I’m staring at my shoes again. I am a footwear aficionado. It’s the butter-colored laces that define me.
I’ve never been more alone.
The analog skin of my 44mm ceramic Apple Watch Series 5 is frozen at 4:04. Tiny hands holding my future hostage. Rage retreats behind a trembling terror.
Stop crying. Remember how to breathe.
Recite mantra: you are more than where you are. Erase the memory of how I got here and where I thought I was going.
This nightmare will never end. Eyelids beyond my strength to lift.
Wet soil swallows me to my ankles. Primordial parasites feast on my middle-aged flesh. It will be a slow inconsequential death.
Immediately overtaken by the impluse to cum but the thought of mud-drenched tennies turns the blood in my shaft to liquid nitrogen.
This is not a dream. Today yet another cheap remake of yesterday. Diminishing returns deposited daily into a vast neural network of vainglorious self-loathing.
I haven’t always been 41 but as long as I can remember I have been:
Untrustworthy with a weapon unable to hunt can’t fish have a blog I don’t write in shop at natural grocers drive a financed Subaru watch porn meditate vote Republican cry at the movies fuck single moms with high body counts go to therapy to cry about the movies I cry at and the women I can’t fall in love with.
I swear to Christ I have no idea who did this to me but I know I can’t do forty more years of grandiosity suspended in lethargy.
I’ll drag the razor across my wrist on Denali in the spring. Sacrifice my flesh to feed grizzly cubs. No search and rescue will be deployed. Life insurance will pay my auto loan. FMLife insurance lapsed I’ll have to postpone till next year.
I’m breathing normally now but I once held it for 37 years. Then, one afternoon, violently exhausted a seething vitriol in the direction of my 75-year-old father casually sitting across the dinner table from me at the time. It was a fatally slow burn. His heart stopped four years later pulling him unnaturally from his bike onto his neck. He died almost instantly.
I am going to die on the shitter with perfect abs watching my only two bitcoins go to zero staring blankly into the fertile faces of every woman I failed to love.
This is reality. Reality is an abstraction. Especially her, the one who got away. She appears to me now in grotesque twilight while I grope to caffeinate her from my consciousness.
She’s wearing a flower print dress with a small mustard stain on the shoulder strap, a sunflower in a field of poppies. Supple ladies lactating in biological response to the crying toddler holstered on her back.
There’s a sprinkler. I look down. Shoes washed clean.
I roll over and pen my plan to win her. It doesn’t sound grandiose against the chorus of crickets outside the aluminum-framed bedroom window.
Renounce all other women retain all semen write this manifesto buy a gun enroll in BJJ surgically remove my tear ducts quit therapy stop going to the movies get a hobby that requires other men but doesn’t require their wives’ approval – maybe fishing, pay off debt get insured edit my blog into the next great American memoir of early morning revelries.
What do you think?
Spent 1st half of life playing victim – dad didn’t love me, sister was murdered, wife didn’t see my pain, kids didn’t respect me, boss didn’t understand…
Dead end, scorched earth
2nd half starts now with lessons learned & the courage that comes from battles won inside
No son thinks of a day when his dad isn’t there. For a young man, his father is a fixed entity who will go on forever – whether he likes it or not – moving the world to make it safe for the tribe.
A son imagines growing to be the man his father would be proud of, stepping either into his shoes or over them, but never absent his influence. His father is like gravity to his young consciousness, inescapably drawing him into the form he must become.
And now my dad is dead and I am left to finally answer the question every father demands of their sons:
‘Who are you without me?’
-fathers to their sons-
But without you here, the answer I worked all those years for now eludes me, leaving behind a mixture of anger and desperation in its wake.
Like the man who traveled a long distance to end up where he began, holding only a map to nowhere.
I started working towards autonomy around the age of twelve when I landed my first five-figure job. Around that same age, I began regularly testing my physical limits via manual labor, various athletics, general fitness, and diet. As a sophomore in high school, I weathered my first ‘La Noche Obscura,’ with a half-dozen more to follow over the years, each time emerging more spiritually whole. Mentally and emotionally, I have done my fucking work wrestling my shadows.
Bike Crash
Relentlessly I strived,
getting up early to grind.
Even sat on the cushion and cried,
refusing the instinct to hide.
And now you rode off and died
leaving me untied.
Yet, beyond the burning horizon of my anger, I know there’s more to our story than a dead end.
I know a man’s journey is helix shaped, stretching out as we circle round, and that I am neither lost nor defeated. I know that your passing has indeed brought me home, that this is a good thing and brings with it another, richer perspective.
I know that I can now hold a looking glass to our history and absorb whatever it is I see without a point to protect.
I can now see how you maintained a silent steadiness about you, consistently working away like a windmill to deliver power to those nearby. I see how you would engage with almost anyone who rode your bus but chose your circle carefully. I see where you would measure a man’s intentions against his contributions, weighing his character in the balance. I see how you searched for the truth behind the facade and freely shared all you could discern. I see that you pressed on down the trail of life, striving for inner stillness through tireless motion. I see whenever you fell, you got up.
All except this last fall from your fat tire Specialized. The fall which claimed your life on the banks of the Minnesota River at age 79. From this fall it is I who must get up on your behalf.
So get up I will.
Rest in peace pops, Happy Father’s Day.
My father was a hard man. He intentionally did hard things, often avoiding the ‘smart path’ to insure he never took the easy one.
He died on Thursday at age 79 while riding his fat tire bike on a dirt trail which lined the north bank of the Minnesota River near the Blackdog… pic.twitter.com/psSKC5aHmV
Pop culture tells me I ought to love myself and thrive but my imprinted degenerate prefers self-loathing to survive.
So instead of offering you a heartwarming love story, here’s yet another cautionary tale from yet another dysfunctional dreamer. I do promise, in my telling, to refrain from all woe-is-me-isms, both general and specific gnashings of teeth, and bro-hemian style sausagry of any kind. What you have here is just a simple serving of the facts with a side or two of retrospect baked in for anyone craving deeper nourishment, petulant as it may be.
The relationship could be summarized with four basic strokes: it began with a brush stroke, then some key strokes, followed by a bunch of breast strokes, and culminating in one abrupt back stroke.
I’ll explain more below, but suffice to say here, I loved her from the first and, in fact, still do. So much so, I fell to pieces and pushed her away. Hear me out, I know it sounds dumb, but let me explain, I bet it’ll be instructive or at least entertaining.
Returning to the self-loathing I mentioned above, it’s not just imprinted, but insidious as well for when the sun shines brightest, most subtle then are the shadows. What I mean is, my demons dress like daytime deities and soothe like sirens. So the sweeter life starts to look, the more happiness I’m stacking, the more them demons really get to schemin’.
for when the sun shines brightest, most subtle then are the shadows
Like, for example, when I fall in love. Right when it starts getting momentum, that’s when the feelings of anxiety, inadequacy, and insecurity creep in claiming she brought them. Gnawing away at the edges of my confidence until I’m convinced the best thing to do for both of us is to break it off (back stroke).
