Learning interdependence

• Instead of falling apart when something goes wrong, I can more easily recenter and realize that the setback doesn't really matter (will my world really fall apart if my kid is 1 minute late to school?).
• Instead of beating myself up for not getting to everything (like writing this newsletter), I let it go and focus on what I choose to be doing.
• I'm more able to reground myself around others. I used to need a minimum of a couple hours a day to myself because I would get overwhelmed by the demands of others, but this past weekend, I was in constant social mode for every waking moment for three days, and I was surprisingly fine.
• I'm more able to ask for help. Not just when I desperately need it and can't possibly find another way to make it work, but just because I want to do something. I recently asked my wife if she was okay single parenting for an evening so I could go out to dinner with my friend, and she amusedly gave me a gold star for leaning on her instead of sacrificing what I wanted.

• "Mindset-shifting leadership coaching. Eric's strong desire to see his clients succeed is clearly visible in the effort and empathy with which he shares his expertise."
• "There was a great deal of wisdom in what Eric shared with us. I know I’ll be revisiting our lecture notes and the additional resources that were shared throughout the course."

• "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” This may be a cliche, but it describes one of the core skills of leadership: Matching people to work that is aligned with their skills and instincts. When you're working with somebody, whether it's a peer, a direct report or even your manager, figure out how they work best, and then set things up so they can work in that way. Don't make a fish climb a tree, and then be surprised or disappointed that they don't do it well.

• Why is it so hard to change your behavior, even when you know the right thing to do? Because your brain isn't in control. The wiring of your nervous system determines your actions. One of the biggest misconceptions about behavior change is that information or knowledge is the key to change. If I only knew the right thing to do, then I would do it. But when we feel stressed by urgency, we react based on our previously installed defaults, not by carefully considering our options and consciously choosing what to do.
• Working harder won't help if you don't know which way to go. I share the story of a hummingbird trapped in our house, trying to fly towards the sky but getting stuck in a recessed skylight. It worked itself to exhaustion before slowing down enough that I can help it escape. Too many people I know in the tech industry are like the hummingbird, working themselves into burnout rather than take a pause to assess their situation and ask for help to get a different perspective.

• Do all jobs suck right now? Anne Helen Petersen of Culture Study takes a comprehensive look at how job satisfaction is cratering in disciplines ranging from the tech industry to nursing to academia to non-profits. Each industry might feel special and unique, but when it's happening everywhere in parallel, it might be a systemic issue. She makes the case that the decline in collective bargaining (unions) might explain the change. I think that's part of it, but it's also the spread of an individualist extractive mindset that ultimately derives from colonialism's assumption that everybody and everything are objects to be exploited for one's own benefit. Treating some people as objects beneath our consideration, rather than equals that are worthy of dignity, seems to inevitably lead to this hellscape (see also, patriarchy).
• Why I never want to have my own place, by Gillian Morris in the NY Times, where she shares her experience of living in a tight-knit communal living situation. As she writes, "My friends and I call this way of living — looking beyond the nuclear family to include friends, neighbors and extended family in domestic life — going “supernuclear.” It’s not a new idea: Worldwide, most people still live in compounds or villages. But it is a radical choice in the United States, where owning your own home and living with your immediate family is the widely accepted standard of success." What makes it seem radical is the individualist capitalist mindset that everybody should live on their own without help. But that is a recent invention of the 20th century that ignores the fact that humans are designed to live together in tribes relying on each other.
• Why you can't just do things, by Octopusyarn, debunking the idea that agency is the idea "You can just do things" because the idea isn't enough for most people. She (?) makes the case that even something as individual-focused as agency relies on community: