Month: September 2018

The Upward Shift

Betting on oneself.

It’s become a cliche.

Whenever we expose ourselves to the uncertainty of change, we roll out that familiar rhetoric like a red carpet..

Sure, it’s a risk. But I’m betting on myself.

It’s as if our self-certainty is our superpower. As if it’s the constant that makes the changes we encounter adapt to us.

By counting on ourselves in the face of change, we feel we can overcome adversity.

Nothing can stop us. We can walk out on the tightrope without a safety net and make it through.

There are good reasons why this narrative has wings. It’s inspirational, dramatic and ultimately satisfying.

But there’s one big problem.

It’s not accurate.

You see, we can’t meet the challenge of new and disruptive change simply by betting on ourselves and plowing forward.

We need to level up.

Charting our way through new challenges requires a new set of skills. Mere survival demands growth and adaptation.

What was working before has no jurisdiction over future success. The landscape is too unfamiliar. The obstacles ahead are too imposing.

There must be an upward shift.

I have seen this time and again through my own experience.

I went from sitting in my college classes under the palm trees of South Florida to running a TV newsroom in the desert of West Texas in a matter of months.

When my news industry days had played themselves out, I moved to Dallas and switched careers. All with only a modest savings, a credit card and an abundance of hope to steer me through.

Several years later, I committed to hitting the books once again — starting business school while still maintaining my full-time job.

These were all significant left turns in my life trajectory. Business as usual no longer applied.

I had to make significant changes to meet the challenges that lay in front of me.

I had to level up.

Now, this process wasn’t always apparent to me when I was going through it. The path ahead was more of a gradual incline than a rugged cliff face.

And besides, I was so focused more on the six inches in front of my nose that I was oblivious to my steady climb. Only when I had a moment to look back did I realize I’d gained elevation.

But regardless of when I came to recognize it, that upward shift had occurred. I’d done was needed to not only survive, but also thrive.

There had been a transformation of perspective. My skillset for navigating life’s experiences had become broader and more multifaceted.

But I hadn’t gotten to this point solely by betting on myself. No, I’d molded myself into a person equal to the task of what lay before me.

I’m far from unique in this experience. Plenty of us have upped our game to meet the heightened stakes in our path.

Yet, for whatever reason, we are loathe to credit the upward shift. Whether due to ego or pride, we indulge our self-importance. We brush aside the twists and turns we endure along the path to something greater.

But those lessons, those adaptations — they’re what make us stronger. They’re what make us smarter. They’re what prime us for success.

We should take the time to recognize the change that lies ahead of us. We should embrace the learning opportunities embedded in our next moment of ambiguity.

For only when we consciously commit to leveling up do we unleash the full potential of our growth. It’s only then that we leverage the true benefit of new experiences.

So, embrace the upward shift. What lies within it make it worthwhile.

Scope of Perspective

What is the essence of life?

Which element do you focus on most? What do you consider most important?

Some might say the people matter most. That regardless the environment, the opportunity for human interaction is invigorating.

Some might say status matters most. That the opportunity to earn respect on the basis of prestige is what they live for.

And some might say the setting matters most. That our placement in relation to the rhythms of our surroundings sustains us.

People. Status. Setting.

All three are critical in establishing a rich and fulfilling life. But assigning priority to one over the others is like trying to find the right answer to a Rorschach test.

It all depends on your perspective.

The people perspective is the most refined. It focuses on the company we keep. What people have to say and share with each other matters more than who they are or where the interaction occurs.

As social beings, we are most naturally drawn to this dynamic. We crave social interaction. We demand trust. And sometimes, we even value intentions over actions.

Connection is at our essence. It’s why we’re so fascinated with interesting personalities. It’s why cocktail hour is such a time-honored event. And it’s why we insist on documenting every social gathering these days with a group picture on social media.

Yet, not all of us embrace human interaction equally. Those who are more reserved or less comfortable in social settings are inclined to take a wider view.

This starts with the status perspective. This level focuses on our achievements relative to others. Where we have access to that others don’t. What we achieve that others can’t.

This is the impetus for first class seating on airplanes. For gated communities of mega-mansions. For Platinum credit cards.

This all might sound a bit snobby and elitist. But in practice, many of us consider this aspect of life to be mission critical.

If you don’t believe me, consider the last time you avoided someone with different political views. Or recall that last time you spent time on the other side of the tracks. There’s a good chance this encounter wasn’t recent.

Yes, status is our middle ground. Our opportunity to soak up social interaction on our terms. To build a culture of association, and to assimilate ourselves to it.

But this coziness comes at a cost. Status is context-specific, and cultural divides can lead to closed-mindedness. Our perspective is limited by our blind devotion to measuring sticks and self-defined boundaries.

The challenge, then, is to take our perspective one level further, to the perspective of setting.

This is the Bird’s Eye View — but with a twist.

It’s where we take a 360-degree view of our surroundings, and consider how we interact with them.

When we focus on the setting, we observe the weather, the lighting, the peripheral sights and ambient sounds we encounter. We value these details as much as the interactions that take place within them.

It’s hard to operate at this level. It’s not easy to pay such close attention to detail, but also be aware of the big picture. It’s challenging to have enough humility to realize we’re part of a bigger narrative, and that we should give that narrative its due.

This is why the perspective of setting is so often reserved for those who choose to remove themselves from the din of social connection. It’s why it’s so often tied to intellectuals, introverts and authors.