Spoiler: as it turns out, you can’t project deep-seated internal narratives onto other people, cut those people out of your life, and hope the narratives don’t bother you anymore. My Christian history should have taught me this as even the salvation equation requires an ongoing relationship in exchange for mercy.
you can’t project deep-seated internal narratives onto other people, cut those people out of your life, and hope the narratives don’t bother you anymore
But I’m now a couple strokes ahead of myself.
So what happened was, she stole my heart with her art. No, seriously.
It was a late afternoon in early autumn when I saw a painting of an old friend of mine on Insta that looked like it knew him better than I did (brush stroke). Bonus: the artist was tagged in the post, single, and smokin’ hot. That was more than enough for me, I needed to know her, or at least know that she knew how talented she is.
Into her DM’s I dove (key stroke). Surprisingly enough, right back she responded. We exchanged a few messages and even set up dinner and an art show later that week. I was stoked. Unbeknownst to me, my baggage was about to begin unpacking itself in a full force feindish frenzy.
She arrived at my place precisely two minutes ahead of schedule in a dress I’ll never forget. But it was her eyes that sealed my fate. Somewhere between green and blue stirred a sea of wonderment breaking hard against all attempts at composure. Then she smiled and I exhaled, realizing too late that I was clammy and the vibe awkward. ‘Come on in,’ I managed while leading her to the dinner table, buying time to collect myself while shifting the focus to highlight my homemade handiwork.
Perched on the table was a less than memorable meal of more-than-bite-size beef stew, crusty cornbread, and a crème that wouldn’t brûlée due to failure of the culinary torch (likely operator error). She was graceful. We joked and took turns teasing each other until my cheeks were sore from smiling. Two hours passed as effortlessly as the levity in our laughter. Time to hit the art show.
Perched on the table was a less than memorable meal of bigger-than-bite-size beef stew, crusty cornbread, and a crème brûlée that wouldn’t brûlée
I don’t remember much from the show aside from how sweet the fruity pebble cocktail we shared at Glacier Chocolate was and how natural it felt to take her hand in mine. We walked and talked and didn’t look at a single piece of artwork. Nothing could draw our attention from each other. At the end of the evening, I closed my eyes and went in for a kiss, which landed, and sparked a physical chemistry that would prove electric (breast stroke).
A couple of weeks later we made it FB official. A few days after that we held each other close and exchanged, ‘I love you’s.’ This was the first time these words had passed audibly through my lips in over seven years to anyone other than my three children. I fell hard and I fell fast.
She had recently taken the plunge out of corporate America to focus 100% on two things: her art and her daughter. That was crazy sexy to me as I was contemplating something similar with my writing but was still too scared to launch. We started to imagine a future together with our kids crawling over canvas’ in a country homestead, her painting, me writing, no one fully dressed. I remembered what it felt like to not be alone. A problem I hadn’t even realized I had seemed suddenly solved. We planned a weekend getaway to Broken Bow to celebrate our new relational wealth. Life was all heat and light, at least for a hot minute.
We started to imagine a future together with our kids crawling over canvas’ in a country homestead, her painting, me writing, no one fully dressed.
Insert insecurities. I told myself that it was for the best, but the reality was I lost my cool with my boss who turned me over to HR, first for a suspension, then separation. For the second time in as many years I found myself involuntarily terminated without a plan. You could say the universe was helping me into the entrepreneurial world, which helped to make me feel better but did little to pay the rent. The funk had found it’s way in and wouldn’t fight fair going forward.
To my credit, I did push back a little against the demons. For a while at least. The experience was like playing catch with a boomerang, only the boomerang is outfitted with a running chainsaw that explodes if you hold it too long or put it down. For example, I would notice myself in a funk and, rather than blaming her, would evaluate my environment. Often one of my support legs would be broken, like my diet or workout routine, at which point I would work to repair it before the funky boomerang came back and chopped off another one.
The experience was like playing catch with a boomerang, only the boomerang is outfitted with a running chainsaw that explodes if you hold it too long or put it down.
After several rounds of this behind-the-scenes battle, I began to slip into a suspicion that it was the relationship itself that was doing the damage. Not my employment situation, mood disorder, or traumatic history correlated with this time of year. Instead, I began to entertain the doubt, ‘Maybe this isn’t my future?’ And, ‘Haven’t I got into trouble in the past when ignoring my gut?’
Looking back from my current vantage point and given the self-work I had yet to do, it feels like it was always destined to fail. Like the demons just gave themselves a sixty-day handicap to make more of a sport out of it. Whatever the case, the lesson landed, which was, ‘Your ass belongs to us.’
75 days after our first date I succumbed to a feeling of utter powerlessness and quit, over text.
Young Pablo
Not that it always has to be that way. In the future, I could work a program in cooperation with my partner, much like the one above where the couple stands to get stronger, not weaker, during tough times.
You both wholeheartedly agree that loving each other incredibly well and healing yourselves should be your top priority
Since it’s still fresh I find myself yet digging, but I think that’s the real lesson my demons didn’t see coming.
Relationship work happens in real life, not in my head and no matter how strong the demons feel, their only staying power is that which I concede in isolation.
I’ll sign off for now, but drop this heavy heart a healing line and let me know how your relationship handles conflict. Let’s get some ’22 momentum rolling in the right direction.
ANARAE – you have been on my mind, as you always are, this time of year. Sadly, we can’t spend your 29th birthday together, so I have chosen to type out my thoughts and, even if I can’t hold you while you read them, perhaps they will wrap themselves around another, warming them in hope or help or healing, as you were so apt to do, in even the most unlikely of moments.
I love you Anarae.
I don’t mean in the conventional, familial, expected-because-we-share-blood kind of way. I don’t mean it in the sappy, manufactured, Hallmark way. Nor in the distant, 1000-yard-smile way that you probably remember from your childhood as I, a decade older, ran off to chase girls my age leaving you behind to work on your chess game. And most definitely not in the sentimental, ‘love-what-you-can-no-longer-have,’ kind of way.
See, love has taken on an entirely new meaning in my life of late. It feels as if a fortress of stone has crumbled down from around my heart, opening me up to a new type of existence, one defined by gratitude, peace, and joy. My entire being has begun moving into this space as if it were a seasoned traveler taking a new trail in an ancient wood. As I feel my way through fresh, yet familiar surroundings, I have begun to taste the reality of all you have taught me, of how you have cared for, even carried me through, so much darkness over the eight years since your passing, a darkness that I all too often blamed on your untimely departure.
But, as you know, nothing which happens in the past can be at fault for actions taken in the present. I am sorry for carrying so much pain and heartache in your name for so many years. I know now it was your presence, your spirit, and your compassion that, through it all, was gently and patiently warming the cold embers of my heart inside a healing hearth.
Today, looking back with eyes you helped open, I struggle even to see the sorrow separate from the saving.
I love you Anarae.
