Running Across Mexico + Charisma and Character + March Madness

A late season trip to Vermont for some skiing provided a great end to the week. We were really fortunate and got three mornings of fresh snow and just as many breakfasts with hot, fresh donuts in the lodge. I love watching my kids build their skills, and constantly admire my wife's incredible grace gliding down the mountain. For me, getting back on a board is always a humbling (yet fun) experience. As a late life learner each ski trip we take allows me to rediscover that "learning is fun, don't get frustrated" mindset. Enjoy the journey, right? 

Here's what else I've been...

Talking about - Energy and fatigue. A friend and I swapped stories of recent burnout and recovery. Nothing serious, but it got us thinking. Neither of us are runners but we stumbled on an interesting analogy between running styles and energy use, be it mental, physical, or emotional. It seems that some people are sprinters; they burn hot, run fast, and pour everything they have into the immediate problem at hand with an unyielding solitary focus. The results are amazing short term results and long recovery periods. Others are joggers; they move through things with a steady pace, constantly progressing, stretching at stoplights. Then there are the marathoners; they train to keep a good pace and tackle large problems by breaking them into chunks. I'm working to be the marathoner. Specifically the example that Germán Silva just set. Check out his incredible story of running across Mexico. 

Reading - More than once this week, our leadership team revisited our company values. We're curious if they're the same as when we founded Fulcrum? Are they well defined and understood? Which ones are required and which are preferred for our team members? It's a great conversation. Values showed up in two other places for me this week. The first is a book I’ve added to my soon-to-read list: Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman. Seligman is a leader in the positive psychology field and has done some amazing work on Authentic Happiness. The second was in a Facebook post by Gary Keller. To quote: “Charisma attracts and Character retains. Too many entrepreneurs have a lot of charisma and too little character. Their charisma will eventually betray them. Character means you walk your talk. It’s the same as integrity. Character is who you are. Integrity is living that out. Charisma is the talk. Character is the walk.” Man, I love this idea. 

Watching - For the last three nights my family has huddled and cuddled to watch the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight rounds of March Madness. We will likely do the same tonight. I love seeing the huge hearts of the players and the high stakes of single elimination play. The stories of top seeds falling and Cinderellas advancing are so much fun to watch. St. Peter's historic run into the Elite Eight has been the story of the tournament thus far. I thought this take on the financial implications of their success was interesting. Stripping away all of the outside factors, I love watching March Madness for two things: (1) will that last minute shot go in and create chaos, and (2) can a team hold the lead and hit the pressure free throws to cement the win. Free throws are that perfect place where pressure and practice connect to see what we're made of.

Here's to a poised, energetic posture as you walk your talk this week. 

Daylight Savings or Stealing + Can Work Be Play + Sir Ernest Shackleton

This last week I assembled a last minute March Madness fundraiser for the Fulcrum Foundation. It's been blast to connect with people around the event, see a great outpouring of support, and watch the carefully built brackets crumble. Is there anything in sports that tops the chaos of the college basketball tournament? 

I also spent a few days adjusting to the new sunshine schedule, taking darker walks with the dog and putting reigning the kids in from the garden a little later than usual. There were also some really cool discoveries and a ton of wisdom pearls in my podcast diet. Here's what I've been:

Reading - Daylight saving time is usually an issue on two days a year - spring forward and fall back. This year it’s taken up oxygen for a week and has even inspired some amazing consensus in Congress (albeit wrongheaded IMO). Last week the Senate the Sunshine Protection Act - a bill to make daylight savings time permanent. I’m all for keeping our clocks consistent, as are the vast majority of scientific studies, but I’d argue that Standard Time is the way to go. I mean…we’ve already gone all in of Daylight Savings Time twice and hated it. Isn’t this just the definition of insanity? As a morning person with kids, I definitely care more about getting AM sun as soon as possible and prefer putting my kids to bed in the dark. Both make life way easier. For the part of my life that I lived as a night owl, I can’t say I recall caring when the sun set each day or if it had been up for two minutes or two hours when I woke. There are arguments for and against. I’m curious, what do you think?

