversation you may think you are having, but it’s the one conversation you need.

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

“… every art form fights the noose of verbal description.”

—–

Art Ross

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

I love music.

Not just listening to it but how it is created, the nuances, as well as what it teaches me and constantly reminds me about Life.

Bottom line, as with Life in general, I try to have a wide frame of reference & open mind with music.

That’s why I began with this particular quote. I often believe that most of the great things in Life ‘fights the noose of verbal description.’ Like music. And that is why music can be so enlightening … and freeing … and thoughtful.

We always hear how teens & tweens discuss music how it speaks to them personally and perfectly describes their lives. It’s no different for adults.

Musicians and writers at their best capture the essence of a moment in a small grouping of words in such magical ways that words create pictures. And when combined with the perfect music?  Well. That is a ‘wow’ moment <regardless of your age>.

I say that last ‘words + music’ thought because we should all think about some of the great words and lyrics wasted by poor music delivery. Just think about it. Not all music “wow’ moments are created equal. Some may have the potential of a big idea or moment, but if they are not presented well they are lost. I say this because, unfortunately, sometimes <even maybe often> greatness does not sell itself.

Absurdly, this thought often leads people to drive to the middle to find the safe ground from which to deliver ‘what will please people.”

Juliana Hatfield described this thought about music perfectly … <about odd time signatures>:

———————-

“most pop and rock songs and almost all hits are more even danceable meter like 4 beats per measure. Which is pleasurable to the ear and to the body … it is easy listening in every sense of the world. A round count of 4 is soothing natural repetition. You don’t even have to think about what you are doing and its easy to fall back in line if you step out for a second.

A count of 5 is more difficult. It demands something of the listener in that he not be so passive comfortable and unthinking in his listening. The listener must count along in order to understand what is happening or else expecting the measure to turn around after 4 beats he risks losing the thread of the piece the whole thing running away from him. If your mind isn’t tapped into the 5 feeling you’ll be lost scratching your head like a dancer who has missed a few steps and then finds herself hopelessly behind the others in the routine unable to catch up.

A song in 5 can smack of a kind of smugness and arrogance and elitism in a composer … he may be showing off his compositional prowess by self-consciously crafting a challenging mind stimulating piece of music almost as if the whole thing was designed solely to impress his learned colleagues.

5, or 7, or 13 – odd meters – can feel awkward and disjointed as if the songs are lurching. It can make for some prickly listening.

——————–

Look. I am not suggesting music shouldn’t try and please people, but we should also remember that music is powerful in & of itself and sometimes it creates the most powerfully perfect ‘wow’ moment thru some slight imperfection. Why? Because Life led perfectly is boring. It’s the discordant moments which bring the high & lows which not only makes Life interesting but, frankly, make us.

—————-

“… there came a moment in the middle of the song when he suddenly felt every heartbeat in the room & after that he never forgot he was part of something much bigger.”

Brian Andreas <Connection>

——————

Before you judge a type of music genre or a particular song, think about the fact that somewhere someone will be finding a moment in which he or she will never forget they are part of something much bigger. I will end where I began. Most great things fight the noose of verbal description. This is so for music just as it is so for people. The point isn’t to be liked by everyone, but to be loved by someone. This is so for the music you love just as it is so for the people you love. Just ponder that as you listen to your favorite music today.

===========

“Sliding down the slippery slope of mediocrity.”

–

David Ogilvy

=====

Ok. I believe the actual quote was “the slippery surface of irrelevant brilliance”, but I thought I saw somewhere he said what I wrote above.

Regardless. This is a Life and business lesson. So let’s just call it “truth.” Its a truth about work, effort, decisions, compromise, lies (or “half-truths”) and almost anything else I can think of.

Slippery slopes are incredibly easy to step onto AND get stuck on. What do I mean?

“Just this once” you say to yourself when you are tired. Whatever the decision or action we are discussing, to you, in the moment … it is mentally “an exception”.

“Just this once” when you are asked a question and you ponder your answer. Maybe you embellish.

“Just this once” you say to yourself when you put off that thing you wanted to do. A workout. A chore. A book. A project. A diet. A decision.

“Just this once” you say to yourself when it is a silly rule or it isn’t really unethical, but its not 100% ethical, it’s just in the margins of “okay to do.”

Before you know it <after some “just this onces“> you have edged on to that slippery slope. Once has become many and many becomes the standard.

Life is funny that way. Its sneaky. It permits you to look at things in a mutually exclusive way so that you don’t really see the accumulation of events & decisions.

Think of it maybe this way. In that incomparable <and totally underrated> movie The Replacements there is a scene where Keanu Reeves talks about it as “quicksand”.

It’s the same thing. You get in it. And you fight hard but you just can’t stop sliding down. In fact the harder you try to fight it … the worse it seems to get. And it is a truly helpless feeling. That’s quicksand in life. That is the slippery slope.

