Leadership lessons from the cello tutor

We've been finding it a challenge to get our 9-year old to practice his cello, with procrastination on his part & yelling on ours for him to practice being the norm.  At his last 1:1 lesson, he finally admitted to his tutor that he wasn't enjoying playing the cello because he's hated practising the newer exercises she's assigned him. 

I should have picked this signal of dislike from his procrastination so I was felt quite angry with myself when I heard this aloud. 

H has been a splendid teacher (I wrote about how she used an analogy she used a few weeks ago), & she did something magical again. Rather than berate him for not having done what she'd assigned him, she simply asked him what he liked. He said he liked the cello, and wanted to play pieces of music, rather than just do exercises. She took out a different book, and played a beautiful piece for him. She then got him to play it along with her, occasionally playing duet. 

You could see the change in his demeanour instantly. His posture went from slouching to sitting up straight, his eyes twinkled as he smiled at me.  She said so to him, & he was beaming from ear to ear.

She assigned him passages from the book to work on during the week, and showed him where the techniques he has to practice too come into play (pun intended).  

Practice this week has been a breeze, twice as long as usual, with little procrastination & no yelling. 

A little change in approach. A disproportionately larger change in behavior.

Angels as creative forces

We are not alone in the universe. We are surrounded by mighty creative forces. When you are needed by others, when you have something valuable to contribute, these beneficial forces will support you, give you greater health, greater energy levels, longer life and deeper creativity. Life may strike at you, and challenges can hurtle themselves against you, but you will feel equal to them. Deeper forces from within will support you, hold you up, and act as a shield. - Eknath Eswaran

Change is imperceptible in the moment

While the quote is dated, and solar energy accounts for a sizeable portion of the energy market now, it wasn’t all that long ago that it was dismissed as a fad. Like many other things we see around us, ideas are dismissed because they shake the status quo for the establishment. Time (& heat?) changes everything, even though it may be imperceptible in the moment.

Noodling on a pen

This pen is about 25 years old. 
It has been one of my best teachers.

Fountain pens were the only writing instruments allowed at school, & so my parents got me a couple of cheap ones. I was fascinated with italic calligraphy back then, & had no access to broad nibs. The only nibs available then were fine nibs. Fountain pens have a way of falling out of the hands of a 12 year old when the cap is unscrewed, often landing nib first on the ground. If the (sometimes deliberate) damage to the nib was bad, I'd use a pair of pliers to break them, and scratch them on a mirror, trying rather unsuccessfully to make them smooth & make it into a broad nib for italic writing.

When my dearest aunt got me this Shaeffer italic calligraphy pen as a gift, I felt like the richest person on the planet. Until then, I had only seen one of the kids in my class brandish his calligraphy pen, one he would not allow anyone to touch, let alone write with.  So when I became the proud owner of this pen, the first words I wrote with it were "Thank you". For the next decade & a half, I wrote with this pen nearly every day. Whether it was during my exams, for birthday & Christmas cards, love notes or just random scribbles, it was my constant companion.

No pen writes the same. Writing cursive with an italic calligraphy pen is a fun exercise. I learned how to hold it at the proper angle to the paper to make the smoothest mark. There is no single grip that lets you write every stroke well so I learned how to adapt at speed.

Calligraphy, among other things, is about consistency. Training the hand & the eye to work in tandem at speed requires millions of repetitious exercises. As a teenager (& even as an adult), I hated repetition because it's boring. It's only when I realised that while I was doing inconsistent marks on the page that it dawned on me to go back to the basic lines & ovals that make up every letter of the cursive alphabet. And do them millions of times over the years. 

This pen leaks. Runs out of ink. Needs to be cleaned. The barrel has cracked. It's easy to discard it & get a new one, especially now that I can afford it.

But I won't.
Because it is a reminder of many things.
That you can change someone's life with a simple meaningful gift, like my aunt did for me.
That like pens, people too are different. Each one requires to be handled differently if they have to make their best mark in this life. This is even more true when I'm a leader, whether at work or out of it.
That persistence, purposeful practice is the only way to mastery. And while you may appear to be very good at what you do,  there's still room to improve. Lots of room.
That everything grows old, cracks & leaks, & runs out of ink (or steam). Especially your body.

Noodling with, & on pens, is fun :)

Writing

Growth

Food

Reading

Learning active listening .. on public transport

Public transport is a great observatory for human behaviour. 