I love you through and through. I love you raw – unguarded, unfiltered, and unapologetically. I love you with the same love that created the universe and moves it still – day, night, heaven, hell, pleasure, pain, and everything in between. And, even though we fell short of consciously sharing this bond while you were still here, I need you to know I feel you now.
game changer
But more than my feelings about you and life as a whole, I want to share back what you’ve taught me, my top three transformative takeaways if you will. Call it my moment to admit a small but rewarding defeat as if to finally throw my hands up and say, ‘Yes Anarae, I hear you.’ See, even this stubborn ole mule can grow up for the better, despite, or rather because of, your unrelenting nagging. So, for your birthday this year, I give you my top three, attempting yet again to take credit for your work while throwing but a few sparse accolades back in your direction:
1. acceptance is not surrender
2. the destination is the journey
3. hope is happening
top 3 transformative takeaways over the 8 years since your passing on to a new plane
getting together
–acceptance is not surrender–
Anarae – you are the most accepting person I have known and that is not just my opinion, everyone agrees. You had a way of drawing out the best in people and, like a self-fulfilling prophecy of awesome, pointing to it and saying, ‘See, I knew you had it in you!’ This was most especially annoying when you did it to me despite my best efforts at resistance.
Maybe it was the ten-year age gap, but in our years together, I had a different relationship with the concept of acceptance, one which seemed to be hardening like petrified wood as I ‘matured.’ So, it would be fair to say neither of us were surprised by my hesitation to embrace you dating anyone, much less an ex-con whom you were convinced was on a path of reformation, one whom you believed you were chosen to support. You accepted, I resisted.
Harder yet to accept was the ‘I-told-you-so-reality’ of his taking of your life less than a year later, a pill so alive with hatred, agony, and utter despair it took several years for me to fully digest and almost swallowed me whole more than once.
Back then, I had yet to learn that you become the ideas and emotions you swallow, the spiritual equivalent of the old adage, ‘You are what you eat.’ I was clinging desperately to my idea of justice, as well as the emotions of what should have been had you just listened to me, had the bar not let you in as a minor, had the cops acted more quickly, had the world been a better place. And on and on. I felt righteous, believing that if I simply held on tighter to my version of what should have been that I could actually change the past. If only I just kept pushing.
So push on I did. I pushed my wife of eight years to divorce me, I pushed away from my three young children for almost a year, I missed my brother’s wedding, went broke, and landed in jail for DUI. Hatred of my history was eating my future from the inside out. I needed to change my diet, it was time to let go of my resistance and begin exploring the acceptance that came so naturally for you.
‘Hatred of my history was eating my future from the inside out.’
It wasn’t easy, especially as stubborn as I am, and as wounded as I was, but I began to let new ideas and emotions in which lead to new experiences, new beliefs, and in time, the new way of being I describe above. So much so, that a month ago, on the anniversary of your death, I finally accepted the man who took your life, and fully forgave him.
No more hate. No more agony. No more despair. I could breathe again. I was both lighter and stronger than before. Strong enough to accept that the differences between Shavelle and me (pictured above) pale in comparison to the likenesses and that only love has the power to heal us both. Turns out, accepting a difficult history and forgiving the man who took so much from our family wasn’t surrender at all. In fact, it may turn out to be the greatest triumph of my life for never again will darkness be able to gain such a footing on my heart.
Accept your past, fall in love with it even, lest it limit your future
–the destination is the journey–
Anarae, you mastered chess at a very young age and stuck with it, going on to compete nationally and racking up an impressive array of hardware in the process. But it wasn’t the trophies you were after. You loved chess itself, checkmate being just a passing mile-marker on the road of endless games, growth, and gratitude.
The irony being that the most celebrated masters of any discipline tend to be the ones who, rather than obsessing over the podium, relish in the repetition of relentless practice, and focus on the gritty day-in-day-out grind and the lessons it has to offer. You mastered this approach not just in chess but in life as well.
When you were tutoring younger kids in math or chess, you focused on the relationship, not the test result, working to ensure the student felt safe and secure enough to succeed. It was the same with sports and musical endeavors, you innately sought out and nurtured the tender moments, surfacing the sweet from the sweat of struggle. You knew how to work hard and have so much fun in the process that, from the outside, it looked like you were hardly working.
‘you innately sought out and nurtured the tender moments, surfacing the sweet from the sweat of the struggle’
I, on the other hand, was more apt to sprint to the finish line only to start another race. School was about the shortest path to the highest marks, sports about earning the letter, friends more about what circle they ran in over who they really were, work was about the money, and on and on. In fact, I remember at a job interview in my early 20’s, not long after moving back home from college, a total stranger after speaking with me for only a few minutes, interrupted me to say, ‘I don’t think you in this role is a fit for either of us at the moment and if I had one piece of advice to give you young man, it would be to SLOW DOWN.’ I always had a suspicion that you had secretly set up the interview and told him to say that.
Whatever the case, fifteen years later, I am beginning to listen. I am teaching myself to cook and how to laugh and learn through all the delicious missteps. I am back in the weight room, this time for the enjoyment of pushing myself more than the muscles. I am reading and writing almost as much as when I was a kid and for the same reason; because I enjoy it. I am even letting Max and Christian teach me how to skateboard at age 39, mainly as an excuse to get to hang out with them all day at the park, but also to show them that it is ok to suck and keep trying.
It must be that at some point not long ago I accepted the fact that the roses are going to smell good with or without me, so I might as well slow down enough to add that small joy to my life. That working hard wasn’t worth it unless I could find the fun and share it with others. And that each goal, dream, and destination is just the starting point of the journey to the next one. Or, to summarize, moving slow and steady down an endless, uncharted, but chosen path is infinitely more likely to produce happiness than sprinting along the provided public pavement.
‘each goal, dream, and destination is just the starting point of the journey to the next one’
–hope is happening–
A former leader of mine, whom I very much respected at the time and still do, once introduced himself to an auditorium full of hard-working, blue-collar machine operators, technicians, and floor leaders by saying, ‘Hope is not a strategy.’ He then paused, instinctively waiting for the moment to land, and land it did, to snickers which grew into a swell of uproarious laughter.
He knew his audience; masters of the moment, skilled tacticians well versed in solving real-world problems under duress where abstract ideology and flowery philosophy fail to turn hardened steel crankshafts and 450 horsepower motors.
This was my clan then, and for as long as I can remember stretching back to my early days of 40+ mile bike rides, 10k+ runs, and early mornings in a canoe on the MN river with my dad from age eight to when I graduated to baseball, basketball, football, track, and various hard labor jobs shoveling rocks and wheeling wheelbarrows uphill; in all these endeavors I learned you either put up or shut up. Words were nice but they didn’t get the job done, and if you couldn’t outwork me, I didn’t care what you had to say.
It was as if I was working the writer right out of me. The questions I hadn’t answered, or much less asked were; why I was working so hard? To what end? What was it all for and where was it taking me?
‘It was as if I was working the writer right out of me.’
Losing you caused me to start asking these questions and begin digging for meaning.
Helping me along was a deep, unshakable hope that wouldn’t give up on me which, like a still small voice, kept urging me forward through it all. It was a hope that the real me, long ago buried by various hurts and hangups, would be rediscovered, revived, and gradually re-emerge from the depths made stronger by weathering weakness. It was a hope that would do whatever it needed to in order to get me to listen, travel down whatever path, refusing to quit prior to manifestation. It was the same spirit that animated your life and breathes life into these words.
This hope may not have been a strategy as much as a lifeline, but without it, I wouldn’t have made it. The way I see it, in your final exhale was a gust of hope that was carried by a steady breeze of which I inhaled just enough to begin my rebirth.