Oh. Maybe the worst thing about the slippery slope is that most people don’t realize they have started sliding until it is too late. Because the slippery slope is tricky smart. Sly in fact. It teases you with some easy low consequence decisions upfront. For example … you are on a diet and just have one dessert. One occasion, one time <some people are tempted to call this “reward for good behavior” which is simply another trick the slippery slope plays upon you>.

Maybe the slope even tempts you with permitting a small embellishment. Just a small addition at the end of a thought. Just a couple of words you wish you hadn’t said but didn’t seem to be that big. And the next time it becomes a few more words. And then … before you know it … the embellishment has taken on a life of its own.

Anyway.

It is one of my quests in life to find good people who have mistakenly started the slide and lend a hand to pull them back up. Professionally and personally.

Does that mean I am better than mediocrity? Shit no.

I just recognize that sense of helplessness and I like people to have hope for something better then the helpless feeling found on some stupid slippery slope.

I also believe there are a shitload of really good people … and I mean good as in talented and good as in heart & soul … who just get caught on the slope and life makes it even more difficult to figure out a way to get off the fucking slope.

Anyway. This quote reminds me of two things.

1. Pay attention to everything. It’s the only way to insure mediocrity can’t gain momentum (because we all have to compromise on occasion)

2. Help those who have that look of “how the hell did I get so far down this slope” by grabbing their hand and pulling them back up whenever you have a chance. There are some incredible people and some incredible talent out there that just got caught on life’s slippery slope. It doesn’t mean they are mediocre by any stretch of the imagination. It is simply that they got caught on the slippery slope and didn’t know how to get off.

Ok. Because I used a Replacements scene as an example of the slippery slope <and a really good scene in the overall perspective of the movie with a good message about second chances and shit like that> I want to end with one more Replacements reference.

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“Greatness, no matter how short, stays with a person forever.”  

gene hackman (replacements)

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We all seek t do something great – be it big or small. For most of us greatness will never be a lifetime tag. In fact for many of us <me for sure> this is a Truth.

But. A great moment? A great action? A great thing? Yeah. We all have it in us. And maybe that is where the slippery slope is such a bastard. Once you have done a couple of ‘just onces’ and you are on the slippery slope that one moment of greatness may appear and, well, that greatness slips by. All your ‘just onces’ cost you a chance at the one ‘once’ that really matters. How does that happen? When you are buried in the suckhole of mediocrity 2 things happen:

(1) your doubt with regard to whether you can actually do the great increases (and doubt creates hesitancy and hesitancy creates, well, missed opportunities),

(2) your slow side into mediocrity convinces everyone around you that you are, well, mediocre – only capable of doing that which is mediocre. this matters because 99% of greatness is attained only with oethr’s assistance. No assistance, no greatness.

All that said.

We shouldn’t dwell on greatness nor that one moment or thing  (for a life is never defined by one moment of greatness). We should invest that ‘dwelling energy’ at doing our best to avoid the slippery slope of mediocrity.

However, I will point out an easy moment of greatness. When someone who has been stuck on the slippery slope and is struggling to get off and just can’t see how to get off and out of the mediocre suckhole, well, reach out, give them a hand, remind them what greatness looks like, point out what makes it happen and what they are capable of. I would argue if you did that, in that moment, in some magical way, you may also have achieved your own moment of greatness.

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“We are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.’

We think we are most ourselves when we are most passioate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived.”

―

Will Durant

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“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.

Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”

—-

Golda Meir

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So.

This is about leadership & leading with an idea.

It would be an understatement to say that the number of ways a leader can lead are so numerous it would most likely take a book to explain them all <and people have certainly tried>. Trying to simplistically suggest “this is the way to lead” is simplistic tripe.

It would be an understatement to say that the number of ways a leader can articulate an idea for people to rally around and follow are so numerous it would most likely take a book to explain them all <and people have certainly tried>. Trying to simplistically suggest “this is the way to share ideas in a meaningful way” is  simplistic tripe.

That said. Today I will talk about leaders and ideas and articulating ideas. Let’s call it “the business idea” leadership challenge. For those of us who have had the fortune, or misfortune, of walking the halls of management in business we have all crossed paths with all the scary tactics and rhetoric associated with leaders who cannot articulate an idea if they actually tried <and most do try>. These are the leaders who do not really have the ability to articulate an idea well enough for the idea to gain traction and be implemented.

……………….. the idea ………………….

I sometimes believe what makes a good leader is the ability to articulate an idea so that <a> people can grasp it, <b> people can envision it as “something” tangible enough to want to hold it and <c> people can attach some emotional connection to it <ranging from ‘I believe’ to ‘passion’>. But many leaders just struggle with idea articulation and use a variety of tricks to present an idea in a way that encourages people to … well … believe in the idea.