expect nothing / accept everything

"I expect nothing and accept everything." This simple personal assertion gets you out of your head and powerfully into your life, out of your thoughts and into your reality.

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself 2023 Day-to-Day Calendar: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life. December 29

the world revolves around change

The world revolves around change. Birth and death, growth and destruction, rise and fall, summer and winter. It’s never the same from one day to another no matter how much it might seem that it is.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice…” – Heraclitus

Our minds would love to predict and plan for everything that’s going to happen. But it’s simply not possible. And these expectations not only have a negative effect on our emotional state, they actually leave us less powerful than we really could be. 

It’s so much more effective to simply take things as they present themselves, to live in the moment (like there’s another moment you could live in), and solve issues and items as they arise, than to constantly expect.

It’s not that I’m anti-planning (I most certainly am not), but the stone-cold attachment to the plan (and all the expectation therein) is a little like falling out of a rowboat and continuing to row even through you have no oars and no boat under you anymore. Your plan (and image) of how this should have gone is no longer relevant but you still struggle to reconcile the space between your expectations and reality. 

Life can be like that at times. On some occasions you have to realize that the game has changed (sometimes dramatically so) and you need to pivot. Deal with your reality.

Wake up, you’re in the water. Stop waving your arms about and paddle to shore, dammit!

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself: Get out of your head and into your life by Gary John Bishop. Harper One. 2017. p.175. 176

root-cause mind-sets

Mind-sets ingrained by past management practices remain ingrained far beyond the existence of the practices that formed them, even when new management practices have been put in place.

Here are three business examples that underscore the perils of ignoring this lesson. Example one: a bank that identified how its high performers succeeded in cross-selling decided to roll out a change program with support scripts and good profiling questions for the other bankers to use—and was dismayed to find that these moves had a negligible impact on sales. A second example: a telco introduced a dramatically simplified process and rating system for performance reviews only to find that its leaders still avoided delivering tough messages. Finally: a manufacturer invested hundreds of millions in a knowledge-management technology platform meant to discourage hoarding and encourage collaboration—only to declare, several months later, that the system had been a complete failure.

In all these examples, the companies did a good job of recognizing the behavioral change needed to achieve the desired goals. Yet they didn’t take the time, or use the tools available, to understand why smart, hard-working, and well-intentioned employees continued to behave as before.

At the bank, for instance, two seemingly good but ultimately performance-limiting mind-sets accounted for the failure of the new sales-stimulation tools and training. The first was “my job is to give the customers what they want”; the second, “I should follow the Golden Rule and treat my customers as I would like to be treated.” At the telco, employees had a deep-seated, reasonable-sounding belief that “criticism damages relationships.” At the manufacturing company, people had an underlying conviction that “around here, information is power, and good leaders are powerful leaders.”

The upshot? By looking at—and acting on—only observable behavior, company leaders overlooked its underlying root causes. Consequently, the change efforts of all three organizations led to disappointment.

Once the root-cause mind-sets are identified, the next step is to reframe those beliefs and thereby expand the range of reasonable behavioral choices employees make, day in and day out. That creates the caterpillar-to-butterfly effect described earlier. Would different beliefs, for example, have inspired expanded and better-informed behavioral choices for average-performing bankers? If so, which beliefs? Suppose they believed that their job—indeed, the way they add value for others—was to “help customers fully understand their needs” rather than “giving customers what they want.” Also, what if instead of applying the “Golden Rule,” bankers applied the “Platinum Rule”: treating others as they (rather than bankers) want to be treated.

And what if the telco executives, in their performance-management discussions, had believed that “honesty—combined with respect—doesn’t damage relationships; in fact, it is essential to building strong ones”? And what if the manufacturing managers had thought that “sharing information rather than hoarding is the best way to magnify power”? Had they believed that, the company very likely wouldn’t have needed an expensive (and ultimately futile) knowledge-management system to help employees reach out to one another and share best practices.