And now, on your birthday, after eight long and winding years of struggling through the re-birthing canal, I find myself feeling more and more at home in my own skin. With what was once a thin wisp of hope for a better future, now filling my chest with confidence that it will be. Confidence that I can live out and up to your legacy of love in action for all of my days to come. Hope is happening, I am home.
On the transformative journey, we often wander through the halls of our histories, yet do not dwell on where you have beenor even where you are, what really matters is where you are headed
Storytime
My dad was incapable of being a great father because he never overcame his own trauma. Instead, he ran from it, quite literally, leaving his first wife and three kids at age 26 to become a marathon runner. For him, the running was a form of penance where the more suffering he subjected himself to, the more balanced the scale would be. He ran barefoot through the city. He ran in subzero temperatures through Minneapolis, returning home often looking like the abominable snowman. He ran his age every year on his December birthday from 30 until he was 50. Unfortunately for him, reconciliation in human relations doesn’t work at a distance, and as a result, he spent most of his adult life either transmitting his still unprocessed trauma to people who would accept it or overcompensating around people who wouldn’t. Avoiding pain is how it is spread and he discovered this reality the hard way.
mini-lesson:
if we do not transform our pain, we transmit it
He wasn’t malicious, just hurting and misguided.
His and I’s relationship was shaped by his mood which, from a very young age, I internalized as my responsibility. I learned that whether he was happy or sad or anything in between, it was my fault. As I grew older I started to desire recognition from him for all the great work I was doing to keep him happy. He withheld, I worked harder. He got angry, I worked harder. By my misguided calculations, I deserved the punishment when I failed, so I should, by the same logic, deserve the recognition when I triumphed. Spoiler: it didn’t play out according to my contrived formula and, hence, my striving escalated well into my adult life.
This strategy was successful in many ways for surviving childhood, but left two lingering programs running on a loop in my head which I would have to unpack later in life:
I was not important
I was not good enough
Embarrassingly enough, until well into my thirties, nearly everything I did was designed around earning HIS validation or scorning it; my life was not my own. At some level I understood this was not a healthy dynamic yet was unable to articulate it and, hence, my anger, resentment, and shame for not being myself got buried deep down. My conscious, internal wiring was dominated by this programming.
Until one day not long ago, after dozens of failed attempts over the last decade to clear the air, I finally found the right words at the right moment to say to him. It was as if a 39 year old chasm opened up inside me and an outpouring of deadly truth bombs came busting out, each with father-destroying heat seekers programmed in. My verbal ‘justice’ spewed out for no less than 5 min when, finally, he looked me in the eye and said,
‘I hear you.’
Instantly, I calmed down, sat down, ceased yelling, thanked him for enduring the onslaught, and apologized for being so yelly. I went on to explain that it was simply a long-buried part of me that needed to be voiced, but that it was over now and it was safe for us to resume normal conversations. I was excited about this exchange for many reasons and couldn’t wait to tell my therapist about the break thru:
I had finally received some validation from my father!
The following Saturday, I sat down in Andre’s chair with the whole story laid out, rehearsed, and ready to go. I drew it out in spectacular fashion, hit all the right notes, and delivered the punch line flawlessly. At which point I paused for his feedback as if he were to applaud or something. He looked up from his notepad and uttered a three-word question,
‘And now what?’
I was baffled. He was persistent and noticed I wasn’t following. So he clarified, ‘And what if you went thru all that and he hadn’t said anything? Do you really think the message in your rant was for him, designed just right to get just the right response from him such that it would fix all your problems? I mean what do you think the odds are of that? Isn’t it more likely that the message was, and always has been, to you?’
He continued, ‘Look, you are important, you are good enough, but the problem is that YOU don’t believe it, not that your father doesn’t. Nothing he, I, or anyone else can say will change your beliefs, only you can do that for you.’
I wept.
I had spent over ten years analyzing my past, in therapy, in rehab, and in various hospitals and institutions, trying to find the key that would free me from my prison, the balm that would heal all the wounds, the medicine that would make it all right.
But now I know my father is not my jailer, I am, my wounds have long ago scared over, leaving powerful reminders of healing lessons, and I never needed medicine for I was never sick.
Maybe none of what Andre was telling me would have made any sense if I hadn’t gone thru the 10-year struggle. Maybe digging thru the past in an effort to find the right keys was a necessary activity to unlock a clearer vision for the future. Maybe it is indeed a requisite requirement of a full rehabilitation to touch all the historical pain points. I guess I will never really know.
mini-lesson:
know your history, live in the present
All I know for sure is what’s important now, and that it’s all out in front of me.
After weathering the first six months of COVID19 as a boots-on-the-ground, eye of the storm, essential worker, I now, like 12.6MM other Americans, find myself unemployed (this figure is down from the peak of 20MM back at the pandemic’s onset in March). So, although I know I am not alone, no longer having a source of income, a familiar routine, and a clear, prescribed sense of purpose hits different. Perhaps you can relate.
In this article, I will share the story of how I came to be unemployed for the first time since age twelve. As we dive in, I’ll use the lens of addiction to color what I’ve learned in the first three weeks, including a sneak peek at an exciting project on the horizon. So keep reading if you’re curious to learn how to tunnel thru addiction, heartache, and loss towards your very own Golden Age.
Let’s get started.
If you know me at all, you know I pour myself into my work, always have. It was no different when I started with Kimberly-Clark in January 2012 as a senior mechanical project engineer bringing with me eight years of prior engineering experience split across two separate industries. Over the subsequent nine years, I earned six separate promotions, each with increased scope and compensation, the third catapulting me from the technical world as an individual contributor, and into leadership, with my largest team comprised of over 300 members.
Behind the scenes, however, life took some pretty dark turns. In late 2013 I lost my baby sister. Twelve months after that, my eight-year marriage dissolved, quickly consuming every penny of my savings and estranging me from my three young children for over a year as I worked thru the grief. If that wasn’t enough, I cut ties with my parents and even landed on the news for DUI. Legal and medical bills pushed me far into debt. By Thanksgiving 2015, I had arrived at what the recovery community calls, rock bottom.
Work was literally the only thing that worked for me, I clung to it like a shipwrecked captain to driftwood on a dark and stormy sea
It was as if everything I lost at home, compelled me to dive deeper at the office. 60, 70, even 80 hour weeks were not uncommon. I was all in, whatever it took. The results and accolades started piling up, people were noticing, and who was I to say no – what else did I have to do? The question I wasn’t asking – much less answering – was, ‘Is this healthy? Sustainable?’
Let’s pause here for a definition and some additional context. I warned you early on this article would center around addiction, which, according to Dr. Donna Marks, is defined as anything a person keeps doing in spite of negative consequences. Notice the word anything broadens a more traditional definition confined to, say drugs and alcohol, to include everything from food to work, religion, sex, social media, status, exercise, and even recovery itself. The key to understanding addiction is that, fundamentally, it is not about the substance or behavior, but rather one’s relationship to the substance or behavior.
