The leader of an organization was preparing for a long overdue two-week vacation. He had spent a month preparing for his absence by setting up systems and training his second-in-command to step up while he was gone. But still, his protégé was nervous. She proposed several hypothetical scenarios, wondering how she should respond. The leader calmly explained the processes he set up to handle each situation. “Don’t worry, you’ve got this,” he reassured her. “But, if you find yourself in a spot where you don’t know what to do, let me show you something I rely on in situations like that.” He led her into his office, and grabbed a Magic 8-Ball from his desk. “If you’re stuck, just state your issue in the form of a yes or no question, shake this, and do whatever it says.” She looked at him with a puzzled expression on her face. "By the way," he said, "If it says to ask again later, just give it a little time before trying again.” The young employee wondered aloud, “But …
Enlist Your Enemy to Help You Succeed
When I am almost done with a painting, I give it a time out. I let it hang out on the side of my studio while I begin work on a new one. Every time I walk by it, I sneak a peek at it, trying to pretend as if I’ve never seen it before. I’m not trying to make it jealous; I'm trying to look at it with new eyes. The goal is to figure out if it really is finished. I’m always doubtful that it is, but sometimes I struggle to find anything to fix. A recent painting I’d been working on had a couple of areas that I knew would be tough going into it, particularly the water in the swimming pool, which I’d never painted before. In the end, I was happy with how the challenge areas turned out, and when I looked at the painting, it was with a sense of pride at my accomplishment. But I couldn’t shake the sense that the painting wasn’t finished. Then I came across a quote by the novelist Samuel Butler, who said, "Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. …
Are You Suffering From Indecent Exposure?
Do you ever feel like our world is going to heck in a hand basket? Are you discouraged by current events and the downward spiral of civility? Does it seem like nobody cares anymore? You might be suffering from indecent exposure. What we watch on TV, the discussions we engage in online, and who we spend time with all influence our worldview, casting it in either a positive or negative light. If we are exposed to negativity, that negativity will influence us. Let's start with the so-called "news." No matter what side of the political aisle you are on and which cable news show you prefer, watching those programs is no longer about staying informed. Both sides are pushing an agenda specifically designed to rile you up and get you angry (so you’ll be influenced to keep watching.) Spend too much time on social media and it’s not hard to fall into a tsunami of hateful comments and poisonous vitriol. And it's not just politics. I’m a Cubs fan, and sometimes the online …
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The Bad Thing About Tax Refunds
Tomorrow is tax day in the United States. For many years, Kim and I looked forward to a tax refund, dreaming about how big it might be and what we'd do with the windfall. It felt like a little present, which is weird, because if you buy a sandwich with a twenty dollar bill and the clerk gives you fifteen dollars back, you don’t thank him for the gift. Of course, it was really our money all along. We simply paid more taxes than we were required to over the course of the year, and the government sent us back the change. In the early days, the main reason we got such a good refund is because our business was not very successful. And by not very successful, I mean it lost money, which is the exact opposite of what you want your business to do. The interesting thing is what happened in my mind when the business finally started to thrive. The refunds got smaller, then stopped. We started having to pay more taxes. Because I liked the feeling of receiving a check rather than …
A Message for When You Feel Like a Failure
Grace is a tricky thing. It’s something we all need but are loathe to accept. Although we perhaps aren’t as generous with it as we could be, we’d still much rather give it than receive it. My son Ben is seven. He has been writing books, typing pages on the computer and printing them out, leaving plenty of space for illustrations. (As I have taught him. ;) His most recent version was about Ninjago, a weighty tome that was a full eight pages in length. Ben’s big sister Lucy served as editor, helping correct some misspellings and punctuation errors. Before her involvement, the sentences were choppy, missing some words, and as most of the copy was generated by sound-spelling, it was tainted by the common accent of childhood. For example: “Liybawey.” Can you figure it out? It’s one of our family’s favorite haunts. Also known as the “library." Now, do I look down on him for the missteps, for the obvious spelling errors, and the shallow, predictable plot? Of course not. Do …
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The Downside of Yes