Beneath each of the reframes described above, it’s important to note, lies a deeper shift in worldview. For example, moving from the giving-customers-what-they-want mind-set to helping them fully understand what they really need reflects a move from subordinate to peer. Recognizing that honesty builds rather than destroys relationships reflects a shift from victimhood to mastery. And choosing to believe that power is expanded by sharing information, not that hoarding information is power, focuses on abundance, not scarcity.

"Getting personal about change," by Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger. McKinsey Quarterly. August 21, 2019. 

wisdom is missing

Growing up in Athens, I was brought up on the classics and the Greek myths. They were taught to me not as ancient history, as my children learned them in their American classrooms, but as my personal roots and the source of my identity. Athena was the goddess of wisdom, and, for me, the idea of wisdom is forever identified with her — weaving together strength and vulnerability, creativity and nurturing, passion and discipline, pragmatism and intuition, intellect and imagination, claiming them all, the masculine and the feminine, as part of our essence and expression.

Today we need Athena’s wisdom more than ever. She breathes soul and compassion — exactly what has been missing — into the traditionally masculine world of work and success. Her emergence, fully armed and independent, from Zeus’s head, and her total ease in the practical world of men, whether on the battlefield or in the affairs of the city; her inventive creativity; her passion for law, justice, and politics — they all serve as a reminder that creation and action are as inherently natural to women as they are to men. Women don’t need to leave behind the deeper parts of themselves in order to thrive in a male- dominated world. In fact, women — and men, too — need to reclaim these instinctual strengths if they are to tap into their inner wisdom and redefine success.

Wisdom is precisely what is missing when — like rats in the famous experiment conducted by B. F. Skinner more than fifty years ago — we press the same levers again and again even though there is no longer any real reward. By bringing deeper awareness into our everyday lives, wisdom frees us from the narrow reality we’re trapped in — a reality consumed by the first two metrics of success, money and power, long after they have ceased to fulfill us. Indeed, we continue to pull the levers not only after their diminishing returns have been exhausted, but even after it’s clear they’re actually causing us harm in terms of our health, our peace of mind, and our relationships. Wisdom is about recognizing what we’re really seeking: connection and love. But in order to find them, we need to drop our relentless pursuit of success as society defines it for something more genuine, more meaningful, and more fulfilling.

Arianna Huffington

"Why We Need Wisdom More Than Ever," by Arianna Huffington. Thrive Global. November 30, 2016. Excerpt from Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder pp. 116–130. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World.

to be stronger men

Oh, do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work will be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. 

Phillips Brooks

Christ the Life and Light. Dutton. 1905. p. 209.  As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World. 

knowledge shared

Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied. 

Robert Noyce

The Manager's Communication Handbook by David Cottrell. 2003. 

trust and share

Leaders must share as openly as possible, erring on the side of sharing more information with more people, more of the time. Sharing requires that leaders trust in the people around them. A great leader once told me, “You should trust the people who work for you, and if you don’t trust them, they shouldn’t work for you.”

Tracy Brower

"Knowledge Is Power, But Not In the Way You Think," Forbes. December 12, 2018

our deepest fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Marianne Williamson

A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles", Harper Collins, 1992. From Chapter 7, Section 3. 

The famous passage from her book is often erroneously attributed to the inaugural address of Nelson Mandela. About the misattribution Williamson said, "Several years ago, this paragraph from A Return to Love began popping up everywhere, attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural address. As honored as I would be had President Mandela quoted my words, indeed he did not. I have no idea where that story came from, but I am gratified that the paragraph has come to mean so much to so many people."

having better arguments

THE BETTER ARGUMENTS PROJECT—a civic initiative founded by Allstate, The Aspen Institute, Facing History and Ourselves, and the Bezos Family Foundation to help bridge divides—was built on the belief that arguments are fundamental to healthy civic life. To effectively address divisions in our society, it proposes we have better arguments, not fewer.

The project characterizes better arguments as emotionally intelligent, rooted in history, and honest about power imbalances. Using five principles for engagement—taking winning off the table, prioritizing relationships, paying attention to context, embracing vulnerability, and making room to transform—the project provides a framework for people to engage with each other on divisive issues.

