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 learning 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.
I don’t really know what to write about the political chaos that has engulfed the US over the past ten days. It boggles my mind that tens of millions of people continue to support the actions of a mob that violently invaded the Capitol with the express intent of overthrowing the democratic results of an election. These are people that claim to respect Law and Order, and Christianity, and the Founding Fathers, and yet support actions that killed a policeman and injured several others, and that were expressly against the ideals of democracy for which this nation was created.
As a meme going around on Facebook shares, both sides look at the other side, and believe they’re deluded and are not operating from the “real” facts. So how do you build confidence in your perception of what’s real? This meme says “the presence of Nazis can be an extremely helpful indicator. If I am attending a local demonstration or event and I see Nazis...neo-Nazis, casual Nazis, master race Nazis, or the latest-whatever-uber-mythology-Nazis, I figure out which side they are on. And if they are on my side of the demonstration? I am on the wrong side.”
And yet, despite all the fears of more violent protests and marches, and despite the wall-to-wall frantic news updates about a second impeachment, and the political maneuverings in DC, does it really affect my day-to-day life? Not really, unless I let myself get sucked into reading those news updates. My (admittedly privileged and sheltered) life continues mostly unaffected - I see clients via Zoom, I play with my son, I go (with a mask) to the grocery store to get food, we cook dinner, etc.
In fact, I’m feeling surprisingly good these days at a personal level. I’ve been trying some new experiments in January, including my mantra of “Enjoy the Moment”, restarting my meditation habit, journaling more, going to bed earlier (which is aided by defaulting to no alcohol in the evenings), getting back on my bike a couple times, etc. And these little tweaks add up to me feeling better, and being more effective and productive, both professionally (I feel like my clients have been getting more value from our coaching sessions) and personally (I wake up earlier, and get some writing done before the household wakes up), which feels good, and encourages me to keep going. It’s the accumulation of small steps that is leading to positive results for me at the moment.
Or maybe it’s just that I got caught up on sleep over the holidays, and this will all wear off in a week or two as I get more tired. But I am hopeful that I can keep this up by mindfully focusing on the present moment - when I get out my phone to open Facebook or a game, does it actually feel good to do that, or am I avoiding some sense of obligation? When I notice those moments, I am trying to investigate that avoidance (Tara Brach’s RAIN process comes to mind), and remind myself of why I enjoy the activity of writing or biking or building, rather than seeing it as a burden.
I don’t know - I’ll be interested to see whether this newfound sense of joy and purpose stays with me. But if it doesn’t, I know the activities that help me get back to it, and I’ll remind myself that I like feeling this way, and I am doing those activities for myself because I enjoy them, not out of duty to somebody else.
How is your 2021 going so far? What have you been learning? I’d love to hear from you in the comments or by email.
And now for the normal personal development content:
Blog: One of my 2021 intentions was to write more, and I’m starting by catching up on writing book summaries. I didn’t read as much as I would have hoped in 2020, but I still finished around 20 nonfiction books of various flavors (and way too many escapist spy and fantasy and romance novels). I love having the summaries for reminding myself (and sharing with others) what I took away from the book. So here are the first two posts of 2021, and I plan to continue writing up one book a week:
Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows - a remarkably readable introduction to the discipline of systems thinking, which looks for the common dynamics of systems, including organizations, processes, people. This book was written in 1993, and yet the lessons are timeless, as I found it immediately applicable to my coaching and my personal life. I think it’s a useful perspective to design any kind of intervention in an existing system.
Manifesto for a Moral Revolution, by Jacqueline Novogratz - I read this last summer, but the political chaos of the past week inspired me to revisit it and remind myself of her principles for moral leadership. She shares amazing stories from her last three decades working with people around the globe to help people in poverty - I found it very inspiring and powerful. Yet I still haven’t taken the first step of “Just Start” when it comes to the systemic problems facing the US (my Inner Critic just felt it had to add that caveat :) ).
LinkedIn: These are ideas or questions that are helping my clients, and that I share via LinkedIn to help a wider audience.
Inertia and how it can work for or against you - “An object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion” is Newton’s First Law of Motion. So if you want to start something new, it’s valuable to get moving by taking a step to create momentum for yourself. If you stay at rest, you won’t make progress, but any step you take creates possibilities to find other steps and other people who will help accelerate your journey.
Speed vs. velocity - going fast can lead to going in circles if you don’t set an intentional direction for personal development. True progress depends on both speed and direction (aka velocity). To give credit, I first saw this analogy from Shane Parrish at Farnam Street.
Articles and resources I’ve recently liked:
Talk Less. Listen More. “How you listen can work like a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you’re barely listening to someone because you think that person is boring or not worth your time, you could actually make it so. Moreover, listening to other people makes it more likely other people will listen to you.”
‘Success Addicts’ Choose Being Special Over Being Happy: The columnist shares: “I would prefer to be special than happy. Anyone can do the things it takes to be happy—going on vacation with family, relaxing with friends … but not everyone can accomplish great things.” This is something I've said in the past, and some part of me still believes, which is a little embarrassing to admit - letting go of the story I’ve told myself that I’m “special” is really hard for me.
Running Probably is a running newsletter by Paul Flannery. I’m not a runner, and yet I’m finding his reflections on running, and commitment, and personal development applicable to my own life e.g. his current post on resilience: “running offers a way to meet challenges head on and deal with them on their terms. That rocky climb, that screaming quad, that annoying rubbing on the back of your heel … eff it, let’s go. There’s only one way out and that’s straight ahead, one step at a time.”
Thanks for reading. See you in a couple weeks.