The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places  ~ Ernest Hemingway

          I am a reconciliation of spirits. My father was a surgeon and my mother a painter and musician who played 12 instruments. My parents divorced when I was 10, which was a good thing.  The separation helped relieve the constant tension between rational intellect and creative expression.  At one point, you might think intellect would win, but in the end raw expression had more endurance. I say this as my mother has a dragon to slay called mental illness.

      When my mother was younger, she didn’t always take her prescribed medication. As a result, she attempted suicide three times that I know of. I was very angry about her attempts. In fact, I can remember that at one point I even wished she would succeed, not because I was a cruel child, but because it was so hard to know whether, at any given time, she was stable or present or safe or alive. The anxiety of “not knowing” and constantly having to worry were very painful. Fearful as I was about my mother’s health, it turns out that my father, who had long been as stable as a rock and I might add as emotionally impenetrable, was killed in a car accident when he was just 44 years old.  I was 24 at the time.

      There’s a saying in Wyoming: “When the wind stops, the cows fall down.” I had no idea how much the force of my father’s presence was like the wind, or how much I was buoyed by my resistance to him. His death came as a complete shock.  I had always thought my mother was the fragile one. I had no idea life would teach me otherwise.

Why am I writing this now?  I am turning 44 this month and am facing the question that many people have already confronted “Will my life transcend my parents’ fate?” The occasion makes me reflect on what I learned from my childhood. Furthermore, unlike cancer survivors wearing a band to signify their strength, resilience, community and triumph, there is no such zeitgeist for those who struggling with mental illness. So with my birthday and Mother’s Day fast approaching, I felt it would be both cathartic and helpful to share how much I learned from my mother’s illness.

Here is what her dragon has taught me:

1)   One’s core has nothing to do with money or things. Three times I know of during my childhood, my mother became homeless and lost everything she owned, including her paintings, photographs instruments and books. And three times she rebuilt her life.  Because she provided such a strong beacon of being herself, regardless of her possessions, I have never worried about money or things for my fundamental survival.

2)   Reality lies within, not without. As an eight-year-old child visiting my mother in the hospital, I would meet many patients who were a bit “out there.” Too young for shame, I could easily jump into fascinating conversations with people who were immersed in characters of their own creation. I remember the day, while sipping chocolate milk and getting ready to play another round of ping-pong with a woman patient, I said to myself, “All these people truly see the world differently. Let me put my mind down so I can go play in their world.” What a gift! It was years before I realized what many adults have yet to learn that reality is a perception.

3)   Art can have its own unique resilience and endurance. My mother is now in her sixties, and she is thriving. She has a wonderful husband who ensures she takes her medicine and gets consistent care. They live a very modest, very meaningful life. When I see her now, I see a mirror. I see how much we look alike and I see how much my work draws upon creative expression as well as intellect. 

In my thirties, as an executive coach, it was very important for me to work with “smart people.” Some of my motivation to work with smart people was fear. I would reason, “If smart successful people need my strategic help, that proves I am sane and intelligent, too.“ I am not proud that this was my motivation, and I have compassion for where those fears came from. Now, in my mid-forties, I no longer need that kind of validation and am able to acknowledge and embrace how insights come from both the grace of artistic expression and the intelligence offered by rational thought. 

 I have written this for myself. I have written this for my mother. I have written this for anyone struggling with the accidental shame and fear caused by the shadow of mental illness or their parent’s fate. I have learned so much from my mother’s dragon.

Question-Do we write our own destiny? What role do thoughts play in the law of attraction?

(A great question asked by Pranav Rastogi)

My Answer

Wow! What an intense packed question. This could probably be a series in and of itself.



I am going to explain by a drawing I drew for my daughter when she was 10 years old. We were having a conversation about a decision that she made that was limiting and caused some pain. I felt that she was ready for a higher level dialogue about cause and effect. I asked her, “what other options were available to you?” and she looked at me blankly. I then decided a picture would do much better than my words. 

I choose soccer because it is an international sport, it is also a rich part of our family culture. 

(Interesting as I look at this drawing as I did it in 2005 - prior to any reference to the internet and the cloud) 

We are chemical factories with values, thoughts, goals, fears, data and dreams. In the mental cloud it is all swimming and moving together - like an electrical storm of neurons. 

Then we are asked to “kick the ball” - that is respond to the world. The “kick the ball” means a choice is made. The word decide comes from the root “to kill” as homicide and suicide also come from same source. So when you “kick the ball” you are killing all other possibilities. 

