BLUE CRUSH

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Isolation feels a lot like swimming in the ocean to me. Some days it’s awesome; I feel alive, refreshed, meditative and energized. Other days every stroke feels like hard work. 

The ocean is ever-changing. One day it will work for you and the next day it will swallow you whole. It's the ultimate change-environment.

While being stuck at home might feel like the opposite of a change environment, it’s clear that nothing is as it was. Each day is oddly different, despite the monotony and the same-ness.

Yes, this will eventually normalize. The big question is when? Swimming in the ocean gets progressively challenging the longer you are in the water.

Challenge is a wonderful thing. So we can embrace this. We can innovate for ourselves and our businesses. We can come out of this stronger than we went into it.

We should absolutely set big goals for ourselves and make a plan to use this weird isolation time to do something we have always put off. My goal is to learn to do a yoga handstand. Being upside down feels about right at the moment. It also requires me to work on my balance. I need to do a lot of work on my balance.

But challenge can’t be constant. Drowning is a real possibility. I had to pull back on the handstands last week because I overdid it. I lost my balance in the bigger sense. Everything was hurting.

When you are operating in a change environment, challenge has two components. We need to assess how we are performing against our goal but we also need to assess what level we think we should be performing at. Most of us think we can operate daily at a 9 or 10. Or is that just me? And daily has now become all 7 days of the week - we have lost the separation of our weekends.

It is critical in a change environment that you give context to your capacity. Ask yourself, “what is my level today? Is it a 10, again?” 

We are playing a long game here. Check in on your goal, assess your performance and - more important - assess your capacity each day. Ask yourself what you need to do to move closer to your performance goal. If you are hurting, you might need a break. Or maybe do something different. You know you will come back stronger tomorrow if you do. 

And if you are drowning, please raise your hand for help. The beautiful thing happening right now is community. We are all in this together.

WHEN IT RAINS

PhotoCredit: Rain

It’s been raining in LA for the last ten days. At least. It’s incessant. Usually, this would be all anyone could talk about. But we don’t talk about the weather...we talk about illness.

The dampness of the rain and the virus and the realities of aloneness are pervasive. They are enough to make you feel sick, even if you are not. There are only so many articles I can read about sore throats before I feel like my throat is sore.

Misery and confusion surround us. It’s tough right now. For some of you it’s brutal. My friend texted me that her daughter just misses her friends. A four year old doesn’t understand her misery. At least we understand ours.

The truth is that it will eventually stop raining in LA. Just as we know we will get through this crisis. We may have some leaks to patch up. Things will look very different. Society will look different. We will look different. 

It’s never been more radiant in LA, despite the rain. Because of the rain. Our air has never been this clean (obviously the reduction in traffic has also helped immensely).

For sure, the sun comes out after the rain. We can be optimistic and know that this too shall pass. We are thankfully not in a nuclear winter (I mean, talk about perspective!). But that’s not my point. 

None of us have the power to stop it raining. We can’t panic the rain away. We can’t toilet-paper purchase the rain away. We can’t plan the rain away. We can lessen its impact, we can put buckets under the leaks, but it’s still going to rain.

There is joyfulness in the moment after being caught in a rain-shower. The moment when you stop resisting the inevitable. You know you will get soaked, your hair will be a disaster, your day inconvenienced. Regardless, you let go and get wet. That’s our work right now. As painful and disappointing and depressing and frustrating and lonely and frightening as this whole mess is. 

Just be in it. See it for what it is. Stop resisting it. Look for the opportunity. Look for the unexpected. I promise you that even in the darkest moments of our lives there is magic lurking. 

BE KIND

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It's a curious kind of crazy in the world right now. All the superlatives are being used to describe it. My favorite superlative is extraordinary. This is what we must be amidst the chaos. 

Extraordinarily Brave. Extraordinarily Kind. Extraordinarily Safe.

How you show up in these times will dictate your future. Busy, reactive and fearful will not win this race. Your power move in the coming weeks is precision.

My advice:
1. Sleep. It's hard to rest but sleep is the number one way to build your immunity. Do not compromise.
2. Laugh. Golden Retriever Puppies on google image search always does it for me. Laughter is the best way to do an instant full body reboot.
3. Breath. If you feel the panic coming on just focus your mind on your breath. Breathe in and out through your nose. Slow your inhale and slow your exhale even more. 
4. Tea. When you don't know what else to do, go and make a cup of tea. Hot beverages also send a message to your brain that everything is going to be alright.

We are squigglers. We know what to do. We've got this!

FREE YOUR MIND

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My niece asked me to braid her hair this morning. I had been staying with my family for a few days between board meetings. I guess this was a great sign, she trusted me enough to style her for school.

