Right now, it seems like my heart is a more valuable guide to what I should be doing in the world than my head.

My head is better with maps and spreadsheets.

But there seems to be no working map or spreadsheet available right now.

My heart calls me to serve rather than solve.

My heart calls me to declare a different truth than we typically see in the corporate world. That the more of ourselves we are willing to bring to work (even WFH), the more vulnerable and real we are willing to be, the more effective we can be as leaders.

That we can only become better leaders if we first become better humans.

Especially now.

I’ve seen a lot of people “succeed” the other way. By intimidating, by demeaning, by choosing the easy bad over the hard good.

And it seems to work. For awhile, anyway.

I have succumbed to this intimidation for too long.

Am I willing to be ridiculed for declaring a truth I see as self-evident?

Am I willing to stop hiding?

What about you?

If you want to be part of a group of people who want to bring their whole selves to work, who believe that better, more vulnerable, more authentic humans make better leaders, PM me and I will tell you more.

We can do this if we do it together.

Right now, our systems are running overtime in an attempt to keep us safe. It can seem dangerous, at least to our unconscious, to even send an email. To expose ourselves in any way. Let alone to succeed when others are struggling.

But it is only through our collective talents that we can build the new future that we need.

We need your genius to do that.

People like Steven Aitchison and Gay Hendricks have written that we all have a belief ceiling. A psychological cap on the level of success, visibility, money, that we are willing to have. Belief ceilings can limit us personally or professionally.

And they prevent us from revealing our true genius, lest we be driven from the tribe.

But as I said, we need your genius right now.

Sometimes, just seeing what our belief ceiling is (and who installed it) can be enough to dissolve it. Sometimes we need to dismantle it one piece at a time.

What is your belief ceiling? Where did it come from? And what is one small action you can take each day to show yourself it doesn’t really exist?

I just found out last night.

We were in a coaching group together, back in 2017. We were the only two men, and we began having a weekly call. We were different—he was a musician and I was in the corporate world. But I had tremendous admiration for his big heart and what he was bringing into the world.

And I know those conversations helped both of us. I wonder now, if we had continued to talk, if there was something I could have said to help him see that his wife and his three year old boy were worth sticking around for.

Men need to talk to each other. To be ok being scared. To be ok asking for help every now and then. To be ok just suffering together. Especially now.

When we struggle with something we tend to avoid it. We stick to the day to day stuff while the big questions (Why am I here? What do I do?) only get bigger. Whether those are work related, family related, relationship related. Men tend to avoid the messy stuff.

I don’t have an answer or an offer or an easy fix for this. I’m still in a bit of shock and just wanting to make sure the people in my world are ok.

If you need help, please talk to somebody. Even if it seems like you have it under control.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1-800-273-8255

 

I was talking with a CEO client today who was preparing for his next board meeting, and he was stressed. He was getting angry at the slightest provocation.

And together, we identified a program running in the background of his mind.

It goes something like this–

1. If it’s not perfect, they won’t like me.
2. It they don’t like me, they will fire me.
3. If they fire me, my spouse will leave me.
4. If my spouse leaves me, I will die broke and alone.

We’ve been working together long enough that we can see the “DBA” (Die Broke and Alone) program showing up whenever he is under stress.

Just like malware, that program has unauthorized access and leads to bad results.

The first step to getting rid of human malware is to become conscious of it. And while you might not be able to completely delete it, you can prevent it from doing further damage.

When you are under stress, are you conscious of the story your brain is running in the background?