Month: January 2024

On Serenity

The instructions were clear.

Don’t leave your computer station for any reason. If you get to a break in the proceedings and need to stretch your legs or use the restroom, raise your hand. A test proctor will see it and head your way. Then they’ll escort you to where you need to go.

Such were the rules of standardized test centers. Elaborate cheating schemes needed to be stamped out aggressively. I understood that.

But as I sat down to take the GMAT, those rules were hardly of significance. For I was prepared.

I’d completed some practice exams. I’d gotten a good night’s sleep. I’d drank a lot of water, just like my prep course instructor told me to.

I had everything I needed to excel. Or so I thought.

As I neared the end of the exam’s second section, I was struck with a familiar sensation. My bladder suddenly felt as heavy as a boulder. I would need to relieve myself in short order.

Fortunately, a scheduled break was coming up. And those familiar instructions were still fresh in my mind.

So, when the break arrived, I raised my hand and waited patiently. But no help arrived.

I turned my head to the testing center surveillance booth, encased in glass. A proctor was sitting in there, mindlessly checking her smartphone. She was twenty feet and a world away.

The timer on my computer kept ticking down. By now half of the break had expired. Even if I did get the proctor’s attention, I wouldn’t be able to get to the restroom and back in time.

So, I audibled. I clicked the End Break button and got started on the next section of the exam.

That section was the quantitative one – a hybrid of math and logic. I struggled with these types of test questions under normal conditions. And now, with my body under siege, I was in dire straits.

This situation drained my focus, strained my memory, and left me with little time to deliberate between possible answers. So, I powered through as quickly as I could, submitting answers off first instinct.

Mercifully, I reached another break. I raised my hand again – and once again my gesture was met with no response.

Desperate, I walked over to the booth and tapped on the glass. When the proctor looked up, I mouthed the words Bathroom Break. A moment later, I was on the way to my salvation.

But the damage had been done. My GMAT results were subpar – especially in the quantitative section. I had wasted a day off work for this result, and now my business school prospects had dimmed.

I was mad. Mad at the proctor for her failure to acknowledge me in my time of need. Mad at myself for drinking all that water beforehand. Mad at all of it.

It didn’t really matter who I was angry at, I told myself at the time. But that was far from the truth.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

So goes The Serenity Prayer – my favorite bit of scripture.

Those 27 words have long had an association with Alcoholics Anonymous. By sheer coincidence, I quit the bottle some years ago. Which has left some to label my affinity for these words as a cry for help.

It’s not.

Truth be told, you don’t need to be afflicted with anything for these words to have meaning. All of us can find some solace in them.

You see, we’re tested day in and day out. Not necessarily on a 100-point scale like those school exams. Or on a pass-fail grade like an engine diagnostic. But more in the form of stimulus-response.

The universe is continually in flux, and we feel the impacts in our tiny corner of it. Things happen to us – good, bad, or a mix of both – and we’re forced to respond to them.

That response is all too often predicated on control. On optimizing the outcome, on limiting the fallout, and on preparing ourselves for greater success moving forward. This is particularly true then the test in question leaves poor marks on our ledger, or a bad taste in our mouth.

We’re inclined to lament the entirety of the incident – both the obstacles thrown in our midst and our erroneous moves that dug us in deeper. And we’re determined to engineer both out of the equation next time around.

The Serenity Prayer stops us in our tracks.

It reminds us that much is beyond our grasp. And that any efforts to reel in the unreachable amount to wasted energy.

If I were following the Serenity Prayer in the wake of my GMAT fiasco, I’d have known better than to let my anger over the test proctor’s inaction linger. Her dereliction of duty was wrong, no doubt. But it was firmly beyond my control.

In fact, the proctor’s negligence was only an issue because I consumed more water than my body could handle. That decision was firmly under my control. And while it was well-intentioned, it backfired spectacularly.

I would need the courage to change course the next time around. Even without the Serenity Prayer on my mind back then, I recognized that. And on my next go at the GMAT, I did change my approach.

Less water. No bathroom breaks. And results that ultimately helped me earn business school admission.

What’s your next move?

This is often the reply I get when I share how things are going in my life. Particularly if the news is less than rosy.

It’s understandable.

We’re a fix-it society. A culture full of pluck and innovation.

Anything wrong can be righted. Any challenge can be put behind us.

Except, not all of them can.

Indeed, there a great many obstacles for which there is no easy fix. Where the scars linger and the mess proliferates.

These occurrences could be as basic as my GMAT experience. Or they could be more substantial – such as a catastrophic situation at work or the revelation of some grim medical news.

