Tag: process

An Ode to Incrementalism

As I made my way through the cavern, I felt something hit my left shoulder.

It was cold, wet, and gray. And it was now sitting on my favorite shirt.

With an exasperated sigh, I moved to rid myself of the moisture. But as I did, my father cautioned me.

Don’t be so quick to wipe it away. That’s history in the making.

Indeed, the cavern we were traversing was formed by actions like this. The slow drip by drip of water eating away at a limestone core — over millions of years.

This all happened out of sight and out of mind. That is, until an intrepid explorer discovered the cavern this process had created.

That nearly finished product was what we were now witnessing. Its promise had lured us off the highway and compelled us to pay an exorbitant entrance fee. Its grandiosity was the selling point.

The methodical path the cavern took to this moment was hardly worth noting.

But perhaps it should have been.

On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs stepped onto the stage at the MacWorld Conference in San Francisco.

The Apple co-founder quickly rattled through some of the company’s greatest innovations – the Macintosh and the iPod. Then, roughly two minutes later, he introduced the iPhone.

Some have called this moment transformative. They’ve framed it as a moment where the world as we knew it ceased, and better future entered the fray. A future driven by a breakthrough piece of technology.

There is some truth undergirding these claims. Smartphones have changed the ways we work, shop, socialize, and interact. And the iPhone will always be considered the original smartphone.

But make no mistake. Its launch was no moonshot. It was a master class in incrementalism.

Long before Jobs took the stage, iPhone components were in our hands. Plenty of people had cell phones. Many had portable music players as well. And Internet on the go wasn’t exactly scarce — assuming you had a laptop computer.

Some devices — like the Palm Pilot and the Blackberry — had already brought a couple of these features together. No one had offered the full enchilada, but the groundwork was certainly there.

The iPhone, then, was a next step in the cycle. A sleek, fancy next step. But a next step, nonetheless.

Jobs’ own presentation made mention of this. He first told the audience that Apple would be unveiling three products – a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone, and an Internet browser. Then, he mentioned that those three products would actually be one product.

This is how the iPhone made its debut. As incrementalism defined.

We’ve come a long way since the launch of the iPhone.

Technology has evolved. Apple has grown. Steve Jobs has left us.

And yet, we continue to delude ourselves.

We remain fascinated by the mirage of sudden breakthroughs. And we willfully ignore the incremental work that makes them happen.

The instant gratification, the quick fix, the answered prayer — they’re all big parts our lexicon. The gradual build-up is not.

This baffles me.

It’s no secret that the world around is evolving, just as our bodies and our minds are evolving. Why are we so tempted to hit Pause and Fast Forward on that process? Why can’t we let the process play out as it is?

Are we lazy? Fearful of boredom? Overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all?

I don’t know. But it’s time we say goodbye to this nonsense. It’s time to give incrementalism its due.

On the second day of my professional life, I strutted into the newsroom at a West Texas television station.

Day 1 had been a whirlwind, filled with onboarding and training. But now, it was Go Time.

Hopped up on adrenaline, I was ready to spend hours putting together the 5 PM newscast.

But it was a summer Friday in a small town. Action was light, and the newscast was fully assembled within 40 minutes. There’d be plenty of time to kill before 5 PM rolled around.

My co-workers started talking about their weekend plans. As the new guy in town, I had none. So, I started daydreaming about my future.

I thought about where I’d be in a month and in a year. I imagined that one day between now and then, everything would just click. The hard times would be over, and the fear buried beneath my bravado would evaporate.

It’s been close to 15 years since that moment. And none of what I imagined has come to pass.

I’ve made a ton of progress — both professionally and personally. I’ve established myself in a different career and put myself on a footing to live comfortably. I’ve made new friends, mastered new hobbies, and gained new competencies.

But none of this happened overnight. There was no breakthrough moment when everything just fell into place.

There was just a long, slow march.

Incrementalism has been the drumbeat of my life. And I’m better for it.

For it has allowed me to build, to grow, to iterate. It’s kept my gains from being unsustainable. It’s kept my mistakes from being catastrophic.

Accepting this subtlety has been critical. It’s helped me commit to better without obsessing over the goalposts. It’s allowed me to embrace the journey even more than the destination.