Here is what I want you to know. Our conscious brain processes about 40-50 bits per second and our unconscious processes between 4-11 million bits per second.* 

For a deeper dive into this data check The Wisdom of Your Cells by Dr. Bruce Lipton 

We only thin slice because we cannot process all the sensory information available to us. 

So when we choose or “decide” - we have selected a sub-set of data that informs us and by which we form our core belief system. 

The rub is this, most people are selecting data based on a filter that was designed when the individual was between the ages of 5-7 years old. Noam Chomsky taught me this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_of_language:_its_nature,_origin,_and_use. Language creates reality. Our word choices when we begin to tell a narrative about ourselves as either heros or villains or beautiful or smart or funny - all begin in our young adult histories. As that innocence begins to tell a story - a grove in the brain or a synapse pattern begins to form. Like a river is cut from a glacier - reinforcing data continues to dig the grove deeper and deeper. Neurons that fire together wire together. We seek data that reinforces our beliefs - whether it is there or not - sometimes the grooves are so deep there is muscle memory and the story goes on and on and on. Bottom line- what you focus on expands. 

The question is, what filters do you consciously have? 

Are the filters that you selected between the ages of 5-7 still serving you? Or do you need to re-examine what you are sensing and interrogate the validity of it. 

We can rewire and begin to focus on new things - we simply need to be invited to ask different questions or re-examine our operating system. We also need a lot of reinforcing messages & support to help carve out new grooves. 

This is why I love Clay Shirky’s http://www.shirky.com/ (@cshirky) brilliant statement: “The issue isn’t information overload, it is filter failure.” 

Our choice of words matters. Language creates “code” which then creates the system of our awareness and our belief about how we fit in that landscape I’ll call the soccer field of life. 

Your competitive advantage is not what you do or where you work; it is the accuracy of how you scan the macro (soccer field) and the way you choose to articulate your life experience (kick the ball). 

Juicy topic. Just a quick brush. 

Mind your mind. 

Sometimes a warm hug is the answer to our question and sometimes a gentle nudge is the answer.

Question-How does an individual build resilience to face the ever changing environment?
A Great Question by Preeti Subberwal, Life Skills Trainer, New Delhi

My Answer
As you know by now I don’t think of resilience in isolation. I think of resilience in the context of agility = resilience + responsiveness + reflection. However, we can zoom directly to resilience for this post.

Building resilience is an ongoing process and there are many ways to foster and buffer this capacity. I will only share a few that I think will have the most immediate impact.

First, I think we need to start by acknowledging how resilient you already are. I want you to think of a time between the age of 5 - 7 and something that made you feel either proud or special? 

Before we knew about 'ego' or before we experience 'shame' many of us have had experiences that allowed us to illuminate and experience our unique contribution to the world. I like to start with the past because I think people are so used to looking forward to the mountain they are climbing that they often devalue - or forget to honor where they have come from.

Here is one of my favorite quotes that keeps me feeling renewed during times when I might forget how strong, resilient I have been:

“The true result of endeavor, whether on a mountain or in any context, may be found in its lasting effects rather than in the few moments during which the summit is trampled by mountain boots. The real measure is the success or failure of the climber to triumph, not over a lifeless mountain, but over oneself: the true value of the enterprise lies in the example of others of human motivation and human contact.”
— Sir John Hunt, The Last Blue Mountain 

Our world fosters competition and it is easy to envy others for what they are accomplishing. What we don’t know is whether the individuals we admire are truly happy and if they are honoring their own life journey. What we know is only our own hearts (even we are mysteries to ourselves).  Helen Keller is a wonderful teacher on resilience. I think we need to keep her voice in this conversation:





Second, if you don't have a journal - now please get one. Writing in a journal is a wonderful way to build resilience. The only way we can track how our thinking is changing is by reading our past thoughts and how our focus and language shifts over time.

Many people do not know how to get started. I have a practice I call Plus + / Delta Δ.  
At least once per week write down a situation that happened that you were proud of and what actions you took to support a successful outcome Plus +. At least once per week write down a situation that happened that you wish you could have been better prepared for or if you could have a do-over what you might do differently. We think about these things and then ruminate in our heads - but unless we get into disciplined practice and write these things down-- we might set ourselves up for lateral loops instead of progressive learning loops.

Even if you keep a blog - please, please keep a private journal. I think there are some things we need to keep private for our own learning and for our own unfolding.

To keep this post both brief and actionable, the last thing I will share for now is the idea that you create time in the morning for at least 10 minutes to think about how you want to be in the world. I have a prayer and an intention that I say that grounds my day. While we are connected to the globe, many of us are not connected to ourselves, our core. I begin my day with a 10 minute ritual that includes a prayer for safety and a prayer for my intention.