Regardless, our first step should not be to put on our superhero cape. Our first step should be to triage. To accept the things we cannot change before summoning the courage to fix that which we can.

Serenity matters more than we care to admit. Let’s give it the respect it deserves.

We’ll be better for it.

On Betrayal

They were a juggernaut.

The Dallas Cowboys strode onto their home field with an air of confidence. All around them, 90,000 fans waved rally towels and roared.

Why wouldn’t they? The Cowboys had been straight-up dominant on this field for the better part of two years. They’d won 16 home games in a row, often by lopsided margins. Surely, another great performance was in the offing.

The game kicked off. And the Cowboys proceeded to get whooped.

The opposing team – the Green Bay Packers – found the end zone early and often. Meanwhile, the Cowboys offense appeared stuck in neutral.

Soon Packers players were taunting Cowboys cheerleaders, bragging into the lenses of TV cameras, and celebrating gleefully with the smattering of Green Bay fans in the stands. The Packers quarterback even mimicked a thunderbolt with his arms while standing on the iconic blue star at midfield.

Sitting at home in front of the TV, my expression was likely the same as the blue-and-white clad fans in the stadium. Steely eyed. Despondent. Stunned.

This team had shown so much more each week it had set foot on this field. And now, with the postseason upon us, this?!

We felt betrayed. And that stung most of all.

Et tu Brute?

These were supposedly among the final words of Julius Caesar before he was stabbed to death. Or at least William Shakespeare’s believed they were.

Brutus – or Brute, in Latin – was Caesar’s confidant. And when he saw his friend among the ranks of his assassins, the horror was palpable.

Caesar had not only failed to insulate himself from an imminent death. He had fallen victim to betrayal along the way.

And that hurt as much as any deep puncture to the ribs soon would.

Caesar’s experience was not unique, of course. Jesus was famously betrayed before his crucifixion. Benedict Arnold betrayed his fledgling country in the American Revolution. Even Bill Belichick once betrayed the New York Jets by showing up to his introductory news conference as the team’s head coach and instead announcing his resignation.

Such is the power of this emotion, that it’s written in the annals of history and widely recounted.

Betrayal, you see, has two elements that fuel its potency. It shatters the trust we’ve so carefully built in those around us. And it’s impossible to prevent.

Sure, we can put ourselves in position to avoid such an outcome. But the control lies in the hands of those we trust to protect our interests. And those hands can falter.

Ambition, stress, external pressure — these factors can compromise even the most trusted associates. In an unpredictable world, they can come and go with the wind. And in an instant, even those with the purest of intentions can find themselves gripping the dagger of darkness.

But building up our walls won’t do us much good either. Trusting no one lowers the odds that we’ll be turned on. But it also leaves us more vulnerable to the myriad dangers of the world around us.

It’s a brutal Catch-22. One we have no choice but to wrangle with.

It began with a broken bone.

My grandmother ended up in the hospital with a shattered hip. But unlike many her age with this injury, my grandmother hadn’t fallen to sustain it. And that left doctors suspicious.

Some follow-up testing brought the grim news to bear. My grandmother had cancer. Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, to be precise.

My grandmother’s cells were attacking her body from the inside – turning her bones to Swiss cheese. She would need to undergo chemotherapy.

I was 12 years old as all this occurred. And I remember being befuddled.

How could someone’s own body act like this? It all seemed so cruel and unfair.

Fortunately, my grandmother survived the treatment. She went into remission and remained in that state for the last 16 years of her life.

Controlling What We Don’t Understand

The wind was whipping.

Fierce and determined, it swirled from left to right above our heads as we lined up to field fly balls.

One by one, we took our place in center field. One by one, we saw the ball hit our coach’s bat and head our direction. And one by one, we watched helplessly as the wind took hold of the ball, rocketing it toward left field.

It was frustrating seeing baseball after baseball hit the outfield grass, out of our reach. So, my teammates and I got desperate.

Some of us lined up a bit further to the right. Others ran toward left field at the crack of the bat, hoping to intercept the ball in flight. Still others attempted diving catches while on the run.

It was no use. The wind thwarted us at every turn.

We were trying to control what we couldn’t understand. Why should we have expected anything other than failure?

I am an American.

I’m proud of that fact. I’m grateful to wake up each morning in the land of the free. I’m humbled to live in the home of the brave.

America has long represented the greatest of civilization. It’s stood as the West’s great superpower for generations. It’s scaled innovation. It’s sparked an entertainment ecosystem with global cultural reach.

