|
|
While time is just a construct our brains use to make sense of the world, I enjoy taking time to reflect on the year that is ending, and setting my intentions for the year that is starting. I did so in two longer blog posts, which I'll summarize below.
|
First, my 2024 Year in Review, where I look back on what I did (2024 was a full year!), set my intention for deeper integration in 2025, share a few of my realizations from last year (diet matters!), talk about the books I read in 2024, and conclude with links to my top 10 LinkedIn posts from the year (#1 by far was my sharing of how I transformed my life after turning 40).
|
|
|
While I was familiar with many of the concepts shared in the program, my experience was profound in uncovering and starting to deal with some of my own unprocessed trauma.
Let’s start by defining trauma. Most people think of trauma as having life-threatening or abusive experiences, what practitioners would call big-T Trauma. This program instead defined trauma as any experience which our bodies could not fully process at the time it happened. That would include big-T Trauma experiences, but could include what seem like minor experiences if you were not equipped to handle them.
These accumulated trauma experiences show up later in life as people displaying disproportionate reactions to situations that remind them of the original incidents. In those moments of triggering, we are no longer our adult selves, but we are acting as the child we were when we first experienced that situation. When a 50-year-old CEO is screaming at his team, he is not acting as a rational grown-up, but as a 3-year-old throwing a tantrum.
And that’s why becoming more trauma-aware is so important even if you’re not a practitioner, because trying to reason with the CEO in that moment will never work; he will not be able to act as a rational adult until you find a way to first calm down his inner 3-year-old. Even placating the toddler inside will not solve the problem, because the next situation where he doesn’t get what he wants will re-trigger him into that tantrum. His reaction is frozen from the time of his first experience of that situation, and he will not respond to such situations appropriately as an adult until he processes the original trauma.
That processing is the heart of any trauma-informed healing work, and is what we learned to do through the program.
|
|
|
|
|
And now for the normal personal development content…
|
- The next cohort of my class on How to Become a More Effective Executive starts on January 16th. If you sign up with that link, you will receive a 22% discount with the promo code GRATITUDE as a thank you for reading the newsletter. The class distills everything I learned as the Google Search Ads Chief of Staff and as an executive coach into principles and mindsets you can apply in your job today. The initial fall cohort loved the content, so please share the class with anybody who might benefit.
- Also, I’d love to do a private cohort of the class for your company’s rising executives – please connect me to your HR lead if that sounds interesting.
- I am offering a coaching scholarship in Q1 (along with several other coaches) to an engineering leader from an underrepresented group in tech. Learn more and apply at this link.
LinkedIn: These are ideas that have helped my clients (or myself), and that I share via LinkedIn to help a wider audience, and archive here.
|
- Knowing what to do is not enough. I had an opportunity to connect with somebody I respect and admire, and messed it up because I got distracted. While I "know" how to stay focused and connected, I hadn't practiced it enough such that it was the default for my body, and instead scratched the itch of distraction.
- An AI-generated summary of my 2024 LinkedIn content. It wasn't terrible, but required a couple tweaks before posting and doesn't really sound like me. That being said, I enjoyed the reminder of the major themes I shared.
|
|
|
A few articles on renewal and hope:
|
|
|
|
I love community is because it helps us build a consensus reality, something that is sometimes dismissed as "filter bubbles" but is actually a powerful form of organizing and rallying. ... And the process of creating a consensus reality is not functionally different from the process of imagining the future. Any time you're describing the present, you're also implicitly defining the future you want to see, as well as the future you're scared of seeing. Communities are a crucial part of futurism.
|
|
- Anders goes on to share "some principles for thinking about the future through a community-focused lens", including embracing the temporary nature of communities, learning from each other (no lone geniuses!), becoming more inclusive to welcome new members, and dancing together (figuratively and literally).
- the ultimate guide to holding world class dinner parties, by Auren Hoffman. I mostly liked this because it echoes what I used to do with my salons, where I gathered people in-person to discuss a theme. One change I would make is to be more thoughtful about who I invite - let purpose be my bouncer, as Priya Parker shares in The Art of Gathering, and Hoffman echoes here with "it really matters who you invite". Maybe I should use this guide as a prompt from the universe to start hosting salons again, although the last thing I need is more commitments.
- The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. As Max Roser shares, "It is wrong to think these three statements contradict each other. We need to see that they are all true to see that a better world is possible." If we focus only on the ways in which the world is awful, we might get cynical and lose hope. If we focus only on the ways in which the world is much better than it used to be (which often doesn't get reported because positive change happens slowly and incrementally, and disasters happen quickly), we might get complacent. We need to hold all of these perspectives to drive positive change and create a better world together.
|
Thanks for reading, and see you in a couple weeks!
|
|
|
|
|
|
I saw this gorgeous sunrise while walking to the gym at 7am one morning. It was a reminder to look up occasionally and appreciate the wonder all around.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 executive 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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
