The status quo inherently trends to mediocre. Excellence requires pushing past the status quo.
This is deeply uncomfortable. We like being comfortable and safe. Most of the time we prefer reading about adventures rather than tackling them on our own. These factors are what give the status quo its weight, it’s gravitational pull.
Understanding this is the first step in conquering the status quo. This is the below-the-waterline enemy you’ll fight when leading change.
One of the reasons why existing systems tend to crash and shatter before they can be reformed is that the people with the power to change a system benefit from the status quo.
Plenty of legislators have vowed to simplify taxes. What’s one of the biggest levers of power that legislators have and use? The power to write tax law that favors some over others. A flat tax with almost no line-item deductions is anathema to virtually every lobbyist.
I’m sure you can think of other examples where change is slow-to-never because everyone has figured out how to benefit from the status quo. Health care. Judicial systems. The local school system. The family reunion.
Another reason why big changes are difficult is that someone, inevitably, has to say, “I was wrong about X and we should change it.” That’s a big ask.
Ptolemy of Alexandria popularized the idea that the earth was the center of the universe, and everything revolved around it. Practically everyone thought this way for about 1400 years until Nicolaus Copernicus convinced people that the sun was the center of the solar system. (Sorry, Aristarchus of Samos, most people never heard of you, even if you beat Copernicus by 900 years.) Many people were still struggling with heliocentrism for about a century after Copernicus – it was simply hard to believe smart people were so wrong.
There’s a similar story about canals on Mars. Right up to 1965 when Mariner 4 did a close fly-by, the conventional thinking was a civilization existed on Mars because of all the straight lines you could see in telescopes of the day.
I’m sure there is something we’ll discover in the future which unseats something we all believe firmly today, and it will be hard to accept.
Recommended questions to ask your mentor:
“I’m in [this situation]. What am I not asking, or not seeing?”
“What have noticed are blind spots for people in positions like mine, at this stage in my career?”
“How do I _______?” [Must be something that you can’t Google an answer for.]
You can often follow-up good responses and insights with “What else?”
It’s easy to stumble on Jesus’ command in his Sermon on the Mount:
“Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:58) How can we be commanded to be perfect?
The Greek word we translate as ‘perfect’ is teleios (pronounced tell-ee-oss). It means ‘complete,’ ‘brought to fullness.’ Teleios is being all you are meant to be.
Not all blessings are easy and light. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Corinthians 4:17) Struggles are a blessing because they’re a means to growth, to our teleios.
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Our real work is work that only we can do.
Read that again: Our real work is work that only we can do.
Our real work is self-ish in this way. Not our low, muddled, miserable selfishness, but our higher self. Our teleios calls us forward.
Let’s be frank — we’re going to do a lot of work which is not our real work. There are things that need doing. No one is above the meanest service. This work shapes our character, too, and is valuable to our families and communities.
You might think, “But many people do something just like what I do.” Yes, but only you are doing it for the people in your sphere of influence. Many people are accountants, nurses, drivers, teachers, managers, etc., but they bring their uniqueness to a unique set of people. Many people write blogs like this one, but there are people reading this blog because it resonates with them.
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We live in a world rich in signs and meaning. There is a steady stream of signs and insights that we can use — when we’re paying attention. You’re not special; this is true for all of us. These signs are both for us and to shape us to better become what we’re meant to be on behalf of others.
My current hypothesis is that we’ll do better when we pursue whatever our interests are, running down trails that make us curious. The process of exploring has its own virtue. In time we figure out how all the bits come together. It’s very difficult to project the path forward, but looking back we see how all the dots connect.
5% inflation means that your money will lose ~50% of its purchasing power in just 14 years. 5% interest means your money will nearly double in value in 14 years.
1 year is 1.25% of your lifetime if you live to 80 years old.
This purchase represents ___ days of salary — after taxes.
I have to sell ___ to get the profit to buy that.
It is likely that more data will be created in 2024 than in all previous years combined. Data is neither information nor wisdom. How we use and interpret data is up to us.
There are those who naively believe that more data will automatically be a superior option. Statistically speaking, the larger the pile of data, the more false positives and negatives will be present. Weak correlations often fool us. Cause and effect are only rarely close in time or space. The more data, the more noise in the system. [Example case: The FBI had tips about a curious situation where Saudi men were only interested in learning how to fly planes but not land them. This was one of many thousands of active tips in the first half of 2001. “Why didn’t they connect the dots?” citizens demanded to know. This was a very weak correlation with threat compared to hundreds of other tips which appeared highly likely.]