In her book, ‘Exit the Maze,’ Dr. Marks goes on to describe the underlying nature of addiction to be one of trying to fill an emotional void caused by prior trauma and/or dysfunction, most often occurring in early childhood. For the addict, of which Dr. Marks estimates there are over 100MM in the US alone, the substance or behavior starts as the solution, a much-needed, but only momentary, relief from the underlying pain. Over time, as the negative consequences of the addiction take root, a desperate wrestling match between relief and recovery ensues, in which sobriety is only the first step as the addiction will often morph into the next ‘drug’ of choice. This game of ‘whack-an-addiction-mole’ will continue until the emotional void is accurately named and eliminated.
Podcast with Dr. Donna Marks & Stefan Molyneux on, ‘Exit the Maze’
For a condensed overview on the nature of addiction, see the podcast above. For now, however, let us get back to the story at hand.
As 2016 kicked off, I committed to rebuilding but knew I had my work cut out for me. I decided to leverage the area of my life with the most success, my career, to right the ship and start making my way back to shore. This approach was effective in several areas as I paid down debt, built a support system of caring co-workers, and focused on consistent routines. With this momentum, I was able to reunite with my children and broaden my efforts into other areas of well-being, including a genuine commitment to cognitive behavioral therapy, diet, exercise, and creative outlets such as this blog.
Even so, as 2018 was coming to a close, more storm clouds were forming on the horizon. See, even though, on the surface, my life appeared to be improving, I was yet to truly name and eliminate my emotional void and, in turn, failed to notice the unhealthy relationship I had developed with several of my new behaviors and the turbulent emotional undercurrent gaining hold.
In short order, I arrived at an impasse with a new manager over differing visions for the team. Having errantly attached my identity to my vision during my rebuilding process, I struggled to compromise. In fact, I flat refused, telling myself to do so would be to, quite literally, die. Unsurprisingly, the situation escalated to the brink of separation. Desperately trying to avert disaster, I called in a favor and secured a transfer to a sister facility before I could be managed out of the organization. From a career perspective, this felt positive. However, it came at the cost of putting 180 miles between myself and my children, who remained with their mom in Tulsa, leaving me to commute.
It’s March of 2019 and the stormy sea of my still largely unconscious emotional void had washed me ashore in Paris, TX.
Not having fully learned my lesson from my recent bump up with management, I charged into my new work environment, eager to play hero and rescue a struggling operation (see link for a more in-depth account written in early 2020).
My vision was simple: One Roof. Essentially, no matter what uniform, crew, function, gender, ethnicity, title, etc., we were all going to come together under the same one roof to achieve our shared goals. What I liked most about this goal were the concepts of home and family embedded in the Roof mnemonic. One Roof was a clear reference, easily recalled, with nearly infinite depth of meaning to mine as appropriate. Simple to say yet hard to achieve, as anyone who’s ever worked in large, high paced groups will attest.
Two things escaped me which ultimately led to my downfall:
wrong moment
wrong family
Wrong moment because the established leadership team was too buried in existing cultural turmoil to seriously consider any additional risk. It was ‘batten down the hatches’ mode due to ongoing litigation and precipitous safety issues. The resultant leadership focus lying almost exclusively on policy adherence and structure. Cultivating interpersonal relationships was hard to measure and therefore low priority.
Wrong family because my subconscious was using my new team as a surrogate to repair broken relationships from my childhood. News flash: if you want to repair a relationship, you have to do it with the actual person, no substitute will do. Nonetheless, I forged ahead in search of the connection and validation I never got from my parents and still hungered for unknowingly.
Blinded by my vision, it was only a matter of time until the scenario imploded, and implode it did. Short of divulging all the gory details, my unchecked expectations, lack of awareness of the moment, failure to recalibrate my approach, and insistence on continually doubling down, lead to increasing frustration on both sides. Eighteen months into the assignment, I got the call that I was no longer employed. And that was that. Nine years boxed up and discharged in an instant.
But here’s the thing: I would have worked myself to death before ever considering walking away. And at what cost along the way? I had stopped writing, struggled to complete my MBA program postponing graduation several times due to needing extensions to complete my capstone project, even my relationships with my dogs were suffering. Not to mention the emotional poison – frustration & resentment – that were accumulating at work due to misdirected emotional energy. Long and short of it is:
Recreating dysfunctional childhood relationships in adulthood can feed an emotional addiction but not nourish a soul
So, in peeling back this layer of the addiction onion, two gifts have emerged for me: 1) clarity on where my next area of emotional healing needs to be focused and 2) clarity on where the next leg of my career journey needs to take me.
Which brings me to the Gates of the Golden Age, assuming I don’t starve to death first. What I mean is, without all the stress associated with solving the problems fed to me by my former corporate masters, I have an opportunity to funnel all my energy into solving the problems I decide are most important, most rewarding, most value added. I believe I have a long enough run way to launch my writing into profitability and maybe, with your help, turn a pastime into the life of my dreams, thereby entering what I call my very own Golden Age.
Interested to learn more about my upcoming launch? Please enter your email and a comment or two into the form below and I’ll be sure to keep you up to speed. Cheers!
I live in an apartment complex and was at the dumpster yesterday taking out my trash. As I came around the corner, I saw someone else arriving with several bags. Looking closer, I noticed the items were mostly unused perishable food. My blood started to boil as my mind jumped to, ‘You’re throwing away food that others could use.’ My attack impulse was triggered.
But before I could open my mouth, I noticed a combination of fear and shame on his face, he wasn’t expecting to be seen. I shifted gears, ‘These are interesting times, you and yours doing ok?’ From there the conversation evolved into a back and forth about fear and what to do about it with one line from him especially resonating with me;
‘For me, my panic is worse than the disease itself.’
dumpster guy
Walking away from the exchange I committed to fighting and winning my own battle with panic and sharing my strategy with you.
Here’s my strategy compressed into a Top Four List:
Stay Appropriately Informed – selective news sourcing and social media strategies
Stay Physically Healthy – healthy bodies when health care unavailable
Stay Mentally Healthy – mindset training and educational resources to weather the storm
Stay Emotionally Healthy – enriching relationships while practicing social distancing
Stay Appropriately Informed – selective news sourcing and social media strategies
The starting point for appropriate action is always accurate information, but how do I get reliable COVID19 info without getting overwhelmed by contradicting reports, scorching politicization, ridiculous memes and/or misinformation? This is the first question we are collectively attempting to answer.
I have been using this time to filter my social media feeds for content that is helpful, positive, and substantive. Crisis brings out the best and worst of us, both off and online, and in the midst of the madness I can’t afford the worst. I’ll leave you a sampling of what has survived my digital cleansing:
For raw stats on the infections, deaths, recoveries and serious COVID19 cases, see this link: Coronavirus Dashboard
Not a huge fan of government agencies, but there is a ton of good info on the CDC Homepage
For a list of positive coronavirus happenings see my recent Facebook post
For social media philanthropy, there is none better than Bill Pulte
For uplifting memes and web content I like Kevin W
For reminders on how awesome people can be check out People are Awesome on YouTube
Each of these links has actionable information that has helped to both keep me informed (I’m not hiding from reality) and active (I need productive things to do to keep my mind occupied). From a foundation of informed action I can build the rest of my practice.
Stay Physically Healthy – healthy bodies when health care unavailable
Our healthcare system is likely to be overwhelmed with patients and in some areas, already is. Test kits are hard to find and effective treatments still in development. Since I’m not a doctor, I will focus on prevention rather than medical cures and since hygiene and social distancing practices have been widely circulated, I won’t attempt to add to those conversations.
