Through some work I’m doing with the awesome folks in Oregon State University’s Outdoor Recreation Economy Initiative, I was talking with one of the participants this week who told me, ‘I like to learn, I don’t like to be taught.’ Hmm. Exactly!
As an educator, this has meant helping others learn without them feeling like they’re being taught. It’s meant not having all the answers. Acknowledging that has been tough. Like admitting to myself after taking a huge leap starting a company I’m no longer an expert was tough, too. As long as I can remember, helping meant having the answer. It wasn’t about asking the right questions.
What I’ve learned, thinking through my own experiences, is that it’s more often the questions I remember than the statements. The questions that led me to think differently, the ones that opened my mind. The questions whose answers I hadn’t considered.
In fact, I wrote 1,641 words about becoming okay not having the answers. If you’re interested, you can read about it here.
All of your life, someone is pointing the way, directing you this way and that, determining for you which road is best traveled… Here is your chance to find your own way. Don’t ask me how to get to McGee Canyon or Lake Double-Eleven-0. Go, on your own. Be adventuresome. Don’t forever seek the easiest way. Take the way you find. Don’t demand trail signs and sturdy bridges. Don’t demand we show you the mountains. Seek them and find them yourself… Be free enough from intentions to find goodness wherever you are and in whatever is happening. Here for once in your life you needn’t do anything, be anywhere at a determined time, walk in a certain direction. Here’s your one chance to get lost, fall in the creek, find a beautiful place.
~ Randy Morgenson, Kings Canyon National Park backcountry ranger, 1973
‘What are some exercises we can do?’ My friend Susan asked me that question after I finished sharing a story during a workshop I was leading. The story was about my older brother, Jeff and the workshop was around having a vision for their future. It’s a squishy concept, not easily defined. She wanted it to be, I could tell. I didn’t blame her. I wanted to help. In that moment, between her asking and me stumbling for an answer, something I had been struggling with for a while connected. To help meant not giving her the answer she wanted to hear.
Morning of the fourth day. Sitting on granite with the sun and breeze looking out over Darwin Bench. Clouds materializing off in the west distant horizons it seems as if over the Pacific Ocean. For some inexplicable reason I just realized now how I am drawn to this view here of a faint trail far off beyond disappearing over the edge. Beyond the drop lies the chasm of McClure and Evolution valleys. I am mesmerized by that trail. I know where it goes because we found it, followed it, two days earlier onward to Evolution. But if I did not know, and even that I do now, disappearing off to somewhere that cannot be seen, it pulls me forward like gravity. Reminds me of how I know but do not know. A mad-crazy wild. A treeless waste. All of this exploding right now in this absolute moment unbearable.
I remembered that journal I had written on a backpacking trip with my son, Julian, through the Sierras. That was eight years ago. J was twelve. A long time ago, only yesterday sometimes it seems. I was staring at a trail far off in the distance. We happened upon it a couple of days earlier in an otherwise trail-less canyon.
I think about that trail, and about wandering when there are no trails, and about Susan asking for some exercises. It’s not just me, this need to know all mixed up with a longing to discover. There’s comfort in knowing, scariness in not. Her question has haunted me since that workshop. I didn’t know of any exercises. Admittedly, I couldn’t remember doing any myself. Then I was struck by my own process. Two years ago, settled in Seattle, I envisioned living somewhere I could ski out my front door. We now live on the eastern edge of the Cascades. Our first winter here, I walked out of our door and went skiing.
There was really only one thing to do, I told her, speaking from that experience: Start thinking about it.
Forty feet to go. Twenty. I let J catch up out of breath persistent as ever clambering up the rocks below, a feeling in me impossible to write. A pride beyond belief, exploding. I let him pass as I always do so he could lead us to the top. Struggling I could tell with his own will to make the last few steps to the col. I snapped a photo of him. Then followed behind. At the top there was the sign: ENTERING KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK LAMARK COL. Someone had scratched in the metal the elevation: 12,880. Beyond there was the view. So epic it took me by surprise. Startled. There was the whole granite rampart of the Sierra spread out in front of us peak upon peak upon peak. Darwin and Mendel leapt forth from the canvas that had up until this point only existed in my mind. Now here tactile enough to touch as if a chiaroscuro painting heavy-handed unfolding. I turned and pointed south in an exclamation of all that was real in that linear moment toward streams of light bursting forth from the literal hands of God. A complete painting of Darwin Canyon unfolded awash in focused pale light. Brushstrokes of cadmium and bromine. The lakes still a thousand feet below shimmered effervescent. Scraped dirty ice of glaciers tens of thousands of years old. The granite, millions and millions. And J. Above me on top of the rocks silhouetted against the chromatic blue sky fading. I felt alight in the dim instinct of the mountains. The stone and ice and water and light and fear and joy and myself all one. Now I stare at this journal trying to etch the sense of that moment knowing I cannot. Hanging on the molecules of air were droplets of water like tiny prisms scattered somehow in four dimensions. The iridescent light over it all.