I will be in a lot of noise today.
May I have the wisdom to separate grain from chaff.
May I use my time to honor my long view commitments.
May my interactions create reciprocal value.
May I be safe from energetic and psychological harm.
Finally, may the ripples I create include wisdom, grace, and impact. . .
 Amen

This is just an example of the type of prayer or meditation that I believe is vital for our practice. Your prayers (requests) might be different. The ripples you desire to create will also be unique. The point here is to claim your space and how you want to be in it - prior to jumping into the water of life on the outside with everyone else’s design.

You are already resilient. Honor how far you have come. Build some additional habits to fortify yourself from the dangers in the macro.

Onward . . .
Jennifer

Read the original post, including Dr Amit Nagpal's response to the same question.

Question - How does reflection improve the performance of an organization? 

A Great Question by Dr Prashant Gupta, Pathologist

My Answer

“Reflection” in a vacuum can be dangerous. I’d like to frame this question in a bigger context. What does your organization need in order to see and interpret all the macro shifts while ensuring that choices that are made at tactical level are made with the highest level intelligence possible? The bridge between strategy and execution is one that most organizations desire more than anything to build. I don’t have a silver bullet for you or your business. I have a belief system that I hope can pivot you, your actions, your thinking, and ultimately your strategy. 



The belief system that I have is that your personal competitive advantage is the way you see the macro and how you choose to articulate your life experience. 


All of our choices are made at the micro-level by our sensory perception and our interpretation of that information. If you want to have a more accurate read on the macro - getting feedback, challenging your mental models and strengthening of a few core mental muscles is required. The mental muscles I advocate that you strengthen both personally and organizationally are resilience, responsiveness and reflection. 

I recommend you read an earlier post (via @ogunte) I wrote explaining how I arrived at this definition of agility. 

As I zoom in on “reflection” by design - I think of your ability to build capacity for deep-thinking and pattern-recognition as vital. The core competencies of which I name introspection, sense-making, insight, and foresight. No one would disagree that in the age of insight & information these are all vital. Yet, when I look at people’s learning plans, personal capacity designs and P & L statements - I rarely see it included. Our true values are seen in where we spend our time and money. Many are saying they value reflection, but when it comes to the proof, ….? 

To reinforce the gap, read one of my favorite posts from friend Cameron Norman (aka @cdnorman) 

We all know about the P & L of business performance. As an executive coach a while back, I took a sample group of leaders through an exercise where all meetings & scheduled appointments were put into a framework. On the left hand side you can see that most of the time and energy was put into fire fighting or running the business- very tactically. I don’t think these calendars are better or worse than most. I feel this is a fair sampling of typical business today. My question is, how will one create innovation and new solutions if there is no strategic time allowed in which to consider how to take the customer/vendor feedback which is now synchronous into account? Strategy is not learning time. It is time to reflect, to think, time to organize- what is already there. That for me is what reflection is. Open space for open space. Not many businesses are designing for the theory of constraints so businesses are often making promises they have no internal capacity to fulfill. (I just want to interject how much I miss Eliyahu Goldratt)



I hope people who read the most recent WSJ article The Trouble with Tinkering Time 

are not misled. You cannot plug and play one company’s solution to your own strategy. You have to consider what is true and relevant in your own context. Cross-training and cross-projecting have a purpose and it needs to support the process of gaining multiple perspectives. However, without time to consider the patterns and build scenarios, the potential learning may not occur. Exposure does not ensure integration. As you can see from the graph on the right side, I believe that in order to have innovation to occur, you need to have down time. After all, an idea needs stillness to land. You have to have capacity to put all that great customer/vendor feedback into meaningful solutions. 

The founders of Global Business Network including Napier Collyns, Steward Brand, Peter Swartz have done a tremendous amount to support and teach scenario planning and strengthen the foresight skills. They came from Shell ( @shell). As I was preparing this post, I took a deep dive into how Shell is currently training their upcoming leaders and found that they are actually teaching meditation as a strategic imperative 

If you think you are adding value by multi-tasking and by being sleep deprived, I’d like you to reconsider. Here are two business cases that would say that designed reflection would allow you to add more value: 

Overloaded Circuits: Why Smart People Underperform via @MITSloan

The Way We Are Working Isn’t Working via @TonySchwartz 

There are many ways to practice “open space” and “reflection” in your life and in your business. It is urgent in a time where the macro is moving so fast that you need designed time for reflection. You need to hear your own thoughts and find your center to make wise, intelligent decisions. 

In pursuit of reflection by design, 

Jennifer