 

I notice that most people, myself included, prefer to drown out the noise with earphones of some sort: squeaking wheels, rumbling engines, boring announcements don't make for a good soundtrack for our commuting lives. We'd rather prefer our favourite music or a podcast or a movie to the cacophony that surrounds us. 

Occasionally though you get yanked out of the commuter reverie by someone talking. Often because the voice is at a higher frequency than the captivating sounds in our ears. You turn the volume down, & eavesdrop on this conversation that, at first, sounds like an argument. But no. It's the local fishing enthusiast, explaining to the tourist-y looking types, about the best spots to go fishing. They're doing a day trip into the city but want to check out the outdoors tomorrow. No, you don't need a boat. Walk down that leafy lane, & you'll see a little path - only if you look carefully. Here, look at what I caught there  yesterday. (Loud guard announcement drowns out the rest of the conversation). 

Every now & then, I forget my earphones or to charge the laptop or to carry a book. On those commutes, I learn something about the community I live in.  I also get to practice my listening skills. 

Not because I want to know the juicy details of that story the two women who can't (won't?) keep their voices down, but because I have no choice than to keep my mouth shut.

If I approached the same listening-to-speaking ratio in other areas of my life, I wonder what I'd discover?

Empowerment

Priorities

Stories

Every one of us has a story we tell ourselves. Sometimes it’s the same one we tell others. Other times, it's a slightly altered one. Or maybe even a different one. There are times when we even believe the story we tell others. There are some stories we believe ourselves.

Sometimes we don't like the stories we tell ourselves. We talk to friends, who might help us see the story in a different light. Sometimes we believe them & change. Other times we stop talking to them.
"That girl I really hit it off with at the party won't talk to me". "Mate, she gave you her number and asked you to call her. Then you got piss drunk & ….".  
"I never seem to be considered for a promotion, even though my boss knows how much I am willing to take up the opportunity. I think 'they' hate me so much as to sabotage every opportunity that comes my way." "You didn't even apply for the job."

Other times, we need professional help.
Sometimes we can afford this help, sometimes not.
In either case, we tell ourselves a story about why it is so.

Some are great story tellers. We listen in rapt attention to their stories. In pubs, restaurants, coffee shops, sometimes even on public transport, you can see this play out every day.  Stop whatever it is you're doing, take off your headphones & listen to the conversations going on around you. And if you're alone, go back to the story you were telling yourself. These stories are rich in detail.

We all have friends who bend the truth while they tell their story. We know it because we were there in the situation they are describing, & It's not exactly how we saw it. "Correcting facts in this moment is not appropriate, everyone's having a great time" is the story we tell ourselves. Other times we do, & results in an argument, lost friendships, & sometimes tragically loss of life or limb.

Then sometimes we believe our own stories. We live our entire lives that way. Sometimes we find out the truth. & we are unshackled. Other times, it destroys everything.  See the newspapers for examples. Actually, don't ever read the newspapers.

We sometimes write our stories & publish them. We categorise it - fiction, biographies, autobiographies. They're all versions of the truth.

Job descriptions these days. Regardless of your career, "story-telling is a key skill" is the story that is told around the world. There are thousands of courses that claim to teach us how to story-tell with data.

Ad infinitum.

What's your story?

Silence

Just do it, Epictetus edition

Fear, that impostor, turns the possible into probable

You could hear the child's screaming above the loudspeaker blaring announcements.

He was 7 or so, dressed in the event-issued jersey, looking like the 1200 other kids taking part at the annual TRYathlon event.  He was lost & terrified. Worst of all, he didn't know how to find his mother.  A volunteer kneeled down beside him, trying to pacify him, & to walk him to the information marquee that was just a few metres away.

Two other things also happened simultaneously. The compere's voice, calmly, announced that a mother was looking for her lost child.  The mother, wailing as loud as the child, with another little crying bub in her arms, rushed out of the crowd, from the direction of the information marquee. 

The tears & the wails continued loudly, but this time in happiness at the family reunion.

In the moment, there was a possibility that the child might never see his mother ever again.
In the moment, also, there was a probability that the child would be quickly reunited with his mother.

For the child, there was no difference between possibility & probability.
For the mother, fear triumphed for a brief moment - so there was no difference between possibility & probability either.

I saw them a little while later. The young fellow, with an ice-cream in his hand, sweat on his brow, and a medal around his neck,  was beaming from ear to ear at having completed his first ever TRYathlon. So was his mother.  Neither looked frightened.

