Alexandersmap

    Tag: Stephen Covey

    • Beyond Clever

      “There are so many different kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.” ― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

      Clever is one-upmanship. It’s not really listening to what someone is saying, it’s waiting for them to stop talking so you can say something to show how on-the-ball you are. Clever is different from bright and funny. It doesn’t take very long to know you’re in the presence of someone working to be clever. Like porn, we know it when we see it. And we aren’t the better for having stumbled across it.

      I used to work to be clever, until I began to see that clever was weakness on display. It’s a way for insecurity to escape and join the conversation. Whoever really said that it’s “better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.” was on to something.

      But then I changed again. When everyone is silently waiting for someone to speak up, there ought to be someone who speaks up. Not to be clever or foolish, but to be engaged. To draw out the perspective of another soul and mix it with our own, just to see what develops. Sometimes nothing much develops, and sometimes there’s magic. Who’s to know which unless we practice a little alchemy?

      The practice of conversational alchemy utilizes empathy and focused listening to draw out deeper conversations with others. Which sounds like a clever way of saying that one is a good listener. But being a good listener doesn’t mean much without having something to offer to the conversation as well. Listening skills are one of the leading indicators of success in life, but so is a willingness to go out and experience things from which to build one’s own knowledge and skill, insight and perspective.

      Unless we have a career as a therapist, socialite, salesperson or investigator, aspiring to be a conversational alchemist shouldn’t be our primary aim. But it’s a life skill worth developing to maximize the experience of living through deeper and richer conversation. We ought to engage with others and learn from their experience as well if we are to reach our own potential within the tribe. The tribal experience isn’t everything, and surely not the only path to personal excellence, but engagement with others offers a broad and rich life, perhaps more than simply going it alone.

      Henry David Thoreau, retreating to his cabin by Walden Pond, had regular visitors and a curated ability to communicate with others. That perspective made him a better writer, even as his inclination to retreat to the woods made him an oddball to some in the community. But that retreat also made him a better writer. We can be both engaged with society and strategically removed from it. The right balance is intuitive. Listening to ourselves is another essential skill developed over time.

      “Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.” — Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

      There’s a reason that seeking to understand makes us highly effective people. Each person we effectively engage with becomes another ally in our growing tribe. It was never about being clever, it’s always been about development of the self in a social world. We may sometimes have a desire to go free solo, but in reality we’re all in this together. Our bond is somewhere well beyond clever waiting for us to reach it.

    • Improve, Correct and Change

      “Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out. Time is limited. Focus on that which you can improve, correct, or change. Ignore what you can’t control.” — John Wooden

      We have a way of cramming more things into our days in our culture of growth and achievement. This can lead to some exhausting days, over and over again, until we collapse at whatever finish line we perceive is the end. Maybe that’s a nightcap when we get home, or sinking into the couch binge-watching some version of apocalyptic programming, or heading to the bars on Friday night—or maybe Thursday night. Whatever flips off the switch for a few blessed moments. It’s a slipperly slope of finish line focus.

      There is no finish line until one day we’re finished. We must build a life of meaning and productive purpose that isn’t measured by when we get to stop. What kind of life is that? The better objective is to fill our days with the things that matter most while the unimportant drifts away without the opportunity to land on our shoulders. Easier said than done. But it often comes down to what we say yes or no to. Learning to ignore what we can’t control is the key to a successful, happy life.

      I write this as a reminder to myself. Because more than just focusing on what we can control, we must choose what is within our control that will make the most meaningful change in our lives. Prioritization is thus the key. Which reminds me of the old Stephen Covey lesson about doing first things first: we must fill our days with the big things first, and let all the rest fill in after. To do the opposite means that our big things never get done.

      All that said, I’ve committed to a couple of changes in my daily routine this summer. It means the writing begins a little later than it was before so that I may complete a workout and read some non-fiction before I write. At this point in the game, the habit of writing is set, but the workouts tend to drift into a quick walk with the pup before bedtime if I don’t prioritize it first. I can’t control how the day will go, but I can best influence the way I begin it.