This is true even when all the data is authentic, real, true. The presence of even unintentional errors like reversing two digits compounds the problem. Things become even messier when people lie and intentionally generate & spread falsehoods. Deepfakes.
In a world of abundance you must make better decisions than ever. Your time and attention are precious. Don’t squander them.
Perhaps the challenge of our generation is to be wisely selective about which data is worth further assessment. How do we properly select which data stream or pool to tap, and then use a trust-and-verify approach?
Leaders using multiple communication channels to deliver content and messaging, and manage work in flight: email, Slack, instant messaging, text, 1:1 or group in person meetings.
What is the ratio of messaging that you initiate and drive compared to reactive responses? What is the ratio of proactive vs. reactive content? How many conversations and topics are you creating and driving, vs. being in the flow of conversations others are driving? Make this a positive ratio. Be the initiator, creator, driver.
There is a lot about place which shapes us and our thinking about beauty and significance.
I grew up in hills and hollers in West Virginia along the Ohio River. George Washington surveyed the local area as a young man; my elementary school was named for him. I feel very much at home in the woods on ancient mountains.
Today I live in a city along the Gulf Coast of Florida adjacent to a federally-protected forest. The high point of the city is 41 feet above sea level, not counting a few tall buildings. The quartz sand we live on was deposited here over a million years, eroding down from the Appalachians.
This forest isn’t dramatic, though the sunrises and clouds can be stunning. Live oaks, scrub pines, palmettoes, a few wild magnolias, abundant thorny vines. There are tiny wildflowers, new ones blooming each month for 8 months of the year, and a large variety of mushrooms and lichens. Bird life is abundant, from tiny finches to big herons, osprey, and eagles. Small squirrels and rodents. Armadillos, coyotes, a few black bears, snakes, lizards, turtles, but no deer or rabbits. Ants might be most abundant genus, unless it’s the mosquitoes and gnats. We don’t get hard freezes here. The rhythms are quite different than West Virginia or Iowa.
I’m learning to find beauty in the small things here. It truly is a learning process. Yesterday I saw something new to me and thought, “I’ve walked by this place a hundred times and never noticed this before, though it’s clearly been here a long time.” The gap between looking and seeing remains significant!
While this place is not as old as the Appalachians it is still ancient compared to me. That’s humbling, exciting, and helpful perspective. My life and my work can fit into this place, too.
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The Appalachian Mountains at one time were taller than the Rocky Mountains are now. Part of the Appalachian Mountain chain isn’t even in North America – it’s in Ireland and Scotland. The continental plates split apart. There’s more to this story. The Appalachians were formed in the Southern hemisphere, even further back in time, when the massive continent of Pangea existed.
You and I are the tiniest blip in geological history. James is right to say, “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:14) A piercing thought: I will never be this age again. I’m older every minute, every hour.
Yet we have significance. Our significance is in the context of the ancient and slow-changing earth. I find this comforting and encouraging.
Biology provides abundant clues about deep subjects. The Standard Model of Physics has held up successfully for over 50 years. Experiments continue to prove the predictions of the model (e.g., the Higgs Boson). There is no Standard Model of Biology. We might have scratched the surface. Our predictive ability is limited. In grad school we used to joke that under the strictest conditions of medium, temperature, and light we could engineer, a microorganism will do exactly as it pleases.
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Nearly every cell in a caterpillar’s body is transformed into something else to become a butterfly. There is no clean intermediate form. Inside that chrysalis there are two creatures in transition, enmeshed in the same confined space, covered in change goo – not pretty.
When you are leading your organization to become something else, expect a long change goo-covered transition. You’ll have remnants of the old and hints of the new wrestling for resources and attention. People will be frustrated. Some resist the change and want to “go back” or “stay the same,” and others will be irritated at the slow progress to the future.
This level of change is difficult. Expect it to go slowly and messily. Help your organization grapple with the reality and required duration.
This same logic holds for changing yourself. Part of you will long to “go back.” The transition is goopy.
