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We don’t like it (many of us hate it). We ignore it. And when that doesn’t work, we spend a lot of time, money and energy trying to get rid of it — making plans, creating documents, and telling others what to do.

It is uncertainty. Even though it’s with us everyday, fundamental to our work, we’re so uncomfortable with it that we go to great lengths to eliminate it. But all these activities just give it power. The more we try to push uncertainty away, the more we’re acting unconsciously, and the more havoc it wreaks. 

One of the ways we deal with uncertainty is, as above, trying to reduce it. We plan, but we also lower our ambition; we prioritize things that are certain (over those that have impact). Almost every email we respond to fits in this category — we take care of a task and, in doing so, we shield ourselves from the ambiguity of the world. 

To sit with uncertainty without reaching for a solution gives us options. It lets possibilities emerge. We can try something without the expectation that it will work, letting us learn and adapt even as we move forward. 

So instead of trying to reduce uncertainty, we can learn to sit with it for longer, growing what the poet Keats called negative capability: the ability to sit with discomfort without seeking resolution. It sounds abstract and wonky, but it’s actually quite practical. Here’s four things we can do to transform our relationship with the big “U.” 

1. Slow down. What’s happening right now is a rich source of data about our work. Paying attention doesn’t give us an answer, but it does give us clues. When something makes us uncomfortable, we can share that and create space in an important discussion. When our heart rate goes up, we might notice that we’ve shifted from exploring to try to provide the right answer. But we don’t get access to any of this wisdom when we move too fast. 

2. Shift your framing. When we’re embedded in the world of work, an important project can start to dominate our thinking. But we can expand our perspective: Everything is full of uncertainty, from what will happen with the next Covid variant to whether we will have a job next month.

   Viewed in this way, your big project isn’t necessarily more uncertain, it’s just the uncertainty that’s got your immediate attention. This shift can help us practice holding on more lightly. 

3. Revel in the journey. Even though you don’t know the answer — even though the outcomes of ambitious work can’t be pinned down — each step can be fulfilling if you show up with curiosity and take real interest.

   This also suggests something fundamental about how we work: it’s very hard to do ambitious projects as a one-off, “fail or succeed” proposition. Ambitious work, especially transformational change, is best thought of as a series of experiments, not a monolithic solution. 

4. Get support. Whether you use a tool (like journaling) to get out of your own head or work with a coach or consultant, you can actively resource yourself to see uncertainty and avoid operating reactively.

   That’s one of my superpowers: helping my clients stay aware of the bigger journey and maintain their sense of possibility. Otherwise it’s too easy to focus, heads down, on the task in front of you and to move toward a solution too quickly. 

How does uncertainty show up for you and how do you work with it? I’d love to hear about your experiences. Email me at [email protected], especially if you need support. Together, we can explore ways to leverage your uncertainty to your benefit at work and in general.

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One of my favorite parts of writing Meltdown was connecting it to the everyday.

 

Your Thanksgiving dinner has more in common with the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history than you realize.

 

In 1979 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, a malfunctioning valve kicked off a chain of catastrophic events, resulting in a partial meltdown of one of the plant’s reactors. Yale sociologist Charles Perrow studied the Three Mile Island meltdown and other large-scale disasters in his book Normal Accidents, and concluded that “interactive complexity” (the number of system interrelationships) and “tight coupling” (the degree to which initial failures impact other parts of the system) are major contributors to system failures. His insights changed how we think about safety and risk.

 

In our book, Meltdown, András Tilcsik and I extend Perrow’s thought-provoking framework to other areas of our lives, including business, social media, and air travel, to explore how we can design better systems, make our teams more productive, and transform how we make decisions at work and at home. The modern world is increasingly complex and interconnected. Let’s extend Perrow’s thought-provoking framework and connect it to one of America’s most treasured national holidays: Thanksgiving.

 

We don’t usually think of Thanksgiving dinner as a system. It seems about as far from a nuclear power plant as you can get, but Perrow’s ideas still apply.

 

First, there’s the travel: the days before and after the holiday are some of the busiest travel days in the year. In the United States, Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday in November; in Perrow’s terms, that means there’s little slack—there’s only a one-day window for the holiday. The massive amount of travel also creates complex interactions: cars on the roads create gridlock, and the network structure of air travel means that bad weather at a major hub—like Chicago, New York, or Atlanta—can cause a ripple effect that strands travelers around the country. To make matters worse, even as travel resumes to pre-pandemic levels, COVID is already straining the capacity of airlines and their workers to keep up. Last month, for example, Southwest Airlines canceled two thousand flights.

 

Then there’s the dinner itself. Many houses have only one oven, so the classic roasted or baked Thanksgiving dishes—the turkey, casseroles, and pies—are linked. If a casserole or the turkey takes longer than expected, that delays the rest of the meal. And the dishes depend on one another. Stuffing often cooks inside the turkey, and gravy comes from the roasted bird’s juices. A simple meal like spaghetti with meat sauce doesn’t have these kinds of interconnections.

