Apologies for the deafening silence. I’m still reading a lot but I don’t feel inspired to write about what I’m reading. I have been sharing other sources of happiness and inspiration with the people around me. I figured I can share some of them with you. The inspiration might come from a book, but it can also be a podcast, a YouTube video, music, or a combination of these things.
I’m kicking this off with a podcast. The series is called “A Bit of Optimism” and it’s Simon Sinek’s podcast. I listened to several episodes that seemed interesting from the title and they were all worth saving.
The guests are writers or speakers or business leaders, or people who are a combination of these things. There’s also an episode with his sister that deserves a strong trigger warning and that is both heartbreaking and mesmerizing.
The episode I want to highlight is the one with Brené Brown. Brené is best known for her books “Daring Greatly” and “Braving the Wilderness”, as well as for her TED talks about vulnerability. In the podcast, Brené and Simon talk about their books, vulnerability, the infinite game, and more. The topics they discuss are interesting and worth exploring. But the best thing about the podcast is how they go about discussing their differences of opinion.
Both are respectful towards the other person and their ideas. They genuinely listen when the other person is talking. They also clearly enjoy challenging each other and being challenged by the other person. I listened to the whole thing three times and it made me smile every time.
We all have a maximum amount of success, happiness, and love that we think we deserve. If we surpass that perceived Upper Limit in any of those areas, we will do something that brings us down to a level that we feel comfortable with. That is the premise of The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.
Do you know these moments when you are relaxed, have no urgent worries and are fully present? For a moment you can feel perfectly happy. Usually, that moment doesn’t last long. Our mind will start wandering and we’ll realize that we should be putting the thrash out, or water the plants. Or we start worrying about a work deadline. What would it take to extend that moment of happiness?
When we are in a harmonious relationship and we feel an abundance of love for our partner, we find it very challenging to hold on to that feeling. We start looking for used cups left on a desk or stinky socks on the bathroom floor. Anything to give us an excuse to get into a squabble. Bickering will certainly pop the fairy tale bubble and get us back to reality, where we feel comfortable.
When we are financially successful or successful in our job we might make a rash investment or start criticizing our colleagues. You get the idea. The challenge of The Big Leap is to become aware of your upper limit problem and to learn to catch yourself when you are doing something, or even better, when you are about to do something, to bring yourself down in any area of your life. The ultimate goal, or Universal Success Mantra, is to “expand in abundance, success, and love every day, as we inspire those around us to do the same”.
This might feel over the top and a bit too lofty to you. It does to me. But apart from the big shiny mantra, I do think Gay Hendricks has got us sussed out. We get in our own way to avoid having to live up to our full potential. We don’t believe that we are fast, strong, smart, or special enough to deserve what we secretly desire. We might not even know what it is that we desire.
Do you dare to dream big and out loud? What would you like to do, achieve, or have? Are you actively working towards getting there? Do you have a plan and have you reached out to people who might be able to help? Writing this made me realize that the answer to most of these questions is “no” for me. The goals that I dare to admit I have are either modest or have been there for some time without significant progress to show for them. Don’t get me wrong. I’m doing very well. I have a great job and I work for the best company in the world, I’m enjoying working out a lot and I’m reading more than I dare to admit here. But I already have all of these things and there’s an opportunity to push myself more. I’ll share some of my goals or dreams to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
Run 10km in under 50 minutes. I’ve done this in the past and I can probably do this right now if I would be willing to suffer through it. I’m mostly scared of trying and the amount of suffering involved so I started another training program to get even more ready. I should think about aiming higher.
Balance in a handstand. Why? Just because. There’s a lot of work to be done on this one. I’m enjoying the work and I like the goal. Getting there won’t be life-changing but it’s fun.
Learning to play the piano. I started this 2 years ago. Having first heard and then told myself all my life that while I love music I have absolutely no talent for making music, I’m constantly battling a fixed mindset that tells me I will never be any good. It takes all my discipline not to write that while I absolutely love it, I’m still no good at it. There we go, I managed to sneak it in. I feel relieved but I’ll play worse because of it. A classic example of getting in my own way.
