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Group coaching opportunity: I just opened the next cohort of my class Become a More Effective Executive, which will run on Thursdays in May. This class is an opportunity to experience my coaching in a group setting, and gain insights that can change the course of your career.
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Check it out if you have wondered how successful executives operate or what might be holding you back from getting more scope or recognition. If you have friends or coworkers who feel stuck in their career and don't know why, encourage them to take a look at my 30 minute preview webinar.
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I'm not great at taking time off. When I was single, the vacations I preferred were activities like biking through the Rockies or traveling through India. Lying around on the beach never appealed to me, because I would get bored after a couple days. I felt the need to achieve something, even on vacation, to justify taking the time off.
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The good news is that becoming a parent means I no longer have to worry about having nothing to do on vacation - keeping young children alive and entertained is a more than full-time job (and an achievement in and of itself).
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The challenging part is that I can become overwhelmed by all that has to be done, and start to feel resentful that I never get any time to myself.
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It's a curious paradox - I intentionally changed careers when I became a parent so that I would be able to spend more time with my kids, and I become overwhelmed by spending too much time with my kids.
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I recently realized that part of the reason for the overwhelm is that I was deferring to what my kids wanted to do, so I felt like I was sacrificing my own time to do what they wanted. When I instead found activities that we both wanted to do, everything worked better; I skied with my kids for 20+ days this winter and we all had a great time, which also happens when we go on hikes or bike rides or to science museums.
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This has been on my mind as we are leaving for a 3 week vacation this week (my wife and I use parental leave as a chance to do longer international trips). I was originally quite anxious about the trip with thoughts like "three weeks sharing a hotel room with three young kids!? None of us will sleep!" and "How will we keep them entertained for 20 days without day care?".
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But if I instead let go of my expectation that I have to be a "perfect" dad that's always on and sacrificing myself for my kids, maybe I can have a different experience, one where I actually enjoy the vacation by doing more of what I want to do with the kids. In other words, I have a choice on how I approach this experience.
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Learning to take time for myself and prioritize my own well-being might be the personal work I need to do to become the parent and person that I want to be. American hustle culture and my upbringing taught me to sacrifice myself for others constantly, either in the name of "productivity" or in an (ultimately futile) attempt to keep everybody happy. So I'm paying more attention to other ways of living - check out the links below to articles that have recently caught my attention on this topic.
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Regardless, I'm going to turn off work for three weeks and try to truly disconnect. I've downloaded a couple silly beach reads, including Onyx Storm, and will see if I can actually relax while on vacation with my kids. I'll let you know the results in the next newsletter at the end of April!
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And now for the normal personal development content…
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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.
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- Ownership means taking responsibility for the results, not just your own efforts. I used to think this was unfair - why should I take responsibility for results that were out of my direct control? But results are how leaders are measured, so if you want to display leadership, you need to take ownership of results.
- How can you make your language more exciting? After a storytelling exercise at a coaching retreat, I was reminded the power of changing our language. We were told to use three words to tease our story, and my first attempt was frustration, reflection and calm. Boring, right? But when I changed it to "I'm going to tell you a story about the volcano, the mirror, and the sage", that caught people's attention!
- Show the strain of the work. I once burned out because I kept cheerfully accepting all tasks asked of me, even as I was struggling to keep up and my quality of work was declining. When you know that your work is starting to slip, and that things aren't getting done to your normal standards, have an explicit conversation about it. It's better to discuss expectations up front, rather than make a commitment and not deliver to the expected standards.
- Questions are a trap, because they come embedded with assumptions; once you accept the question, you accept the assumptions. In school, we are taught to answer the question as given because the teacher is an authority evaluating our answers. But in our careers, we don't have to answer questions as given, and can provide additional context or challenge the assumptions.
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A few articles that caught my attention recently on how to approach life differently:
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- The Opposite of Fascism, by Anand Giridharadas. I have been feeling guilty about not doing more in this political moment so I appreciated this perspective:
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I want to suggest to you that you don’t need to feel this guilt. The best revenge against these grifters and bigots and billionaires and bullies is to live well, richly, together. The best revenge is to refuse their values. To embody the kind of living — free, colorful, open — they want to snuff out.
So when they dehumanize, you humanize.
When they try to fracture and divide people, you connect with people.
When they try to curtail the freedom to associate, you gather.
When they try to make it harder to speak your mind, you find your voice.
When they try to make you cynical, you double down on hope.
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- I recently re-read David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, This Is Water, and was reminded of his wisdom that we have a choice of how to interpret our experience, which felt particularly relevant to this upcoming vacation.
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If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
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- Our Souls Need Proof of Work, by Julie Zhuo. In this case, I interpreted the hard work I need to do not as the coaching work that energizes me, but the work on myself to become a parent who can truly relax and enjoy time with my kids. Plus, I needed the reminder that comfort is not the same as happiness.
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The siren song of the world’s largest corporations echoes the enduring message of devoted parents throughout history: to be comfortable is to be happy.
Yet this just might be the greatest lie we tell ourselves. ... [because of] the hidden trap of comfort: the easier and quicker our desires are fulfilled, the more our brains recalibrate. Getting what we want, without struggle or delay, numbs our ability to experience real joy and satisfaction. In short, being too comfortable actually makes us miserable.
Paradoxically, doing hard things makes us happier. Putting ourselves through struggle makes us better equipped to enjoy life. ...
Work hard for yourself, for the joy you feel when you’re one step closer to the person you’ve always wanted to be
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Thanks for reading, and see you in a month!
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I lucked out with a snowstorm before our last skiing weekend of the winter - fresh tracks all morning!
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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.
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