"How Do We Build a Better Society? Have Better Arguments" The Atlantic (sponsored by Allstate)

See also: https://betterarguments.org/

when we have a vision of what we can become

How do we develop desires? Few will have the kind of crisis that motivated Aron Ralston, but his experience provides a valuable lesson about developing desires. While Ralston was hiking in a remote canyon in southern Utah, an 800-pound (360 kg) rock shifted suddenly and trapped his right arm. For five lonely days he struggled to free himself. When he was about to give up and accept death, he had a vision of a three-year-old boy running toward him and being scooped up with his left arm. Understanding this as a vision of his future son and an assurance that he could still live, Ralston summoned the courage and took drastic action to save his life before his strength ran out. He broke the two bones in his trapped right arm and then used the knife in his multitool to cut off that arm. He then summoned the strength to hike five miles (8 km) for help. What an example of the power of an overwhelming desire! When we have a vision of what we can become, our desire and our power to act increase enormously.

Dallin Oaks

"Desire," General Conference. April 2011

strength

O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.

Isabella to Angelo in Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare. Act 2, Sc. 2

the balance between giving and taking

Gauge the balance between giving and taking. Givers offer assistance, share knowledge, and focus on introducing and helping others. Takers attempt to get other people to do something that will ultimately benefit them, while they act as gatekeepers of their own knowledge.

[Adam] Grant’s conclusion is clear: a willingness to help others is not just the essence of effective cooperation and innovation — it is also the key to accelerating your own performance.

Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg

"Help Your Team Do More Without Burning Out" Harvard Business Review. Oct. 15, 2018

humble people

There's an allure about humble people. They exude greater power, influence and persuasion than their overly-talkative brethren because, well, nobody likes hearing the same voice time and again. If you're compelled to speak for fear of not being heard otherwise, then the greater question is “Why does that fear exist?” There needs to be a firm foundation of trust to be heard so everybody knows their best interests are held. Without trust, the tendency is to shy away from we and instead focus on me. Not ideal.

Jeff Boss

"These Leadership Lessons From The SEAL Teams Are Universal For Any Industry" Forbes. Mar. 2, 2017

don't waste energy complaining

There's a big difference between complaining and problem-solving. Venting to your friends, family, and co-workers keeps you focused on the problem and prevents you from creating a solution. Grumbling not only implies you have no power over your situation, but also shows you lack power over your attitude.

Amy Morin

"9 Ways to Avoid Giving Away Your Personal Power" Inc.com. Dec. 21, 2015

retaining your power

Saying your boss makes you feel bad about yourself gives that person power over your emotions. And declaring you have to go to your mother-in-law's house for dinner gives her power over your behavior. Retaining your power is about acknowledging that you are in control over how you think, feel, and behave at all times.

Amy Morin

"13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do" inc.com. Apr. 4, 2017

carried his own bags

In his new position as secretary of defense, General James Mattis has assumed control of the world's largest and most powerful military. Mattis is now in command of a military made up of nearly one-and-a-half-million people spread across the entire globe. The General is inarguably one of the most powerful men in the world.

Yet, the renown “Warrior Monk” seemingly remains as humble and modest as he's always been.

When Secretary of Defense James Mattis was boarding his flight to South Korea early Wednesday morning, he did something unprecedented for someone in his position. Mattis carried his own bags onto the plane. Embarking on his first overseas trip as Secretary of Defense, Mattis sent a clear message about his leadership style.

To see someone so powerful carrying their own bags may be surprising to some, but to people familiar with the famed “Warrior Monk,” it was all but expected....

This isn't anything new for Secretary Mattis. Stretching far back into his days in the Marine Corps, Mattis has long been praised for being a servant-leader and always putting the needs of his subordinates before himself.

Perhaps no better story can describe this characteristic of Secretary Mattis than when he opted to spend Christmas on base at Quantico so the young Marine originally scheduled to do so could be home with his family. General Charles Krulak, then the Commandant of the Marine Corps, had stopped by the base to deliver cookies and was shocked to find Mattis on duty. Not only had Secretary Mattis given up his holiday for a young Marine, he hadn't told anyone. He simply did it because he knew it was right.