The future is uncertain, and anxiety is inherent in uncertainty. But incrementalism has gotten me here. And I’m confident it will help drive me forward.

Eight years ago this week, I did something bold.

I established the publication now known as Ember Trace. And I published my first article.

This was as close to a breakthrough moment as I’ve had in my life. Ember Trace seemingly appeared on the Internet out of thin air. (In reality, I took some steps behind the scenes to make it happen.)

And that first article — that first time shipping my words to the world — that was indeed a cathartic moment for me.

But every week since then, I’ve made a commitment. A commitment to share fresh words, fresh ideas, and fresh thoughts. Whether my week has been good or bad, slow or busy, I’ve taken the time to add a fresh article — for 418 weeks now.

This exercise in incrementalism has built Ember Trace into a bona fide publication. And it’s built me up as well.

There’s no question that the words shared here are crisper, deeper, and more polished than they were eight years ago. I have grown as a thinker and a writer. You, my dear audience, have grown as readers as well.

What a testament to the power of incrementalism this is. Week by week, we’ve built this structure together. It’s stronger and more profound that it’s ever been. And it only stands to get even stronger over time.

I am grateful for your support, for your time, and for your subtle embrace of the incremental. Let’s see what more we can build together, brick by brick.

Shovel In The Road

I was driving down a Texas highway when a shovel suddenly appeared in the roadway in front of me.

This shovel was no pithy digging tool. It was a monster of forged metal. And it was a problem.

I had no idea why it was there. All I knew was it was in my way, and I was running out of time to avoid disaster.

My first instinct was to swerve. But I quickly remembered that veering out of my lane too quickly could cause the car to flip over. So, I made a more gradual shift to the highway shoulder on my right.

The maneuver went well — at first. In an instant, the solid white line marking the right edge of the highway was in front of me. Then, the concrete shoulder appeared, with no shovel in sight.

But a split-second later, I saw something else through the windshield. Green grass.

I had overshot the shoulder, and my car was now careening down an embankment.

I tried frantically to turn back to the road and to avoid getting stuck in the ditch. I tugged the wheel to the left. I pressed harder and harder on the brakes. But gravity and momentum were not cooperating.

When the car finally did come to a stop, it was at the bottom of the embankment. It was facing the wrong way, mere feet from the retaining wall.

I unbuckled my seat belt, opened the door, and did a walkaround, looking for any sign of damage. It looked like I had done one of those NASCAR burnouts, with semicircular tire track patterns in the embankment and green blades of grass sticking to the sides of my car. But somehow, the vehicle was intact.

I wandered up toward the highway to get a better view of what I had just endured. The shovel was quite a distance up the road from where I had ended up. That meant I was out of the line of fire, even if the hunk of metal was to go flying.

I started thinking about how that shovel ended up in the road.

There were a couple of possibilities.

I had been driving behind a pickup stocked with landscaping tools. Maybe those tools hadn’t been properly secured, and the shovel had slid off the back.

Or maybe the workers in the left lane, protected by orange construction cones, had been careless. Maybe a lapse in judgment had sent the shovel from their workstation into traffic.

Either answer seems far-fetched in hindsight. But at the moment of truth, each seemed likely. And I was in no mood to let them go unaddressed.

The landscaping truck was two miles down the road by now. It was too late to track it down.

But the construction crew? All that separated me from them was the highway blacktop.

I glared in their direction.

Hey! I yelled at the workers. Y’all left a shovel in the lane over there! Y’all could have gotten me killed!

The crewmembers stared at me in bewilderment for a moment. Then they got back to work. My attempt to give them a piece of my mind had come up empty.

Dejected, I got back in my car and drove up the embankment. But as I got back onto the highway, I felt a strange sensation.

Irony.

I am a completionist.

I believe that nothing is worth celebrating unless it’s finished. And that a work in progress is nothing more than a jumbled mess.

Some may confuse these sentiments with perfectionism. But there are some key differences.

Perfectionists worry about whether a job is done flawlessly. Completionists worry if the job is done, period.

There are issues with both philosophies. Perfect can be the enemy of done. And done can be the enemy of satisfactory — if the urge to clear our to-do lists supersedes common sense.