Braids? No big deal. Except, the request was for Dutch Braids. Crap. YouTube to the rescue.

I had confidence in myself (just) but I wasn't confident she would sit still as I attempted #thelook? I was pleasantly surprised. She was. VERY.

This little being that couldn’t follow a single instruction all weekend miraculously became an angel.

Nothing puts your workload into perspective like a weekend with a six-year old and a three-year old. Multi-million dollar negotiations are nothing in the face of determining toy ownership or adjudicating who built their lego faster.

My inner three-year old is much like my nephew. Highly distractible. We get up to all sorts of unproductive mischief together. I had so much silly-fun with him over the weekend.

My niece and my inner six-year old share a lot in common too. More serious. Highly aspirational, never satisfied and always searching for something bigger and better. My inner six-year old is a critic; extraordinarily discerning and relentless.

I could see the reflection of my inner six-year old in my niece as I tried to teach her to meditate the day prior. She fidgeted, suggested better uses of our time, and couldn't focus. Today, she sat like a pro. She had a bigger prize. "Dutch Braids" was her 'little m' mantra.

We all have that inner three-year old and inner six-year old. My inner three-year old will not meditate. We will do one breath but then we are off looking for dirt piles to dig in or cupboards to empty. Like most of us, my inner six-year old will meditate but she needs to know what is in it for her. We need to be clear about the bigger prize.

Our other excuses for why we don't meditate are garbage. Or resistance if you need me to be nicer about it.

The bottom line is that it’s hard for all of us to sit still. We lose sight of the bigger prize. Our inner-six year old wins out, distracting us with a catalogue of complaints. A catalogue of other things we could be doing. The critic takes hold of our mind and our solitude becomes an endless parade of ideas. 

Fighting six-year olds and fighting busy-ness are the wrong responses to the inherent problem. The goal is not total zen. The goal is for a micro-moments of calm in a busy mind. Sips of peace when drinking from the fire-hose of chaos.

Meditation is like Dutch Braids for your brain: functional, instagrammable and transformative. It's just that one will transform your look and the other your life. Not a bad prize in the scheme of things.

STARTING OUT

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A brand-new notebook is equal parts intimidating and exciting. The palpable power of the waiting pages to transform your life. A place for your brain to come out and play. Each page is a possibility. 

There are lots of theories on how to notebook. Simple journaling can be cathartic: longform thoughts and musings on life. Like your ideas might be important one day. Something Winston Churchill probably did. Something Anne Frank definitely did, luckily for us. 

Daily manifesting is powerful. A long-term practise of handwriting your vision for the future has real impact. Not because of fairies and unicorns (though let’s not completely dismiss that possibility) but because your brain starts to calibrate to a new reality. The reality you are scripting for yourself.

Bullet-journaling is a wonderfully creative way to focus your mind. It’s also potentially a great way to waste time as it gets complex, fast. Gratitude lists are a powerful way to create positivity in your life. The morning pages system is simple and great for when your brain is stuck. 

My attempts at all these systems inevitably regresses back to my to-do lists, weekly planning and notes on books. My notebooks are utilitarian. They are serious. I instruct #thestepson to draw in them to make me feel like I am cool. Borrowing his cool. I tell him to pick random pages and not show me - so it’s a surprise when I come across his sketches. I think it amuses him that I might turn a page in a board meeting and be greeted by a giraffe smoking a cigarette.

The only bad use of a notebook is no notebook. Every time you reach for yours something magical could happen. What new reality could be born? 

When we leave ideas in our head we diminish their potential. We give power to our thoughts when we put ink to paper. We give our ideas momentum through the action of writing. We take the first step in a series of actions that can take us forward. What we want to accomplish, who we want to become and how we want to walk the earth. 

The written word on a page is a declaration. So declare it. Open up a new page and state your intention. However you are moved to. Write a list or a quote. Draw a picture or fill a page. It doesn’t matter how. It just matters that you do it. 

HIGH GEAR

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When I was growing up in New Zealand we only had two TV channels. It’s hard to even comprehend that now. We were pretty starved for content and quickly became obsessed with the good shows that were available. All the Looney Tunes shows fell into that category.

Road Runner was a favorite of mine. Always able to outsmart and outrun Wile E. Coyote. You almost felt sorry for Wile; so many great ideas and such inept execution. He never had a chance. I watched, not because I thought he might finally succeed but, to see how he would fail.

So, in the chaos of this last month of the year, my challenge for you is this. How can you start something now that will carry you forward into the New Year with one of your goals in process? Get ahead of the stuff that feels like it’s holding you back. Move forward into 2020 knowing you are already winning.

So, in the chaos of this last month of the year, my challenge for you is this. How can you start something now that will carry you forward into the New Year with one of your goals in process? Get ahead of the stuff that feels like it’s holding you back. Move forward into 2020 knowing you are already winning.