"The difference between successful people and very successful people is that the very successful people say 'no' to almost everything." –Warren Buffet I love that quote. But I still hate saying no, especially when I feel like I'm disappointing someone. Saying "yes" to new experiences and difficult challenges is an important ingredient of a great life. But the reason so many people are overwhelmed, unfocused, and always on the verge of burnout is because they say 'yes' way too often. Sometimes we say "yes" because we are good people who want to help make the world better. But too often, fear is driving the decision... We say "yes" to invitations to social gatherings that we'd rather not attend, requests to serve on boards we don’t care that much about, and calls to volunteer for groups we don’t have time for, because we're afraid of hurting someone's feelings. We say "yes" to signing up our kids to an insane amount of extracurricular activities because we're afraid that …
Damascus Moments
As I wrote about in Penguins Can't Fly, I am not a natural-born rule breaker. This may come as a surprise coming from someone who wrote a book about breaking rules. The obvious question is, "How did you go from being a shy boy who was afraid of new situations and spent an eternity in swimming lessons to a guy who makes a living speaking in public about breaking rules?” For years, I’ve tried to come up with a compelling answer. After all, it seems like some sort of magic was involved. I would often point to a moment when I imagined myself as an 80-year-old guy looking back on my life and wondering, "what if?" And yes, that was when I started to consider that the fear of regret might be more powerful than the fear of trying something new. Other times, I'd give credit to a retreat I attended after high school that had a profound impact on me. As monumental as that experience was, it doesn't fully explain the shy-kid-to-speaker transformation. The truth is, there wasn't …
Advice From an Astronaut
"It's Time To Dream Bigger" by Jason Kotecki. Digital. I recently got to see a real live astronaut. He showed us a video of what thunderstorms in Central Africa look like from above. (Answer: strobe lights at a night club.) Terry Virts is a former NASA astronaut and Space Station Commander who came to Madison to speak to schoolchildren about his experiences. My daughter Lucy and I had the opportunity to hear his stories and see his incredible snapshots from his 200-day tour of outer space. He told us that being in space doesn’t feel like floating, but rather like you're always falling. Because, in fact, you actually are. He showed us the little closet where he slept upright in a sleeping bag, and explained that because it costs thousands of dollars to transport a single bottle of water into space, it makes a lot of sense for them to recycle the water they use on board, including sweat and urine. (I wanted to ask him if this is how Mountain Dew was made, but never got the …
Building Sandcastles and the Meaning of Life
Why do we build sancastles on the beach? I mean, what’s the point? Eventually, the surf will swallow it whole and all the hard work will be for nothing. That’s what I was thinking as my kids were enthusiastically erecting a stronghold of sand on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. They worked fast. Built it high. And even added a moat for protection. That led to questions about life. If you’re lucky, you have eight or nine decades to work with, although most of us have much less than that. We busily build families, careers, and accomplishments to be proud of. It’s easy to wonder: What’s the point? Why bother? You know it won’t last. The surf will eventually win. It always does. So I started compiling a list of reasons: Maybe it’s exciting to see what you can accomplish before the clock runs out. Maybe it's to experience a feeling of pride in the little wins, no matter how fleeting, like when your makeshift moat holds off a surge of water. Maybe the enjoyment comes …
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What I Learned After an Eternity in Swimming Lessons
We went to Mexico recently. My youngest daughter spent the first hour in the pool at our condo on her tiptoes, bouncing around to various areas, repeatedly asking, “Can I touch?” When you’re little, and don’t know how to swim yet, that’s the only question that matters. “Can I touch?" It’s a simple yes or no question. The translation, of course, is “Can I survive here? Am I safe? Do I have anything to worry about?” Only Ginny was asking this question, as my other two kids know how to swim. Once you know how to swim, you don’t need to ask, because it doesn’t matter if you can touch or not. I can relate to this. It took me a long time to learn how to swim. Not because it was hard, because learning how to swim is actually not that difficult. (Especially when you define “learning how to swim” as “being able to float when you’re in water over your head.”) No, the reason I was in swimming lessons for what felt like decades was because I was afraid. I spent the longest …
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