Month: February 2024

Follow the Leader

It starts with a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Forrest Gump wakes up one summer morning to an empty house. His love – Jenny – has departed in the dawn’s early light while he lay sleeping.

Alone and heartbroken, Gump laces up a pair of Nike running shoes. The same pair of Nikes that Jenny had gotten him for his birthday. And he goes for a jog in them.

The experience is invigorating to Gump, and he doesn’t want it to end. So, he keeps going until he reaches the ocean. Then he turns around and runs until he finds “another ocean.”

This pattern repeats itself for several years. But as it does, something changes.

Others join the fold. Not to race Gump, but to run in formation with him.

Some seek advice. Others are content with the sound of their feet hitting the pavement. But all follow, wherever Gump goes.

The entourage views him as a leader. Gump begrudgingly accepts this role – even though he ultimately strikes a match to it with seven words.

I’m pretty tired. Think I’ll go home now.

The movement fizzles out when Gump stops running. But the lessons of the experience live on.

When I was growing up, I would head with my father to the barbershop on Saturday mornings once a month.

We’d sit in adjoining chairs while two barbers – both native Italians with thick accents – gave each of us a haircut to our stylistic specifications. All the while, we’d talk.

We’d discuss the ballgame. We’d marvel at the new traffic light at the parking lot entrance. We’d gab about other events in our lives.

Discussions of leadership bring me back to the barbershop. It seems that everyone has their own style. And they’re none too shy about sharing their opinions with the world.

There have been books, documentaries, and debates about the practice of leadership. There have popular theories, handy checklists, and trendy buzzwords bandied about. There have been attempts to tie leadership to management, and efforts to cleave the two concepts apart.

But I wonder if we’re all making this too complicated. Perhaps the key to leadership is in the hands of Forrest Gump.

Of course, Gump is not an actual person. He’s a low-IQ character in an acclaimed movie from decades ago. That makes him all too easy to dismiss in this discussion.

But let’s consider Gump’s journey again. He goes for a run, and others follow along. While Gump doesn’t seek out this group, he provides them direction nonetheless. All by continuing to do what he’d already been doing.

Maybe that’s all that’s required to be a leader. No superhero cape. No upskilling. No bluster.

We just need to be worthy of following. And we need to do something that inspires others to follow us.

It’s harder than it sounds. Especially if we try.

You are here to become a leader.

I listened incredulously as my college orientation got underway.

The school I’d devoted the next four years of my life to was acclaimed for many things. Football. Partying. Sun tans. But leadership was not traditionally one of them.

The university president was on a quest to change all that. And it started with this speech to freshly arrived students.

The president knew what she was talking about. After all, she’d come to campus after a stint in a White House cabinet.

She understood the power of effective leadership. And she was committed to bringing it to the next generation.

But I was not buying what this campus leader was selling.

You see, I fancied myself many things as I sat in the arena that day. But aspiring leader was not one of them.

I’d just spent high school in the shadows, content to let others drive the agenda in the classroom, in the lunchroom, and on the baseball field. I fancied myself more a follower than a leader, and I had no qualms with that.

I didn’t think I was cool enough to be a leader. I didn’t consider myself charismatic enough to be a leader. I didn’t believe I was talented enough to be a leader.

And even if I had regarded myself that way, I didn’t want to be a leader. Following seemed so much safer.

But the university president’s words proved prescient. For as I progressed through my studies – and eventually into the workforce – I started growing into the role demanded of me.

This was by no means intentional. I honestly didn’t try to change my approach much this whole time.

But staying true to myself started to yield me a following. One that started small but soon grew to the point where it couldn’t be ignored.

That revelation brought some gravity. I still wasn’t quite sure what made me worthy of following. But the why didn’t matter. I felt responsible for my followers. I would not, could not let them down.

I might not have been seeking out leadership. But it found me, much like it found Forrest Gump on the silver screen.

