“Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it. It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.” Mary Oliver, Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?
When the world show you more than fair winds (this week surely did that), a sprinkling of Mary Oliver poetry soothes the soul. Don’t think I don’t recognize the tendency to turn this blog into a Mary Oliver fan page, and really I’ve tried to move to other things, but too often Oliver seems to have the words readily available. Funny how a few words piled together just so seems to center you. To harden your resolve to get through the darkest days with an eye towards the light.
“Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?”
I don’t suppose the angry mob has time for poetry. It’s clear they aren’t dancing joyfully through life either. Spun up in conspiracy and hate, and believing false gods. They can’t see beauty when they’re blind with rage.
But we can. So long as we continue to look for it. Hate burns out when it runs out of fuel.
Let’s face it, the days between the US National Election and the events of January 6th were some of the craziest we’ve ever witnessed in our lifetimes. Not since 9/11 have I been so angry and distracted as I was on the afternoon of January 6th, 2021. And it can be easy to wrap yourself around the pole of ongoing coverage and online opinion and speculation. I let myself indulge in some of that too.
And then last night I took a walk outside on a brilliantly clear night and saw Orion poised above me. Orion has seen it all before and recognizes the smallness in our human lifetimes. This is big by human standards, but we’re like ants to the universe, and not the big ants but the tiny little ones that you have to squint to make out the features on. Orion whispered “This might be a big week for you but this ain’t nothing to the universe, kid.”
Earlier this morning I waited for the water to boil for my morning jolt of goodness and watched the birds flitter about from the feeder to the ground, ground to the shrub, and back to the feeder. This crowd featured bluebirds and cardinals and mourning doves and sparrows. Mostly taking their turns at the feeder (except for the mourning doves who rely on scraps falling to the ground), but sometimes impatient with each other to get a move on so they can have their turn. This frenzy continued on well past the coffee being ready. Small little things fighting for their share and a little bit more. Perspective is where you find it.
This week we saw people acting like squabbling birds at the feeder not wanting to take turns, while others pounced on the scraps below. It was maddening, and the days ahead are fraught with peril. But a walk or a glance outside offers lessons in perspective. We have work to do. A lot of work. But the worst of this will pass if we work together to make things better. Generally humanity is moving ever so slowly towards a better place. We might see this if we break our focus on selfishly fighting amongst ourselves. This ain’t nothing to the universe kid. This too shall pass.
Yesterday was ugly in America, and there will be more ugly days ahead. Angry, misguided people tend to lash out, especially when emboldened in a mob and spurred on by an orange tyrant. America was slapped across the face and abused, but she’s rising up and fixing the demons that haunt her. We have a long way to go, but yesterday will be a catalyst for those who stood by silently to rise up and join those who were fighting all along.
Change is hard. The violence and brutality and outrage we’ve seen in America are symptoms of underlying problems that needed to be addressed. And in addressing them we’ll create even more friction from those who perceive that something is being taken away from them. Outrage is big business, and there are plenty of platforms to feed and escalate it. Those platforms need a hard look too.
Free speech is a blessing and a curse. We all have the right to say what we want to say. But we don’t have the right to an audience. Tempering the outrage industry will be a tough but necessary step. I won’t pretend to know how to cool things down, but I believe it starts with helping people focus on using that energy for productive, positive things. Building instead of destroying.
Ultimately we’re all tiny humans living on a fragile planet that’s given her all for us, largely against her will. America is one very loud and self-absorbed part of a global community. We have our issues right now. But we’re figuring it out. And we’ll get it right. Because we have no other choice but to figure it out.
“A few things are always much more important than most things” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle
It’s that time of the year again, when strategic planning takes over, habits are re-evaluated, and revenue clicks back to zero for any business that has their fiscal year aligned with the calendar. I’ve always thrived on building the future on paper. The trick is in the execution to realize it in real life. And proper execution starts with focus. We’ve arrived back at zero and the climb begins once again. It’s a great time to re-assess the vital few.
The vital few can be customers who prove to be most profitable over time, or your closest of close friends and mentors who bring the most joy into your life, or the key activities that bring the highest return on effort invested. We know most of the time what these are, but we chase more anyway. And this chasing of more is where things break down. Relationships become diluted and less meaningful, less time is spent with key customers, critical metrics are missed chasing after dead ends, and we become too busy to get to “it”.
The red flag of “trivial many” is answering “How are you doing?” with “Busy”. It signals clearly that something is amiss. Usually that’s doing the 80 percent of things that aren’t going to amount to much in the end. I’m a big fan of simplifying things. Focusing on the vital few, and letting some of the trivial many whither on the vine of neglect. Really, it seems the only way to get anything meaningful done.