Even so, I err on the side of completionism. The chaos of a project in process leaves a sour taste in my mouth — even though I recognize that the mess of change is often drawn-out by necessity.

I want to avoid this outcome at all costs. So, I use my discomfort as fuel to get the job done.

This ethos is what’s stoked my intense work ethic. It’s why I log extra hours to make sure assignments don’t bleed into the next day. It’s why I tune out the noise and focus religiously on the task at hand.

Others have asked why I drive myself into the ground like this, day after day. And I’ve generally responded to these inquiries with a proverb.

Don’t leave a shovel in the road.

For years, this had been nothing more than a figure of speech. But not anymore.

Now, I had gotten up close and personal with an actual shovel in the road.

I had seen the dangers. I had felt the risk.

And I didn’t like it one bit.

Half-measures are having a moment like never before.

As the world reckons with everything from pandemics to natural disasters, less and less feels guaranteed.

And with tomorrow more uncertain than ever before, we are putting less effort into sorting out today.

The urge to finish what we started seems to be waning. For what good is the feeling of a job well done when our lives are upside down? Better to do only what’s needed to get through the day, the week, the month. And then to clean up the mess once the dust settles.

At least that’s the way that many see our present predicament.

I understand this sentiment. I too have sometimes struggled to maintain motivation at a time when normal is becoming a faded memory.

But we need to fight through our malaise.

For danger lies beneath the fog of the moment. The danger that leaving a mess can bring.

And we’d really rather not come face-to-face with it.

We don’t want to relive my nightmare from that Texas highway. We don’t want to end up careening down the embankment, veering from one near-disaster to another.

So, we have an obligation not to leave the shovel in the road. We have a responsibility to tidy up.

In both good times and bad, we must be good stewards for ourselves and our neighbors. We must do our part to make the world a safer and more vibrant place.

Let’s keep our eyes on the prize. Let’s finish what we started.

Let’s get that shovel out of the road.

On Process

Brick by brick.

Those three words carry the weight of a metric ton.

We use them to describe the methodical nature of creating something big. To convey the importance of building on a solid foundation.

Most of all, we use them to talk about process.

Process is not the sexiest of words. It doesn’t have the sizzle or pizzazz to turn heads.

But process is not a word to be taken lightly. For it keeps the world turning.

When I was 6 years old, I went with my family to see the latest blockbuster Disney movie.

Its name: The Lion King.

The movie had everything a Disney production is renowned for.

I remember being captivated by the illustrations of the African savannahs, ensconced by the musical score and captivated by the storytelling.

But most of all, I remember one concept from the film: The Circle of Life.

That concept, of course, was immortalized by an Elton John song. But it was also part of the movie’s dialogue.

Early in the film, the great lion Mufasa warns his young son Simba — the movie’s hero — to understand the balance of the world around him and respect all creatures. Mufasa reminds Simba that even though lions feast on antelope in life, they themselves will eventually die and become part of the grass the antelope eat.

This cyclical pattern is not without precedent. Shakespeare featured it in many of his plays. And it manifested itself in history with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

Still, it was The Lion King that really drove the concept home for me.

I have been process-oriented ever since I left the theater that day. In fact, process has become part of my life’s mantra: Accept the challenge. Embrace the process.

Process has taught me the value of patience. It’s shown me the power of persistence. And it’s unveiled for me the majesty of the bigger picture.

Life-changing takeaways from a Disney movie, indeed.

I firmly believe the Lion King was the seminal movie of my generation.

Proof abounds to support this assertion.

The Lion King was the highest grossing Disney animated movie of the 1990s. Many of my peers have named their pets Simba, Nala, Mufasa and Sarabi. And friends and acquaintances have lifted up small animals or infants skyward with both hands, as Rafiki does to the newborn Simba at the start of the film.

Yes, the movie is a cultural staple — more than a quarter century after its release.

But I’m not sure if the Circle of Life metaphor carries that same level of gravitas.

Things move faster these days. And with that increased speed comes an acceleration of instant gratification.

Instant gratification would have been as far-fetched a term in the 1990s as smartphone. More of a pipe dream than imminent reality.