And I was ready to heed the call.

Childhood is often considered the age of innocence.

The youngest among us race around playgrounds, scarf down candy, and dream big dreams. All with a refreshing dose of enthusiasm.

But our earliest days are not immune to pressure. Quite the opposite.

We might feel the wrath of an overbearing parent, the strain of a sibling rivalry, or the crush of cultural demands from the land of our ancestors.

I encountered none of those forces growing up. The pressure I contended with was purely circumstantial.

I’m the first member of my generation. My sister and cousins are all younger than me. And from an early age, I understood what that meant.

Sure, I’d get the first crack at everything. But all eyes would be on me.

A misstep would risk setting an entire generation down the wrong path. It could shatter familial trust, relegating my existence to a cautionary tale.

My mission was to avoid that fate. And I took it seriously.

That’s one of the reasons I played it so safe in my youth. It helps explain why I yearned to be a follower – albeit one who followed the clean-cut crowd.

But looking back now, it’s hard to see anything but a missed opportunity.

You see, I’d been conscripted into the role of leader by pure circumstance. I had a sibling and a bevy of cousins who literally followed in my footsteps. Yet, I failed to make the most of the opportunity right under my nose for years.

Fortunately, my reluctance hasn’t had lingering effects. My sister and cousins are all grown up now, and all of us have found success.

Still, I feel an urge to do better with my second chance. To face the burden of leadership more directly. To prove to my followers that their choice was worthwhile.

This doesn’t require me to change much in terms of my fundamentals. But it does demand that I live my values with consistency.

When things are going well, I must not let it embolden my approach. And when times are tough, I must not run and hide.

Others are watching what I do and what I say. I must not fail them.

I know the path, and I’m ready to travel it with grace and humility. My hope is that I don’t undertake this journey alone.

For the truth is, leadership is not a talent or an accolade. It’s a responsibility. A responsibility those blessed with a following are bestowed with.

How we account for that responsibility matters. It matters more than our title, or any 10-step plan found in literature.

Simply put, it defines us.

So, let’s stop seeking out leadership bona fides. Let’s allow the quest to come to us.

And when it does, let’s handle that burden with care.

Make It Simple

I stood in the back and watched.

Across the break room, the CEO was standing next to a monitor, riffing on the numbers it displayed. Between us were rows of chairs, filled with my co-workers.

It was my company’s first big all-hands meeting since a Private Equity firm acquired it. The days of broad platitudes were over. The whole employee base was going to see the financial results each time we gathered.

Here’s our bookings, which is essentially revenue for the last month, the CEO exclaimed. And here’s our EBITDA, which is essentially accounting gobbledygook.

My eyes glared daggers across the room. Accounting gobbledygook?! EBITDA was so much more than that.

I was in business school at the time, working full-time and then heading to evening classes across town. The experience was a grind, but my mind was still sharp as a tack.

So, I quickly recalled what I’d learned in my Financial Accounting class the prior semester. Namely, that EBITDA was essentially profit – or a figure close to it.

That seemed like important information for my co-workers to know. For whether they worked in support, sales, or product development, that number mattered to them. If the company’s expenses outweighed its revenue for too long, it could become insolvent. And we could all lose our jobs.

This was a critical conclusion to illustrate. And yet, our CEO sidestepped the issue entirely. In one sentence, he focused on the unsightliness of the EBITDA acronym and stated that it was beyond our grasp.

What a way to miss the mark.

When I was young, browsing the Internet was an immersive experience.

I would sit down at my family’s desktop computer, which was hard-wired to a modem. I’d launch America Online, hearing iconic sound effects as the modem connected to the World Wide Web.

Soon, data would flow through the home’s landline and straight to the computer screen. The setup would make it impossible to use the home phone, in an era where mobile phones were rare. So, surfing the web was an escape from society – for the entire household.

Still, this escape was far from an oasis. The Internet data speeds were glacially slow back then. Web pages could take several minutes to load.

