I’ve heard comedian Dave Chappelle say that when he’s performing, that whether the he lands the joke perfectly or not, “The Beauty is in the attempt.” I believe he’s referring to the attempt of trying to do something difficult, challenging, audacious.
I think there is a lot of wisdom behind that mentality. It’s only by attempting to tackle challenges and to take big risks that we might actually accomplish something special. To me, finding beauty in the attempt means that we should continuously focus on the process of the work that we are doing and remain emotionally indifferent to the result that follows. So many people are afraid of “failure” that it paralyzes them from ever attempting something that is meaningful to them. How many dreams and ideas die before they are even given the chance to succeed?
I’ve also heard Dave Coggins say that failure is just his first attempt, then his 2nd attempt, then 3rd attempt. You only fail if you quit or you never try. These are very powerful mental models that I believe can offer the person the courage to attempt difficult challenges as they strive for their own best life.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
When you see a homeless person have you ever stopped to wonder what has happened to this person that they ended up in this position? Do they have no one that cares about them? Are they using drugs? lazy? Raised in foster care? Most likely it’s a complicated and unique answer for each individual.
I’m actively trying to practice empathy more intentionally in my life. Our entire lives are viewed through our own eyes, our own experiences, and our own thoughts. So to understand someone else’s point of view and feelings is difficult if we don’t pause and intentionally do so.
To me, empathy means that I’m going to try to put myself in the other person’s shoes. What are they feeling? Why do they feel this way? What experiences may have led them to think this way? Doing a thoughtful introspection helps me to calm my mind and think about things in a significantly deeper, more rational way. It may not change my opinions or beliefs on a subject, but I can least recognize that others see things differently than I do.
There world is very complex, yet our brains seek simplification and clarity. Black and White. Right and Wrong, Black and White, If X then Y. But the world is often shades of gray and right or wrong can sometimes a point of view. Empathy helps us recognize this and like most valuable principles, empathy, can be used in many areas of life.
People and Relationships: Ever disagree or have a different opinion than your spouse? Try putting yourself in his/her shoes. Your Kids? Employees or co-workers? How do they see the world differently than you do?
Different political points of view? I seriously doubt the political environment would be as polarized and emotionally charged if empathy was regularly practiced. We might not change our minds, but we could at least understand why someone believes what they do.
Different Cultures and Religions: Different parts of the world have different beliefs and points view that are shaped by many complexities such as their history, geography ect. As I am writing this, the World Cup is going on in Qatar. Qatar has very different point of view on their life, government, and freedoms than most of the Western World. Is it possible based on their religion, history, ect that they may see the world differently? Same thing with Communist China and countless other examples.
One thing I am certain of, there is no monopoly on happiness and that multiple points of view can exist. Life is complex and practicing empathy on a regular basis has been helpful to me so that I might better understand the thoughts and feelings of others.
C.S. Lewis wrote in one of his teachings, “Christ did not come here to preach a brand new form of morality… really great moral teachers never introduce new moralities…. People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed. The real job of every moral teacher is to keep bringing us back time after time to the old, simple principles.”
I found this to be an incredibly powerful thought that is applicable across a broad spectrum of life. Innovation and change can be powerful, but in our lives we need to be reminded more often of what is important than we need to be instructed of brand-new ideas. Some examples:
Society
Love thy neighbor as thyself.
Don’t kill
Don’t steal, Don’t lie
Health
Exercise
Sleep
Eat healthy fruits and vegetables
Don’t smoke or drink alcohol
Professional
Work hard to serve your customers and employees
Be honest and consistent with integrity
Family
Prioritize time for your spouse and kids
Love each other and treat each other with respect
There is nothing on this list that every reader didn’t already know, but yet we fall short. We get distracted and seek shiny objects. This is why CS Lewis’s quote is so important and powerful. Great teachers and leaders, consistently highlight and give reminders of what is most important.
It’s easy to get lost in the struggles of life. We miss the forest through the trees as we metaphorically stumble around in the dark feeling our way through the busyness of daily life. We can be scared, uncertain, stressed, or any number of unpleasant feelings when we don’t know the path that will be laid out before us.
One useful idea to calm these negative feelings and think clearly is taking a Bird’s Eye View of life.