The world simply didn’t work that way back then.

When The Lion King was first released, people traveled to movie theaters to see it. Families waited in long lines at the box office and strode across floors sticky with spilled soda in order to claim the best seats.

After the theatrical release was complete, the film would disappear for a few months. Then, it would appear on store shelves as a VHS tape. You know — the physical cassettes you had to rewind once the credits stopped rolling.

Those videotapes would sell like hotcakes. For consumers knew that once the VHS release period was over, Disney would put the film into the mystical Disney vault — thereby blocking direct access to it for years.

Looking back, this was an incredibly inconvenient process. Still, there were few alternatives. The Internet was nascent and Disney had full control over distribution.

Families had to clear these hurdles to ensure they had on-demand access to the film.

Today, the barriers are largely gone. Disney still has distribution rights to The Lion King, but the entertainment giant has re-released it as a live action movie and a Broadway musical. And the company is on the verge of launching a streaming service that is sure to bring The Lion King to household TV screens worldwide at the click of a button.

The sticky movie theater floors? The rewinding of the videotape? Both are relics of the past.

For a nominal price, instant gratification can save the day.

My generation has soaked up this phenomenon outside of the Disneyverse as well. My peers have become obsessed with push-button solutions to their every beck and call.

Technology providers are more than happy to fill this void with streaming entertainment and smartphone apps for everything from food delivery to online dating.

Yet, even with the world at our fingertips, process doesn’t disappear.

The Earth still turns at the same speed, and our lives still follow the same familiar cycle.

It’s simply our patience for the big picture that has waned.

The instant gratification revolution has made our lives better in many ways.

It’s made shopping less of a drag and enabled our entertainment channels to travel with us. It’s allowed us to stay informed at every turn, and it’s freed up more time for us to be productive.

Yet, instant gratification is not a panacea.

There are plenty of areas where the slow hands of progress reign supreme — by design.

These include fitness and our relationships. But they also include the workplace.

I’ve heard of plenty of young adults these days entering the workforce with outsized demands. They want the keys to the castle from Day One, with all the bells and whistles.

Amazingly, in a historically tight labor market, many of these aspiring career launchers get much of what they ask for off the bat. But after a few months, the shine wears off.

These young employees get frustrated or bored and jump ship for another opportunity. The company fills the position with a new twentysomething, and the cycle perpetuates.

I don’t fault the young adults or the employers for this pattern. Both parties are adapting with the times in a society where the market climate dictates the terms of play.

However, I do take issue with the lack of regard for process in our working lives.

When I graduated college, I moved halfway across the country to take a challenging job as a TV news producer. My salary was less than those of the cashiers at the local Walmart, and my work schedule had me on-duty until 11 PM each night.

Yet, despite these obstacles, I came to work energized and determined each day.

I knew that I was young and inexperienced in the working world. And I understood that improvement would take time and consistent effort.

So, I focused on being better at my job each day than I was the day before. I embraced the process.

By the time I left television, I was far better as a producer than I was the day I started.

I’ve replicated this pattern in my digital marketing career, in my business school studies and in my volunteer leadership work. Even in environments focused heavily on the here and now, I’ve taken the long view in my approach. I’ve committed myself to the process.

This approach hasn’t always given me instant gratification. My increases in position and salary have been sporadic and modest.

But what it has given me is opportunity. An opportunity to look myself in the mirror each day with full knowledge that I’m building toward something greater.

This is what being process-oriented is all about. And, in my humble opinion, this is what careers should be all about as well.

So, in these fast-moving, on-demand times, don’t forget to consider the greater picture.

Take a step back to recognize the subtle beauty of process.

For if our lives are what we make of them, we can do better than endlessly pursuing hacks and short cuts. We’re better off building our future.

Gradually. Methodically.

Brick by brick.

Getting Deep

If you’ve ever heard professional athletes discuss their craft, you’ve likely heard a variation of the same phrase.

Getting deep.

Batters in baseball talk about letting the ball get deep before they swing at it. Hockey players talk about getting pucks deep in the opposing team’s zone. Basketball players allude to the topic when they talk about splitting the defense. Football players do the same when they talk about penetrating the defensive or offensive line.