It’s also hard to tell what’s going on inside the system—that is, whether the turkey is done cooking or still has hours left to go. To solve this problem, some companies add a safety mechanism—a small plastic button stuck in the turkey that pops out when the bird is done cooking. But these buttons, like many safety systems, are unreliable. More experienced cooks use a meat thermometer as an indicator of what’s going on inside the turkey, but it’s still hard to pinpoint the amount of time needed.

 

The meal is also tightly coupled: for the most part, you can’t pause the cooking process and return to it later. Dishes keep cooking and the guests are on their way. Once a mistake has been made—once the turkey is overcooked or an ingredient missed—you can’t go back.

 

Sure enough, as Perrow might predict, the whole meal can easily spiral out of control. A few years ago, the gourmet food magazine Bon Appétit asked its readers to share “their craziest Thanksgiving food disaster stories.” The response was overwhelming. Hundreds of people wrote in with all kinds of culinary failures, from flaming turkeys and bland batches of gravy to stuffing that tasted like soggy bread crumbs.

 

False diagnoses are a common problem. People worry that their turkey will be undercooked when in fact it’s already as dry as a bone. Or they worry about burning the turkey only to find out it’s still raw on the inside, which means the stuffing inside the bird is also undercooked. Sometimes both problems happen at the same time: the breast meat is overdone, but the thighs are undercooked.

 

With the clock ticking, complexity often overwhelms cooks. They make a mistake without even realizing it’s a mistake until much later—when their guests sit down and taste the food. “Hundreds of you sent in stories about accidentally using the wrong ingredient in your pies, gravies, casseroles and more,” the magazine noted. “Our favorite iteration was a reader who accidentally used Vicks 44 [a potent cough syrup] instead of vanilla in her ice cream.”

 

To avoid Thanksgiving disasters, some experts recommend simplifying the part of the system that’s most clearly in the danger zone: the turkey. “If you break down the turkey into smaller pieces and cook them separately, you’ll have a higher margin for success,” says chef Jason Quinn. “It’s easier to cook white meat perfectly than trying to cook white meat and dark meat perfectly at the same time.” The stuffing, too, can be made separately.

 

As a result, the turkey becomes a less complex system. The various parts are less connected, and it’s easier to see what’s going on with each of them. Tight coupling is also reduced. You can roast some parts—the drumsticks and wings, for example—earlier. Then there is more space in the oven later on, and it’s easier to monitor the breast meat to make sure that it’s roasted to perfection. If unexpected issues arise, you can just focus on the problem at hand—without having to worry about a whole complex system of white meats, dark meats, stuffing, and all.

 

This approach—reducing complexity and adding slack—helps us escape from the danger zone. It can be an effective solution, one we explore in the book. But in recent decades, the world has actually been moving in the opposite direction: many systems that were once far from the danger zone are now in the middle of it.

 

Safe travels and happy eating. And, if you’d like to read more from Meltdown, download a free sample here.

 

From Meltdown by Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik. Used with the permission of the publisher, Penguin Press. Copyright © 2018 by Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik.

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We humans believe in a lot of stories.

 

We believe in property rights.

 

We believe in money.

 

We believe in truth, right and wrong, and in answers.

 

We believe in corporations, teams, nations, universities—groups and institutions that define us and create belonging. Association with these institutions (which often exist only in our mind, as lines on a map or words on a piece of paper) confers something significant; as a result, we spend a lot of effort deciding who can belong and who is excluded.

Many of us believe that there is something more to the universe, an intelligence or higher being. Sometimes that belief is personified as a God (or gods), sometimes it remains a bit more nebulous.

 

On the other hand, we often believe in a story that we are separate, that individuals make their own decisions, and that we are not responsible for what happens to others.

 

We also—more often than is helpful—believe stories about our own experiences.

 

…stories about how others have slighted us.

 

…stories that we are right and that others are wrong.

 

…stories that we see the true nature of a problem, situation, or disagreement.

 

Our faith in our stories is bolstered by emotions and sensations, self-contained experiences that affirm the “truth” of our experiences.

 

Is someone arguing with you? Our body reacts, confirming that we’re facing a threat.

 

Belief in our stories is useful, helping us conserve our energy and move things forward. If we didn’t have beliefs, we’d have to constantly reassess the foundation of the world—a pain in the butt when you’re just trying to get your kids to school or finish a presentation with your colleagues.

 

But believing our stories costs us, too.

 

When we believe our stories, we create a world of right and wrong, a world of answers instead of possibilities.

 

We expend a lot of effort making our case, proving that we are right. This effort mostly comes out as friction, arguments that waste energy and don’t move things forward. So we stay stuck in place, working hard to resist others.

 

Finally, when we believe our stories, we close ourselves off to learning, to seeing a new way to work.

 

So what can we do? Here are three things that help me create a little distance and avoid the trap of believing my own stories:

1. Call out your stories. Explicitly recognizing our stories as stories helps us see them from another perspective. Even starting a sentence with the phrase “The story I’m telling myself…” can be a powerful way to break the illusion that your story is true.

