Connection, not protection

• MAGA conservatives protect themselves with guns and violence from ideas that threaten their sense of identity or from immigrants who will change the culture.
• Left-wing "woke" progressives create safe spaces that exclude and cancel anybody who says one wrong word that might hurt somebody's feelings.
• People like me with means and resources withdraw to form "super zip codes" to isolate themselves from others and "protect" our families.

• I have a few coaching slots to fill after a couple long-time clients graduated in December, and I get my best clients from referrals. If you know somebody who is ready to take the next step in their leadership, please let them know they can sign up for a free coaching conversation with no obligation.
• Also, I would love to build stronger relationships with values-aligned companies. If you are reading this newsletter and feel like your company could benefit from my perspective, please make an introduction to your HR partner so we can talk about coaching or class possibilities.
• Lastly, 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.

• Becoming an effective executive means changing your approach to work, from doing the work yourself to coaching your team on the work, from being the expert to communicating on behalf of the experts, from focusing on your own output to aligning others on direction, and setting the tone for people around you with your presence.

• To get things done as an executive requires understanding what others want. People think that once they have the title of director or VP, everybody else will just listen to them and do what they say. That is rarely true. Effective executives figure out how to align what they want with others want - their team, their leadership, their cross-functional peers. Until you understand what they care about, you won't be effective in motivating them to do what you care about. Julie Zhou had a nice Twitter take on this as well.

• What do you do when you have too much to do? The myth of having too much to do is that it misses the fact that we can only do one thing at a time. We can't do ten things at once. When you recognize you can only do one thing at a time, then you become more thoughtful about what you will choose to do next.

• What are the economics of trauma, healing and enoughness? by Tom Atlee. I saw a talk by Atlee many years ago, and still subscribe to his newsletter, but will admit I rarely read it. But this article caught my eye in part because I had just written up my trauma-awareness post, and it is relevant to this week's theme in that Atlee reminds us "real human needs beyond mere survival can be deeply satisfied by the many healthy varieties of contemplation, conviviality and creativity." We don't need more stuff, we don't need more convenience, despite companies marketing that to us to drive their profits. We need more healing through connection to get back in touch with our own enoughness.
• Masters of Love, an Atlantic article from 2014 by Emily Esfahani Smith with the subtitle "Science says lasting relationships come down to kindness and generosity" which summarizes the research of marriage therapists John and Julie Gottman. They determined that the main characteristic of failed marriages was contempt and disconnection, whereas couples in successful marriages found ways to connect constantly throughout the day, offering moments of shared joy and exercising kindness by being generous about their partner’s intentions.
• The Egg, by Andy Weir. A two-page short story from the author of The Martian that is beautiful, succinct and touching. I don't want to ruin it so just read it if you care about connection.