These groups are predisposed to taking the wider view. But by no means do they have a stranglehold on it.

There’s much that can be learned by taking this scope of perspective.

It can make us more well-rounded. It can make us more situationally aware. And it can make us more conscientious.

These benefits are worth the work needed to adapt our mindset toward them.

So, while there’s no clear choice as to which element of life has the highest priority, there is a clear directive.

Broaden your scope of perspective. Reap the results.

The Competitor Within

Is competition a zero-sum game?

I say no.

Sure, there’s plenty of rhetoric out there about vanquishing our rivals. On how There Can Be Only One or If You Ain’t First, You’re Last.

We’ve taken that to heart more than ever these days. From the ballfields to Capitol Hill, from the job market to social media feeds, partisanship is as vicious as ever.

Competition has brought out the worst in us. It’s poured lighter fluid on the vitriol of groupthink. It’s caused us to dehumanize anyone who’s not on our team. It’s eviscerated any empathy we might otherwise have for those who lie in the path of our selfish desires.

In the relentless quest to win, it appears we have all lost.

Yet, it doesn’t have to be this way.

We can still compete without causing each other carnage. Without drawing lines in the sand and causing further chasms in our society.

We just need to shift our focus.

I’m a highly competitive person.

I grew up playing baseball and watching Luke Skywalker lock light sabers with Darth Vader. The win at all costs mantra was strong within me.

Then, things changed.

I was 13 when the Twin Towers came down, and the skies above New York and Washington filled with fire and smoke. It was a horrifying, unfathomable event. Amidst my grief, there was confusion. How could the free world I knew have suffered such a brutal loss, out of the clear blue sky?

Of course, I wanted to punish those who took thousands of innocent lives. I supported the U.S. military’s operations in Afghanistan, and still do today. Petty as it was, I smiled when Seal Team 6 took out Bin Laden a decade later.

But my view of competition had changed. Going after the terrorists didn’t constitute winning. We had already lost something we could never get back.

As I moved into high school, I was lost. Disillusioned with the Zero-Sum game of competition and the horrors I’d seen come from it, I held myself back. I did my best to blend in at the expense of standing out.

By the time I was 16, my mother was fed up with my act. You’re lazy, she told me.

Those two words lit a fire under me.

The competitiveness that was long-dormant in my soul roared back to life. And I sprung into action.

I improved my grades enough to get multiple acceptance letters from colleges across the South. But upon choosing which school to attend, I didn’t let up.

I continued to strive for greatness through college, and the two careers that followed. Good enough wasn’t sufficient for me. I could always do better.

In fact, I was obligated to do better.

You see, I came to realize that by bringing out the best in myself, I could provide more to those around me. That I could help make the world a better place.

I came to realize the best kind of competition isn’t a Zero-Sum game.

When we shift our competitive focus inward, we change the game.

Think about it.

By demanding the best of ourselves, we play the role of both coach and critic.

We achieve what we might not have thought was possible before. We push our boundaries. We grow. We iterate.

Better yet, by turning the fires of competition inward, we can connect with others. We can respect our rivals, embrace our differences and focus on helping each other through a common drive for better.

Everyone wins in this scenario. In fact, the only casualty of self-competition is complacency.

So, let’s stop the blood feuds, the name calling, the nastiness. Let’s shift our competitive focus to a more productive place.

Let’s embrace the competitor within.

Distilling It Down

I am process-oriented.

Much like an engineer, I think in terms of previous steps and next steps. Aspects and ingredients. Time and place.

These are important components on their own. But when they’re brought together in a cohesive way, that’s where the rubber meets the road.

It takes careful coordination for many of the occurrences in our lives to take place. The right set of factors must line up just so for the end result to be memorable and noteworthy.

Sometimes, recognize this chain of events. Other times, we’re oblivious to it.

Either way, the end result gets the most attention. When things just work out, the how’s and why’s don’t seem to leave a lasting impression in our memories.

We focus on the shiny objects we see. On the warm fuzzies we feel.

We fixate on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow more than the leprechaun that led us to it.

And yet, without all of the right elements in place, we wouldn’t be basking in the glory.

Without a firm foundation, the greatness of serendipity would never be realized.

So, I make it my mission to distill down every process I can.

To look at what the elements are. To consider what’s needed to drive success. To be aware of the circumstances that could lead to failure.

A great example of this is cooking. I love to cook, and I love the satisfaction of getting a dish just right. It awakens senses of fulfilment and satisfaction I rarely experience otherwise.

But that result hardly comes out of the blue.

Getting a meal just right requires the right elements in place. If the ingredients are subpar, the cooking apparatuses are inefficient or the timing is off, a meal can turn into a disaster.

Just one missing element can trip up a dish. While I can still salvage a meal without top-notch meat, a fully functional oven range or precise cooking times, the end result just won’t be the same.

Distilling down the process helps me find the path to success in the kitchen.

But this technique is effective in many other areas as well.

In fact, just about anything that requires a decision can be distilled down to its core elements.

For each decision is a part of a process that leads to a result. And each decision involves root factors that can be considered.

We might not want to evaluate these factors, time after time. But we should take the initiative to do so.

For looking at the minutia gives us agency. It allows us to discover what drives success. It provides us the opportunity to iterate and grow.

We owe it to all those around us to have this depth of focus and commitment to precision. Just as importantly, we owe it to ourselves.

So, continue to dream big. But think small as well.

Focus on distilling it down.