      When we seek to improve, correct and change what is within our control, while putting first things first, we sprinkle purpose into our days. Each day thus becomes a stepping stone towards a higher standard of living. To get closer to arete (personal excellence) requires consistent, focused effort on the right things. Today and always.

    • Leave a Ripple, Not a Flush

      “No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good.”
      —Marcus Aurelius

      I’ve had the same conversation over and over again: What the hell are we to do when the angry mob takes control, tears everything apart and then gets outraged when people are outraged by their behavior? We can have contempt for those who voted for this, or we can seek to understand what they were so damned angry about that got us here. We might feel it’s all misguided bullshit stirred up by media and foreign actors, but the world is more complicated than that. Seek first to understand…

      It’s too easy to just blame it all on stupidity alone. They aren’t stupid, many of them anyway. Why were they so angry and contemptuous? Why are they still, having gotten what they wanted? Maybe it’s because deep down they know they screwed this up and it’s now coming for them. At least it feels nice to think so. But that’s us projecting upon them. There’s entirely too much us versus them already.

      Good can be exhausting. Reason and logic in illogical times can be a slog. We must be good and reasonable anyway. This is our time to do the right thing. This is what our birth lottery gave us. Be grateful, be graceful, and be determined to be good. It will bear out in the end. We must find calmness in the storm. We must leave a ripple, not just flush it all away.

    • Life, On Schedule

      “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” — Stephen Covey

      It’s well-documented in this blog that I’m a morning person. My bride is just the opposite—a night owl who seems to charge along right to the end of the day. I wake up in the morning and she’s done a whole project while I slept. I try to keep pace and have my own projects done when she wakes up. Teamwork makes the dream work, as the silly saying goes.

      Whatever our productivity tools, we must embrace them to do the things we wish to do in a day so often filled with stolen hours. For my bride, a traditional Franklin Covey planner seems to do the trick. For me, the free flow of a bullet journal sets my days straight. Whatever the methodology, a system of scheduling and honoring our priorities each day keeps us on track.

      The thing is, the use of a planner or bullet journal is itself a system. My utilization of the bullet journal slipped away when I went on a long vacation in April and never really got back on track until I changed jobs. I maintained some positive habits during that time, but also some bad habits. For me, returning in earnest to the bullet journal coincides with a refocus on positive change.

      The last few weeks I’ve reset my compass, and with that reset, I’m shedding some habits that were stale for me in favor of habits that will hopefully help me arrive at those new goals. Once those goals are established, a routine must be identified to carry us to them. This is best exemplified by daily habits that are either done automatically or reinforced through a scheduled event. I use the bullet journal to check the desired behavior off once completed, and track it in a habit tracker in the same journal.

      Why all this talk of schedules and routines? Because it leads to a larger life. We can be generally happy with who and where we are and still aspire to grow closer to our version of personal excellence (arete). We can’t get to arete by winging it, we’ve got to build purpose and direction into our days, no matter where we are on our journey. In this way, routine leads to excellence, so long as the routine is scheduled.

    • Front Loading Productivity and Purpose

      “Putting first things first means organizing and executing around your most important priorities. It is living and being driven by the principles you value most, not by the agendas and forces surrounding you.” — Stephen Covey

      Early risers are normally starting the day a step ahead, while late risers begin a step behind. That doesn’t translate into what each accomplishes in a day, but it does play a part in how we feel. I hate feeling like I’m late for anything. Some people in my life don’t stress about such things unless it’s a flight or other time-dependent circumstance. Who says one is better than the other? But we know which is better for us.

      Productivity isn’t dependent on starting early, but when we prioritize the right things first it helps ensure that those things get done. For years now that’s been writing, reading and my most essential work tasks. Everything else can fall into place, get piled on or slip to tomorrow, but the day will be deemed a success once I’ve checked those right boxes.

