Wired for Love + Action Under Stress + Colin Kaepernick's Children's Book + Alone Together Tuesdays

It was a crazy stressful week. As the weekend wraps up, I'm grateful for the clarity that's arisen around the situations that created such stress. There's a lot of relief in knowing what is, versus wondering what will be. So much of what troubles us comes from the unknown and our expectations. Sometimes I find bits of peace in simple presence; other times I find it in distraction. Here's what I've been diving into this week to move my mind out of future-world:

Reading - How Love Changes Your Brain is a piece about neuroscientist Stephanie Ortigue’s new book, Wired for Love: A Neuroscientist’s Journey Through Romance, Loss and the Essence of Human Connection. The article walks us through the a few ways that human interconnectedness have physical impacts and cause chemical reactions in our bodies. As someone who is an only child and spent a lot of time living alone, I long discounted the need for intimate connections. Part of that distance is likely due to an introverted nature, but there's also part of that aloofness that's rooted in feeling bad about not being "naturally wired" for instant and easy connection. Dr. Ortique touched on this a bit with a brilliant comparison of loneliness to thirst. She questions why we feel guilty for being lonely, when it's simply an emotion that's telling us we crave connection. (To quote one of my favorite songwriters, Jerry Joseph: love is like water...though the song is titled Light Is Like Water, which is also a short story in a book called Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I digress...) When we find someone who's thirsty, we give them a drink. Ortique suggests though that the best way to combat loneliness is not to connect the lonely with another person, but to also ask for their help. We have an innate desire to be interconnected and contribute to the well being of others. By activating this deep rooted desire, we can build up others and drive away loneliness, by showing them their importance and how they improve the world around them.

Listening - I tuned into an old Radiolab episode on stress this week. It ventured into many interesting areas, but the one that jumped out at me most was what physiologically happens to us when we are under duress. Our body shuts down its unnecessary functions and does only what required and most useful to keep us safe. When we are challenged to stay alive, we turn off our minds and just rely on instinct to perform the most critical functions of survival. Oddly though this is not what we do when challenged in other ares of our life, especially our businesses. When our businesses begin to falter, many times our minds go to amazing lengths to think of what we can do to keep it afloat; what are we not doing that we should be doing, and what are all the ways that we can do that? In real estate (and pretty much in every other business too) we should follow the model of our bodies and only do the critical things that are critical to survival. Foremost among those is to lead generate. Just like your body during fight or flight, increasing client contact and upping your prospecting activities is your business's way of raising its oxygenation, blood flow and neuro-responsiveness. Our bodies are such amazing creations and provide such clarity for how to operate. It's funny that our minds trick us into not following the physical lead.

Thinking - Colin Kaepernick recently released a children’s book titled I Color Myself Different. I haven't yet read it, but I'm excited to do so. Kaepernick has turned his exclusion from the NFL into an amazingly powerful story. When disallowed to play the game he loves, earn a living through his craft, and removed from the stage that allowed him to spread a message, he found a way to keep his voice heard. I so greatly admire his courage to stand up for what he believes in. I applaud his incredible commitment to a just cause. And I respect his ability to take a shameful blackballing by the NFL and turn it into a larger message and opportunity. So many people with physical gifts, incredible skill, and high levels of privilege or achievement stop at simply enjoying the fruits of their effort. It takes a level of awareness and responsibility to use fame and fortune to further a cause, but that's the best use of celebrity and success. It takes even more creativity and grit to continue that crusade when the platform for your message gets removed. 

Weekly Gig - Another one of my favorite songwriters is Hayes Carll. During the pandemic he did a series of streams called Alone Together Tuesdays. Here's a show from July of 2020. I hope you enjoy.

Have a connected, essential, and meaningful week.