“If we did realize the difference between the vital few and the trivial many in all aspects of our lives and if we did something about it, we could multiply anything that we valued.” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle
One of the vital few for me is getting enough sleep. I’m an early rise, so for me getting enough sleep means going to sleep earlier than the rest of the family. I probably missed out on some key family moments in doing so, but what happens between 9:30 and midnight that can’t happen before then? I’m more aligned with my sleep patterns and are more effective as a result. Over time this sleep habit has greatly enhanced my cognitive ability and become a force multiplier for other activities, like writing this blog. One vital habit with exponential results.
So today I’m carefully reviewing lists of people, activities and production that make up the vital few. This is where I’ll focus heavily in 2021. Translating the dreams on paper to reality in life. And acting accordingly.
George Mack tweeted out a “synergy map” that Walt Disney originally drew on a napkin in 1957 that blew me away in its simplicity. As a visual learner this drawing spoke more clearly to me than a dozen books on the topic might have. As they say: a picture is worth a thousand words. Who knew that better than Walt Disney?
The key to this strategic map is in the center. The creative people drove everything with consistent output of intellectual property. This fueled exponential growth for Walt Disney Corporation for 97 years and counting. If you look at Disney since then, they’ve acquired more intellectual property with Pixar, LucasFilms and Marvel to revitalize the center. Altogether a stunningly effective vision that continues to evolve and grow. There’s an informative article on this strategy on reforge.com worth reading to learn more about the Disney strategy.
But what of us? What can we take from this synergy map to apply in our own lives? Well, to start with it won’t be nearly as complicated as the Disney strategy map. But it starts with knowing what your core intellectual property is (what do you create?) and then build out a mutually sustaining infrastructure around it. That might be a job or starting a business or non-profit, it can be a blog or a publishing company (for distribution of that intellectual property), and it might be merchandise.
Take someone who brews beer. Their intellectual property is in the beer recipes, but also in the company logo, artwork on the cans and overall vibe in the products and in the tasting room. They create synergies for that with a social media presence, maybe creative partnerships with concerts and food trucks every weekend, and sell merchandise. The more you expand these synergistic parts of your map, the more it fuels the creatives who can add more brewing equipment and distribution.
Writing a blog every day is centering, but is it the center? There are plenty of examples of people who have made it so. Maybe its a synergistic side hustle of your overall entity. Do you write to make money or for other reasons? Do you do anything to make money or for other reasons? What do you want it to become? Drawing it all out on a strategy map might answer some of those questions.
The trick is in knowing what your center is and what you want to build towards. What drives everything else? Sometimes you stumble upon it, but mostly you just keep trying things until you find your niche. Disney focused on monetization of his creative output. You might look at optimization of time or some other key metric. But you must know the center and where and why you want to go from there.
The why is written on the arrows linking the different nodes sprouting from your center. Look back at Disney’s, you’ll see that there are arrows going both ways. Nothing is a one way street, and it shouldn’t be in your life either.
And here lies the beauty of the Walt Disney synergy map. You see where the dead ends are. Where the synergies aren’t all that strong. And where you have a chance to build something special in your life. All you need is a pencil and something to draw on. Want a napkin?
“And above all watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl
Here we are: The first Monday after the New Year. Where the rubber meets the road. Where all those dreams and goals and habits we mentally put in place see if they measure up to the reality of 9 to 5. How’s it going so far?
Yesterday I wrote of ten year plans. Today I focus on winning the day. Score the day based on what I can control that keeps me on the path. Stack a few good habits on top of the ones I have momentum with, shave more time off social media and on to productive uses. Try something different to see how it goes. Cook a new recipe with a vegetable you tend to quickly walk past in the market. Work out in a different way than the usual. Add on something meaningful in your daily routine. Try above all things to make it stick. Because streaks matter.
We get so spun up about productivity and measurable success towards our objectives that we seem to forget about magic. And that might be the most important thing you’ll come across today. It dances around us, looking for a glimmer of recognition in our stern eyes. We either dance with it or it flitters away to find another conspirator (Magic is never persistent, it’s shy that way).
So in my to-do lists and habit loops and tasks to complete before things get too far along I try to remember to keep watching with glittering eyes. Magic is welcome here. And when it wanders off somewhere else I go out and try to find it. For life is more than just checking the next box.
The plan was to drive out to the wrist of Cape Cod for a sunrise picture. I’ve patiently waited for the right weather window to appear, and when my head hit the pillow it seemed all was a go. But the weather always has other plans, and teaches you to listen even when you want to hear something else. And at 5 AM the clouds obscured everything above Buzzards Bay. A check on cleardarksky.com confirmed that my destination was also overcast with transparency rated as too cloudy to forecast. And so I wrote instead.