This whole clunky adventure sounds arcane in the modern era of technology. These days, you can quickly browse the Internet on a smartphone in the remote wilderness. Or you can put a headset on in your living room and imagine you’re in that same wilderness.

The steps that led to this technological innovation were nuanced. And yet, billions have been able to reap its rewards with ease.

Why is that?

I believe it has something to do with a 14th century principle called Occam’s Razor.

Occam’s Razor states that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. It’s a precursor to the KISS method – Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Technologists have followed Occam’s Razor for decades. The pioneers of the industry were problem solvers at heart, and they recognized that their solutions needed evangelism. If a problem was fixed but that fix was not widely adopted, it would remain a problem. And complexity was the bane of adoption.

So, each wave of innovation has followed a familiar pattern. The new ways make the old ones obsolete. But they they’re also easy for the masses to understand.

This premium on simplicity – on packaging up complex information in a widely understandable manner – is the hidden superpower of the tech industry. And yet, it rarely expands beyond the search bar of Google or the home screen of an iPhone.

In too many other industries, complexity is still the price of admission. And even within the tech industry, the push to make it simple is not absolute.

That comment in an all hands meeting about EBITDA being accounting gobbledygook? It took place at a tech company.

This duality is making a mess of us. And something’s got to give.

Tell me like I’m 5.

My colleague’s command rankled me.

Here I was, sitting in the producer’s chair in one of 800 TV newsrooms in America. I had the honor of conveying the major events of the day to 150,000 households across West Texas. But now, I was being asked to focus on the kindergartner-level viewers in the area.

Why was that?

My colleague explained that most people didn’t plan their day around my newscast. If they caught it at all, they were likely multitasking. Cooking, perhaps. Or changing out of their work clothes. Or wrangling their rambunctious kids running around the living room.

They were listening to our broadcast as much as anything else. And listening with one ear, at the end of a long day, with energy flagging. I had to meet them more than halfway to keep them from tuning me out entirely.

I nodded in understanding. And from then on, my newscasts looked different. Simpler. Plainspoken. And easier for a 5-year-old to understand.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this advice would come to define my life.

As I left the news media behind for a career in marketing, I found myself supporting industries I knew little about. First home remodeling. Then insurance.

The acronyms and jargon bandied about in fields put a wedge between me and the major players. They made it feel as if I was gathering information from the other side of a closed door.

My job was to get others to walk through that doorframe and into the room beyond it. But it would be hard to succeed if I was out in the cold with those I was recruiting. If I didn’t understand why the products I represented mattered, how could I explain that to the masses?

So, I went strove to make it simple. I learned all I could about my industry and my employer in the most straightforward terms. And then I conveyed that information in a way that just about anyone could understand.

This has worked wonders. I’ve made it easy for an inexperienced consumer to recognize what my employer’s solution can offer them. And I’ve made it just as easy for a relative at a holiday gathering to understand what I do for a living.

There are no prerequisites to information in my world. There is no room for pretense.

But in that sense, I stand alone far too often.

Check this out. An entry level job that requires three years of experience!

My friend beckoned me over to the laptop on the coffee table, hoping we’d find humor in the absurdity of it all. But as we stared at the job description on the screen, neither one of us was laughing.

There were enough acronyms to flummox the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. There were vague descriptions of arbitrary tasks. And there was that firm demand for 3 to 5 years of professional experience in the field. For an entry level job.

Good Lord! Was this employer trying to seal off the talent pipeline?

It made no sense to me then. But it does now.

The company who put out this misguided job ad had the same goal as millions of others. To make enough money to cover its costs and then some.

This meant catering its offerings to the masses. But not opening its doors to them.

Indeed, success in the ultra-competitive business world meant having the best talent in tow. And complexity was the measure separating the wheat from the chaff. Exclusivity was the name of the game – even at the lowest levels.