Write more. This has been a topic on and off for a long time. One of the actions I took to make this a reality was to start this blog four years ago. It was a good step. I’ve been able to improve my writing and I still enjoy the journey. I also regularly get to write for work, which makes me feel like I write “for the greater good”. Not for world peace or equality for all. But I get to represent the company and aim to get people engaged in an offering or an initiative, invested in a result, or excited about learning and growing together. I love that challenge and the clear purpose and flow that comes with it. I would still like to write more and I’m still stuck on not knowing what it is that I would like to write. Back to the drawing board. Or writing table.
So where does all this leave us, and me? Reading The Big Leap with an open mind will get you thinking. Even if you don’t want to follow the author to the summit of the journey, the book can provide a proverbial kick up the behind to step out of your comfort zone and think about ways in which you can push yourself more. Writing this post helped me to structure the ideas I had after reading the book and gave me some new insights. I will think about my next steps and I will challenge myself to be bolder in both setting goals and realizing them.
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander describes twelve practices. As so often I was fascinated and inspired by the first half of the book. While most of the practices weren’t completely new to me, the build-up to them and the angle from which they are introduced made me feel excited about trying them.
I don’t think the practices in the second half of the book are less valuable. Maybe I was too impatient. Maybe I should have paused my reading of the book to let the meaning of it and the ideas in it sink in. Or maybe the practices that are discussed in the first half happened to have been closer aligned to the challenges that interest me most right now.
The chemistry between Ros and Ben is clear, even in the writing. The completely different angles from which they approach life and this book lift each other up. The back and forths are highly enjoyable and I wish I could have a conversation with the two of them. Their writing is joyous and inspirational. I hope they are as happy together as they seem to be.
The most important rule described in the book is rule number 6. I’ll share the story that introduces rule number 6 in full. Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk. The resident prime minister admonishes him: “Peter,” he says, “kindly remember Rule Number 6,” whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws. The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by an hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: “Marie, please remember Rule Number 6.” Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: “My dear friend, I’ve seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?” “Very simple,” replies the resident prime minister. “Rule Number 6 is ‘Don’t take yourself so seriously.”‘ “Ah,” says his visitor, “that is a fine rule.” After a moment of pondering, he inquires, “And what, may I ask, are the other rules?” “There aren’t any.”
This might be a silly story but I know a lot of people who could benefit from rule number 6, myself included. The jobs most of us do didn’t exist a hundred years ago. We made them up fairly recently. Hunters and gatherers didn’t have “operations leads” (my job). And yet none of our ancestors ever wished they had or were an operations lead. Just this little fact should be a reason for me to smile at the silliness of it all when I get overwhelmed by the (amount of) work that I feel I have to do.
I tend to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. Not just in work, but in life too. To worry about everyone’s well-being. An especially daunting task these days. I tend to be very hard on myself when I feel I’m not doing a good enough job, when I’m not a kind enough person, when I don’t give everyone the attention that I feel they deserve, when I don’t go running enough, when I skip abs, snack too much, or go to bed too late.
It’s impossible to always be happy and patient and full of energy. The more you feel like you have to be all of these things all of the time, the quicker you’ll drain your energy and feel the opposite. Wouldn’t it be nice to treat life as a game a bit more? I’m saying this and immediately my mind goes to how seriously many of us even take games today. You have to fear for your safety if you support the wrong sports club at the wrong moment in the wrong place, which is ridiculous if you think about it. But let’s be optimistic for a bit.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m learning to play the piano. I’m not talented but I love it and I’m stubborn. Every time I sit down behind the piano it’s an opportunity for expression and growth. I can learn something new and get better. If I mess up I start over and try again. We do the same when we’re playing a sport. When hitting a hundred balls on a tennis court some will be beautiful and others will end up at the bottom of the net. But each ball is an opportunity to try again and get better. How much more fun would life be if we could look at it and ourselves like this? If we could allow ourselves to try things and be ok if they don’t work out. We try, we fall, and we try again. We hopefully learned something. No need to pull ourselves down. Because if we never fail or mess up, we’re almost certainly playing it safe and that means we’re not growing.