2. Notice your feelings. Noticing and acknowledging the sensations in your body can provide a different source of data about the world.  If you feel a tightness in your chest, for example, awareness helps separate that feeling (anxiety? fear?) from the story you’re telling yourself at that moment.

   Instead of a story, the truth of which is bolstered by your body’s feelings, you can now deal with two separate experiences—a story that you’re telling yourself and a feeling in your body.

3. Practice and be kind to yourself. Believing our stories is so useful that we’ve been doing it our whole lives and for the whole existence of our species. To step away from this belief requires a deep shift in our being.So practice on low-stakes issues. Notice how these stories arise, self-contained, within your daily experiences. Is someone at the grocery store being obnoxiously slow, or is a fellow commuter being a total jerk? Those are stories.
   Work with a coach or a peer and get curious about the stories that you absolutely know are true.

   And when you catch yourself believing your stories, be kind to yourself. Recognize that your awareness is an achievement rather than a failure.

Getting curious about our stories is a journey, not a destination.

 

I offer these thoughts as a fellow traveler on the road of awareness—a road that I often forget I’m on. I’ll look up and notice that I’ve strayed from the road, in conflict with my partner, mired in the swamp of righteousness (I’m sorry, hon). Or I’ll feel stressed by work, only to step back and realize that I’ve wandered into the desert of scarcity and that I’m stuck in the story that I don’t have enough time to do what I need to.

 

Welcome to the journey. Hopefully we’ll bump into each other somewhere along the road.

 

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I wasn’t sure why my mom sent me the vampire blood.

 

I mean, it came with other Halloween decorations, so at least the context makes sense. Halloween decorations are one of the ways my parents, who live across the country, bond with the kiddos, who love decorating.

 

But this was kind of perplexing. What were we supposed to do with 16 oz (473 mL) of blood?

 

Blood that, at least if the bottle is to be believed, “Looks and flows like real blood!”

 

 

Great.

The kids, of course, were into it. They wanted to open it immediately, ideally over the white carpet.

 

Naturally, I distracted them and hid it in the kitchen.

 

Kids are persistent, though, so when they asked about it a few days later as I was making dinner, I opened the lid and cracked the seal. I kept it out of their hands, but we were all one step closer to the “Incredible blood-red color!”

 

But I still wasn’t sure what to do with it. Should we decorate the front of the house with it? Or is it for my body? Will it stain the sink?

 

I ducked into the bathroom and bloodied my hand with a Q-tip.

 

Pretty good. I’d say that “Incredible blood-red color!” was pretty accurate. Plus, it washed off fairly easily.

 

I decided it was time to see how life-like this blood really was. Eight-year-old T was in the kitchen, so I showed him my hand. “I’m going to pretend I hurt myself,” I whispered.

 

I picked up the knife I’d been chopping with and slammed it down on the cutting board.

 

Thwack! 

 

“Owww!”

 

Beat

 

“Oh no,” Katy cried from the other room, “Did you cut yourself?”

 

Now to set the hook: I staggered into the living room, hand clutched to my body.

 

“It’s fake blood!” T yelled. “He’s not really hurt!”

 

Bummer. Joke blown.

 

Later, I wondered: Why did T yell that? What did he get from it?

 

I think it was because, at that moment, he lacked negative capability, a phrase coined by the poet Keats:

 

“When a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

 

Negative capability is the ability to pursue a project with an unknown outcome, accepting the existence of uncertainties, while remaining objective and emotionally detached from the project and being comfortable with the inherent mysteries. In this case, the uncertainty—the mystery—was in not knowing how the joke would be received. Would others find it funny? How long could I keep it up? Would people really think I was hurt?

 

And staying with uncertainty is difficult. In that moment, it was too hard for T, and much more comfortable to blow the joke, to settle the issue.

 

Negative capability is hard, and it’s a big part of my work.

 

In my business, I need to move toward my vision while in a state of uncertainty: I try things without knowing whether they will work and try to remain objective.

 

I help my clients access negative capability as they lead transformational change, an activity that is, by definition, a movement toward uncertainty.

 

And even at home, as my partner and I combine our once-separate lives into a modern family, I lean on negative capability, choosing love over fear and doubt while we take this big step together.

 

I bet negative capability shows up in your work, too.

 

Pursuing the most important work necessarily involves movement toward the unknown. After all, if you knew the outcome, you’d probably be doing that new thing already!

 

Paradoxically, when you lack negative capability, you limit your ability to have a positive impact. You reach for control, which creates resistance in others. You overreact to mistakes instead of seeing them as a part of the process. And, perhaps most importantly, you dampen your ambition, sticking with what is practical instead of exploring the boundary of what is possible.

 

The good news is that you can grow your negative capability.

 

Here are three ways:

 

• Notice your own reactions to things. We can use our feelings like a compass. When you experience anxiety, determine where it’s coming from. Is it a mystery that you have to live with, or is it something you can act on now?

