I was just reading a blog that suggested disruption in industries could come from things that look like toys to us. All of us “buttoned-up” business people could poo-poo something fun, because it’s not serious enough. I have a tendency to be one of those more serious folks. “Let’s get down to business, let’s not waste time, and what’s the expected ROI for this activity?” are all things I have been known to say or think. Luckily, I am surrounded by folks who won’t let me take myself too seriously and cajole me into someone less uptight. When having fun is the goal, I’m happy to do my part.

When we are playful, we let our guard down; we are not so concerned with what others think and lean into the joy of the play. It creates opportunity and opens our brains to new ideas. When we are playful, it can be contagious. When we are playful, we are not worried about outcomes, but about process and the journey.

I have learned that it is not pleasant to always be on guard. It takes a lot of brain power. It takes energy that could be used toward something else. We are creatures of habit; the more we do something the more we will be inclined to do it, the easier it is to repeat it. I’m not suggesting that we don’t be diligent in our work. We do need to consider what can go wrong, how to mitigate negative situations and that takes planning and thought. AND, we also can open our brains to a LOT of new possibilities if we start to do it playfully.

What that looks like for you could be different than it does for me. But kids play and are inventive and do lots of silly stuff, until we tell them to act their age and squash some of their silliness. What if we didn’t? What if you skipped into work today (even if it is just down the hall to your home office)? What if we stopped for a break and made a play doh figure after two hours at work? What if you colored a picture, or drew a picture and put it on your refrigerator? What if you went outside and bounced a ball or tossed a ball with a colleague or family member?

Take two minutes today and do something silly. Let someone else see you doing it, I bet they will want to join in.

My Wish for you is peace, and it can come by allowing the child-like playfulness to seep into your days.

I was journaling the other night after a 6-week break from writing. I usually get great clarity from the reflection, introspection, and insight I get from the basic act of journaling. I wrote, “I’ve been a little rebellious about journaling even though I know it is good for me.” I got to thinking about the other things that are good for me, but I’ve been rebellious about and stopped doing.

I started to think about WHY I felt the need to be rebellious about them. What I surmised is that my calendar is so full, I don’t have a lot of “margin” and I don’t or can’t fit in what is really important. Meditation, prayer, logging my food, even activities for work end up being crammed into some hole in my calendar instead of being scheduled, planned, and protected.

Think about any paper you wrote for school: there is a border of white space surrounding the content. It isn’t full from edge to edge. But sometimes my days are. I get up at 4:45 AM so I can work out. We eat by 6:10 AM so we can start to get ready for work. We leave the house by 7:00 AM so we can avoid traffic. We work until 5:00 PM, come home have dinner, do a little more work and head to bed by 8:00 or 9:00 PM so we can get up and do it again. I think, as Americans especially, we have this unhealthy and inappropriate “badge of honor” regarding how busy we are, how much we have to do, and how stressed we are. It is truly unhealthy and inappropriate.

What if you had the time for all the important things, not just the urgent? I submit that if you make time for the important, you’ll have a different perspective about the urgent and maybe even categorize things that others have asked you to make important in a less urgent fashion.

I also submit that rest, exercise, meditation or prayer, drinking water, eating right and just being in relationship with those important to you are things that you must schedule, make a priority, protect like any other important appointment. If you do that, then the rest will fall into place.

Years ago, I decided that I needed to get better informed about the industry I worked in. I committed to spending the first 20-30 minutes of my day reading articles, publications, and white papers about the industry. At first, the fear that some unanswered email was waiting to explode gave me some anxiety. I was wrong. I was also afraid I would be so far behind by dedicating 30 minutes to this non-productive act. I was always amazed at the end of the day when I had accomplished as much and sometimes more on the days I actually carved out that time. I’m sorry to say that eventually I let emails, interruptions and others determine my priorities and lost that time.

We all have the same 168 hours in a week. What activities are you not protecting in your schedule that deserve protecting? What would you like to have protected on your calendar that isn’t negotiable? If you had an appointment with a person, you would probably keep it. How can you make that appointment with yourself to ensure you respect it the same way you would if it was with someone else?

Put more margin back into your life. The content of what is left will be much clearer and much more relevant if you do.

My wish for you is peace. It will come easier if you create some margin around your life.

I have searched for peace for decades. Peace is the foundation for all the best things I accomplish. During the pandemic I became aware that I was not at peace, and that I could influence whether I was or not. The isolation, the mundane repetition, the lack of human contact other than those in my own
household was making me cranky. I was fueling it too. In my practice to find peace I realized that I could control where my mind was taking me. If I got cut off in traffic, I could get irate, or be at peace. If my to-go order was not right, I could get upset or find a way to be at peace with it. It is amazing the power we have that we just don’t access. Gratitude has been touted as a transformative method to change our lives. It is true.

Just the other day, we had all of our kids over for a meal. Our millennials now think that they need to bring their dogs with them everywhere they go. (Or maybe that is a COVID thing). Anyway, my daughter’s dog bit me; a dog I had tried to steer her away from adopting. I did not react well. I was really upset, really mad and it hurt. It didn’t just hurt physically, it hurt because she didn’t listen to me in the first place, she didn’t apologize for the dog biting me and I felt really disregarded. That energy was not good for anyone. I was hijacked for about 2 days. And I clung to the hurt. In the process, my mind started to tell me all the things that were wrong: my kids didn’t love me, my kids didn’t respect me; my kids didn’t regard me, and now that I was mad, they weren’t going to come around anymore and I was going to die old and alone. You get the point. It is very easy to go down that road.