They waited for more of an explanation, Susan and everyone else taking an hour out of their day to hear me ramble on about my brother’s story, about my own story. Something to get them going. More than my feeble offering, ’Start thinking about it.’ I didn’t blame the rest of them, either. I had already been wondering, if I don’t have all the answers, what do I bring to this world? I had been searching myself for how I can help. As long as I can remember, helping meant knowing the answer. ‘Here Susan, here are some exercises to help you with your vision,’ I should have been able to tell her. ‘Here’s the magic that worked for Jeff, the magic that worked for me.’ But as I thought it, and now as I write it, I knew that wasn’t the answer she needed.
The descent down to the lakes seemed to stretch to infinity. Both of us drained from the storm nervous and frightening. Steep and no real path. I’d pick up the hint of a trail through the talus and gravel benches but lose it in an instant. The lakes and patches of green dotting the shores beckoned in the fading day. There after such exaltation I felt a rush of an impending low. Crawling over talus along the second lake inching our way to a flat area just further beyond. More storm clouds approaching. How did J do it? When I felt on the edge of such collapse straining to keep leading us on through granite unknown. Struggling with every pore of my being for the strength. I saw my own transience. Tried to understand the meaningless of the mountains. How they just simply exist. There must be reason for it all. Here this place so wild and desolate, overwhelming. Mythic. Unchanging and changing. Above all the sky.
I’ve come to realize there are three things I need when trying to learn something as amorphous as becoming a leader:
I need to share my story. I need to hear the stories of others. I need to draw my own conclusions.
What’s been so hard for me to accept is how I, in fact, help others best when I don’t have all the answers. When I inspire them to get comfortable with the unknown. Like the treeless waste of the Sierras, all big, beautiful and scary. The value then I create is in a much less tangible, much less immediate way. I bring folks who are going through the same thing together. In small groups, where we can share stories, we can ask questions, we can listen. Where we can learn from one another.
The trouble is, this isn’t how learning has ever really looked for me. I’ve been taught throughout my life by sitting back and listening, under the assumption the teacher knows everything and I know nothing. That was true in grade school. When I showed up for my algebra class in seventh grade, I honestly had no idea what x was. I trusted Mr. Durst did. Eventually, through his instruction, I learned. Leadership is different. It’s not algebra. Teaching professionals is different. They’re not eighth graders. Susan, the others in our workshop that day, they all have experience. Just like them, I have experience. It’s absurd to think I have all their answers. But not having the answers scared the shit out of me. That’s how I always thought I created value.
Like discovering a trail in an empty canyon, there’s an incredible power in having to draw my own conclusions. Through the process, I learn. I grow. That’s the connection that came to me during our workshop. That’s why I couldn’t answer Susan’s question. She needs to discover what works for her in crafting her own vision. It won’t be the same as what worked for Jeff, or for me. She has her own story.
Bringing people together, sharing my story and allowing them to share theirs, is an unbelievable opportunity. There’s beauty in not knowing, in discovering. For Susan to envision, one day as Jeff and I each did, her future. For me in not knowing the impact I may have on her by simply opening up and sharing my own story. Without giving her any exercises, without showing her the way. I trust, if I’ve even slightly inspired her to start thinking about her vision, she’ll find her way.
We just have to pack. Easy hike out all downhill. A few miles. Crazy I think the geology of mountains. How they all rise and rise and rise ever higher to a crest, then fall away on all sides in every cardinal direction. Summits splinter the space above. Fall away themselves over time. Eons. And on the other side such wildness. Such incredible breaking beauty. How far one can go with only a pack placing one foot in front of the other. Thousands and thousands of feet up and down. Miles and miles and miles. J swats at flies nearby. I must finish writing this. The sounds of the stream below the upper and lower lakes the only thing that breaks the silence now in between. The blue polarized sky cloudless. The grey granite looming.
Which led to an article about how Warren Buffet writes his annual letter as if he’s writing to his sisters. Which brought me to this little poem I thought I’d share with you: Rudyard Kipling’s opus, If.