So, this company offered no quarter for on-the-job growth. It demanded three years’ experience just to get in the door.

This contradiction mirrors life itself. We rely on simplicity to reap the benefits of community. Yet, we also rely on complexity to make our mark in a crowded field.

Our minds can’t handle this polarization. So, we tend to focus on complexity, making our actions more and more exclusive. Until eventually, we miss the forest for the trees entirely.

What if we chose the other road? What if we shunned the illusion of the sophisticated elite, and yearned to make it simple?

A voice in our head might scoff at this idea, claiming it’s beneath us. But that voice betrays us.

A focus on simplicity has changed my life for the better. Not because I’m anyone special. But because the concept just makes sense.

It’s time for more of us to reap these rewards. To open our minds, our hearts, our spirits. To tell it like we’re 5.

Let’s get to it.

Vice Buster

Where’s the sheepskin?

My pulse started racing as I scanned the room for it. I needed it.

I never slept without this sheepskin. It sat atop my pillow in my bed at home. It was packed in my bag whenever I spent an overnight away.

But now, on this overnight trip, it was nowhere to be found. My parents had somehow forgotten to pack it.

And now, I had two options. Stay up all night or put my head directly on the pillowcase.

I was committed to Option 1 for a while. Option 2 was too terrifying.

But eventually, I got groggy. And my resistance faded.

I felt the cool, crisp linen of the pillowcase against the back of my head. And soon I was fast asleep.

The Peanuts cartoon series features many iconic characters.

But one stands out above the rest – to me at least.

Linus Van Pelt.

Linus is a brilliant child who can easily explain scientific or philosophical concepts. His words make the other characters wiser, and they make the cartoon reader feel more enlightened too.

Yet, Linus also tends to suck his thumb like a toddler. And he carries a blanket with him wherever he goes.

This duality is rare in the Peanuts universe. Snoopy might be the only other character with such complexity.

Still, Linus is not unique. Far from it.

At any given moment, there are hundreds of millions of Linus Van Pelt protégés in all corners of our nation. You can find them in school classrooms, on playgrounds, and anywhere else kids gather.

This is no accident. It’s by design. Our design.

We lift up our children, highlighting their earliest moments of brilliance and encouraging more of it. Like a coach training an Olympic pole vaulter, we set the bar high, and then raise it ever higher.

But we also hold down our children, infantilizing them every chance we get. We let them carry around a blanket or suck their thumb until kingdom come. Because the alternative is too distressing – for both children and parents.

We’d rather not see our perfect, brilliant children crying in terror because we took away their creature comforts. And we’d rather not acknowledge that our children are growing up, and primed to turn the page on how we see them now.

So, we let them be Linus. We encourage them to be Linus – for as long as they can be.

This choice might seem inconsequential in the moment. But it carries a long shadow.

You see, the Linus model adds something toxic into the minds of the next generation. Namely, the concept of vices.

The longer children are allowed to hang onto their blanket, their stuffed animal, or their Hot Wheels toy, the more intractable it becomes. Children no longer treat the item like a companion on life’s journey; the item becomes a convenient escape instead.

We eventually do outgrow our blankets, our stuffed animals, our Hot Wheels toys. But as we morph into adolescents and adults, we never can shake the reliance on a convenient escape.

So, we turn to alcohol, to gambling, to excessive sugar, or to a whole host of other grown-up vices. Like Linus, we use these things to hide from the difficulties of the world. But unlike Linus, we have a responsibility to face those difficulties. After all, they won’t simply go away if we turn away from them.

Shirking our responsibility leaves us up a creek without a paddle. And the world suffers for it.

Make no mistake, the Linus model is not a viable one.

Vices are far from harmless. They must be rooted out.

When my family returned from our overnight trip, the sheepskin was on my pillow. Right where my parents had left it while packing for our travels.

I lay my head on the sheepskin, feeling its familiar warmth. And I quickly dozed off.