When we are able to step back and see the larger picture of where we were, where we are, and where we want to go, it clears the mind. Reflecting on the past there were many times where we felt uncertainty and fear; however, in hindsight the path unfolded before us. Think of some of the most life changing, unexpected things in our lives. Great triumphs, miracles, and even disasters have shaped and guided us toward the people are and lives we live. Reflecting with this bird’s eye, helps calm the present mind because even with all the past struggles, life unfolded how it was supposed to. Maybe not how we thought it should at the time, but the way it was supposed to.
This bird’s eye view also applies to the future. When we glance ahead intentionally toward the future, it’s helps us to see the big picture. It calms us. It also helps us to re-engineer the daily actions that we need to take in the present to make that future a reality.
Taking a Bird’s Eye View doesn’t mean living in the past or daydreaming about an imaginative future. It’s about calming the mind in the present so we can make the decisions and take the actions to intentionally build our best lives.
All parents want their children to have the wisdom they have without having to experience the pain and struggle that they’ve had to endure to gain that knowledge.
I’ve known many successful and accomplished people. Almost all of them have hard-won wisdom that they’ve acquired through experience and struggles. I’ve never heard any successful person say that their journey was easy. They’ve all encountered periods in their lives with challenging circumstances, uncertainties, doubts, and times where they didn’t know how to continue. But through all the difficulties and obstacles, they were able to show an enormous of grit and emotional fortitude. They persevered, continuously learning from their mistakes and were able to adjust, tweak, or completely change their paths.
Experience is the ultimate teacher and there is a tremendous amount of wisdom to be gained through it. Yet, as parents we want to spare our children the pain and difficulties that we’ve endured to gain that wisdom. Building grit, resiliency, emotional strength, and obtaining wisdom are difficult and take hard work. I don’t know that it is possible to do without experiencing it.
I don’t believe every generation has to start at 0, but I have a young family, so this is something I think about frequently and have significantly more questions than answers. Questions like:
1. How do you balance the interdependence of being part of family while still encouraging independence? This sounds like a contradictory statement, but it’s important for a person’s own self worth and strength to be self-sufficient and recognize that they are their own unique individual who is also a part of the larger collective family.
2. How do you balance between being supportive and loving while encouraging your children to grow into emotionally strong people who can handle and tackle complex problems that life throws at them? As much we want to handle things for our kids, life is going present difficulties we cannot protect them from such as: an unexpected death, professional challenges, relationship and marital issues…ect. So how do we make sure they are equipped to handle the tough times they will face?
Because I do not have the perfect answer, here’s what I’m going to acknowledge. Parenting is complex and a challenge. But it’s the most important thing I will ever do. As much as possible I want my children to feel loved and supported while still encouraging them to embrace and deal with difficulty. While I’d like spare them the pain, mistakes, and challenges; I understand that the only way to acquire hard-won wisdom is when it is HARD-WON.
A priest, friend of mine, always used to say, “God doesn’t punish us, we punish ourselves.”
While I don’t know if God directly punishes us or not, we certainly do punish ourselves. We are human and will make mistakes and fall short. Most likely, we’ve done things we’d be ashamed of others to know about. We said words that hurt people we care about when we’re angry. We have been selfish, unkind, petty, resentful, and all other kinds of actions we don’t want to be.
But how long do we hold onto these mistakes? It’s human nature to feel guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, and angry with ourselves for the things we’ve done. I find myself often falling short of the standards I set for myself. I’ve held on and dwelled on my mistakes. Yet, I cannot change the mistakes I’ve made so the only thing to do is to humbly take responsibility and try to do better. I wasn’t the husband, father, leader, or person I wanted to be today but tomorrow I’m going to try to be better.
I make mistakes, we all will make mistakes. Give yourself permission to forgive yourself and move forward with the goal of being better.
“I would rather step over a 1 foot hurdle than climb an 8 foot fence.”
I’ve heard Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger say something to this logic many times when it comes to business and investments. This is a great lesson for running a business or buying a business.
The research in Neuroscience says our brains are going to be attracted to complex and difficult things. It’s our brains’ way of constantly being distracted and therefore never having to work. However, in business we don’t get extra rewards for the complexity or difficulty of the problem.. So we must fight this urge.