TWO BECOME ONE

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I find myself very drawn to the concept of NonDualism. It’s a concept that is very hard to summarize. Which makes sense as I think about it. NonDuality asks us to let go of what we know to be ‘right’. Do we see the table, the chair and the bowl or do we see the Matrix? To me, it’s an invitation to remain open to the nothing-of-it-all.

I like that idea of nothing. Yoga has taught me to be open to the possibility that things are not as I see them. My reading on how the brain works also teaches me to be wary of what my senses tell me is right. I am learning to be an empty vessel. I am learning not create stories and pictures of an imagined world. I am learning that maybe LA drivers are not assholes, even when they sure drive that way. Then again, maybe they just are.

We so often race to non-emptiness in a situation. In our world of infinite information we leap to conclusions and leap to knowing. We want to fill the gaps with the concrete of an answer. We miss sitting in the emptiness, we miss asking what’s not there. 

Stephen Cope talks about this in his book The Great Work Of Your Life. He speaks of the power of being in the paradox of two discordant realities held at the same time. Instead of one option being right, what if neither are right? He asks, quoting Jungian analyst Marion Woodman, “what if there is a third possibility that could transcend and unite the two?”

I recently heard the same question posed in the Netflix documentary The Creative Mind. Neuroscientist David Eagleman explores how our brains optimize for the creative process. It’s brilliant; one of the most interesting and approachable explorations of the creative process I have seen. 

Eagleman explains that our brains are energy efficient so will naturally follow the path of least resistance. We are wired to be reductionist. We are wired to fill the emptiness with concrete.

Challenging yourself to not race to a conclusion is hard work. We know that to be creative and different we need to push ourselves out of the box. Meanwhile our brains would prefer we stayed in the box. It’s easier and it’s less work.

The opportunity is to be different to everyone else. To resist the natural path of our brain. To sit in the nothing, the emptiness, the paradox of two discordant realities. To allow yourself time for that third possibility to be revealed. To allow two obvious options to become one extraordinary idea.

BACKGROUND PROCESSING

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I have a deep love for productivity systems. It seems like a weird thing to be passionate about but I also love organizing cupboards. So I guess I am just weird.

I am always trying out new ways to organize and plan. I change my systems frequently, always keen to see what works and what doesn’t. Also I think in part to keep myself entertained. As someone who craves change, staying grounded in weekly planning is somewhat of a necessary evil. 

Despite frequent system overhauls there are two things that have stayed firmly entrenched. One is my Sunday planning sessions where I map out my week - I will write about that in a subsequent blog. I know, you just can’t wait can you? And the other is proactive procrastination, my term, where I start work on something and then actively ignore it for a period of time. Some might say I take a few liberties with the latter part of the equation.

Proactive procrastination seems to allow my unconscious mind to do some of the work for me. Whenever I return to the task it’s almost like the problem answers itself. Much like going for a walk when you are stuck on something or how you always seems to have your best ideas in the shower. By leaving a task it seems there is some magic that happens in the downtime.

Norman Mailer talked about giving your unconscious assignments as if it was your partner. I’ve always referred to it as background processing. Much like a computer. I feel our brains have immense capacity to do work even when we are not actively, well, working.

John Bargh is a social psychologist who studies the unconscious. His book “Before We Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do” is a brilliant exploration of the power of the “other” side of the brain. I can’t recommend it highly enough. He too uses the term background processing - yes, I felt immense validation - and he adds that it’s an adaptive quality.  Our brain uses 20 percent of the energy we consume while we are awake so it is literally inefficient resource utility to consciously think more than we need to. So we brilliant humans have found a workaround.

Our brains, in fact, work better when we use both our conscious and unconscious mind. Actively working on something and then intentionally stepping away from it is a genius move. So much so that Bargh references Frederick Meyer’s definition of a genius as “someone who makes more and better use of their subliminal thought processes than the rest of us”.

Bargh’s overall treatise is that the true power comes when your conscious and unconscious mind work together. He suggests you always first prepare the subject through extensive conscious thought, then allow your unconscious mind to do it’s magic. AKA proactive procrastination. 

The one note of caution is that our unconscious is wide awake all night. So we want to be careful what we feed our minds with before going to sleep. Bargh advises that your unconscious loves a plan so it’s less likely to pester you about an important assignment if you put a plan together before you go to bed. It also possibly explains a lot if you are more of a three-glasses-of-wine-and-some-netflix-binging-before-bed type of person. If you tend to wake up in a panic about things in the middle of the night, try creating a plan for your week - or your day - before you hit the latest season of Schitt's Creek.