It’s just as easy to go down the other road. After about 2 days of wallowing, I decided to shift my thinking. I started with gratitude. Remember, I was still mad, and felt justified in my anger and hurt, but it really wasn’t serving me in any positive way. So, I stopped and intentionally started to think about the
things I could be grateful for: my daughter is very responsible, my daughter has maintained a GPA during the pandemic and online courses that has kept her on the Dean’s list. My daughter is a hard worker, and she is caring. My daughter lives by the values that I taught her. My daughter and I have a solid relationship that we can deal with these kinds of upsets and talk through them eventually and be OK on the other side. And when I wanted to think the “yes, but” thoughts to negate any of that positive stuff, I would say, “thanks for sharing, but I am grateful for…”. It helped shift my mindset. That intentional gratitude brought me fresh peace.

What is that issue you need to find something to be grateful about? Who is that person that you need to find something to show gratitude for? Start with the easy ones. Start with the small positive things and exercise that muscle, then move to the thing or person that you feel you could never be grateful for. Find one thing. Then look for another. Pretty soon, if you let yourself, you’ll find peace.

I took a week-long vacation three weeks ago. I really took time off. Before we left, my husband asked me how much I planned to work during the week we were off. I negotiated one hour a day – just in case. You know, as leaders, we really do thrive on being needed, being accessible and being “on”. I had everything covered; I moved meetings; I accomplished quite a bit before I left. On Thursday of the week away, I did have some work that needed to be done in preparation for the coming week I would return. I worked for about 90 minutes. Besides returning a few emails during the week (less than what I could count on two hands), I really did rest and rejuvenate.

Typically, I take about 4 weeks off a year. In 2020, I didn’t take the trips we had planned, and as a result, I did not take the time off I expected to take. I was weary. I was going at it, plugging along, and serving my clients. Since I have been back, I have realized a newfound energy for my work. I have found an enthusiasm that was not there the several months leading up to my time away. I am able to do more, do it more effectively, do it more efficiently and be present in a way that was missing right before my time off. My clients haven’t changed. My clients’ issues have not changed. My attitude has. My ability to focus and listen and hear them has. I attribute that to taking a real break from my work for a length of time.

As Americans and as leaders we often use our stressful calendar and our overworked-ness as a badge of honor. It isn’t serving us. Take the vacation. In the early 1900’s businesses gave 15-minute breaks to workers, not because they had to, but because the workers were actually more productive if they took the break. It wasn’t soft hearted; that break was totally capitalistically driven. Take the break. If you want to achieve more, be happier doing it and do it with ease, take the break.

My wish for you is Peace. You can find it more easily if you really take that break.

As success-oriented leaders, we often think we have the answer to pretty much anything you throw at us.  And if we don’t have the answer, we pretend we do.  I often say being positive is being wrong as loudly as possible.  “Are you sure?” “I am POSITIVE!”

Being “Right” really lends to a closed mindset.  As leaders we are taught that a growth mindset is the way to go.  But if we think we are always Right, we really aren’t in the mindset to learn anything new.  This plays out in a variety of ways.

Being Right makes everyone dependent upon you for the answers.  

I have worked with many CEOs who can always solve the problem.  Their people are basically undermined or not empowered to solve their own problems, so why bother?  How many people are lined up outside your door on a daily basis?  How many of those issues could they solve themselves if you were not around, even if it wasn’t the same way you would solve it?  You are basically stealing the dopamine and adrenaline rush from your employees by solving their problems!  It’s fun for you but doesn’t promote growth or build capacity for your team.  You become the reason your company doesn’t grow.

Being Right closes your mind to other options.

If you have the solution, the first and the best solution, then you’re ready to go and move on it.  But what if that’s not the case?  What if someone else has a solution that you didn’t consider, or couldn’t even think of because of your proximity to the problem?  If you are not willing to hear a solution that you didn’t come up with just because it wasn’t yours, you are constraining the organization.  If you do not listen to find agreement or make the environment safe to disagree, or safe to share a solution that you haven’t tried before then you, again, become a lid on the capacity of your organization.

What if you listened to everything you came across looking for at least ten percent that you could agree with?  Would that change how you listen and what you listen for?  Would that change how those on the other side of you experience you?  Could you hear something different that might turn into the next new solution? Could you start to empower your people to solve their problems without you? Could it open the door to possibilities you didn’t even know existed?

Peace comes in a variety of ways.  I encourage you to listen to find agreement.  See how that changes your mindset and your opportunities.

A book I bought last year asks a question a day for five years. Each day a new question is posed and I answer it annually. It is interesting to see after a year has passed what has changed, how I have grown (or not) and what intentions I actually followed through on.

Recently one of the questions was “If tomorrow never came, what would you regret?”

I don’t have some world c-hanging answer, but if I am honest and intentional it can be world-changing for me. I realized that I was waiting for certain circumstances to be in place in order to justify “slowing down”. My regret would be waiting until these things changed before slowing down. Really? What makes me think all of a sudden I will slow down just because the circumstances are perfect? And when did you ever find that the circumstances were perfect? Pretty much never. If I really want to slow down, I need to take steps NOW to make that happen. If I wait for the perfect conditions, they will never come along. I will always have an excuse.

I’ll never make it happen. So instead of waiting for the perfect conditions, I am going to start building that “slow down” time into my life now. It may never be perfect. But if I start today, I will be closer to the real deal when the circumstances change and are closer to what I was waiting for.

If tomorrow never came what would you regret? What are you waiting for? What small change can you make today to have that life you really desire?

Do the thing to make your life what you want now and don’t wait for the perfect situation to make it possible. YOU can make it possible.

My wish for you is peace. And living without regrets is one path toward that peace.