• Get curious about mistakes. Author and conductor Benjamin Zander writes that the best reaction to a mistake is “How fascinating!” followed by reflecting on your role in events. Take a broader view to begin developing a stronger long-term perspective.

• Learn the verbal “tells” that you use to shut out possibility. Avoid using phrases like “That just won’t work…,” “I can’t…,” or “If they would change/understand/stop…”

 

Remember, as Keats said, to maintain a state of negative capability, you must be in uncertainties without regard for reason. Don’t sabotage your journey by disregarding paths that seem impossible at first glance.

 

Negative capability is a funny phrase with high stakes: if you can’t move forward while accepting uncertainties, it will slow down your work and limit your career.

 

So how do you bring negative capability to your work? Shoot me a reply and let me know.

 

P.S. I’ve just opened up a few more Change Coaching slots in my schedule. If you’re a leader guiding transformational change, frustrated with the resistance you’re encountering or interested in learning how you can leverage negative capability to your benefit, reply to this email. I’ll send you more info about my approach and a link to a short questionnaire to see if we might be a good fit to work together.

 

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Resistance gets a bad rap.

 

The most common word associated with resistance, at least in the context of change, is the need to “overcome” it.

 

So how do we do that?

 

By persuading people, convincing them, and finding the mythical secret to getting “buy-in.”

 

Or, if all else fails, by threatening them.

 

But these strategies don’t work. They might get compliance, but they won’t get enrollment.

 

They may get someone to change their behavior, but only when you’re looking over their shoulder.

 

As someone leading change, it’s easy to justify reaching for compliance because we see what we do as righteous.

 

We are, after all, trying to lead people from a problematic place to a better state of the world.

 

In this light, people who are resisting are bad; they’re slowing down our journey to a bright, shiny future.

 

They just don’t get it.

 

Obviously. 🙄

 

Because if they did, they’d be clamoring to join us on our journey.

 

But we all resist things. So when someone (or the universe itself!) imposes change on us and we don’t like it — we get pissed off.

 

We just don’t call that resistance because it feels righteous to us.

 

And that’s the secret to working with resistance: realize that resistance is always rooted in our own experiences, in our own truths. And that your colleague’s resistance (and, dare I say, even your spouse’s resistance) is rooted in the experience that they are living at any given moment.

 

I call this idea practical empathy, the realization that, even as our conclusions are grounded in our own experiences, so too are the conclusions of others.

 

This helps us broaden our understanding of resistance.

 

We can see it not as something to overcome but something to understand — nay, to celebrate.

 

This is a practice that starts with ourselves.

 

When we’re resisting something, we can get curious. What is the story we’re telling ourselves about what we’re facing?

 

How confident are we that our story is true and, at the end of the day, does it really threaten our security, belonging, or control?

 

Would we be willing to try something to step out of our comfort zone?

 

When we experience resistance in others, we can get curious too. What are they seeing that I’m missing? What can I learn from them?

 

Our curiosity lets us step back from the need to be right and instead open up to being influenced by others. Rather than getting stuck in dogma, we can find a path that we didn’t see before.

 

So how does this show up for you? What’s a time when you’ve stepped back by getting curious?

 

P.S. I’m indebted to the work of Rick Maurer, who has shaped the ideas I’ve written about above. I particularly like his book Beyond the Wall of Resistance, which I often recommend to my clients leading change.

 

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The hypodermic needle peeked out of the ground cover next to the sidewalk, glistening a bit in the cool morning air.

 

My partner and I saw it on the way back from our local coffee shop and tried to figure out what to do.

 

I’m always surprised by how small hypodermics are — a cylinder with a few milliliters of liquid and a needle that’s only a centimeter or so long. But despite their size, they command so much energy and attention from those that use them.

 

Seattle has a homelessness and drug use crisis. They’re different facets of a complex, multifaceted system that stymies government and community groups alike.

 

But that’s an essay for another day.

 

Today I want to write about late adopters.

 

While my partner went to the house to get a plastic container that we could use to secure the needle, I stood watch over the needle in case a curious kiddo walked by out of reach of his family.

 

It was a lovely morning, and I said good morning to passers-by. As I smiled and greeted a woman who looked to be in her late 70s, I noticed that she had a Netflix envelope in her hand.

 

Like, the kind that you could use to send a DVD back after you’d watched it.

 

Huh! I didn’t know they still had those.

 

“What kind of movies do you watch?” I asked her.

 

“Oh, all kinds. Mostly family-friendly, some documentaries.”

 

What about streaming?

 

“Oh, I might get on that someday. But for now, I like my DVDs.”

 

Lovely!

 

My neighbor is very much a late adopter. Content with getting DVDs in the mail, she felt no particular pressure to join the streaming revolution.

 

I had found a late adopter.

 

Mailing DVDs worked well enough for her, and so she stuck with it.

 

Now, I don’t have an opinion on whether Netflix’s DVD-by-mail product (which operates through a subsidiary) should exist.

 

But I like that they are, at least for now, giving my neighbor what she wants.