I’m practicing to take life as it is, not as I think it should be. When I’m out for a run in the pouring rain – again – I can get frustrated and grumpy. That’s the easy response in that moment. And I can tell you, it’s tempting. But I can also accept the rain. Be grateful that I’m running. Laugh at my feet soaking in my shoes. Laugh at myself for insisting to go for a run despite the dreadful weather. If I start from what is without fleeing, blaming, or attempting to correct it gives so much space and peace of mind. It saves buckets of energy and allows the sky to open up, at least metaphorically.
If you could use a nudge towards acceptance and positivity I highly recommend checking out The Art of Possibility. You’ll get to spend some quality time with Ros and Ben in the process.
I’m writing about a book about writing. I read about writing regularly because I’m always looking to learn something. In Several Short Sentences About Writing, Verlyn Klinkenborg takes the magic out of writing. He breaks down the art of writing into manageable chunks, better known as sentences. He assures us that we don’t have to effortlessly churn out large amounts of text to qualify as a good writer. Even good writers should write one sentence at a time. Many people assume that creativity and precision are at odds with one another. That there is a conflict between scrutinizing and revising your writing and allowing your writing to be interesting and original. This is total nonsense. Even the most creative story is much easier and more pleasant to read if it’s written using strong and well-built sentences.
Klinkenborg warns against paragraphs that effortlessly flow out of your head straight onto the paper or screen. A paragraph like that probably contains one or more sentences that are cliché or redundant. It might sound tedious to write one sentence at a time, but to my surprise, I find it liberating. The task of writing one sentence doesn’t feel overwhelming. I can start writing without knowing what the result will look like. I write a sentence. Then read it back in context. Then I think about ways to improve it. Klinkenborg also advises reading out loud. Reading out loud allows you to understand the rhythm -or lack thereof- in a text. If something sounds funny it needs reworking until there’s a flow.
Once you know how to write, the next question is at least as important. What to write about? The answer is as simple as it is challenging: Anything that interests you. Unfortunately, we have been taught to ignore what interests us. We assume that others have already determined what’s interesting and worth noticing. We don’t ask questions because we don’t want to be seen as difficult. When I’m having a conversation, reading a book, or listening to a webinar, questions might pop-up in my mind, triggered by what I’m hearing or reading. Most of the time I’m not even fully aware of these questions. I don’t consider asking them. Sometimes I realize the missed opportunity later but just as often it doesn’t register at all.
I do notice things but I ignore them. I shelf them away immediately. My noticing is passive. I subconsciously assume that anything I notice will have been noticed by everyone else too. That the world has been completely pre-noticed, sifted, and sorted by everyone else, by people with real authority. This is why it’s so hard to come up with topics to write about. Topics that are original are probably not worth exploring. Otherwise, someone more knowledgeable would have done so. Topics that others have written about are done and dusted. Who am I to assume that my opinion is worth expressing when more qualified people have already expressed theirs?
We need to learn to notice our thoughts and be patient in the presence of them. Don’t dismiss them. Pay attention to the ideas that interest us. Interrogate them. Do more research to broaden or deepen them. Take our time to discover and think. Readers are like us. They will be interested in things that we find interesting. We need to muster up the courage and the audacity to guide them on the journey through our ideas. One sentence at a time.
I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading The Four Agreements but I could not have chosen a better time to read this book. I had had a work-related conversation the week before that had thrown me off balance. I generally don’t have high highs or low lows and I like it that way. I’m not a fan of drama. In any form. I like symmetry and stability. You might call me boring and that’s ok.
The Four Agreements is based on the tradition of the Toltec, a people who were called “men and women of knowledge”. There is quite a bit of talk about god and the spiritual or the divine in the book but in my humble opinion, the main concepts of The Four Agreements don’t need any spirituality. They are powerful concepts in and of themselves. I felt peaceful and happy while reading this book. I wish I could hold on to that feeling but I’ve read enough great books to know that the high from a book doesn’t last. Just like any high really, which is why people get addicted while striving to hold on to that fleeting feeling. Luckily books are a relatively harmless addiction. I generally don’t read books multiple times but I might read this one just once more (spoken like a true addict).