Yet, America is fortunate to exist as a standalone country at all.

You see, this great country’s roots are tied to a civil rebellion. It originated with a Declaration of Independence, drafted and signed by representatives of 13 British colonies. A formal statement disavowing allegiance to a faraway monarch.

Britain, unsurprisingly, failed to recognize this arrangement. And it sent soldiers across the Atlantic Ocean to restore order.

The impending war seemed like a mismatch on paper. Britain employed an experienced and well-trained fighting force. The Americans employed a ragtag group of rebels, armed with crude weaponry.

And yet, the Americans knew the terrain and the art of disruption. They disappeared from battlefields like ghosts. They hid in the brush, picking off British soldiers one by one. They launched a surprise attack the morning after Christmas.

The American Revolutionary War quickly turned into an elaborate cat and mouse game. And after years of chasing, the British forces eventually walked into a catastrophic trap. A trap that cost them the war and ensured America’s independence.

These events have largely been glorified on our shores for centuries. But the heroics of the ragtag American army were eclipsed by Britain’s colossal failure. Its failure in controlling what it didn’t understand.

Perhaps if the British forces had understood their opponent, they’d have been better prepared for guerilla warfare. Perhaps they would have anticipated the trudges across rugged terrain, the sneak attacks, and the deception. Perhaps they would have gotten the outcome they were looking for.

But they didn’t. And that doomed them.

The British army made its critical error on post-colonial soil more than 200 years ago. Yet the legacy of this error persists today.

America and Britain are now longstanding allies. And their imperial eras are mostly behind them. Still, each nation maintains a testy relationship with immigrants within its respective borders.

The reasoning for this tension varies. The United States has been dealing with a longstanding surge of illegal immigration at its Mexican border. Britain has been contending with the effects of legal immigration from faraway lands it once colonized.

But the underlying threat remains the same in both countries. Namely, the threat of other cultures taking root within the high walls of their societal gardens.

The results of this tension are widespread ostracism and intense governmental policy. The othering of Hispanic and East Asian immigrants is as fierce in America as the othering of Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrants in Britain. America started building a physical wall at the Mexican border. Britain erected a metaphorical one, through its Brexit split with mainland Europe.

These are brazen attempts by American and British leaders to control what they don’t understand. To enforce compliance with their respective nations’ dominant cultures. Or even to deny the opportunity for some to comply with it.

No one is declaring victory in these endeavors. The continued gripes about broken borders and rallying cries for vigilance make that abundantly clear.

But, just as critically, no one is declaring defeat. And that’s just keeping the spiral going.

The 100 Day Plan.

It’s a hallmark of leadership.

From the corporate boardroom to the halls of government, newly minted leaders start with an action plan. A set of predetermined initiatives intended to assert control.

I’ve long maintained a leader’s mindset – and even held some volunteer leadership positions over the years. Yet, I’ve never followed the 100 Day Plan.

When I’ve taken on a new venture, I’ve placed a premium on understanding. Understanding what I’m getting into, who’s involved, and what their perspectives are.

This requires a lot of learning, and a lot of listening. It demands that I humble myself before I even think of asserting control.

It can be a frustrating process in the short term. But it pays off in spades.

For once I do finally clear my throat to speak, my commands will be neither blind nor reckless. My assertions will be grounded in context, and more likely to hit the mark.

I believe a great many of us can learn from this example. I believe that we can follow a more pragmatic path than tilting at windmills.

We can make a better attempt to understand the forces around us. And we can adapt our commands to match that understanding.

If that means reading the wind, and adapting baseball drills accordingly, so be it. If that means acknowledging the cultural realities of outsiders before attempting to box them out, let’s do it. If that means replacing our 100 Day Plans with de-facto focus groups, let’s make it happen.

Control is fragile enough as it is. Better to not shatter it entirely by pairing it with delusion.

Ghosts of Youthful Indiscretion

The dentist walked into the room. After examining my teeth for a moment, he came to a swift conclusion.

Invisalign treatments were needed. The sooner the better.

Sooner was not going to happen. Not until I scrounged up the money and checked what – if anything – my insurance would cover.

I shared this information with the hygienist. But she shocked me with her reply.

You had braces once, didn’t you? Maybe put your old retainer back in at night for the time being. Every little bit helps.

My old retainer. I hadn’t thought about it in years.

That oversight was probably the reason I was in this mess. Maybe if I’d worn the darned thing for more than a week after getting my braces off, things would have been different.

But that wiry metal mouthpiece was unsightly and uncomfortable. It cut into my cheeks as I slept. It was a nightmare to clean. It represented the opposite of freedom.