These randomnesses are meant to be short, so even though it’s a short poem, I’ll refrain from including it. You should read it, though. It’s pretty good.
Communication showed up as a theme in the answers to a question I threw out during an Outdoor Industry Association workshop, ‘Who does leadership look like to you?’ True dat. If I had to make up a number that represented the percentage of influence that’s granted through all the various ways I communicate, I’d say…sixty percent. Maybe seventy-five. Or ninety. It’s a lot.
In this random series, I’ve brought up the ol’ conjunction ‘but.’ I’ve questioned the usage of ‘they.’ This week, I’m daring to challenge the word ‘sure.’
Interestingly, the definition of sure as an adjective boils down to a combo of confidence and certainty. Mine and my family’s weirdness aside, why then for us is it a non-answer? Katie gives me crap if I forget this and respond to a question of hers with that word. It’s a big deal for us.
The million-dollar question this week: Is it just me, or does my brother’s reply to my asking him if he has a pressure washer and would he mind bringing it over make him sound, well, not terribly excited to oblige?
This week K and I, admittedly neither coincidentally nor randomly, watched the intense drama American History X. I’ve seen it a couple of times. She had not. When the film was released way back in 1998, the production studio’s president, Tony De Luca, unveiled, ‘It’s everything I had hoped for. The performances are explosive and frightening, and the film dramatically demonstrates both the subtle and overt roots of racism while also showing the possibility for redemption.’
Without giving away the end, the film concludes with a quote I hadn’t heard before. It was uttered by Abraham Lincoln, on the steps of the not-quite-finished Capitol building. His first inaugural address. The date was March 4, 1861. Seven states had already seceded from the Union. His words gave me goosebumps. Almost tears. Somehow, despite everything he faced that day, including an assassination conspiracy, Lincoln spoke of an unfathomable hope.
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Wow, thirty of these and counting. I’m not sure why that number seems so big at the moment, or significant. It really isn’t. Just kind of cool. I haven’t said it in a while, as in maybe only once when you signed up for our little list, so thanks again for reading these random things.
This one will be short, and perfectly random. I was working the other day while Sefton was watching marble videos on Daddy’s phone. It rang. It was a 206 number from Seattle. When I answered, the guy on the other end admitted, ‘I’m only calling because you called me.’ We exchanged some awkward pleasantries. Could’ve been a butt-dial, he acknowledged. Or a toddler dial, I offered. Before hanging up, he said, ‘Have a great life. Be safe. Take care.’
Kindness from a total stranger. Pretty cool. Made my day. I hope you enjoy yours.
Rabbit holes are kind of cool. They can be time sucks, sure. They can also be sources of newfangled ideas, inspiration, or good ol’ entertainment. Here’s a recent example:
The entrance: An email from Harvard Business Review titled, ‘5 ways leaders accidentally stress out their employees’. I clicked it.
The hole: Somewhere near the end of the article, it mentioned Dale Carnegie and included a hyperlink. I clicked it.
That took me to the Amazon page for his book, How To Win Friends & Influence People. Stuck in Portland for an afternoon last year, I killed time by browsing Powell’s bookstore. As I wandered down an aisle, I came across that book and thumbed through it. It was pretty fascinating in an old-school, common sense, what my mom taught me growing up sort of way. Scrolling down the Amazon page, I noticed it featured the first chapter. I read it. Somewhere near the end, Carnegie included the poem, ‘Father Forgets,’ by W. Livingston Larned.
Dang. I felt it, that poem. Not just as a parent, or as a boss, or as a husband. Pretty much as a human who has always been and only recently has tried not to be way too critical. Of myself, of what I put out in the world, of others.
The conclusion: Carnegie’s principle, which he summed up by saying, ‘Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.’ Well said, Dale.
ps… If you, too, wish to read a somewhat heartbreaking poem, here’s a link you can click. Happy possible rabbit-holing…
This week I was looking a little into Tim Bray. Yep, the Amazon VP who quit after his company fired six ‘whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of Covid-19’ (Bray’s words). First stop: his blog. First post: ‘Responses.’ Buried in that post, he wrote that sentence.
Wow.
I’m a huge fan of simple. Candid. Powerful. That sentence meets all three. It left me thinking about what can I not not do.
This week, Katie and I watched the film ‘A Hidden Life.’ We’re both fans of Terrence Malick. Particularly, Tree of Life. The music and cinematography in that film are sort of mind-blowing.