First and foremost, exercise. In most areas, gyms are closed but thanks to the advent of CrossFit, equipment-free core exercises are commonly known and readily available. If you’re like me and refrained from joining the movement, see the Seven Minute Workout video for a great daily routine that you can use to get your home fitness routine started. You’ll be amazed at how much of a sweat you can get going utilizing only items you already own. Physical activity while quarantined will feel good and help keep more than your body in good shape.
A close second, eat a healthy diet. Even though there has been a run on food items, I have still found most produce and common staples to be available. I would expect this to be the case throughout the pandemic as perishables are not good candidates for hoarding. Here is a list of a few recipes that convert fresh ingredients to meals that store well in refrigerators/freezers, mix and matched with various fillers (potatoes, rice, noodles, etc.) and taste great. Invite your kids into the kitchen to help you cook, make it fun.
A few miscellaneous items I’ll leave here for good measure include:
Vitamin Regiment – this list includes both everyday health supplements as well as homeopathic remedies to carry inventory of in the case you become sick and health care isn’t readily available.
Intermittent Fasting – this practice has helped me stay at my ideal weight for over a year, and will help ration food over a longer period of time. Not to mention that, if combined with basic healthy food choices, keeps you out of maintaining complicated diets and calorie counting. I prefer the 18/6 method described first in the article.
Cold Showers – I’m not saying every shower has to be 100% cold, but the health benefits are plentiful. I’ve been doing them several times/week for over a year and can speak to almost every single one of the positive outcomes listed in the article.
Stay Mentally Healthy – mindset training and educational resources to weather the storm
Your mind is an integral part of your health and garbage in equals garbage out. If the first couple months of this crisis are any indicator of how the rest is going to play out, rest assured that we will continue to be bombarded with negative news cycles, doomsday predictions, political infighting and all kinds of other mental poison. On top of that, we are likely out of work and home with kids, trying to stay positive and active with the outside world mostly shut down.
In no particular order, here is a list of content to keep your mind positively and productively occupied for months on end:
The best mindset book I ever read because it was the most practical and easy to apply is Gorilla Mindset, and there is even an online Master Class
Looking for good online self-work, see Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Self-Authoring Suite
The always great Kahn Academy has partnered with Disney to create Imagineering in a Box if you’re looking for some supplemental online educational content for kids of all ages
Piper company has posted a list of helpful resources for parents looking to try homeschooling either temporarily or for the long haul
Stay Emotionally Healthy – enriching relationships while practicing social distancing
If you’ve taken any of the advice above and created some positive habits, you’ll be noticing improvements in your emotional health. Maybe, like me, you’ll be frequently surprised by positive emotions that sneak up on you like the gratitude I experienced for all the people who had come together to deliver essential food to my local Aldi’s in the midst of this crisis. Instead of scrambling through the store in a hurry to elbow out my fellow shoppers, I moved slowly through the store, gathering the items I needed and making casual conversation every chance I got. This was just the positive experience I needed to help prepare me for the dumpster interaction at the top of this post; who knows how that interaction would have gone without the positive setup. Without the dumpster interaction, I may not have written this article, and so on.
Thing to remember is that emotions are mostly an output of behavior, but also act as input into decision making. Keep your emotional energy positive, see below for a few examples that are especially applicable in this time of social distancing and sheltering at home:
Write a letter to anyone you know in a nursing home, or call if you haven’t already
Call a different loved one everyday and tell them 3 things you cherish about your relationship
Create a gratitude journal and write one thing you’re thankful for in it everyday, post your favorites on social media – this growing list will help combat the negative news cycle
Double down on your prayer or meditation practice – but as little as a few minutes each day can do wonders
Spend quality time with those you are quarantined with – board games are a great option
2020 bolted out of the starting block and has not looked back. At the office, after nearly two months of productivity-killing but life-enriching vacation leave at 2019 year-end; the first six weeks of 2020 have included heavy ramp up for two separate multi-million dollar project launches, a site visit from senior leadership and a customer audit. 75% of our team has less than 12 months’ experience, not to mention our day to day workload is up 5% y.o.y. and getting more complex all the time.
The setting is a rurally located 24/7/365 Distribution Center for a Fortune 500 CPG company – blue-collar America at it’s finest. The operation is kept alive by 200 employees who work shoulder to shoulder, day in and day out to ensure high-quality paper products are delivered on time and in full to your favorite retailer’s rain, snow or shine. The work is demanding and the market highly competitive requiring continuous cost-saving, value-adding innovation to stay afloat.
I entered the scene at this location roughly a year ago taking a lateral move as a team leader in order to gain new experience and prove to myself prior success was something more than dumb luck. My philosophy was simple: business results are a bi-product of human relations. High functioning human relations are measured in units of trust, which act as a lubricant, reducing relational friction as it increases.
My approach was even simpler:
increase trust wherever and whenever possible
leadership 101
But it’s more personal for me than business. Rather, this business is personal for at least two reasons: my team lost a good man, friend, and grandfather, to a fatal workplace injury in late 2018 and I lost my younger sister in 2013. The lesson in both tragedies being that life is both too precious and short to be taken for granted. Plus, life is better enjoyed and more fun with others, even at work, and fun is only possible where trust lives.
Thankfully Daniel Coyle had, by that time, published a landmark study on workplace culture, what works, what doesn’t and why. In Culture Code, Mr. Coyle outlines the blueprint for successful groups in terms I could understand. Over the last 12 months I’ve worked to employ the principles in the book, measuring success according to the following characteristics outlined therein:
Everyone in the group talks and listens in roughly equal measure, keeping contributions short
Members maintain high levels of eye contact, and their conversations and gestures are energetic
Members communicate directly with one another, not just with the team leader
Members carry on back-channel or side conversations within the team
Members periodically break, go exploring outside the team, and bring information back to share with the others
The healthier the group, the more its members exude the traits above and the more individuals in the group feel safe to take risks, safe to make mistakes and safe to not get hurt. It is then we relax around one another enough to have fun, the paradox being that is the exact moment we are most productive.
I call it focused fun, think children on the playground improvising a new game, simultaneously and spontaneously negotiating the terms, enforcing equality, competing fiercely, creating relentlessly. If you never had this experience in youth, it’s not too late to start.
Take one last nugget from Mr. Coyle before I wrap this up:
‘Individuals aren’t really individuals. They’re more like musicians in a jazz quartet, forming a web of unconscious actions and reactions to complement the others in the group. You don’t look at the informational content of the messages; you look at patterns that show how the message is being sent. Those patterns contain many signals that tell us about the relationship and what’s really going on beneath the surface.’
Daniel Coyle, Culture Code
It is with this perspective I embrace the many challenges that 2020 has in store. I look at them as opportunities to have fun with people I trust and respect. I look forward to celebrating both the successes and failures along the way, knowing that we are building greatness as measured in friendships and memories that will, doubtless, last a lifetime, if not longer.
Thanks for reading, let me know what you think in the comments below.