 

I’m not exactly sure what it is, but the experts I support through change often focus on late adopters in their change process. They want to spend time, energy, and resources pushing challenging people toward change.

 

I think this impulse comes from a desire for completeness. In the puzzle that is change, high-achieving leaders want to know that they can be successful. They know that late adopters will be challenging, so they want to start working on them right away — making their case, convincing them — to ensure they have all the right pieces in place.

 

This strategy turns out to be counterproductive. Engaging with late adopters too early sucks the energy from your change.

 

Instead, start by focusing on early adopters who will champion your process. There are three benefits of this approach.

 

1. If done right, you’ll learn more working with them (they’ll bring energy, data, and suggestions to you).

2. You’ll create change that has an impact. Everyone in an organization rarely needs to make a change at precisely the same time.

   Early adopters will start to experience the benefits of change as soon as they start doing things differently. If you make 30% of your organization better at something by 10%, that’s better than a change stalling because you’re spending all your energy trying to convince late adopters.

3. You’ll demonstrate success and create FOMO. Then, as early adopters start working in a new way, and as you iterate to refine your solutions, others will start to see the value of what’s been created and get interested.

   You’ll be well-positioned to scale change across your organization rather than fight to get “buy-in.”

 

Now, late adopters may not be able to stay that way forever. They’ll move on, be asked to leave, or they’ll keep their corner of the world as it is, forgoing the benefits of the change.

 

They’ll still get DVDs when the rest of the world is streaming.

 

But that’s OK, as long as you’re willing to run the DVD business.

 

But imagine if Netflix had waited for everyone, my neighbor included, to be ready before they launched streaming.

 

That would be a mistake. Don’t spend so long with the late adopters that you never get started!

 

Change is hard enough as it is.

 

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“I don’t know.”

 

It’s taken me a long time to learn to say that phrase.

 

Not literally, of course (all the words are straightforward!)

 

And not about minor things, either; I’ve always been good at the artful dodge: “Hmm, that’s an interesting question. I don’t know, but I’ll do some research and get back to you.”

 

It’s taken me a long time to inhabit the space of profound not knowing.

 

I managed to step into that space last summer and, in a meeting with an important client, admit that I didn’t know how to solve the problem we were working on.

 

It was terrifying.

 

I had a lot of anxiety because my client (a team of senior engineers at a very successful global company) had brought me in to support them as they worked on a sprawling, complex problem.

 

And I was struggling. I understood parts of their work and, logically, their path forward made sense.

 

But the engineers I was working with (who understood that they had a complex problem) kept asking me what I thought they should do. I reflected on my work with other companies that had solved similar issues and drew on our research from Meltdown — but I didn’t feel like my answers were having an impact.

 

Then about halfway through our work, I realized that my job wasn’t to know the answer.

 

It wasn’t to tell them about how a different organization had solved a big, complex problem.

 

Instead, my job was to help them realize that they didn’t have to know the answer either. 

 

Why? I’ll get to that, but first, it’s worth acknowledging how hard it is to admit that we don’t know the answer.

 

The space of not knowing is elusive because we spend so much time answering questions.

 

“How do you…”

 

“What do you think about my idea to…”

 

“What are you going to do next…”

 

“What’s your plan for…”

 

Questions are great, but these questions harbor the assumption that there is, in fact, an answer. That the world is simple enough, linear enough, that it’s helpful to know something.

 

We’re asked to answer these kinds of questions our whole lives, from teachers, colleagues, bosses. And we learn that, by giving answers, we get praised, promoted, and rewarded.

 

As we deepen our expertise, we rely on our ability to answer so much that we can’t leave it behind.

 

To be clear: I have nothing against expertise. Or answers!

 

But these days, the most critical questions are the ones that experts can’t answer.

 

That’s because most answers can’t be separated from the people involved in the problem. 

 

When we want something to change, when we want our teams to work together differently, even when we want to adopt a new piece of technology, we can do none of that without the people involved changing their behavior.

 

But people behave as they do because something is useful about their behavior. For example, if we’re quick to anger, that might make us feel safe by getting others to stay clear. If we tend to fade away during discussions, that might make us feel safe, too: if people don’t notice us, we can avoid scrutiny.

 

The same is true with organizations and teams. Bureaucratic organizations get something from their bureaucracy (a sense of certainty and control, perhaps). Chaotic organizations do as well (a sense of freedom, creativity, and busyness).

 

When we ground our work on a problem in the benefits that we, our teams, and our organizations get from the current behavior, we make it safe to experiment.

 

Say that we want to encourage people to be less bureaucratic. How might we (for example) ensure that leaders feel like things are being done safely even as we reduce the complexity of our procedures? What if we…?

 

How might we add structure to preserve our creative abilities while reducing the time people waste time in chaos? What if we…?

 

These are questions – but they’re very different kinds of questions. They’re questions that lead to experiments, to a series of things that we might want to try.

 

When we think in this way, it transforms what the word “answer” even means.