Josh Billinson

"This One Thing Secretary Mattis Does Separates Him from the Rest of Washington's Powerful". IJR News.  Feb. 1, 2017.

from success to significance

Many people, as they go through life, focus mainly on success. To them, success is represented by wealth, recognition, and power and status. Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting those things, as long as you don’t think that’s who you are. But I’d like you to focus on the opposite of each of those things as you strive to move from success to significance.

What’s the opposite of accumulating wealth? It’s generosity—of your time, talent, treasure, and touch (reaching out to support others). What’s the opposite of recognition? It’s service. And what’s the opposite of power and status? It’s loving relationships.

If you focus only on success—wealth, recognition, and power and status—you will never reach significance. That’s the problem with self-serving leaders; they have a hard time getting out of their own way. But if you focus on significance—generosity, service, and loving relationships—you’ll be amazed at how much success will come your way. Take Mother Teresa, for example. She couldn’t care less about wealth, recognition, or status. Her whole life was focused on significance. And what happened? Success came her way. Her ministry received tremendous financial backing, she was recognized all over the world, and she was given the highest status wherever she went. Mother Teresa was the ultimate servant leader. If you focus on significance first, your emphasis will be on serving others—and success and results will follow.

Life is all about the choices we make as we interact with others. We can choose to be serving or self-serving. Life constantly presents us with opportunities to choose to love and serve one another.

Someone once said to my wife, Margie, “You’ve lived with Ken for more than 50 years. What do you think leadership is all about?”

Margie said, “Leadership isn’t about love—it is love. It’s loving your mission, loving your customers, loving your people, and loving yourself enough to get out of the way so that other people can be magnificent.”

That’s what servant leadership is all about.

Ken Blanchard

"Moving from Success to Significance". KenBlanchardBooks.com.  January 24, 2018. 

natural subversion

The work of art, as Springsteen puts it, is “natural subversion.” It is through art that the unspeakable and the unheard find a voice. Establishment leaders might praise and pay for art, but they cannot control it. That is why the artist’s leadership is usually trustworthy: It either speaks to and for people, or it has no power at all.

Gianpiero Petriglieri

"Bruce Springsteen, Artful Leadership, and What Rock Star Bosses Do". Harvard Business Review. 9/27/2017

having skin in the game

Over the entrance to a small paelstra –– a wrestling school — in ancient Greece was emblazoned this short phrase: Strip or Retire.

During this period, men competed in sports and exercised in the nude. Thus the inscription served as a challenge to each man entering the gymnasium: come in, participate, and struggle — or keep out. Mere spectators were not welcome.

To be part of this wrestling school, you were literally required to put your skin in the game.

In antiquity, such a requirement extended far beyond athletics; a man could not participate in civic life, business transactions, war, or philosophical debates unless he had metaphorical skin in the game — unless he was willing to risk his life, and what was even more valuable, his honor....

In times past, those in power accrued both privileges and responsibilities — with greater status came greater exposure to risk. It was surely good to be king, but you also had the “Sword of Damocles” hanging over you; your decisions could bring dire consequences, and people were always gunning to take you down. Military generals, rulers, criminal bosses, and even prominent writers and scientists accepted both greater status, and with it the persistent stress, fear, and anxiety of failing and making the wrong move.

In the modern age, this dynamic has been flipped. As philosopher Nassim Taleb argues in Antifragile: “At no point in history have so many non-risk-takers, that is, those with no personal exposure, exerted so much control.”...

In contrast to those who keep the upside of risk-taking while foisting the downside on others, are those who continue to stake their very reputation and whole being on their words and actions. Among those with skin in the game; entrepreneurs, business owners, artists, citizens, writers, and laboratory and field experimenters (as opposed to scientists and researchers who work only in the realms of theory, observation, and data-mining). These are the folks who take their own risks, and keep both their own upside and their own downside.