I am alone in the woods in McGregor, MN. It’s late, maybe 11:00p, and I am yelling up at the star-filled sky, ‘Why won’t you talk to me? What is wrong with me?’ The glow from the worship hall at Covenant Pines Bible Campvisible up the path from the clearing where my 9 year old self is lamenting. Seemingly everyone except me is full of the Holy Spirit, singing God’s praises with arms upraised, and I can’t tell if they are faking it or if something is wrong with me. Hence, under the guise of using the restroom, I make my way to a quieter place in search of an answer from above.
25 years later I would first hear the lyrics;
‘Yeah, you’re lookin’ at the church in the night sky; Wonderin’ whether God’s gonna say hi,’
The chorus bringing me to tears as I reflected on all that had transpired since that fateful night in my youth. It was only a few years before Saint Pablo, at age 30, that I had all but given up the search for God, taking the position that if He wanted me He could reveal himself, but I was no longer going out of my way to look for Him. I was, by all intensive purposes, an atheist. And yet, at 34, Kanye brought a tear to my eye and stirred a longing long buried, but not yet at rest.
Now at 37, Kanye has released his first gospel album, Jesus is King, and this unlikely disciple is again rustling my spirit against my will.
See, back in the woods at age 9, I decided it was me. I decided I wasn’t doing it right and that God would reveal himself in His time. I hiked back up the trail, rejoined my peers and counselors in the pews, and resumed worshiping, intent to walk in the light until I found the Way. But, as I journeyed in the years that followed, my light dimmed and, try as I did to remain faithful, time and time again I wandered astray. My valley of the shadow of death was full of struggle, loss, heartache, bitterness and pain.
Not sensing the presence of a higher power to guide me through, I learned to believe in my own strength as well to draw from others immersed in the struggle. I leaned on the philosophy of Stefan Molyneux, the savvy of Mike Cernovich, the stories of Ayn Rand, the industriousness of Elon Musk, and the fearlessness of Kanye West. None of them saints, they all share at least two things in common:
an unrelenting pursuit of greatness
an uncompromising search for truth
Like me, my role models refuse to take short cuts or water down their reality. In short, we find freedom in the fight.
Back when I was still in the church, it was these same attributes which I admired in Jesus. I was drawn to the story of His battle with Satan in the desert and His persecution from the powers that be much more than His resurrection. I dismissed the miracles and mysticism as pure parable, knowing that life didn’t really work that way. I was more interested in the practical wisdom, in continual search for some sort of pragmatic balm to soothe my perpetually wounded soul.
Yet, in my encounters with the purveyors of Christianity, I found a strong tendency to fixate on the salvation story and the riches offered from a faithful life. It felt like the theology of some great cosmic transaction, where the journey could be skirted and the destination was the reward. What I kept hearing was something like, ‘Just hang in there and it’ll get better,’ or worse, ‘It’s you, get your shit together.’ I didn’t find either message useful and both came off as dismissive. I continued to attend service, but at an increasing distance.
While the pastors would proclaim the power of the pending glory and sing hymns of redemption, I would search out the stoics and the story of Job. When I read of the redemptive joy espoused by St. Francis, it was as the result of traveling the long hard path, not the reason for taking it in the first place. As I left the church at age 30, I took with me the spirituality of Dr. Gerald May and Father Richard Rohr, who understand the dark underbelly of humanity, openly explore it and, like my secular heroes above, refuse to whitewash it. Bound and determined to find my own path, I committed to journeying for journeying’s sake and not for promise of future reward.
Fast forward to last Friday, October 25th, 2019 at 2:00p CST. Kanye dropped his first gospel album, Jesus is King, his 9th solo album in his illustrious career as a rapper, in which he has been awarded 21 Grammys to date. He began work on the album in true artistic form with a full spiritual immersion starting in early 2019, as displayed in his Sunday Service performances in Atlanta, Jamaica,Detroit, L.A., Chicago, New York and many others. I was intrigued, something special was happening. The Prodigal Son has returned home to the Father 15 years after dropping Jesus Walks, millions of listeners on his heels with millions others up in arms.
The spirit of the album summed up on track 8:
‘All my idols let em go,
All the demons let em know,
This a mission not a show,
This is my eternal soul’
‘God Is’, Jesus is King
And for Kanye it’s more than the album. He’s giving it all to Christ; his music, his fashion, his business, his life. He tells BigBoyTV at the 27:00 minute mark in this 10/25/19 interview, that he wants to be a, ‘Christian innovator.’ He goes on to describe the journey, completely raw and unfiltered as only Kanye can. Not perfect, not scripted, not linear; both the interview and the album metaphors for a life fully lived, full of passion and the constant renewal of purpose. For me it’s a sermon I can relate to.
And, as I sit here ready to push publish on an article I’ve written and rewritten over a dozen times, I can’t help but think that I might have finally found the answer I’ve been looking for in the night sky. The answer that has always been there for every honest pilgrim, still and silent like the cool moonlight: God Is.
So as I close my eyes tonight, I hope you join me in the Prayer of the Journey:
Credit Deacon Allan Barrow, St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church, Tulsa, OK
I never know how I am going to get somewhere until I actually get there. For me, life’s an experiment and the fun is in the discovery. In order for the discovery to be worth sharing, the experiment must follow a consistent approach, this post is about mine.
But first a little background info.
In Enneagram language, I am a gut-centered person who instinctively feels his way through life – see Reformer below. Whether its in my personal or professional life, I rarely need more than a hunch that things are on the up and up before committing to at least try.
At work these traits can be great assets, for example, when decisive action is needed to lead a group out of a slump. They can also pose challenges when, say, trying to sell a project to senior leadership on instinct and energy alone.
In romantic relations I have been told I am a passionate lover but impossible partner. Reference my failed marriage: I proposed at age 24, only five months into a long distance relationship. I was confident we could build the airplane on the fly and spent almost no time pondering what could go wrong. Problem being, not everyone is up for that kind of challenge, no matter how good the ‘turbulence’ feels 🔥.
Did I mention that Reformers can be a bit grandiose? n-e-wayze…
As I move into the second half of my life, I have curated a four step approach to channel my instinct and keep me moving in a positive, consistent direction. As you read more about my four step approach to personal development, notice how it can help you regardless of whether you’re erratically over-zealous, irrationally timid, or anywhere in between.
Aaaaaaand, here’s the cliff notes version, drum roll please 🥁:
Bag a Big Idea (know where you are going)
Ground Your Gut (connect your where to your deepest why)
Get Going (do the next right thing, repeat indefinitely)
Reflect Religiously (checkin, adapt to what is)
Now let’s go deeper, one step at a time.
1. Bag a Big Idea
– know where you are going–
I am referring to priority one, the mission that everything else in your life orients itself around. It should stretch you well out of your comfort zone without being complicated – simple enough to share in three seconds to a stranger. The idea of it might scare you at first. Your fight/flight/freeze impulses may be triggered. This is part of the process, keep going. You will know you’re there when you are oscillating between shortness of breath and a quiet, confident smile.
This exercise is an essential first step in avoiding the common traps of chasing inherited task lists, building the busybody resume, or being stretched thin by historical programming only to find yourself exhausted and empty at the end of the day. A famous quote from the 20th century comes to mind:
to live with my children in a home they can be proud of
chow time
Simple but not easy, this vision encompasses foundational changes in my lifestyle, finances, career, custody arrangement, relationships, and geography. Simply put, I can’t think of any aspect of my life that isn’t impacted, nor can I think of anything that would make me more happy.