But once I awoke, a profound revelation came over me.

I didn’t need this item to sleep. The world of sheepskin-less pillows had turned out not to be so terrifying. And even if there were some frights awaiting me down the road, I had what I needed within me to face them. An inanimate object wasn’t going to save me.

I tossed the sheepskin aside and put my head back on the pillowcase. My Linus days were over.

In the decades that followed, I did pick up some vices. But they were all minor flings, rather than committed relationships.

I never let vices get their hooks into me. And when I felt their sharp edges digging into my skin, I shook them off.

Eventually, I started to make a sport of it. While some would cast off unhealthy habits for New Year’s or for Lent, I took pride in ridding myself of them for life.

So, away went McDonald’s, and Dr Pepper, and Jack Daniel’s. Whatever pleasures they gave me in the moment paled from what they would cost me over the long run.

I resolved to face life’s roller coaster with a clear mind and a clean bill of health. And for a time, my sacrifices to this end were the story.

But then life got hard.

A global pandemic hit. My career shifted. My social circle evolved.

I returned to competitive running, only for injuries to tear me apart. I managed to balance my books, only for a shift in the economy to leave me swimming upstream again.

I had every excuse to turn the clock back. To return to my old vices to dull the pain, and to provide me reassurance.

But I left my vices behind, favoring select indulgences instead. The occasional bakery sweet. The more-than-occasional expletive. The daily cup of coffee – black, no sugar – to keep me extra alert.

I wasn’t cowering from that north wind. I was turning into it and letting its bitter sting wash over my face.

These challenges weren’t going to define me. No, that was my story to write.

The Peanuts story effectively ended in 2000, when its cartoonist died. Yet the Linus-ification of society persists.

Indeed, vices are intertwined in our societal ecosystem. There are whole product lines, networks of manufacturing plants, and even a desert oasis devoted to them.

So much of what we cling to is not harmful on its own. But when we ask it to be our salvation, our sanctuary, our beacon of reassurance, we dig ourselves a hole we can’t ever climb out of.

We can do better.

We can take each new challenge as a moment of truth. We can remind ourselves that the courage to meet the moment lies deep within us – and that only we can coax it to the surface.

Once we recognize that truth for what it is, the choice should become clearer.

Do we run and hide from what’s in our midst? Or do we dig our heels in and face it head-on?

The first road feeds vices, exponentially tightening their grip over us. The second road starves vices, redefining them as indulgences.

I’m committed to that second road. Are you?

Good Fences

Like the wind, she was off.

Freshly released from her leash, our family dog went bounding down the hill and straight into the yard of the house next door.

She was free and exuberant – and a frightening sight to the neighbors.

My father ambled his way into their yard, apologizing profusely as he shepherded the dog back onto our property.

I was young at the time, and I don’t recall much more of this incident. But it’s hard not to recall what was in our backyard the next time I set foot there. Namely, a tall wooden privacy fence hugging the property line.

The days of our dog making a jailbreak were over. And so was the world as I knew it.

Good fences make good neighbors.

That’s about as American a phrase as there is.

We’re a society obsessed with security, with boundaries, with marked territory. We boldly place our stake in the ground, proclaiming to the world what we claim as ours. Then we set up blinds to keep that same world at bay.

There’s no way to fend off all risk, of course. But a good fence can sure help.

There are consequences to all this, of course. When our horizon consists of walls and warnings, we stop engaging with all that lies beyond it.

We see our neighbors less. We rely on them less. We trust them less.

This happened to my family when that wooden fence cropped up on the edge of our yard. The neighbors became ghosts.

So close, yet so far away. It was jarring.

Over time though, I came to embrace this arrangement. I found sanctuary in the quarter-acre of turf my family claimed – and the mechanisms that kept it in place.

Our property. Our land. Our home.

The exclusivity was everything.

The whispers filled the hallways.

Rumors. Gossip. Innuendo about someone conveniently absent from the conversation.