 

Answers stop living in the text of an email or the thesis of a strategy document. They stop being “should” statements, i.e., “I think we should…”

 

Instead, answers become rooted in action.

 

Answers are the results of things that we try, whether or not we got what we expected.

 

“Oh, that worked! Let’s do more of that.”

 

Or “Oh, no way. That was a mess. What do we want to try next?”

 

When I admitted to the engineers and my client that I didn’t know the answer, it was like the whole room took a breath.

 

I started our meeting by saying, “I don’t know the answer. And – even if for some reason I did know it, you guys wouldn’t believe me. A few of you have been doing this kind of work for longer than I’ve been alive.”

 

“I’ve been feeling this pressure to give you an answer, which makes me wonder — do you all feel that pressure, too? Do you feel like your job is to know the answer?”

 

They did. And acknowledging that shifted our whole work together.

 

Instead of trying to find an answer, we started to think in terms of experiments. How might we…? What do we want to try next?

 

And that changed everything.

 

So, dear reader, what’s a problem you’re trying to answer where you might experiment instead? Comment and let me know.

 

Ps: The free preview of Crossing Thresholds, the course I’ve been writing about, was last week. I found it just as powerful as it was when I took it the first time, and I am soooo excited to be enrolled in the full course.

 

If you’re interested in moving toward the unknown and crossing your own threshold, but you missed the chance, don’t fret (maybe procrastination is a behavior that you’re interested in letting go of…?):

 

Watch the recording of the free preview and sign up here for the full course, which takes place on September 21, 28 and October 5 & 12 from 10 AM–1 PM Pacific Time each Tuesday.

 

ps: I mentioned this before, but I’m an affiliate for Amba’s course. That means I’ll get a commission if you sign up for the full course. I’ll never promote any work I don’t believe in — and in this case, I’m paying for the course, too, so I’ll be taking it right there beside you.

 

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“GET IN THE CAR!”

 

“GET IN THE CAR!!!”

 

In case you don’t recognize it, that’s a quote from me, yelling at my kids outside of a Star Wars store this weekend. Like, full-on yelling. In the parlance of our times, I’d “lost my cool.”

 

 

We went there because it was fun. You know, fun! Yay! Star Wars! Toys! We’d spent about ten minutes squeezing our bodies around glass display cases and mismatched tables covered with Jedi action figures and imperial speeders. The shop looked like it had been last tidied a Long Time Ago.

 

The yelling happened on the sidewalk outside the shop after we’d bought $16 worth of toys, with one of my kiddos wanting to see if we could go back in to switch his choice to a different toy.

 

My answer: Absolutely not. Totally unacceptable. And when my kids resisted, the yelling came: “GET IN THE CAR!”

 

So why did I take a fundamentally delightful experience and make it miserable?

 

It’s a good question. I’m glad you asked!

 

I’ll get to that.

 

But first, let me just tell you how sick I am of personal growth.

 

I’m done with it! I’m ready to “arrive,” to be… if not enlightened exactly, at least not a jerk to my kids.

 

I want to be done growing — and serve the people I need to serve in this world through my business.

 

And I’m ready to show up with kindness and grace in my personal life (see above for the opposite of this).

 

There’s a saying that “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

 

Enter Amba, who is… well, she’s a badass. 🙂

 

She’s built a decades-long practice as a teacher and a coach. She works with global organizations like HP and local ones like Seattle’s family-run grocery chain, Town and Country Markets. She helps leaders tap into their creativity from a place of wholeness and care for themselves and others.

 

Regular readers will know that I interviewed her on my podcast a few months back. One of the things that we chatted about was Amba’s course (and related book of poetry), Crossing Thresholds.

 

Crossing Thresholds is a book of poems Amba wrote while staying off-grid in Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior. It’s also a guide on crossing one’s own threshold — how to pass from the known to the unknown to remake one’s relationship with something.

 

For Amba, the book sprang from a personal journey. While she was on Isle Royale, connecting with nature, she was also creating space to remake her relationship with her adult daughter.

 

When I learned that, I honestly felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Not because she was doing that work (yay for evolving relationships), but because… gosh, shouldn’t she be done with this kind of work? Shouldn’t she, well, be grown?

 

A few weeks after we recorded the podcast, I shared my dismay.

 

She just laughed! “Well, of course you’re not done! You’re never done! But growth is what keeps things interesting.”

 

Well, shit. So I guess I have to keep growing.

 

My personal journey to grow my awareness started when my first kiddo was about to enter this world and I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. A week before his birth, I had a “radical inguinal orchiectomy,” which are the fancy words my surgeon used to describe removing my ball.

 

I doubled down on personal growth when my former wife and I started the process of a collaborative divorce (“collaborative,” to clarify, does not mean “easy” or “fun”).

 

Now I’ve crossed those thresholds. I’m in a fantastic partnership with a woman who I deeply love. Together, we’re raising three amazing kiddos, and we’re in the process of moving in together.

 

The most significant difference I notice from these years of work is increased compassion for others and myself, particularly when I don’t show up the way I’d like to.