The phrasing might be different, but the central theme is the same. Success is tied to depth of attack.

It’s remarkable how prevalent this theme is. It transcends sports played on different surfaces and under different rules.

So, if you believe in the If there’s smoke there’s fire version of proof, a bevy of athletes preaching the gospel of getting deep speaks volumes.

Part of this commonality is tactical. As is the case in military strategy, getting past your opponent’s first line of defense in sports makes you dangerous — and makes them vulnerable. This is as true if you’re running up the middle in football as it is if you’re seeing the ball all the way to the plate in baseball. You dictate the terms.

Yet, tactical soundness doesn’t fully explain why a football player from Texas, a baseball player from Venezuela and a hockey player from Norway speak of the same concept. Growing up on three different continents, they likely learned their respective sports in different ways. Tactical proficiency might not have been part of the lesson until they got to the pros.

No, there is something deeper that ties so many athletes to the gospel of getting deep.

You see, getting deep in sports isn’t quite as seamless as rolling out of bed in the morning. Unless your opponent is overmatched, they will execute an organized resistance to your efforts. And since the highest levels of professional sports are filled with the most elite athletes, such airtight resistance should be expected. When it comes to getting deep, brute force simply won’t get it done.

How do these elite athletes get around this obstacle? Through the three P’s — preparation, pivots and perseverance.

The most successful athletes prepare. They look at how their opponents prepare for them, and then they formulate a plan to disrupt that strategy. They build advanced scouting into their routines before they enter competition.

The most successful athletes pivot. They use skills of observation to identify what opponents are doing in the moment. Then they make real-time adjustments to stay one step ahead.

And the most successful athletes persevere. They try again and again to get deep, knowing that sometimes they might not succeed. But they don’t let those failings stand in the way of success. They keep going at it.

It is when preparation, pivoting and perseverance collide that the rubber meets the road. Athletes that attain this holy trinity become difficult for their opponents to defend against. And if an entire team buys in to this methodology, that team can quickly rise to elite status in its league.

In many ways, getting deep is the secret sauce of sports. At the highest level of competition, it’s what separates the wheat from the chaff.

Yet, I believe the concept extends off the field as well.

We all have the ability to get deep. To prepare for what lies ahead of us. To pivot based on what we see and experience. To persevere in the face of obstacles, keeping at it until we see the desired results.

Yet, more often than not, we fail to take the steps needed to harness this ability.

There are several reasons why. Perhaps life is going well and we don’t have major obstacles to overcome. Perhaps we’re looking for the path of least resistance, and don’t want to put in the effort to prepare in advance or pivot in the moment. Perhaps the thought of failing demoralizes us, rather than inspiring us to get back at it.

In any case, avoiding the process of getting deep does us no favors.

For when we get deep — when we prepare, pivot and persevere — we attain the most contextual information at the point of action.

This context provides a major benefit. Instead of reacting impulsively at the first sign of resistance — and potentially sabotaging our own efforts — we can use it to make a more levelheaded decision.

Getting deep allows us to think long-term, instead of just in the moment. It helps us focus on making the most sustainable decisions in the face of adversity.

Having these abilities is a gift. But it’s a gift we give ourselves through commitment to a process.

We must work to build a base of experience before we can truly succeed at getting deep. All that time preparing, pivoting and persevering early on provides us this experience. Experience that can be invaluable later on as we face down important decisions in times of turmoil.

Much like professional athletes early in their careers, we must take our lumps early on in order to build this experience. We must put a lot of effort into preparing, pivoting and persevering — all without necessarily seeing tangible results.

This can prove to be a bitter pill to swallow. But it’s an important one to take nonetheless.

For it unlocks potential that can’t be replicated. Potential to make informed and impactful decisions. Potential to read subtle patterns that have big impacts, and leverage them properly. Potential to have a steady hand, even in times of uncertainty.

Harnessing this potential empowers us. It makes more effective as leaders, professionals and members of society.

And we can only get there by making the commitment to get deep.

Make no mistake. Getting deep is more than just a sports philosophy.

It’s a gamechanger.

Use it to your advantage.

Passing The Test

What do you remember from your time in school?