A light-hearted romp, however, A Hidden Life is not. Sadly, it’s not even inspiring in the way, say, Schindler’s List is inspiring. What makes it such a powerful film, maybe frustratingly so, is in the questions it poses rather than the answers it provides. Perhaps they all boil down to one: What is enough?
At the end of the film, a quote from George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch appears before it fades away, leaving K and I with way more to think about than we did three hours earlier.
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half-owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
With a coffee mug in hand, I was perusing the New York Times morning briefing yesterday. This sentence about the experimental drug remdesivir jumped out at me:
Reports that its potential coronavirus treatment showed promise helped rally the stock market.
Wow. The first thing that popped into my head was that hope is a kind of cool thing.
Then I pictured the New York Stock Exchange. Words that came to mind were monolithic, robotic, grotesque. I pictured this ginormous, black box. Sort of like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Minus the apes. Basically, a depiction of an entity that is anything but human.
Yet, that beast of capitalism rallied when it heard a glimmer of hope. I smiled.
ps… Yep, that’s Katie (my wife, for those of you joining our little list since the last time I mentioned her) being a good sport and providing me a stock photography-ish picture of hope…
Sefton just started watching Mr. Rogers. I asked my mom this week if we ever watched him growing up. She didn’t think so. Oh well, I can start now.
Fifty years ago, Mr. Rogers sat at a table across from a supposedly-pretty-stern Congressman. He needed $20 million for his fledgling, low-polish children’s program.
5 minutes. It took him five minutes to get it. How does he do it?
More interestingly, what caught my attention was how he doesn’t do it. He starts by saying something about a big, ‘philosophical statement.’ Gobbly-gook. He knows it’s not going to get him $20 mil. So he says, ‘I’ll not do that.’ Then he talks about trust. He doesn’t get into tech-speak. He doesn’t try to woo the Senator with big, fancy words. What does he do? Simple.
He tells a story. Then he recites a song.
Boom. Five minutes later he has a hard-ass senator telling him, ‘Looks like you just earned the twenty million dollars.’
If you’ve never seen the video of his testimony, it’s probably worth your 6 minutes and 50 seconds. Good luck fighting back a tear or two…
Apparently, Verizon is handling an average of 800 million wireless calls a day. Twice the number typically placed on Mother’s Day, historically one of the busiest calling days of the year. That’s kind of awesome.
In the day where the protocol is confusing, such as ‘Do I need to text you to ask if it’s cool to call you?’ Wait, what? A phone call, of course, is more personal than texting. It doesn’t require any sort of performance or have the same distractions as a video call. It’s simple. Like the headline read, humble. Simple and humble are good.
ps… Umm, yep, that’s me on the phone, circa early-2000s. Photo cred goes to our at-the-time 5 year-old son, Julian. Nice one, J.
Because it has to do with leadership, I’ve been reading a lot about the unfolding of events surrounding Captain Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Paradoxically, it’s made me both sad and uplifted. Sad for the absolute failure of those he counted on to have his back. Uplifted by his actions, and how his Sailors responded. There is so much to examine, from fear, intimidation, and lack of accountability, to undeniable sacrifice, vulnerability, and selfishness.
Like I said, sad and uplifting.
While reading about it, I stumbled upon a little bit of history: Theodore Roosevelt’s Round Robin Letter. Roosevelt’s great-grandson, Tweed Roosevelt, wrote an eloquent Op-Ed in the New York Times that mentioned it. Written back in 1898, the similarities in the circumstances–from the obvious pandemics to the more subtle politicizing of military decision-making–are unreal.
Ultimately, I’m reflecting on what it means to be a leader and, furthermore, what it takes to become a hero. Sacrifice. And risk. A shit-ton of risk. By my unofficial definition then, Captain Crozier is absolutely a hero.
I was talking to a friend this week about a workshop series we’re leading for this year’s Outdoor Industry Association Skip Yowell Future Leadership Academy. She asked if I heard of this concept ‘The Line of Choice.’ Kind of interesting. I’m going to gloss over it for now.
What I found more interesting was something buried in an article I read about that line. It was called ‘The Magic Quarter Second.’ Essentially, within the 200-millisecond delay between becoming aware and acting lies our power of free will. What Viktor Frankl, after surviving Auschwitz, deemed our one true freedom.
‘Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.’
This is going to be short. My wife, Katie, sent me a link on Instagram this past weekend for a performance the Pacific Northwest Ballet is doing. Virtually, of course. Thankfully, at the end of the clip, it included the name of the music’s composer: Greg Haines.
