This is a true statement: “The question ISN’T what you need to do. The question IS who you need to be.” — Dan Rockwell
And so is this: “The important thing after deciding is DOING.” – Michael Smith
Is it Be or Do? We are what we do; we do what we are.
It’s convenient to get internally caught up in this, stalling rather than moving forward. Marcus Aurelius wrote in his personal diary, “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
We get more of what we celebrate. We become more like what we imitate. The dearth of mature role models (men and women, in all walks of life) is a tragedy in our time. I’m saddened that much of our edu-tainment culture celebrates immaturity, goofiness, and narcissism. I’m encouraged that the deepest-resonating stories are still about people fighting for the good and growing through adversity.
Be aware of this tendency: We want to be the noun with doing the verb. We want to be fit, but don’t want to exercise. We want to be a great writer, but am unwilling to write systematically day after day. We want to be a good person while giving free rein to every impulse. We want to have X mastery, and want it instantly.
I suggest we adopt this paradigm: Choose to do the things congruent with the person you want to be. Especially do the private work that others don’t see that enables a person to perform consistently and well. Do those, today, and again tomorrow. Let the power of compounding carry you to mastery.
You might think, “Glenn must do that really well all the time.” And you’d be wrong.
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Glenn Brooke’s biggest problem is Glenn Brooke.
There, I said it.
Self-management and self-leadership are crucial to maturity. We’ve never ‘arrived’ at a point where we no longer need to battle against our flawed hearts and minds. Wishing this were so, or thinking that other people have gone beyond this battle, is evidence that we must continue to battle.
The military language is useful because it resonates with us – we fight for what is important and against that which works against human thriving. Some have told me they’re uncomfortable when I use conflict and military language to describe this reality. I’m open to suggestions. I’ve asked what they prefer. No one has given me suitable alternatives.
Sure, I have enemies. There are forces actively arrayed against what I believe and people I love. Their powerful strategies including exploiting my internal flawed nature. Example: “Let’s ‘help’ Glenn get angry about this less important thing, and then he’ll overlook the more important thing we’re doing over there. If that fails, we know how to trigger Glenn’s pride and puff him up just before we puncture him. That works reliably well.”
I concur with Jordan Peterson about the source of courage: Fear of God. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” we read in Scripture. Our courage to speak out against what is evil comes because we know where evil takes us (and people we love, and all made Imago Dei) – and we fear that more. Therefore, we speak and act. Therefore, we pray about what we ourselves cannot defeat or persuade, mindful that our true enemy is spiritual darkness.
We build our courage in small moments. We like the story where our courage is tested in the big moment, the point of crisis, but the more difficult reality is that our courage is built and tested day by day. A practical help here: We tend to think other people are thinking about us far more than they are thinking about us. Nearly everyone is consumed with their own stuff. Remember this when you’re worried about what people will think of you.
Anticipatory self-reflection is useful. What courage do I need today? Using my imagination and predictive power, what moments could occur today where courage is needed, and what will I do in that moment? How do I want to look back on today’s moments that required courage? What’s far bigger than my fears of others?
There is an account about Jesus’ interactions with the teachers of the law where they publicly ask him about his authority while there is a crowd around him. He asks a question in response about the authority behind John the Baptist’s message. They confer and decide that they fear the crowd around them more than they want to know the answer. “We don’t know,” they say. We enjoy this story because of the way Jesus “puts them in their place” when he says, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” Perhaps later those teachers of the law wondered, “What if we’d had the courage to give him our answer, what might we have learned, what might we have gained?” I suggest a lesson here is that some learning and growth only comes when we don’t fear the crowd.
How does courage fit into “Glenn Brooke’s biggest problem is Glenn Brooke?” Socrates urged “Know thyself.” Self-leadership is about overcoming the self that is dangerous and holding you back. Self-control is required for the self to be worthy of our calling and potential, staying out of the pitfalls of Ego and Despondency. Proverbs and the New Testament letters speak of self-control, as did Sun Tzu, Confucius, Aristotle, and multiple Stoics. This is hardly a new thought. It remains our contemporary challenge.
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Echo chambers are comfy.
One reason living in echo chambers is bad for us is that we’ll stay wrong about something much longer than we need to. You and I are wrong about some things, but we often can’t learn which things until someone challenges our ideas and forces us to defend them. The sharpest scientists, philosophers, pundits, and military leaders know that the ‘enemy’ is the best teacher.
Take your ideas, perspectives, and practices out into the larger world. Let them get hammered on the anvil of dialogue. Let them get cooked in the crucible of conflict. What remains is far stronger and better.
Think of it this way: an echo has no force for change.