      We know what is essential in our day because it nags at us until we’ve done it. Likewise, we know what isn’t all that important too. To borrow a concept from James Clear, we vote for our identity one checked or ignored habit at a time. He would also suggest making good habits easy to complete, and bad habits more difficult. The best way to do that is to front load the most important things and defer the trivial and bad.

      I know a brisk walk or row would greatly compliment my habit stack in the morning, but I often defer this until late in the day where excuses swirl like leaves in autumn. As a result, the fitness routine is inconsistent. Fortunately I know the fix: do it first. Earn breakfast with sweat equity. Those established habits have enough momentum to sustain a minor deferment.

      The question that greets is each morning is, what drives us? Covey was right that our principles push us forward. When we live a principled life we won’t tolerate excuses from ourselves on why we didn’t at least try harder to follow through on our promises. We become less complacent with where and who we currently are and more proactive in getting after our “it”. For there’s no time to waste.

    • Stable Centers

      “Continue to progress, do not stagnate. Consider a spinning top. It moves around a stable center. It spins and spins until it finally falls over, exhausted” — Awa Kenzo, Zen Bow, Zen Arrow

      In this blog I refer a lot to Stephen Covey’s concept of pushing the flywheel, and having momentum in our lives through rigid positive habits. The thing about momentum we sometimes forget is that it’s not about the spinning, though surely action is essential, but about the stable center. We may spin like a whirling dervish, but without a stable center we quickly spiral out of control. Like centrifugal force, positive momentum abhors instability.

      We see this in people, companies and political parties that have lost the thing that made them stable. Sports teams may peak at the level of their superstars, but unravel over the course of a season without strong leadership from the role players that are the true foundation of a team. We call them the glue that holds a team together, or lifts it up when things go poorly. It’s those people in an organization who exemplify how things ought to be done and lead by example.

      That stable center in an individual is our morality and sense of purpose. It’s our why, to borrow from Simon Sinek. When we have this in our lives, we do the work that must be done, we don’t skip over the little things that mean a lot, we are proactive in our days, and we have agency over our lives. Why do we get up every day to start anew? It’s often the people in our lives we hold most dear, isn’t it? Family and friends offer community and a sense of place. Teams, congregations and great company cultures do this as well. We need something bigger than ourselves to make our lives larger and more meaningful. When we have it we feel complete, when we don’t we crave it and desperately seek it out.

      Stable centers are usually obvious to us when we have them in our lives. We know what centers us, because our life revolves around these why’s. We are capable of spinning ourselves into greater and greater orbits when our footing is solid. Finding stable centers thus becomes as essential to our growth as establishing good habits and surrounding ourselves with the right people. In fact, when we do these things, we find that we ourselves become a stable center for others. And isn’t that a magical feeling?

    • Existing Determinedly

      “The content of our truth depends upon our appropriating the historical foundation. Our own power of generation lies in the rebirth of what has been handed down to us. If we do not wish to slip back, nothing must be forgotten; but if philosophizing is to be genuine our thoughts must arise from our own source. Hence all appropriation of tradition proceeds from the intentness of our own life. The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life.” — Karl Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence (Existenzphilosophie)

      This idea of reading and weaving the philosophical work of past greats into our own lives today is nothing new, yet so many only read new books. If these new books are inspired and drawn from the great thinkers of the past, then doesn’t it make sense to dive deeply into the source material? Put another way, if we are to be a part of the Great Conversation, we must first be conversationally competent. Seek first to understand, then to be understood, as Stephen Covey put it.

      Sitting at the dinner table with some highly intelligent people this evening, the conversation moved from business talk to philosophy, history and religion. Being able to keep pace with these folks doesn’t elevate me to a place of prominence, but it surely makes the evening more interesting than it otherwise might have been. It also makes me more inclined to speak up, and to be listened to by others. Of course, we don’t seek knowledge to be more interesting, but to dive deeper into our own development as human beings. What is the glow of life but feeling fully engaged in the moment? Of rising to meet it?