 

Like on the sidewalk outside of the Star Wars shop.

 

Here’s what happened: the owners are fervent anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, something that I only figured out as we walked past a sandwich board in front of the shop touting anti-deep state beliefs.

 

I’ll share my views here: I think that the science is clear and they’re wrong; Covid is a product of biology, not a conspiracy from the deep state.

 

I don’t think their beliefs make them evil, just misguided. But, in their confusion, they might harm others (including my kids). And I’m not OK with that.

 

So we were heading into a place that made me feel fundamentally unsafe. Now, it was well-ventilated, and we were all masked, but every part of me wanted to get in and out as quickly as we could (which doesn’t work so well when you’re with kiddos whose average age is six).

 

So, in short, I was freaking out. After we’d spent a few minutes in the shop, and my kids had chosen their toys, it was just too much for me when my oldest son asked to switch from the spaceship he’d chosen to another one.

 

To be clear, he almost certainly could have switched. This wasn’t the kind of place with barcodes and price tags. Rather it was the kind of place where the owner would have thought for a second and said something like, “Well, I suppose that’s OK.”

 

But I was done. I had been containing my freakout… until it exploded. Hence the yelling.

 

For me, this is my threshold to cross, my opportunity: how do I advocate for myself from a place of being in a relationship with others? How do I speak my truth softly?

 

This is my opportunity.

 

But what does all this have to do with you and your work?

 

Everything.

 

Because whatever your opportunity for growth is, it’s yours as a person.

 

The You who’s impatient in line at the grocery store because the clerk is taking forever is the same You who interrupts a colleague who’s in the middle of forming a thought.

 

The You who’s uncomfortable dealing with strong feelings from your spouse or kid is also challenged when coaching a colleague through a difficult challenge.

 

We all have these opportunities for growth (after all, that’s what keeps things interesting).

 

And growth is not linear, which is why the process of stepping through a threshold is so powerful.

 

So if you’re interested in exploring what’s next for you, I encourage you to register here for the free mini-course.

 

It’s this Thursday, August 26, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM (Pacific time). But if you can’t attend live, no worries – there will be a recording sent around after.

 

Whatever shift you’re working to make, this may be the opportunity to make it.

 

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

 

So are you ready? Register here.

 

P.S: Amba’s free mini-course is a preview of her Fall course on Crossing Thresholds, which she’s offering this September and October over six consecutive Tuesdays: September 14, 21, 28, October 5, 12, AND 19 from 10 AM–12 PM Pacific Time. I’m enrolled in Crossing Thresholds and thrilled about the journey.

 

P.P.S: As I mentioned above, I’m an affiliate for this course. That means I’ll get a commission if anyone signs up for the full course. I’ll never promote any work I don’t believe in — and in this case, I’m paying for the course, too, so I’ll be there right beside you.

 

Being an affiliate is something new for me (and, it turns out, something new for Amba too); let me know how it lands with you.

 

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As I fished the old USB mouse out from the closet below my stairs, I hit my head and cursed so loudly that Sharpie, my dog, bolted upright from his nap.

 

I needed the mouse because my hands were so sweaty that I couldn’t use the trackpad on my laptop.

 

That’s because — despite the 104° F heat (that’s overwhelmingly hot in Celsius) — I was stuck inside, with no a/c, drafting the webinar that I would use to introduce and sell my Impossible Problems course.

 

My louder-than-necessary expletive wasn’t just about my injury; I was tapping into some self-directed resentment.

 

Why was I stuck inside working instead of eating ice cream and swimming in nearby Green Lake?

 

After all, it’s my business! Aren’t I in charge here?

 

Yes, I am. And that was the problem!

 

I’d committed to a very ambitious timeline to launch my course — a launch, it turned out, that didn’t resonate with my audience.

 

(Translation: I didn’t make any money!)

 

So the day after the webinar (and the disappointing results), I was in a reflective mood.

 

And luckily, I happened to take a free mini-course offered that day by my teacher, friend, and podcast guest, Amba Gale.

 

No joke: that 75 minutes changed my life. (Good news: she’s offering the mini-course again!)

 

How? In the mini-course, Amba asks us to reflect: What do I need to stop doing to move forward?

 

In other words, what doesn’t serve me anymore?

 

For me, a lot of things arose. Letting go of trying to be impressive. Of trying to be right.

 

But, most importantly, I realized that I was ready to let go of my commitment to being busy, a belief that my success comes from sweating out 5% of my body weight on a scorching summer Saturday instead of swimming in a lake.

 

I know that I’m not the only one with this belief about busyness. Does it resonate with you?

 

The other day, I was chatting on Twitter with some brilliant people who work in legal technology about why innovations that promise substantive improvement aren’t adopted.

 

There were lots of explanations — from the licensed nature of the legal industry to incentives.

 

But I was most curious about what the people resisting change got from not improving their effectiveness.

 

One theme that emerged was that lawyers who do things the “old-fashioned way” get to stay busy.

 

Staying busy is very useful! 