And so, in a fit of teenage defiance, I stashed the retainer in its case and hid it in a dresser drawer. As I left my childhood home for college, the retainer remained. And when I later moved halfway across the country to start my adult life, the retainer did not move with me.

At some point between then and now, it ended up in a dumpster. And my teeth drifted out of alignment.

So now, I was staring down corrective treatment. Treatment that would both be time-intensive and expensive. Treatment that was deemed obligatory for my health.

The ghosts of youthful indiscretion had caught up with me.

I backed into my career.

Longtime Ember Trace readers are likely familiar with the story. Burned out after three years in the television news media, I up and moved to a new city without a job lined up.

All my professional credibility was tied to writing back then. And content marketing was having a moment.

There was a fit for me, and I desperately needed a living wage. So, I ended up as a marketer.

These days, I do precious little writing for work. My current position is more strategic than operational. It pays far better than the job I entered the industry with. It’s more stable than that initial role. And it turns more heads at networking functions.

But getting from then to now has required a bountiful helping of humble pie. Marketing is not a profession that offers up the benefit of the doubt. A mix of persistence, patience, and self-investment is needed to prove oneself.

I had all of this in spades. And ultimately, it helped me break through.

I don’t take this achievement lightly. Yet, the opportunity cost of my journey isn’t lost on me.

You see, there are plenty of other marketers who got their start on-time. They majored in business in college. They gained footholds with major companies straight out of school. And they proceeded to climb the ladder in those structured, corporate environments.

I did none of this. So, I’ve found success later in life than many of my professional peers. And I’ve endured years of struggle that they haven’t.

The ghosts of youthful indiscretion have haunted the road I’ve traveled. And there’s nothing I can do to shake them.

Or is there?

When I was born, my uncle was still a teenager.

Even in early days, this narrow age difference wasn’t lost on me. I might not have known how to count, but I realized that I could play Tonka trucks with my uncle. I understood that we could watch Sesame Street together.

What I didn’t know was how unique my uncle was. Unlike many young men his age, my uncle had a clear vision of what he wanted to do in life. And he was well on his way to achieving it.

As early as high school, my uncle aspired to become a doctor. By the time I was in the picture, he was on a pre-med track in college. Through my youth and early adulthood, I witnessed his rise from medical school to residency to becoming an acclaimed surgeon. He now oversees an entire surgery department at a prestigious hospital.

My uncle was certainly “on-time” for attaining these accolades. But that required a remarkable clarity of vision during his teenage years. And that fact, more than anything, has left me awestruck.

Why? Because my teenage years were a complete mess. I wasn’t running afoul of the law or partying until 4 AM each night. But despite my best intentions, I wasn’t doing anything to set myself up for long-term success either.

I waffled over which profession to pursue. I stopped wearing my retainer. I couldn’t manage my own finances properly.

These decisions – and more – would haunt me for years to come. They left costly holes for me to dig out of before I could know what it was like to thrive.

It’s easy now to vilify my teenage self for not having it all together. But if I put myself back in those years, it’s not hard to see why I made the choices I did.

Adolescence, you see, is a confounding time. As we get our first taste of independence, we’re filled with both confidence and uncertainty.

I was sure I was making the right decisions back then, given the information I had at the time. But that information was short on experience and introspection. Only the passage of time would eventually add that seasoning to my prefrontal cortex.

In short, I couldn’t have expected any better of my younger self. I need to give myself some grace.

But then there’s the issue of the ghosts of my youthful indiscretion. Do I let them linger, or do I put in the extra effort to exorcise them?

For a while, I tried the former. But those ghosts cast a heavy shadow on my present and future.

So, I’ve gone all-in. I’ve made the investment – in time, money, and effort – to rectify the results of my flawed choices. I’ve willingly sacrificed my newfound prosperity to dispel the echoes of What if?

I suspect I’m not the only one at this crossroads. A great many of us are surely haunted by the effects of choices made long ago, when we lacked wisdom and maturity.

There is no shame in that conundrum. After all, it shows that we’ve grown into more discerning, conscientious people.

But we’re also left with a weighty decision. A decision on how to handle the albatross in our midst.

I’ve made my choice. What’s yours?

The Burden of Ignorance

In January of 1995, two men strode into some Pittsburgh-area banks and robbed them at gunpoint.

The robbers made off with roughly $10,000 in cash. But they weren’t exactly modern-day members of the Dillinger Gang.

Neither man concealed his face during the crime spree. Instead, each doused themselves in lemon juice – believing it to render them invisible.