Even so, the most essential quality of my big idea is that sets a direction but not a course, making failure only possible if I quit. This is an example of a system, not a goal. Scott Adams illuminates the difference in his 2014 book entitled, ‘How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.’ Generally speaking, a goal would be to loose 20 lbs. where a system would be to live a healthy life. With a goal you are constantly failing until you achieve it and then, just like that, it’s over. A system allows continuous successes and limitless improvement as long as you keep moving.
Quick Summary: your big idea needs to be directional (not dictatorial), stretchy (not safe), and easily articulated (not easily achieved).
Now that your head is high in the clouds, it’s time to:
2. Ground Your Gut
– connect your where to your deepest why –
Most of us have had a big idea, maybe a New Years resolution or new business venture, that never quite materialized. Perhaps an initial burst of energy and inspiration ran out, bad luck got the best of you, life took a new direction; a list of road blocks to a new path could circle the equator in 8 pt font. But obstacles are not unique to failed missions, success stories are rife with them as well. So, what separates achievement from failure?
It is the quality of your ‘why’.
Let me put it this way, if I had to bet my life savings on the success or failure of a big idea and had only one question to ask, it would be, “what is your why?” In my view, launching a big idea without a connected why is like taking off on a transatlantic flight with only one engine and no aileron.
The two parts of a good ‘why’ are Passion and Principle.
Passion is your engine, the more you have, the further you’ll go and the more likely you’ll keep going. Principals are your aileron, keeping you from entering a full roll when the jet stream of life gusts unexpectedly. Let me color this by elaborating a bit on my ‘why.’
‘To live with my children in a home they can be proud of,’ probably sounds like an obvious aspiration of any single parent with every-other-weekend visitation; but my ‘why’ runs deeper than desire for biological proximity.
As you might remember from a previous post, my younger sister was murdered on this day in 2013 at age 20 near our childhood home in Burnsville, MN. Without replicating the post here, I’ll summarize by saying that Anarae and I left a lot on the table in terms of what our relationship could have been. I learned, in retrospect, how a stronger, more intimate bond could have insulated her from the human predator that took her life. Six years ago today, as my sister passed away, my passion and principles were born anew.
Anarae’s death hard wired my passion for seeing people for who they are over how they make me feel or what they can do for me. Her death also permanently ingrained the NAP (non-aggression principle). Simply stated, it’s immoral to initiate force, coercion or threats. Inclined in these directions since birth, but not fully enacted, I could no longer accept anything less than my best effort in these directions.
So now, when I get a big idea that requires extensive foundational change, I put it to the 2P test: does it fuel my passion for people and can I achieve it without violating the non–aggression principle? The second part of the 2P test leading into step three in my system.
3. Get Going
– do the next right thing, repeat indefinitely –
Now that you’ve got a where and a why, it’s time to take off. Easier said than done. How many great ideas have you had that never got off the ground? If you can empathize, chances are you’ve experienced something like paralysis of analysis.
Breathe, the fact you’re nervous means you care and that you are invested in the outcome. This is healthy and natural, but not enough as inaction will lead to regret.
Call me an idealist but I think, deep down, we all know the next right thing to do. It’s just that, occasionally, we can get bogged down by the details and turn to consequentialism as a rationalization for not trying.
You ever met a consequentialist? Someone who, no matter how clear a decision, they find a way to interject doubt in the form of the insatiable, ‘yeah but, what if?’ Great chess players look several moves ahead, calculating dozens of possible outcomes, but they still make their move.
Be the grandmaster of your life. Remember, even grandmasters miscalculate. Again, the key is to keep moving. Let me give you an example.
As I start out on my mission, I live 180 miles from my kids, have burned bridges with my company which would otherwise facilitate a transfer back home, have massive debt, no savings, average credit, and emotional baggage that, to date, over $15,000 in therapy has far from resolved. And guess what? Imma go forward anyways.
The secret is not what you do, but how you frame it. For me, cold showers are about mental toughness, something I’m gonna need to overcome inevitable hardships along the way. Diet and exercise are about stamina for the long road ahead. Meaningful relationships are about building a robust support system. New responsibilities at work and pursuing my MBA are about building my skill stack. Ongoing therapy is about getting out of my own way. This blog is about creating future financial possibilities. You get the idea, I frame everything I do, every small step, in terms of getting home to my kids.
I give myself permission to climb the mountain one step at a time and to misstep every so often, even to take a rest, but never to stop climbing all together. In fact, at this point, I don’t think it is even possible for me to quit.
The way I see it, each aspect of your life that you connect to your big idea and support with your core passion and principles, acts as a lifeline in tough times. Loose your job? Supportive friends and family step in. Relationship woes? Therapy to process and refocus. Work stress getting the best of you? Exercise to clear your mind. Etc, etc.
Healthy, connected outlets keep the course, but not without awareness, bringing us to the fourth and final step.
4. Reflect Religiously
– checkin, adapt to what is –
In case I didn’t make it clear, step three is about automating the process of progress. But what happens when auto-pilot malfunctions and you find yourself unprepared and in unfamiliar territory? Or, perhaps, it’s all too familiar, but unwanted ground.
Time to turn steps 1 – 3 into questions: ‘where am I going?’ ‘why am I going there?’ ‘what is the next right thing to do?’
Easy right? Not exactly. IRL, the stickiest traps are the ones we can’t see and, by definition, are unaware of. What I am going to say next is going to sound like circular logic, and it kind of is, but bear with me: automating progress is the best insurance against sleep walking into a dead end.
You’re probably thinking, ‘first he tells me to reflect my way out of an automated dead-end and then he tells me automation will prevent getting stuck in the first place, I can’t believe I read this far!’
Fair, but hang tight, I’m almost finished. Life tends to work in circular patterns, what I’m recommending is more of a helix. Let’s get back to my story to explain and wrap up.
Recently I put my heart out there in the dating game again (you can read about my first date here). Short story, my heart ran away with me, undermining my attempts to reflect while checking most boxes in my automated progress process. I was in deep.
Initially, when I reflected about where I was going, why, and what next, I could easily answer something like, ‘dating a girl close to home with great energy would help pull me towards my kids and further stabilize my base.’ When I checked in with my support structure, I noticed it easier to eat healthy, work hard at the office and on my blog, be more social, etc.
What I couldn’t see was that I was angling after someone who was ultimately unavailable, an old pattern of mine designed to keep me both hungry for love and far from it. This awareness came from a well timed therapy session, but not directly.
The wisdom was, in my words, the right person will appreciate things about you that surprise you, they will be fascinated by parts of your personality you don’t even notice. I had a new angle which helped me understand, and get first hand confirmation, that I was over extended without the possibility of reciprocation.
In this case therapy, part of my automated system, triggered a new reflection which, ultimately, illuminated the path out of a historical trap and allowed me to get back to business.
A misstep – even an incredibly enjoyable one – should not be lingered on nor provide an excuse to quit. But as far as this post goes, I am gonna quit.
Anarae – I love you, thank you for the clarity, rest in peace.