Such were the realities of high school.

But about halfway through my tour of duty, something changed. Websites with names like MySpace and Facebook appeared. And we all flocked to them.

Suddenly, the whispers were old news. Living out in the open on the wild frontier of the Internet, that was the way to go.

We posted too much of our lives there in those early days, and I was no exception. I didn’t always share what was on my mind. But just about everything else had a digital timestamp.

Personal photos. Status updates. Conversations with my social circle.

As I moved off to college and found a new social circle, I was an open book. Literally.

But soon, I found myself pulling back. I posted less, and I carried an air of suspicion about me.

Some of this instinct was literal. I’d caught two young men trying to steal my laptop from my dorm room one day, when I’d left it unattended.

I chased the would-be thieves away empty-handed. But I felt exposed, nonetheless. Exposed in a manner that lingers for the long haul.

Still, this incident only partially explains my decision to fade into the background. There were other factors at play.

Truth be told, I’d come to feel a yearning. A longing in my soul to withdraw. I desired to add mystery to the whispers about me – until there weren’t any whispers at all.

Such was the credo of my introversion. And I was done ignoring it.

So, I steadied the barriers around me. And I piled them higher with each passing day.

These tendencies have only proliferated over time. I remain fiercely independent and loathe to share too much of my journey all that widely. Ember Trace is about as far as I’ll open my book.

Good fences are my companion.

Fences are a hot button issue these days.

Some want them built up — both literally on our nation’s borders, and figuratively around the enclaves that lie within them. Others want to take a bulldozer to barriers, bringing more of us out in the open.

It’s a dueling agenda that’s caused a giant mess.

I don’t profess to have answers for a feasible immigration policy or a more equitable society. But I just might have something for the mess.

The way I see it, this turmoil comes not from the balance of issues themselves. But rather, our interpretation of them.

You see, we tend to pick sides in these grave matters, and countless others. This is our right in a free society, and it shouldn’t raise alarms on its own.

But we fail to put proper boundaries around the positions we take. Instead, we charge into the yard next door with them. We proselytize our views. And we condemn those that don’t conform – sparking divisiveness.

The solution to this conundrum is some good fences. Barriers delineating where our individuality ends, and where another’s begins.

If we erect these structures and abide by them, the vitriol should die down. We might still abhor each other’s views, but we’ll at least be able to share a respectful nod as we pass each other on the street.

And that’s light years from where we are now.

Some years ago, my family ceded my childhood home.

My parents put the property up for sale. They packed up their possessions and moved into a condo in the city.

I had moved away years before. I didn’t pay the decision much mind.

But from time to time, I’ve thought about that wooden fence at the edge of the backyard. And about the incident that led to its existence.

Our first family dog was a bearded collie, full of joy and energy. When we walked her around the neighborhood, she’d tug on the leash with the force of an unruly steer. When winter came, she’d bound through the snow like an antelope.

Still, I’d never seen her run more freely than when she made that run for the yard next door. She was like a wild horse darting across the plains, unbridled and undeterred.

This is the image we seek when we express our individuality. We aim to make the world our oyster, free from the reins of conformity.

But that freedom is a mirage. When we step out from the pack, we must fight for every inch – all while defending ourselves against other doing the same.

Wild horses might run free, but they also must find sustenance and ward off predators. Runaway dogs might find the same challenges and dangers – or worse – as they navigate the jungle of urbanized society.

And we will surely find the same unsavory realities if we don’t mind our fences. We will find ourselves scrapping for survival, with no lane to sustain what we truly desire.

Such are the tradeoffs of individuality. Our views, our goals, and our spoils have limits. Divisiveness is the price we pay for exceeding those limits.

Sturdy barriers can shield us from this fate. They can keep us from crossing the line and sabotaging our own desires. They’re a godsend if we establish them for the right reasons.

Good fences make good neighbors. Let’s mind ours accordingly.