 

For some professionals — those that bill hourly — staying busy is how they bring home the (traditional, turkey, vegan) bacon.

 

But even lawyers who don’t get paid hourly (those who work in-house for a corporation, for example) get something from a commitment to busyness. Many started work in big law firms that rewarded them for busyness; others remained steeped in a prevailing culture that celebrates toil.

 

I would never argue that it’s not useful to be busy. And I won’t speak to the nuances of legal work, one of the most complicated professions on the planet. But staying committed to busyness when the context is changing around you can get costly.

 

For me, it’s clear that the cost of my commitment to busyness has exceeded its usefulness. 

 

I add value to my clients and my business by being present, not by being busy.

 

Yet, just because something imposes a cost doesn’t mean it’s easy to let go of. We hold onto things that are useful even when it might be more useful to let them go.

 

No matter how much improvement is possible, we can’t move forward if we don’t shift our beliefs.

 

So what do you need to let go of? What belief has outlived its usefulness?

 

If you’re interested in exploring this question more deeply, you’re in luck. Amba is offering her free mini-course again.

 

So if you’re too busy, with too little to show for it…

 

If you’re unsatisfied with your beliefs around money…

 

If you want to be more present as a friend, colleague, spouse, or parent…

 

I encourage you to register here for Amba’s free course.

 

If you can, join us live on Thursday, August 26, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM (Pacific time). If you can’t, no worries – they’ll be a recording sent around after.

 

I hope to see you there (I’ll be giving a short introduction to Amba and why I thought this work was essential for my community).

 

Amba’s free mini-course is a preview of her Fall course on Crossing Thresholds, which she’s offering this September and October over six consecutive Tuesdays: September 14, 21, 28, October 5, 12, AND 19 from 10 AM–12 PM Pacific Time. I’m enrolled in Crossing Thresholds and thrilled about the journey.

 

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The sand was thick with dime-sized crabs.

 

They scurried around our feet, burying themselves in the sand one moment and emerging and scuttling away the next.

 

My three-year-old son S was terrified.

 

Faced with the choice between fight, flight, and freeze – he froze. He stood on me, as far from the crabs as possible, his sandals pressing down on my toes.

 

S was trying to walk to a paddleboard about twenty feet away — but he couldn’t do it.

 

He desperately wanted me to carry him, but I wouldn’t. Part of me was worried that he would panic once he was on the board.

 

Part of me wanted to play the long parenting game and help him work with his fear.

 

And if I’m honest, part of me — but only like 2% or so — was feeling stubborn.

 

After about ten minutes, things got too overwhelming, so I scooped him up and carried him back to the towel that claimed our spot on the rocky Pacific Northwest beach.

 

We took a break. S snuggled with his stuffie (bubba, a purple hippo).

 

We chatted about fear. About how noticing it can keep us safe. But about how paying too much attention to our fear can create barriers that prevent us from moving forward.

 

I feel afraid a lot.

 

I have a lot of advantages (privilege, network, resources, a great life partner, and a supportive community), but I often feel challenged by the path that I’m walking.

 

Unlike a consultant at, say, McKinsey, I don’t have strong institutional ties or a manager who teaches me in the business.

 

I’m not a professor at a prestigious business school with opportunities to showcase and commercialize my work (in addition to a steady paycheck!).

 

And that makes me afraid.

 

Afraid that my business will fail and that I’ll be destitute.

 

Afraid that my business will be too successful – that I’ll alienate others and lose touch with my purpose.

 

Afraid that I’m not working hard enough and afraid that I’m too busy to do the kind of slow, in-depth work that I want to do.

 

I’m afraid that people won’t read what I’m writing, listen to what I’m producing, and buy what I’m offering. (Often, they don’t!)

 

A lot of the work I do is about supporting leaders through transformational change, which is about moving toward the unknown.

 

An unknown that is often scary.

 

But just because something is scary does not make it dangerous.

That’s what S did. After getting his snuggles in, we played together in the sand. A few minutes later, my partner paddled back toward shore and again invited S and me to climb on.

 

We walk out toward the paddleboard.

 

This time, I helped S tune into what was happening around us. We listened to the splashes as we stepped through the water. We felt the squish of our feet pressing into the muddy ground.

 

My kiddo was still afraid. But he took one step, then another, haltingly moving to the paddleboard and climbing on.

 

Even though fear can be a barrier, it doesn’t have to be.

 

Realizing that is some of the most important work we can do. To move forward, even when we’re afraid. Not to settle for the safe, not linger in the comfortable — because that holds us back from the work we need to do.

 

It starts with a single step. What’s your next one?

 

Comment and let me know.

 

Thanks, be well, and stay curious,

 

Chris

 

P.s. I’m excited to announce a conversation and a collaboration with my friend and guide, Amba Gale.

 

I feel like I’ve known Amba forever, though she only showed up in my life a few months ago. For the last 40 years, she’s been doing the kind of transformational leadership work I’m growing into.

 

I’ll have more to share in a few weeks, but in the meantime, check out my recent conversation with her on the podcast.

 

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