In math or engineering problems, more complexity and variables make it difficult to get consistently get the correct answer. If a business requires too many complex and difficult decisions then it’s a bad business. Complex decisions have too many variables and too many question marks. This makes it feel like the stars must align absolutely perfectly for the business to be successful. Is it possible? Yes, but why would anyone want a business like that? It’s difficult, exhausting, and the probabilities of sustained success are very low. A complex business has too many 8 footers to climb.
Great businesses are easy to understand and the decision making becomes increasingly simplified. Stop climbing 8 foot fences, seek out more 1 footers.
“Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, he believes to be true.”
-Demosthenes
Desire, similar to fear can cloud our rational thinking and is equally as dangerous. It’s important that when we’re making decisions and evaluating that we try to understand our own biases. When we want something so badly to be true, we can consciously and subconsciously seek out information that impacts our thinking to support the outcome we desire.
Most people spend their time and energy seeking out materials that validate and confirm what they already believe.
In business, we want to be successful so badly that we make reckless decisions based on poor facts. In investing we fall into speculative behaviors because we want to be wealthy. We justify a partner’s poor behavior because we deeply desire love. We like drinking alcohol, so we search out the scientific studies that say drinking wine or alcohol is good for us. The list could go on, but this is a dangerous line of thinking and behavior.
A couple things I am trying to do more of:
1. Ask myself, are my desires are clouding my thoughts and affecting my decision making. Am I thinking rationally based on fact or hope because I want something so badly?
2. Surrounding myself with a couple people who will speak candidly with me about my thought processes. This doesn’t mean I listen to everything they say, but it’s important for me to have a sounding board that will question my thought processes.
We need to be careful how we choose our confidants and their motivations. Many people seek advice from people that work for them or who are reliant on them for money, promotions, or even social advancement. This can create an echo chamber of people amplifying what we already believe. Essentially supporting our biases, whether rational or not.
It is healthy to challenge our ideas and thinking. Rational thinking is very difficult because we’re humans with real emotions, fears, and desires. But if we’re at least aware that our desires can affect our thought process, perhaps we set up some processes to make better decisions.
I shared an earlier wisdom entry titled, “A Complicated Business is a Bad Business”. I strongly believe this, and shortly after sharing that idea, I realized the concept applies to life as well as business. The more that I’ve learned in my life, the more I recognize that finding simple principles and sticking to them can make for a happier, more successful, and fulfilling life.
From a neuroscience perspective our brains are attracted to complexity and difficulty. Logically this makes very little sense to me, but it’s true. Life is complex and hard enough, so why seek out more complications? Yet if we are not careful we will find ourselves busy, overwhelmed, and missing what matters most.
Look at the core of every major religion, they are incredibly simple and many of the teachings are very similar. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Be grateful. Don’t steal, Don’t lie… ect. If every person in society followed these simple principles. There would be no need for additional rules. Life would be more simple and more fulfilling.
The natural tendency in our lives is to accumulate possessions. More possessions however mean more responsibility and headaches we have in maintaining these possessions. Do we own our property or does it own us? How many people if they had unlimited wealth would move out of the city to a beautiful, peaceful location? Perhaps a farm, or the mountains, or the beach? Some place where life is simple.
What about our time? Do we control the time in our lives or do we fall victim to busyness, with time slipping away to tasks that are probably not very important? Missing family events for work? Answering email and texts while ignoring the people we are with even when they are the people who mean the most to us.
There are countless other examples, but my overall point is that we need to continuously guard our life from complexity. Complexity will quietly rob us everything if we’re not careful.
“Caring is taking the time, indifference is making excuses.”
A basketball coach I used to work with, Tom Desotell, used to always say this to our staff and players. He was adamant that if something was truly important to a person, it had to be prioritized and given the time and energy that it deserved.
How often does this happen in our lives? We have good intentions for the things that are important to us. I want to be a good parent, but I have to work. I want to improve my health, but I don’t have the time. This happens to all of us.
We have to make sure our most important priorities line up with where we spend our time and energy. Otherwise we will look back on our lives with enormous regret wondering how we missed so much of what matters most.