Set and forget...well, maybe don’t forget! That might end in some very intense dreams.

DUCKS IN A ROW

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I love a good plan. I live by my systems and it makes me really happy when everything runs like clockwork. Like really, oddly, happy. Some might even call me a control freak, which is probably fair. For me it’s the little things that keep everything in good order: my Sunday planning, evening email catch-ups and quiet space in the morning to get my focussed tasks done. A well oiled-machine that sometimes feels held together by a few commitments that I do not compromise on.

One of my commitments is doing this newsletter. Draft it Sunday, send it Monday. Like clockwork. Until it wasn’t. Last week I sent it out on Tuesday. A day late. A perfect record ruined just like that.

Or was it?

It’s easy in these moments to admit defeat. Give up on something you have otherwise been doing really well at. Whether it’s a diet, a meditation practice, a financial goal, a project or a fitness program. One day, you broke the chain, you blew it. You are starting again. From. The. Beginning.

Most of us know it’s really hard to start running again if you stop mid-run. That time you thought it would be a good idea to pause and catch your breath on that really steep hill. The hill suddenly getting 10X steeper after those three recovery breaths.

We have all felt the pain of having to start back up again.

Starting back up can be hard. It’s never advisable to stop. Continuity is a win you can always count on; it shows you have discipline and it enables you to hone your skills. My darling friend told me my blogs just keep getting better - clearly I will keep her on the “friends of Claudia” payroll. They are getting better because I write them each week without fail. She’s a writer, she knows the power of the discipline of continued practice.

But sometimes, for whatever reason, you do stop. You pause to take a breath. You knew you made a mistake the minute you did it. Now it’s done, there is no taking it back. No DeLorean to take you back in time to that point of potential perfection. Now what?

Discipline doesn’t need to mean obsession or compulsion. Missing a day doesn’t matter. Eating a hamburger doesn’t matter. Pausing doesn’t have to matter. Sometimes it can even help you. Done that, learnt from that, now back to my regular programming. Back to my practice. Back to getting my newsletter out each Monday, I missed one - no big deal.

What is a big deal is beating yourself up about it. When we allow ourselves a discourse with our inner critic; that’s the exact point we put ourselves on a path to failure. The point where we create defeating stories about not being good enough. When we question why we even tried in the first place.

Thinking you need to be perfect creates a direct path to failure. A slip-up is just a slip-up unless you make it a failure. You can get going again. That glorious record is still there. You get to decide that. Don’t make yourself powerless in the face of a mere moment in time.

MEASURE TWICE CUT ONCE

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I’ve finally read Yvon Chouinard’s book Let My People Go Surfing. The book chronicles the development of one of the most enviable ‘conscious’ businesses in the world, the outdoor equipment and clothing company Patagonia. As a staunch environmentalist and reluctant (but very successful) businessman, Chouinard’s perspective is refreshing and eminently practical.

The bulk of the book speaks to the philosophies that underpin the operation of Patagonia. Obviously most lessons and reflections are directly applicable to a physical goods business but I always find many lessons cross industries. In fact Chouinard even specifically mentions the utility of borrowing ideas from other disciplines.

One point that really resonated with me was a reference to the old adage “measure twice and cut once”. It’s a lesson in caution. You get many chances to measure the fabric or wood but there is no taking it back once you’ve cut into your material.

Chouinard takes it further. He espouses doing the work right the first time, taking care with what he produces to eliminate obvious and avoidable errors.

Which got me thinking, when is caution smart and when is it counter-productive? I appreciate his point about attending to small things to make sure they are done right but this gets tricky when you add time pressure or other issues to the mix. Most business is happening at a speed where measuring twice feels like a luxury.

I recently belabored a point in a deal that we seemed to be overlooking. It sucked, I felt like a total wrench in the machine. But I have seen a decision under pressure lead to weeks of work too many times to let it happen under my watch anymore. What really sucks is making the wrong decision and having to deal with the aftermath.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...more haste less speed...be the tortoise and not the hare...a stitch in time saves nine. It’s easy to wax poetic but the real question is when should you actively slow a process down and risk a timeline?

Today the more likely caution is "slow down to speed up". It’s worth the investment of time to pause. It’s also the reason you have advisors and board directors, and use them, as it can be hard to find the time (or the inclination) to pause for our own benefit.

I think Chouinard’s point is to be sure you are ok with the costs of speed. Because there is always a cost. He talks about eroding consumers trust by not attending to the small things. In my world I worry about being so oriented to push code that you deliver beyond buggy software. Or negotiating a deal that comes back to bite you.

If we paused over everything we wouldn't be in business for long. My takeaway is to know what is important to you, your company and your strategy. Then you can start throwing wrenches in the machine. Or finding moments to pause and measure twice.