Lately, I’ve buried myself in study materials as I prepare for a credentialing exam. I’ve been reading about ethics and how it impacts coaching. I’ve also been looking at case studies to see how those ethics play out in real time. It’s been interesting reading but knowing that I have to retain it all for an exam makes it a bit less fun than it would otherwise be. To spare you from having to hear more about all of that, I’m sending you a roundup of all the other things I’ve been reading and thinking about these days.
Influencing my thinking
Voting is a form of prayer
If you are not already aware, the mid-term elections are upon us. For us in Texas, early voting opened this week. Maybe all elections feel a bit fraught, but this one more so than normal. It feels like a lot is hanging in the balance.
As Rabbi Joshua Hammerman said in this article, “The fate of the nation will be determined in parking garages and school gyms and libraries, by long lines of voters waiting 3,5,8 hours or more to do something so simple, yet so earthshaking. It’s all worthy of a blessing.”
I appreciated his comparison of the ballot box to the Western Wall - a place to receive our prayer and our hope for the future. He writes:
In Hebrew, the verb “to pray” is reflexive. We aren’t praying so much for God’s benefit as for our own. Similarly, we are voting not only to save the world, but to save ourselves. And it would be profoundly cynical to ask God to clear up a mess that we helped to create, and that we aren’t willing to roll up our sleeves and help to resolve.
What goes through your mind as you approach the voting booth?
Magnifica Humanitas
In common parlance, this work has been described as the Pope’s Encyclical on AI. Which is fair, but incomplete. As I have read through this letter, I keep focusing on one consistent theme throughout - that human beings by virtue of being human have enormous value. Our value is not determined by what we do or where we live or what we have. We have value and dignity simply because we are human.
In our current climate in the US, it is easy to forget that human beings have intrinsic value. Regardless of whether or not I agree with your opinion or view on the world, you are still human and worthy of my respect and honor. This seems to get lost as we shout at one another across a giant chasm of disagreement.
The value of persons, however, does not depend on what they achieve or produce. There are rights that apply to everyone simply by virtue of being human, and no human power can legitimately deny or arbitrarily limit them. (51)
I’m trying to remember this - especially when driving in traffic.
Radical Candor
There were two things I appreciated about Radical Candor by Kim Scott. First was her grid: care personally and challenge directly. Three of the four quadrants were really interesting to me: radical candor, obnoxious aggression and ruinous empathy. I could see how I bounce between all three depending on who I’m talking to and the mood that I’m in.
The other piece that jumped out to me was that radical candor is measured at the listener’s ear, not at the speaker’s mouth, as the author explains. I may have the best intentions, but if it is not received well, or if my words are not targeted for my specific audience and their specific situation, I risk becoming either an obnoxious person or a ruinously empathetic person.
It has me reevaluating a lot of conversations, not just at work but also at home. I want to not only make my needs known but also listen well to the needs of those around me.
Articles saved to re-read
The Science of Prospective Memory (Disciplined Minds)
Before reading this article, I had never considered prospective memory, which the author defines as “the ability to remember an intended action and carry it out at the appropriate future moment.” I always think I have a bad memory if I forget to do something or have to write everything down to remember it. Or, if not a bad memory, that I’m lazy if I can’t do the things I intend to do. This article took a lot off my mind because it explained why telling yourself “I have to remember this” isn’t enough. You have to connect the action you intend to something in the future. “The more clearly the cue and action are connected, the less you have to rely on spontaneous recall. This becomes especially important when attention is divided.” One of the lines I appreciated was “Sometimes your attention was simply overloaded.” That is how I have felt for the last month or two. I loved the suggestions for reducing the ambiguity around what I want to do and what the cue is, so that I can get things done.
The Strange Guilt of Joy (Kim Palmiotto, The Girl Within)
I resonated with the thought Kim wrote about: “I should be doing something.” I tell myself that. I hear my clients say it when I’m coaching them. I should be productive, I should be doing something different, I should just… whatever. There’s a lot of self-judgment and harshness in that. One of her examples of this judgment was “Rest had to be earned. Stillness needed a good excuse.” That is the working assumption a lot of us have. I appreciated how she thinks through that automatic thought: how to get curious about it, and then what to do next.
Confessions of an Overthinker (Kate Tremills)
You can’t see my water bottle from where you’re sitting, but it has a sticker that says, “Hold on, let me overthink this.” So any article about overthinking is automatically going to get my attention. It’s something I do. It’s something my friends do.
Kate stated that “your overthinking is creativity that’s lost in the brambles.” It reminded me of something a friend shared with me today from Jamie Winship: fear kills creativity. For me, fear or worry is often what causes the overthinking, and it has been interesting to watch how that affects my actions. As someone who loves to plan, I found Kate’s emphasis that the magic lives in the making, not the planning, very helpful. So just do the thing.
Off the Clock
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower
A friend recommended this series to me. She has reread it more than once and said it was exceptional. I could not agree more. I grabbed the audiobook version of volume 1 in the series at the end of September, and now, I’m almost done with volume 8. It has been a welcome reprieve from my own day-to-day life!
Since I can’t just listen to an audiobook without doing something “productive” (see The Strange Guilt of Joy above), listening to the series has given me the excuse (strike that) opportunity to start new projects. I love nothing more than a new project! I needed something to do with my hands besides clean the house (the horror!), so I’ve been working on the Mosaic in a Month crochet-along, a geometric mosaic blanket from Juniper & Oakes (https://juniperandoakes.com/blog/geometric-mosaic-crochetalong-free/).
What have you been reading or thinking about these days? Tell us about it in the comments!
If you want to talk more about leading people and yourself, there’s more where this came from. Got a specific mess you’re in the middle of? Book a free call and we’ll look at it together.