They weren’t, of course.

Bank security cameras offered up clear images of the criminals in action. And they soon found themselves behind bars.

In the interrogation room, one of the robbers – McArthur Wheeler – offered up the following excuse to bemused detectives.

But I wore the lemon juice! I wore the lemon juice!

Wheeler’s explanation, absurd as it was, became Exhibit A for a newfound psychological phenomenon – The Dunning-Kruger Effect.

As I’ve written before, The Dunning-Kruger Effect proclaims that those who are the most confident in their performance are all too often overconfident.

It leads to people making idiotic decisions with delusions of genius. And those decisions – like covering oneself in lemon juice and robbing a bank – can turn into amusing stories.

But the collateral damage behind the headline? That’s no laughing matter.

When you’re dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only painful for others. The same applies when you are stupid.

Ricky Gervais uttered these lines as a joke. But he was onto something.

Wheeler and his accomplice were certainly stupid when they robbed those banks while doused in lemon juice. And they got what they had coming to them – namely, years in prison.

But the collateral damage was not so neat and tidy.

Anyone in those banks that day likely felt traumatized by the brazen robberies. Anyone outside of the banks felt obligated to look around for the suspects, after their faces popped up on a Crimestoppers poster. And ultimately, the criminal justice system felt strained by the plea deals and sentences the incident required.

This is the burden of ignorance. When it bursts into the open, blind stupidity can cause an unwieldy mess. And others are saddled with the mop and bucket.

This pattern can be insidious.

The accused might grasp that they’ve done something wrong. But if they’re too ignorant to understand why their actions sparked catastrophe, they stand little chance of making better decisions moving forward.

They’ll keep stepping in it, again and again. After all, it’s hard to avoid what you don’t understand.

All the while, those affected by these transgressions seethe in their discontent. They ostracize the ignorant to put distance between themselves and the next disaster.

Fissures grow through this process. Polarization and resentment fester.

And we find ourselves on a road to nowhere.

Intelligence is a gift. But it’s also a skill.

I know this as well as anyone.

Growing up, I knew I was a smart kid. I got good grades in school. I easily recited statistics from memory. I read books in my spare time.

Yet, I was ignorant about using my gift. I struggled with social nuances and with other everyday activities.

It was only through experience that I was able to hone my intelligence. To apply it to life’s intricacies. And to thrive.

This journey took years to crystallize. But once it did, it spurred my ethos.

Be present. Be informed. Be better.

I’ve committed to following these three principles for quite some time. But I realize they contain a massive blind spot.

These principles, you see, say little about how to deal with others. Particularly those who might unwittingly throw a banana peel in my path.

My instinct has long been to wall them off. To protect myself from bearing the burden of ignorance whenever possible.

But such a strategy does me little good. It leads me to elevate myself over the ignorant, and to judge them with disdain. All while remaining at risk of their shenanigans.

My circle gets smaller through this process. And as exclusivity grows, so does disassociation.

Eventually, I’m the one who’s ignorant. Not for a lack of intelligence, but for a lack of real-world context.

It would be far better for me to extend an olive branch to those I seek to avoid. To teach, to coach, to mentor. To lead both with the context of example and with a vocalized compassion.

Such actions would provide the misguided the same opportunity once afforded to me. An opportunity to grow beyond naivete, and to avoid disastrous missteps.

There’s no guarantee that everyone would see the light. But if I keep the door closed, no one will.

So, I’m pledging to do better going forward. But such a commitment can only go so far.

Don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions.

Some version of this phrase has been uttered by just about every executive in the history of business.

The implication is simple – airing problems without antidotes only causes them to proliferate. It wastes time, it strains resources, and it stifles productivity.

With all this in mind, we hesitate before airing professional grievances. We ensure we have a proposed solution in tow before sounding the alarm.

Shift the setting outside the office walls though, and it’s far different. We openly gripe about ignorance, without offering up any strategies to combat it. And we grow agitated as history repeats itself.

Why do we expect anything different? Ignorance can’t fix itself, after all. That’s the whole premise of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

No, to flip the script, we need to take command. We need to lift the torch high and shine a light for the wayward to follow.

We must serve as a guide, not a gate. We must meet the ignorant where they are, and shepherd them to where they ought to be.

Such a shift requires humility on our end. It requires conscientiousness. It requires virtue.

This is no small ask. But the benefits far outweigh the costs.

So, let’s do our part. Let’s help cast off the burden of ignorance. And let’s lift our society into a more enlightened future.

It’s our move. Let’s make it.