All I want to share this week is a piece of his, 183 Times. Nine minutes and eight seconds. If you have the time, give it a listen. All the way through.
Hi. I’m prepping for a chat about decision-making. Coincidentally, I read a little essay by Brendan Leonard today about bicycling accidents and the lessons we can learn by falling off a bike. Somewhere about two-thirds of the way down he quoted a saying:
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from poor judgment.
I like it because it’s simple. It’s straightforward. But is it true? I’ve been spending way too much time today taking that statement and fact-checking it to decisions I’ve made. There have been a lot of decisions in parenting. A lot while being a boss. An embarrassingly-high number from time spent in the mountains.
I’m reading the book The Only Skill That Matters. It’s pretty interesting. Fascinating, really. I’m only about halfway through so I haven’t gotten to the part about speed-reading. The first half has explained how our memory works, and has started to lay out some ways to improve it. Yep, fascinating stuff.
Chapter 7 introduces the memory palace. Also known as the method of loci, it basically uses our uncanny knack as humans to be aware of our surroundings. It’s why, when we ask someone about a big event in the past, we say, ‘Where were you when… ?’
This article explains how to make use of memory palaces. This book, Moonwalking With Einstein, chronicles its author’s quest to improve his memory. It seems it’ll take some practice to get good at visualizing things I want to commit to memory, and then assigning them to various locations. From what I understand, though, it’s a pretty legit game-changer. I’m going to give it a go.
Last week we were at my brother’s house in the sprawling metropolis of Bigfork, Montana. Across the lake, we checked out Blacktail Mountain’s $25-a-lift-ticket Thursday. A super-cool ski area with a decent amount of terrain, good views, and zero crowds. This isn’t really about Blacktail, however.
Afterward, we hit up Tamarack Brewing just down the hill in Lakeside. Katie noticed a sign on the way in advertising free ski waxing that night. Oh, and that she was the subject of the photo. Now that was random! Still, this isn’t about my wife being the cover model for a community event, either.
This is about the two guys we met from the Kalispell REI who were outside waxing skis. We were there for a little bit and watched them in action. They never tried to sell anything. A gal even asked, ‘What are you doing here?’ Mark, who we took to be the boss, pointed at Bryant and replied with a smile, ‘Just to get this guy out of the shop.’
Maybe their genuineness was Montana friendliness. Likely it was just genuine genuineness. It was palpable. Refreshing, for sure, to be offered something, no strings attached.
Who are ‘they?’ was my wife’s reaction. She remembers the event well. One of her coworkers had popped up over the cube wall to tell her this. She gets a little teary recalling it. In her email to her team that she was made to write addressing the situation, she courageously wrote, ‘If you have feedback for me, I’d appreciate it if you’d bring it to me directly.’
This is about linguistics, again. Sorry.
Like the conjunction ‘but,’ using the word ‘they’ can become a habit. Mostly because it’s easy. It can be innocent enough. ‘Where’s the apple park?’ Sefton asks us as we drive by where the playground used to be. ‘They tore it down and are going to build a new park,’ we tell him. We don’t really know who ‘they’ are. The fine men and women of the PUD, likely. No worries.
Using ‘they’ to hide behind, to be vague, isn’t as innocent. The key? Being aware when you’re using it and when you hear it. Like K’s reaction, call out when you hear it. Ask who ‘they’ actually are, put a name to ‘they’. When you’re about to use ‘they’ because it’s easy, be upfront and just use an actual name, or names. If it takes some guts, props.
Our teenager, Julian, is visiting us for a couple of weeks. Wait, as of a few days ago, he’s no longer a teenager. Wow, we have a twenty-something. Ok, moving on…
I came into the living room the other day to find him sitting on the couch staring off at the wall in front of him. Admittedly, the first thing that came to mind was the scene of Puddy and Elaine on a plane in a classic episode of Seinfeld. Then I caught myself. Why is that weird, someone doing nothing? Or why is it even weirder when we’re in public, just thinking quietly or enjoying a moment rather than pulling out our phone or pretending to be busy? In a Harvard Business Review article, the author mentions analyzing holiday letters since the 1960s and seeing a spike in them of the phrase ‘crazy schedules.’ When we’re not doing stuff, we feel like we have to pretend we’re doing stuff. That’s weird.
Since the new year, in my looking back at the previous one, I’ve realized I need to be better at setting hard stops on when I’m in work mode and when I’m Dad, or husband, or friend. Part of that includes finding time, seeking out time in fact, for doing nothing. Like Julian, I guess. The kid is onto something.