Classes and homework, most likely. But also tests.

Tests are a fundamental part of the education experience. They’re the prove it moments. The opportunities to show what we’ve learned by answering a set of specific questions.

This is especially the case later in the education experience. Test scores define grades, provide us admission to the next level of learning and even certify us to practice certain professions.

Tests require preparation. They demand focus. And they can cause students great amounts of stress and anxiety.

Why is that? Because of the high stakes, for sure. But also because of the lack of control.

In most testing environments, we don’t know what’s coming. We might have some ideas as to the topics and general focus. But we don’t know the exact questions we’ll be working with until we’re in the moment.

This makes the build-up process somewhat of a toss-up. Studying involves internalizing information, practicing sample questions, and taking educated guesses as to the actual questions we’ll see in prime time.

It also changes our expectations of the learning experience. We focus our attention solely on the topics that might be on the test. We synthesize most of the information we learn in the waning hours before the test. And we take our performance from the test as a full indication of our potential.

We might succeed in this endeavor. But we’re ultimately setting ourselves up to fail.

You see, the test-intensive education structure is focused on the wrong things. It looks solely at the outcome, at the destination. And it gives that outcome, that result, an inordinate amount of weight when it comes to opening doors to our future.

This setup sends the wrong messages to students.

For one thing, it systemizes gratification. We’re raised to believe If we do one thing, we’ll get something else. Yet, outside the classroom, doing one thing only gives you the opportunity to get something else.

The world is notoriously random and irrational. Building an expectation of fairness and gratification in impressionable young students is downright reckless.

But perhaps more importantly, this focus on outcomes undercuts the very efficacy of education.

You see, learning is more about the journey than the destination. Sure, it can provide great benefits — such as the ability to make more informed decisions and live a more prosperous life. But ultimately, learning is a process. One that is built up gradually over time.

A heavy-handed focus on a few specific data points unravels the entire ball of yarn.

Now, instead of focusing on steady, incremental growth, we emphasize a feast-or-famine approach. We encourage students to pack their brains with information right before a test, data dump it during the exam, and then quickly forget what they’ve just memorized.

The sheer ridiculousness of this cycle is clear. In fact, it’s valid to ask if students really learn anything at all through this process.

The answer, too often, is no.

And that’s a problem.

Because the world needs us to keep learning. It needs us to continually embrace the pattern of growth.

Not just for us to leave our mark on society. But for us to simply survive the day-to-day.

For every day is a series of tests. From the moment we wake up to the moment we hit the pillow, we face a series of new situations and challenges.

These tests don’t follow an academic course structure. We can’t do much to anticipate them ahead of time. We walk into them blind.

It’s on us to build off what we’ve previously learned to handle these situations well in the heat of the moment.

Sometimes we’ll pass with flying colors. Other times, we won’t.

But regardless the result, we can learn from the experience. And use the information we’ve gleaned to prepare us for the next challenge we face.

This is incrementalism at its finest. It’s a full-bore commitment to the journey over the destination. And it’s critical to our daily existence, no matter our walk of life.

We must get on board with growth mindset. Our future depends on it.

So, stop thinking in terms of big moments and gratification. Of tests and grades.

Look at the big picture. Embrace the process.

The journey will be more rewarding.

Down and Dirty

How badly do you want to know all the details?

The inner workings of a process, a product, an organization, or anything else you might cross paths with in life.

This information can be valuable. But buyer beware.

You might get more than you bargained for.

In 1906, Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle shook America to the core.

The book was an inside look at the meatpacking industry. Sinclair, a muckraking journalist, spent several months working undercover in meatpacking plants as he gathered material for the book. And readers were not ready for his no-holds-barred expose of what life was really like behind the curtain.

The Jungle detailed oppressive working conditions and unsanitary health practices in meatpacking plants. As Americans read the book, they suddenly found their steaks, pork chops and Bratwursts to be far less appetizing.

It turned out, learning how the sausage gets made was a bit too much information. Uproar over the book eventually led to codified employment protections and food handling procedures. But the stain it left on our consciousness was permanent.

The Jungle changed the way we look at the details. And it sparked an interest not only in knowing the details of a process, but also in ensuring they’re up to par with our expectations.

