This is the Too Many Trees newsletter, where I share what I’ve been writing and reading in the realm of leadership and personal development. My coaching practice is centered around the idea that we are more effective in moving towards our goals when we become more conscious and intentional in focusing our time and attention, and learn how our unconscious patterns are holding us back. If you know somebody that could benefit from my perspective, please forward this to them or let them know they can set up a free intro chat with me.
This has been a troubling few weeks in America. I feel helpless when outrageous events like these shootings have become normalized to the point we can’t even keep track any more. I’ve mostly stopped following the news because it just agitates me and doesn’t lead to any constructive action.
That being said, here are a few resources for those who want to learn and do more:
everytown.org has a plan to end gun violence. They say “We cannot become numb to the tragedies we witness daily. We don't have to live like this—and we don't have to die like this. It's time to hold our elected officials accountable for their inaction.”
Scientific American has an article summarizing the research: More guns do not stop more crimes - “about 30 careful studies show more guns are linked to more crimes: murders, rapes, and others. Far less research shows that guns help.”
Guns are now the leading cause of death for children in America, according to the CDC, with 30% of those being suicides.
Heather Cox Richardson shares the story of how America got here politically: “leaders of the NRA embraced the politics of Movement Conservatism, the political movement that rose to combat the business regulations and social welfare programs that both Democrats and Republicans embraced after World War II.” In other words, Republicans are choosing capitalism, and the unfettered right to make money, over democracy and the will of the people.
For abortion rights, an activist friend recommended this site with links to the latest updates, and what you can do to help women access abortion care in states like Texas and Oklahoma.
Ijeoma Oluo’s reflection of what we have learned, and how little has changed, in the two years since George Floyd’s murder was sobering to read, particularly “We saw how much extreme change our systems are capable in a short period of time - just not for Black lives.” When people say things can’t change quickly, but we saw how fast things changed in the pandemic when money was on the line, the clear takeaway is that Black lives don’t matter in the same way. She asks those who want to be allies to do more than protest and donate:
“look at where they spend their money every day.
vote for the candidates trying to defund the police or substantially increase investment in Black communities.
show up at their school boards to demand anti-racist education in their schools.
question how putting their kids in private schools was impacting the public schools that kids of color attend.
look at the racist demographics of their neighborhood and ask how they were contributing to that.
vote out prosecutors who refuse to hold racist cops accountable for their actions.
begin long-term investments and relationships with local mutual-aid groups.
advocate for more affordable housing in their neighborhood.
ask for investigations into the racist nature of the advanced placement programs they were hoping to get their children into.”
Lily Zheng posted a similar message on LinkedIn after the Buffalo shooting: “Non-Black folks: If you made a dramatic promise or commitment to #allyship or #solidarity or #antiracism in the last few years, then you don't need to do it again today. Put your energy into doing the work.” then “If we care, then we show it by doing the work. In our families. In our education systems. In our religious organizations. In our governments and institutions. In our workplaces and organizations.” She goes on to offer specific actions one can take: “Choose to put your energy into doing that work, however you can—not trying to perform your way back to feeling comfortable.”
And now for the normal personal development content:
Blog: I wrote up my summary of Richard Rumelt’s book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference, and Why It Matters. In particular, I appreciated the way he described that “A good strategy has coherence, coordinating actions, policies, and resources so as to accomplish an important end” and that “strategy is primarily about deciding what is truly important and focusing resources and action on that objective”. As somebody who has had an intuitive feel for strategy, I appreciated his systematic breakdown, and recommend this book if you want to become more strategic.
LinkedIn: These are ideas that have helped my clients (or myself), and that I share via LinkedIn to help a wider audience.
Write the first draft, no matter how bad. I use Anne Lamott’s idea of s***tty first drafts as a reminder that the blank page is intimidating. So you can demonstrate leadership by writing the first draft, no matter how bad it is, because once a first draft is done, people will happily edit it and make it better.
Support women dealing with toxic bosses who punish them for not conforming to gender norms. This was inspired by my coach sharing her experience where her manager wanted a submissive deferential stereotype of a woman, rather than her awesome powerful authentic self. And this is unfortunately common, as several of my women clients are dealing with similar situations. Even worse, LinkedIn’s algorithm appeared to suppress this post as it got 30x less viewership than my typical post until I linked to it from a separate post.
If you say “they should already know how to do this” about a coworker, I challenge that attitude, especially when applied to those from historically marginalized communities, who may not have had a manager or mentor that explained key mindset shifts to them. Perhaps you can be the mentor or manager that will help them change the trajectory of their career.
Articles and resources I’ve found interesting. I’ve already shared a number of links above, but I’ll continue the theme of exploring perspectives other than your own:
Encanto is a Brilliant, Beautiful, Broken Mess, by Laurie Penny. I watched Encanto with my kid a few weeks ago, and appreciated reading this article explaining why many people with difficult relationships to their family of origin were triggered by this Disney movie. In particular, “each character matches one of the classic roles that people adopt within inside families in crisis”, creating multi-generational trauma in response to Abuela’s trauma.
“Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”, by Linda Tirado. A heart-breaking stream-of-consciousness narrative of why people with no hope and no stability make decisions that seem incomprehensible to those of us who have never lacked: “I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. This is what our lives are like, and here are our defence mechanisms, and here is why we think differently. It’s certainly self-defeating, but it’s safer.”
Those paying close attention may notice this newsletter is delayed a week. I was getting a precautionary colonoscopy a week ago, and decided to not stress about this on top of that. The new guidance is to start doing colonoscopies at age 45, or age 40 if you have a family history of colon cancer like me, so I was several years late but fortunately, they didn’t find anything. In case you're curious, Anne Helen Petersen wrote up her experience with lots of details (although my colonoscopy was definitely not a party scene as hers was).
Thanks for reading! See you in a couple weeks!