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Memory and recall are central to our lives. Much of the fun with extended family is recalling events from our shared past. “Remember when Grandpop split his shorts while waterskiing on Assawoman Bay?” And we all laugh.
We generally believe that memories are stored in the pattern of connections between our neurons. This is partly why technophiles believe they can upload their knowledge, experiences, and consciousness into a digital system – memories might be “just data” and consciousness might automatically arise from a massive amount of organized data. (Count me Captain Skeptical here. No one has been able to define consciousness in a way that an engineer could create it.)
One line of evidence that suggests memories might be more than neuron connections comes from research on caterpillars and moths. Caterpillars who were trained to avoid a nasty chemical turn into moths who already know to avoid that same chemical. Their nervous systems are different, but the memory persists. https://theconversation.com/despite-metamorphosis-moths-hold-on-to-memories-from-their-days-as-a-caterpillar-29859
Your brain is replacing aging neurons while you sleep. Those memories from the kindergarten playground might well have been formed on neurons that were replaced many times.
Another observation: What we choose to focus upon, and whom with which we choose to associate has a tremendous influence on what memories are both created and reinforced.
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Fetal microchimerism has only recently been recognized as a common phenomenon.
Few people know that when a mother is pregnant, some of her cells pass through the placenta and become part of the baby. And some of the baby’s unique cells pass through the placenta and become a permanent part of the mother. Mother and baby are co-created. A study of the brains of elderly women found a significant number of cells carrying Y-chromosomes, which came from their sons in utero, many decades earlier.
Scientists call this fetal microchimerism after the Greek legend of the Chimera, a hybrid creature with parts of a goat, a lion, and a serpent.
Fetal microchimerism goes beyond the mother and baby.
If you have older siblings from the same mother you might be carrying some of their cells, passed to you from your mother to you via the placenta. There are younger sisters carrying their older brother’s Y-chromosome in some cells. It’s possible that you are carrying some of your grandmother’s cells, passed to your mother, and then to you.
Individual humans have unique DNA and cells, but also carry some ancestral cells. This speaks to us in some mysterious way about the power of family, and the absurdity of a stand-alone self-made individual.
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Deep people are an artistic mix of toughness and tenderness.
Your fingertips are incredibly sensitive. You can detect subtle changes in a surface. You can caress a child’s face to comfort them. Yet your fingers are powerful – squeezing, pressing, and when trained, breaking boards.
By contrast your eye is incredibly sensitive to light but cannot stand even a little pressure.
Deep people must be more like fingers than eyeballs. One of the flaws in our current cultural trend is that we’re celebrating thin-skinned, easily offended eyeballs.
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We live amidst many ant colonies. I was surprised to learn that individual ants have about 250,000 brain neurons, the most of any known insect. This is likely necessary for their complex social and adaptive behaviors. Ants are incredibly strong for their size. Ants can support 5,000x their body weight thanks to their light body, large neck muscles, and durable exoskeleton. Were I an ant with that strength I could carry over a million pounds. Biologists estimate that the total weight of ants is about the same total weight of the human population on planet Earth. Ants have elaborate pheromone systems for communicating with one another — like us, their collective intellect and understanding is external to the individual.
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I can see a half-dozen live oaks outside the window where I do most of my writing. Trees arrange their branches and leaves to capture sunlight. Some trees, like elms, fill their spaces with symmetrical and elegantly curved branches. Live oaks are different. Live oaks fill up the 3D space with bizarre twists and turns, odd angles, almost frantic bends. I’m used to trees which shed their leaves in the Fall. Live oaks shed their old leaves in the Spring. Live oaks are good reminders that there is more than one “conventional” way a life fulfills its calling.
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Something that deep people recognize — and embrace — is the need to faithfully flourish at every life stage. Biological aging means that excellence and flourishing for a newly married 25-year-old are different than a parent launching their children into independent adulthood or an 85-year-old transitioning into assisted care. Principles remain. How those principles are lived in context of shifting responsibilities and opportunities must change. Some practices should not change. The need (and therefore, the command) for Sabbath rest is for everyone. Serving others is for everyone. I knew a bed-ridden woman who embraced her labor of interceding for people. Proper worship is incumbent on all of us, individually and collectively. My conviction is that we never stop learning and working towards mastery using the gifts we’ve been given. Our obligations to be stewards of Creation, community, and family remain.
Who do you associate with? Who are your peers?