Let’s move on to the book’s contents. As little kids, we were uninhibited. Growing up we learned how we should behave to fit into our society and our styles got cramped. We learned to care about what other people think about us and to be afraid of other people’s judgment. Every judgment expressed to us got engrained deep within our brains. Especially the ones made by the people we love most. A friend of mine made a not very positive comment about me trying to learn to play the piano. It took him about 10 seconds to comment. But it impacted my confidence and enjoyment for more than 2 weeks.
We don’t just suffer judgment and comments. We also judge and comment ourselves. We might feel that a comment is benign. We might mean well. Or perhaps we are angry and we are trying to be mean and hurtful. We don’t realize that our comments can impact the life of our target for years or even decades.
The way we treat and judge ourselves is even worse. We feel guilty, stupid, and unworthy of love and acceptance from ourselves, let alone from others. The lower your self-esteem, the more you will accept that others treat you badly. After all, you’re not worth the kindness of others now are you? We want to be accepted and to be loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves. We have created an image in our minds of what it means to be perfect and we reject ourselves because we can’t live up to that ideal. What we think about ourselves is important. Henry Ford expressed it very well when he said “whether you think you can or you can’t, either way, you’re right.
The four agreements can help us to reclaim some of our freedom and feel less self-conscious. The agreements are:
Be impeccable with your word
Don’t take anything personal
Don’t make assumptions
Do the best you can
Being impeccable with your word means not using words against yourself or others. If you say nice things to someone they will feel good and they will likely say nice things to you and to the next person they interact with. If you say bad things to someone they are likely going to say unfriendly things to you. Both positivity and negativity spread like anthrax. Or coronavirus. Use this understanding to spread kindness and positivity. After all, your opinion about someone is just that, your opinion. There are very few people who are objectively good or bad.
Whatever someone says about you (whether in your face or behind your back) is a reflection of how they are feeling. People saying how great you are or how stupid you are says something about how they are looking at the world and themselves. It has nothing to do with you. Don’t take it personal. This is very hard as our own life revolves around us and we assume other people’s lives also revolve around us. Because of this projection, we are constantly on an emotional rollercoaster that gets set off by what people say to us. To not take things personally you need to constantly moderate your reaction.
The third agreement is “don’t make assumptions” and also requires you to moderate your knee-jerk reactions. No one said this would be easy! We tend to make assumptions about everything. The most famous statement about assumptions is “assumptions are the mother of all fuck-ups” and there is a lot of truth in this. We make assumptions about what other people are doing or thinking or understanding. Then we assume (again) that our assumptions are the truth. How often do you feel someone is judging you? Let me tell you a secret: most people are way too busy with themselves to be thinking about judging you. Often they don’t even notice you. Assumptions also cause a lot of problems in business situations. We assume that we know what the client wants or needs. Instead of asking questions, we draw our own conclusions. Often to find out at the end of a project that our assumptions weren’t aligned with the expectations of the client. Don’t make assumptions. Have an open mind and ask questions.
The first three agreements are all challenging to put into practice. That makes the fourth agreement very important. Just do your best. Don’t judge yourself when you slip up. You’re not a robot and you don’t want to be. You can’t do more than your best. There’s also another side to this agreement. If you are doing something because you have to, it immediately feels like hard work. Whereas if you try to do something as well as you can do it then it becomes more fun. If you force yourself to exercise because you have to and you’re counting down the minutes until you can stop you will dread the exercise. If you just do your best and perhaps try to do a little bit more than you did yesterday you might even (gasp) start to enjoy the challenge.
If you are even a teeny tiny bit inspired by the way I have described the agreements in this post I highly encourage you to read The Four Agreements yourself. I promise that Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills explain them in a way that is a lot (really a lot) more inspiring and moving. I might join you and read it again.
Kalliope's Journey 