There is also a tier above this group — those rarified few who have put not only skin, but soul in the game. These are they who take risks, accept potential harm and hardship, and invest themselves in something not only for their own sake, but on behalf of others. These are the folks who make up the heroic class. Included amongst those with soul in the game; saints, warriors, prophets, philosophers, innovators, maverick scientists, journalists who expose fraud and corruption, great writers, artists, and even some artisans who add insight and meaning to our cultural storehouse through their craftsmanship and wares. Rebels, dissidents, and revolutionaries of all kinds are also of course worthy of the title....

Influencing others without skin in the game is dishonorable. As [philosopher Nassim] Taleb succinctly puts it: “I find it profoundly unethical to talk without doing, without exposure to harm, without having one’s skin in the game, without having something at risk. You express your opinion; it can hurt others (who rely on it), yet you incur no liability. Is this fair?”...

That greater participation and/or power requires greater skin in the game is truly one of the fundamental tenets of human morality.

There is no growth and joy without risk and struggle. While putting one’s skin in the game is both moral and honorable, it is not an entirely altruistic endeavor. It also greatly benefits yourself — not always monetarily (though it can), but in refining your character and your manliness. Manhood is struggle — full stop. Outsourcing the risk side of your pursuits puts you in the position of spectator rather than doer. As Jay B. Nash writes in Spectatoritis, while sitting in the stands is safer, it is far less satisfying than being in the arena.

Brett and Kate McKay

Strip or Retire: Why Every Man Should Have Skin in the Game. The Art of Manliness. 8/9/2015

5 P's of ethical power

One of my favorite books is The Power of Ethical Management, written by Ken Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale. In their book, Blanchard and Peale discuss the five principles of ethical decision-making which they call the “Five P’s of Ethical Power.”...

Purpose—Your purpose is the road you choose to travel, the meaning and direction of your life. It’s the driving force of why you do what you do. For some it may be rooted in their spiritual faith. Others may find their purpose is something they feel called to do, such as serving those in need, raising responsible children, or leaving the world a better place than they found it. Aligning the activities of your life according to your purpose gives you a clear sense of direction, so when you’re faced with challenging circumstances or difficult decisions, you’re able to filter those occasions through the lens of your purpose and make choices that keep you on track.

Pride—Unlike false pride, which stems from a distorted sense of self-importance that causes people to believe and act like they are better than others, a healthy sense of pride springs from a positive self-image and confidence in one’s abilities. A proper sense of pride mixed with a good dose of humility is the balance you’re seeking. Being driven by false pride causes you to seek the approval and acceptance of others which can overly influence you to take the easy way out when faced with a tough situation.

Patience—Patience is in short supply in our culture. We live in a hyper-connected, instantaneous world where virtually anything we want is just a click away. Blanchard and Peale describe patience as having a faith and belief that things will work out well, as long as we stick to our values and principles. Giving in to instant gratification is one of the biggest temptations we face and it causes us to make decisions that aren’t in alignment with our purpose and values. Enduring the struggles and challenges life throws our way helps develop the strength of our character. Much like prematurely opening a caterpillar cocoon leads to a weakened and under-developed butterfly, choosing the path of expediency leaves us with an under-developed character and weakens our ethical power.

Persistence—This component of ethical power is about staying the course and remaining true to your purpose and values. Persistence is about commitment, not interest. When you have interest in something, you do it when it’s convenient. When you’re committed, you do it no matter what! One of my favorite “Yoda-isms” from the Star Wars movies is “Do or do not. There is no try.” When it comes to making ethical decisions, there is never a right time to do the wrong thing. Persistence keeps us on the straight and narrow path.

Perspective—All the other elements of ethical power emanate from the core of perspective. Perspective is about having the big picture view of situations and understanding what’s truly important. Too often we make snap decisions in the heat of the moment and neglect to step back and examine the situation from a bigger perspective. Maintaining the proper perspective is also about paying attention to our inner-self and not just our task-oriented outer-self. Taking the time to enter each day with prayer, meditation, exercise, or solitude helps foster self-reflection which is needed to help us maintain the right perspective about life.

Randy Conley

"Got Ethics? The 5 Principles of Ethical Leaders" Leading with Trust. 6/12/2016

Taken from the book The Power of Ethical Management by by Ken Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale. Harper Collins, 1988