That’s why the book is still talked about, more than 100 years later.

Times have changed, but the message remains the same.

Today, we’re obsessed with how the sausage gets made. We crave transparency throughout the supply chain. No longer is ignorance bliss.

We now demand control over every step of the process. And we demand accountability, by threatening to turn elsewhere if even a single link in the chain doesn’t meet our standards.

This phenomenon isn’t restricted to the companies we buy from, the governments we vote for or the entertainment options we patronize. It extends to our own interactions as well.

In the age of social media, we can learn all we can about everyone we know, and everyone we don’t. We soak this information up like a sponge. And use it to associate, or disassociate, with others.

The point is clear: Details matter. The more transparent and clean those details are, the more likely we’ll support the person, product or organization behind them.

We’ve reshaped societal behavior with this principle. But are we demanding too much?

Are we headed to a point of no return?

You see, our requirements for transparent details comes at a premium. A cleaner, more ethical process doesn’t come cheap.

Yet, we can’t stomach paying more for the convenience. In money, trust or social capital.

We’re hard-wired to search for the discounts. To get the most bang for our buck.

This chasm between what we demand and what we’re willing to give up for it is problematic. It leads providers to get down and dirty to meet our expectations. But once we find out about these tactics, we shame the offending providers and move to greener, cleaner pastures.

It’s a brutal cycle. And one that’s entirely unsustainable.

So, where do we go from here?

Do we dare take accountability for our own skewed expectations? Do we dare devote more time, money or energy to people and entities that go the extra mile for quality?

It’s unlikely. The Why pay more? question is too deeply embedded in our consciousness.

With that in mind, maybe it’s better if we don’t know how the sausage is made. If we focus more attention on the end result, instead of scrutinizing the intermediate points to no end.

Obviously, we’d still need to be aware of some details — particularly as they pertain to health and safety. But otherwise, peering behind the curtain might do us more harm than good.

Whichever way we turn, one thing is clear. Transparency comes with a cost.

If we aim to know all the details, we best prepare to get down and dirty.

Journey or Destination?

Are we there yet?

It’s one of the more cliché images out there: The kid in the back seat of the car asking that question over and over.

This image serves as a maddening reminder — both of the impatience of children and the petulance of adults. For while we might hope our kids will embrace the journey, our actions belie that outcome.

Our society is built off of destinations. We both celebrate and incentivize weddings, graduations and job promotions. We shoot endlessly for notoriety and recognition. We fight as ferociously as lions to achieve, all so we can revel in the spoils of victory.

We pay little attention to the journey we take to get to these destinations; if anything, we consider it a nuisance that delays achievement of our goals.

So why should we expect our young, impressionable children to act any different on a long car ride? Why should we expect anything less than a culture of instant gratification as those children grow up and become Millennials and Gen Z-ers?

We should know better. All we have to do is look in the mirror.

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Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. If we can learn to embrace the journey we take to our destination, we’ll have a better example to set. And we’ll get more mileage out of the life we live.

But this requires us to do something terrifying: Stop and reflect.

Instead of only considering the next milestone, we should take a moment to consider where we are at a certain point in time. Then we need consider how we got to that point and how we hope to proceed.

This process will likely make us feel vulnerable; after all, our society has trained us specifically not to feel comfortable with this. But once we scale that mountain of apprehension, we’ll unlock something priceless.

You see, each journey we take tells its own story — one the connects origin and destination. These journeys are rarely linear; there are plenty twists and turns along the way.

And those wrinkles in our path mean everything. The hours of hard work we put in, the bouts of adversity we so bravely face — they help make us stronger, smarter and more determined. They allow us to experience life at its fullest and most real as we shoot for our hopes and dreams. And they make those achievements so much sweeter.

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We must take the time to connect the dots. To understand that where we’re coming from and where we are matters as much as where we hope to go. To realize that our story is our own, and our journey is its conduit.

Yes, our journey is the key to living a more enlightened life — one that balances a sense of purpose with full awareness of the process that goes into it.

So, the next time you find yourself looking only at your next destination, stop and embrace your path toward it.

The journey matters. Enjoy the ride.