Listening to - I listened to a great podcast with Angela Duckworth this week. She the author of GRIT - the Power of Passion and Perseverance and the founder & CEO of Character Lab. There were so many nuggets of gold in the conversation, but one in particular has been rolling around in my noggin. Duckworth paraphrases game designer Jane McGonigal by saying “play[ing a game] is the voluntary overcoming of unnecessary obstacles.” Duckworth then goes on to offer that maybe work is the feeling we get when involuntarily overcoming of necessary obstacles. It made me wonder: once our basic needs of food and shelter are met, shouldn’t we all be playing instead of working? Is there a space we can find (or create) where every challenge we overcome is chosen? To take it a step further, maybe the shift is a mental one - by choosing how we overcome our obstacles - even when we can’t choose the obstacles - can we make work feel like play? Wouldn’t that be the magic that helps us find happiness on the way to fulfillment?

Remembering - My first work mentor was a woman named Debbie. She taught me about the power of networks and showed me how to seed an idea. She also introduced me to my second mentor, Ken. Ken taught me about inspiration and optimism in the face of big challenges. He exposed me to using models of thinking and organizing, especially in the areas of team, to get massive collective achievement. One of his biggest inspirations was Sir Ernest Shackleton. The story of Endurance and Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition are an amazing tale of teamwork, commitment, and survival. If you've never read Endurance by Alfred Lansing, I'd highly recommend it. You can check out a very cool video and story of Endurance's discovery here. 

I hope everyone is well rested and fully adjusted this week. Here's to a sprint of fun, play, teamwork, and endurance. 

Radical Candor + Overcoming What Can Kill You + Rethinking Recreation

The last few days have been hinting at Spring here in DC, and there's a noticeable increase in energy and engagement that seems to come along with the rising temperatures. I hope you've enjoyed the first full week of March as much as I have. Other than the changing seasons, the following things have been rattling around for me of late. 

I've been:

Reading - for Christmas of 2020 Liz and I got my daughter a Kindle. She's a huge bookworm and we thought this might be a way to feed her hunger for books while limiting our library trips and keeping our bookshelves from overflowing. We were wrong; she hated it! Luckily, I happened to pick up the Kindle last week and I'm really enjoying it. It's light and a great way to read in bed when others are asleep. The first book that popped out at me was Radical Candor by Kim Scott. It reminds me a lot of Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You by Francis Frei & Anne Morriss, which is a guiding book for our team at Fulcrum this year. Both books use a quadrant system to approach how we connect and communicate with other people. In her book, Scott uses the axes of "Care Personally" and "Challenge Directly" to establish a style of Radical Candor as the desired intersection of both measures. Frei and Morriss use the axes of Standards and Devotion to establish a "Justice" quadrant at their preferred quadrant. While Unleashed dives into leadership beyond just communication, the pith of both books is that people want you to bring your honest self and your honest feedback to them. In our Keller Williams culture, we call this "care" and "candor". People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. 

Watching - Speaking of my daughter, Emma, it's been a tough week for her Oral Immunotherapy Treatment. Some of you may know that she has a life threatening allergy to peanuts, and she's been microdosing for over a year to establish a tolerance that will ultimately protect her from accidental ingestion. Over the last month she's made incredible strides toward becoming "bite safe" in her exposure. While we stumbled a bit on that journey this week, the thing that really struck me is how intent and resilient she is. Watching her hold firm in this walk over the last year (plus) has been a challenge for me. I can only imagine what she's endured by summoning the courage to eat something that could theoretically kill her...on a daily basis. They say that having children decreases happiness but increases fulfillment. I don't know about that, but I'm positive that having my kids allows me to put challenges in perspective and to find inspiration that keeps me moving. Watching what they overcome is the ultimate fuel. 

Thinking - The word recreation jumped out at me a few times this week. I've been very purposeful over the last two years on building a better priority and counterbalance in my work-life integration, and finding fun has been a big part of that. Almost all of the fun has been in the traditional sense of recreation - it's outside of work. Seeing the word this week hit me differently though. For some reason my brain broke it down into "re-creation". It got me thinking about how I could rebuild parts of my life and business that aren't working optimally by making them more fun. American culture has an understanding that work is supposed to be hard; for too many it's just a card punching slog. The people that are the best at what they do typically enjoy what they do more than their peers. So I'm asking myself "how can we make doing what we do more fun, so that by enjoying what we do, we do it better?" Does recreation really have to happen only outside of work? 

I hope you have a fun, inspired week. Live it in your top-right quadrant.