Our tendency to create hierarchies has practical wisdom in group dynamics, from families to organizations to kingdoms. Every effort to create leaderless communes failed. We hold this in tension with the simultaneous reality: You’re not ‘above’ anyone.
At one level, every human is your peer. We should be respectful to all. The apostle Paul gave important commands to the churches in Rome: Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. (Romans 12:16) These are commands because they aren’t our default behaviors! Tim Keller gave this insight about the intrinsic value of every person, including yourself: “The only person in the universe whose opinion counts looks at me and He finds me more valuable than all the jewels in creation.”
Deep-in-our-bones conviction of intrinsic human value keeps us from great evil.
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Not everyone is our peer in another way. We should have selective peer thinking because of the power of association to shape us. I’m not recommending elitism, but wisdom.
The apostle Paul does not contradict himself when he counseled the Corinthian church to not associate with immoral, unrepentant people (see 1 Corinthians 5). There are several Proverbs about not associating with thieves and those who would draw you into adultery. Wisdom requires guarding your heart from temptations and company that would shape your heart and mind in bad ways.
Most of us have failed at the “love the sinner but hate the sin” strategy.
I find an important clue in John 2:24 : But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them. Jesus loved these people, served them, helped them, but did not put his full trust in them, because he knew what they were.
Think of peers and associates as someone to whom you are willing to entrust yourself. You can recognize the intrinsic value of every person, love and serve them as you are called, but focus your listening and learning by associating with people who bring forward your best.
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Who are your peers in this way? With whom do you associate? Not everyone.
We’re constantly living on the cusp of extraordinary tech (and social) changes. We’re frequently in transition states – children, parents, jobs, locations, pastimes, leadership, business models, community structures. Seek out people who have navigated big changes. Seek people who are a little ahead of you on life stages.
Much of what we depend upon is unstable. My grandfather would tell me, “Glenn, if something can’t go on forever, it will stop.” The wildcards in global and local economics, debt, geopolitics, competing government models, religious and philosophical worldviews, education, and climate make it impossible to forecast the future. The uncertainty is palpable. We sense there is something we can’t predict coming, maybe fast. Therefore, seek out people who can help you “anticipate the un-anticipatable,” a phrase I borrow from Perry Marshall.
Some people have a healthy mindset. They go about their craft without anxiety about the latest news alert (of 23 you can hear daily). They stay focused on what they can control. They care deeply about good foundations and solid ‘construction’ or organizations and still care about individuals. They think about today and about 50 years from now. Associate with deep people like this.
There are very few truly new questions. Not long ago a younger person told me they couldn’t believe in an omnipotent loving God because there is suffering in the world. They clearly believed that they were the first person to question suffering. I steered them to books which are hundreds and thousands of years old. Books are incredibly cheap for the lifetimes of wisdom and insights they offer you. Associate with the great thinkers and writers of the past.
Your peers must include people who excel in your domain. If you own a growing business, you can’t talk about your $250,000 tax bill with just anyone at the church picnic. If you’re a pastor, only a few non-pastors can be trusted to help you wrestle with thorny challenges. I’ve interviewed military men and fully understand why they don’t share all their combat stories with me, because I’m not their peer. Leaders in large organizations need peers with experience that uniquely emerges with groups of more than 200-400 people. This applies to all domains of expertise and experience. Find peers in your domain.
A useful litmus test is whether they will encourage you. There are plenty of people who will push you but don’t love you or your dreams. Associate only with people who will encourage you and push you because they care for you. I like this definition of a friend: Someone who won’t think less of you when you call them at 3am desperate for help.
You’ll encounter people who meet these criteria but… you don’t resonate with them. You don’t like spending time around them. It’s hard to articulate but it’s real. Don’t feel forced into associating with them. Have confidence that a better match is coming into your life soon.
Embrace the reality that peers and associates will shift over time. You grow, you need new things, people around you change. Everything life-giving is dynamic; only dying and dead things are stuck in place. The old wisdom that “when the student is ready the teacher appears” is certainly true. Our cup must have some room for new insights. We cannot be too full to receive more.
You’ll need to pay for some peers and associates. It could cost you much more to NOT have people like these available to you. Buy books. Get paid coaches, teachers, advisors, and mentors. And cultivate plenty of associates who you can go to and simply ask a favor.