I’m working on my own forecast. Specifically the ten year plan, for the influencers I read tend to recommend thinking in decades not years. Seth Godin just had a great post about it yesterday, which likely planted it front and center on my brain. But he’s not the only one thinking in ten year chunks, and I’d like to be more forward thinking myself. Ten years seems about right for me too.
Does creating a ten year plan run counter to living in the now? I don’t believe so. I believe it sharpens the focus on now. Instead of going with the flow you’re making the most of the opportunity that now creates. And you’re more inclined to check boxes you might have otherwise put off for some date in the future.
Ten year thinking involves calculus on maintaining good health and fitness, mental sharpness, financial responsibility and investments to achieve goals, relationships and career. What kind of person do you have to become not so far from now? What do you need to do today to move you closer to that? What do you need to stop doing?
The future tends to be too cloudy forecast, but we can always move to clearer skies. Or bide our time. As the last year has taught us, the unexpected will surely surprise us, but if we build enough resiliency into our plans we can get beyond even the deepest valleys. We can only see just so far of what lies ahead of us.
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me! The present only toucheth thee: But Och! I backward cast my e’e, On prospects drear! An’ forward tho’ I canna see, I guess an’ fear! – Robert Burns, To a Mouse
Last night I saw the potential for a nice sunset down Buzzards Bay. I walked down to a better viewpoint and waited it out in the gusty wind. I thought it would make a nice bookend with the sunrise this morning, but since that never materialized the sunset turned out to be the only picture. I’m glad I didn’t hold out for just the sunrise instead. It serves as a good reminder to enjoy the moments along the way even as you plan and scheme and guess at the future.
I’ve been toying with the word inveterate in my mind for a couple of weeks. It would make a good New Year’s Day post, I figured. I mean, just look at the definition in the dictionary, practically screaming for a post:
Inveterate in·vet·er·ate | \ in-ˈve-t(ə-)rət\ Definition of inveterate 1: confirmed in a habit : HABITUAL an inveterate liar 2: firmly established by long persistence the inveterate tendency to overlook the obvious – Merriam-Webster
I let New Year’s Day come and go but haven’t let go of the word. The opposite of inveterate would be intermittent or inconsistent behavior. Yet, Merriam-Webster casts a negative connotation on the definition. I like spinning it more positively. Call me a dreamer if you will.
Last year I was an inveterate blogger, but not an inveterate rower or walker or eater of broccoli. This year, rather than setting goals or signing up for the gym I’m simply going to chase down more inveterate behavior. Lending positive intonations to the word, and swapping the word out in other sentences. From Inveterate eater of cheeseburgers to intermittent eater of cheeseburgers offers possibility. And so does transforming inconsistent effort in the mundane tasks that make you successful in your [fill in the blank] to something more, well, inveterate.
“be ready to start again like the moon” – Kat Lehmann, Small Stones from the River
“If I had a week left to live, would I be doing this?” – Neil Strauss, via Twitter
Two worthy prompts to start the mind’s gears turning on this New Years Day. I’m not one for resolutions, but find reviewing what worked and didn’t work are worthwhile exercises – not just as we round the corner into a new year but at regular intervals. But what is that interval? Is the best interval the beginning of a calendar year?
Maybe timing big questions with the phase of the moon makes sense? Since full moon fever carries more baggage the New Moon might be a better time. Or perhaps the first random Sunday of the month. But I believe the interval is as important as the questions asked.
The Strauss question demands attention, of course. It’s a big question, and maybe its best asked annually, saving more frequent intervals for questions of systems and processes and assessment of progress against objectives. What’s working/not working? questions. Whatever your questions are, they deserve to be asked, and answered. Regularly.
“So long as I am hanging on I want to be young and noble. I want to be bold.” – Mary Oliver, Desire
There’s that word again. Bold. I chase it down, let it challenge me. Take a deep breath and get after it yet again. To rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventures, as Thoreau put it so well.
Latin words for bold translate to audax, confidens, fortis, and they all fit. To be a bit audacious, confident and fortified are generally celebrated in this harsh world. We all aspire to a bit of boldness in our actions, don’t we?
It’s the last day of the year that most everyone would love to see go away. And yet great things happened despite it all. I started to take stock of the exceptions to the general malaise that was this year and generally the ones I had any control over started with a bit of boldness. Deciding what to be and then going out and being it. I save the selfies for others. Ego is my enemy. Instead of celebrating those mountains climbed and the waterfalls sought out I’m quietly putting them in my memory bank with a smile. That’s what archives and search are for.
What have we done with our time this year? What will we do today? Next year is upon us, what shall we make of it? Begin in earnest, today.
I have places to be and I’m excited about the future. That begins with celebrating the last day of the year and finding the next micro adventure to fill the days with wonder until the world opens up again someday. It begins with a measure of boldness.