See it from the edges

See it from the edges

Opinions

Health Goals & Public Accountability

I made a new year's resolution of exercising 5 days a week.

You know how it goes with new year's resolutions:
Before you know it, it's the second month of the year. Life's coming at you from all fronts. And to be honest, you weren't quite clear why you made that resolution in the first place. So it falls by the wayside.

That's been my Standard Operating Procedure for a couple of ... ahem, decades.

While the human body has an amazing ability to heal itself, I've ignored several little signals I've had from mine over the last few years to stop testing that. Given my slow yet steady horizontal expansion, the not-so-subtle digs from my kids & wife about said expansion, & the annual reminder from my doctor to get more active, all of which I've ignored, I've a feeling this habit is long overdue.

My resolution this year was to keep up at least one of my new year's resolutions about my health. A couple of my colleagues have, quite likely without knowing it, been my inspiration for various reasons. Thank you Vicki & Alex!

So, in the first week back at work this January, I accompanied Alex to the local gym. A week of consistent attendance, thanks to these New Year freebie offers, & then I actually signed up. Matt has been a fantastic trainer, keeping me on my toes, back, stomach… and pushing me just a little bit beyond my comfort zone. About six weeks in, I've kept up this exercise habit nearly every day. See here for pictures of my six-pack.

Why bother sharing this?

This is an experiment of sorts. Putting it out there apparently increases the odds that I will keep at this genuinely important personal goal. When I want to give up, quietly, there will be at least a few of you good people who'll ask how I'm going on this journey, & I will probably hate to have tell you I failed.

The second is a reminder to myself that it's never too late to start on my (health) goals. This one was from my 2016 edition: it only took 4 years to work up the courage to walk into a gym. Luckily I'm still around to be able to pursue it.

Do you have any goals that have taken a while to start?

Also, a little inspiration of a different kind:

Work that you love

Is that an oxymoron?

Really, if it's work, can you love it?
And if you love it, is it work?

Pedantic questions aside, what is it that I really enjoy about my work?

For much of my last two decades, my identity has been defined by my qualifications & work. In direct contrast to how I thought of myself for the previous two decades of my life. I loved art, music, life in general. I drew my energy from the world around me, from books, from sketching & cartooning, from spending time in nature, observing things around me, curiosity driving many of my questions, & driving the adults in charge mad. I loved solving problems, words, cross-words, puzzles & math. I loved the idea of travel, the idea of meeting my idols, the idea of learning new things.

While I didn't have much of a choice in the path I ended up on, it started a course of events in my life that didn't make any sense at the time, but in retrospect, have been perfect. Maybe that's the case of most people, if not everyone. For two decades,  I tried to find every avenue to learn & do things other than what I had "qualifications" to do. Not  being formally accountable  for these things was a double-edged sword: I could experiment with my learning, but I would forever remain a dilettante.

Today, I find myself doing work I love. I get to work with words, help apply math to real-world puzzles & problems, to learn. I occasionally get to travel, & rather than just meet my idols, I get to meet amazing people every day.

What isn't to love?

what do we life for?

Right or Moral

Accountabilities

Paying attention is what I didn't do for a moment :)

If something's not correct, should you fix it? Or should you leave it be, and learn from it the next time? Obviously, not everything in life is as binary as this, or as simple. 

Roots and freedom

I see you

Spreading light

Discovery

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery" 

-James Joyce

A month of writing

Despite following its journey since it's launch, I had no idea what to actually expect from the AltMBA.

I'm glad I leaned into the experience after the first conference call, because it has been, without doubt, one of the two best courses I've done in the last decade (the other being Dr. Barbara Oakley's Learning How to Learn). I've met some amazing people, dismantled several assumptions I've held:  both about myself & about how connections between people happened in general, & discovered how much time I actually have in the day that goes to waste. 

I've written every day.
Whether it was responding to the 13 "prompts", or feeling some sort of emotion that needed to be transferred from my brain to paper, I've been writing incessantly. Cathartic, in many ways.

The AtlMBA officially ended yesterday.

Analogies

My son's cello tutor, while trying to explain how to keep his 9-year old fingers on the finger-board:

"Imagine an O made with your thumb and middle finger, separated by the fingerboard. It's like the fulcrum on a see-saw, lets you move your other fingers without losing their balance"

He understood it instantly. The power of a relevant analogy.

Now if only I had the right analogy for him to keep up his practice.