From The Rooftops

Recently I wrote a review of More Human Than Otherwise: Living & Leading With Humility by my dear friend and most trusted colleague, David Berry.

David’s book is for anyone in leadership, considering leadership, or wondering about leadership. It is a book to give as a gift to someone you know who is seeking to be the kind of leader others would willingly follow. If you are looking for a meaningful graduation present for someone about to step onto the leadership trail, look no further. While you are at it, get a copy for yourself and dive in. After all, you are more human than otherwise too.

After posting the review on Goodreads I noticed a tiny box that could be checked to post my review on a blog, and checked it immediately. Why didn’t I think of that, I wondered, as it’s kind of a no brainer to share good news with as many people as we can, whenever and wherever we find it. In fact, given the state of the world, we should be shouting any and all good news from our rooftops to the world within our reach.

Well, this is me, shouting from my small but mighty rooftop.

David Berry asks us to consider what it takes to become a leader others would willingly follow. It is at once a question and an invitation. It is the question anyone desiring to lead well must not only continually answer but live into every day. Beyond that, it is an invitation to transformation, which is the journey of any leader worth her salt. Because transformation is what happens when we are willing to learn from and be changed by our experiences. All of them, and perhaps most especially, the difficult, painful, and humbling experiences that help us gain more clarity on who we are and how we are showing up in the world as a human being leading other human beings.

One of the many things I appreciate about this book is how David created a safe space for the reader’s own courageous thinking. He does this by modeling a critical element at the heart of leadership. What it looks like to go first. To be the kind of leader that says, “It’s ok. I’ll go first. I’ll show you ‘mine’ (the good, the bad and the ugly) so that maybe you will be willing to show me ‘yours’. He does this by sharing his own experiences, what he learned, and what has changed in him as a result.

It quickly becomes clear that David takes seriously his call to help equip and support the next generation of leaders. Leaders who will be courageous enough to become evermore self-aware. In multiple ways this book reminds us that telling ourselves the truth about who we are is foundational to being a leader others would willingly follow. To do that we need the help of others. Cultivating the practice of seeking feedback on a regular basis, learning in community, and engaging a therapist are but a few of the ways suggested in these pages.

I highly recommend this book for anyone in leadership, aspiring to leadership, of wondering if leadership is for them. To that last point, leadership isn’t confined just to those with the title. To be more human than otherwise is to answer the call to love, help, and heal the world within our reach, which sounds a lot like leadership to me.

The Step To Take

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step you don’t want to take.

David Whyte

(Excerpted from River Flow: New & Selected Poems )

Today in conversation with another coach, we were reflecting on next steps, and how to pursue what is calling us, right from where we are. In the midst of what is, how do we step closer to what could be? It is easy to get focused on the far horizon, and miss the fertile ground squarely beneath our feet. Wherever we want to go, where we are is the place to start.

Sharing a bit of silence, David Whyte’s poem, Start Close In came to mind, and I introduced the words quoted above to our conversation. Instantly a next step came to mind. One that was close in. A step that wasn’t the first choice, but the right choice.

Wherever we are, there is a next step. One that is close in, and while it may not be the one we want to take, it is the step that will lead us deeper into the life we are called to live.

What is the step you don’t want to take?

The one close in?

Take that one.

With gratitude to DC

The Thread

For months and months my writing had a clear, specific focus to it, as I worked to complete the manuscript for BLUSH: Women & Wine . Daily, and with purpose, I would head to my desk, sit down, and allow the message to find its way onto the page. Some days the writing was harder than others, yet slowly but surely, the thread that wanted to run from beginning to end began to shimmer and weave the words forward into my long imagined book. The thread, I explained to those who wondered, wasn't about the fact that I had long used my nightly wine ritual as a way to distance myself from pain, stress, and uncomfortable emotions and issues. Nor was it about my commitment to changing an unhealthy pattern. The thread ran, and runs, deeper than understanding and changing a habitual coping mechanism. My thread, the one I have attempted (with varying degrees of success) to hold on to over the years, is made of the these three deeply held strands of belief:

1. We are all created in the image of God.
2. We are all called to live as authentically and whole-heartedly as we are able.
3. We are all here to love, help, and heal the world that is within our reach.

Anything that gets in the way of our ability to hold onto our thread is deserving of our full attention. Wine was getting in my way. Thankfully, now it isn't. 

However.

After the book was published, my thread sort of disappeared. Life became about promoting the book, creating buzz, garnering more attention, and increasing sales.

Not. My. Thread. 

In my efforts to promote the book, I forgot about my purpose. When I most needed to remember it, the following piece, written by my good and wise friend David Berry, showed up in my in-box. His words led me back to my thread. My purpose. Which is to help people live authentic, whole-hearted lives, in order that they might better love, help, and heal the world that is within their reach.

I'm feeling the silkiness of the thread in my hand again, and my commitment to hang on to it is renewed. I know it will lead me to the next right steps. As it always does. I'll keep you posted.

Until then, I invite you to pour a glass of your favorite wine, savor David's words, and hang on to your thread.

You Have To Explain About the Thread

JULY 10, 2017DAVID BERRY

“The Way It Is”

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

– William Stafford –

I was captivated this week by the most recent episode of the podcast, This American Life. Specifically, a segment featuring the magicians Penn and Teller describing their process of developing a new trick. Teller, the conspicuously silent partner, has fallen in love with the idea of recreating a classic floating ball and hoop routine. Penn is less enthusiastic, as in not at all. As Teller works and works to make the trick worthy of their show by the standard they have agreed to over 40 years of collaboration he falls short time and again.

A breakthrough comes when they agree that the way to make the trick compelling to both themselves and their audience is to let the audience in on it from the very beginning. The trick begins with Penn’s announcement: “The next trick is done with just a piece of thread.”  And off goes Teller, beautifully and brilliantly manipulating a ball with nothing more than a piece of thread.

What Penn and Teller understood and acted upon – after years of work on one specific illusion – is what William Stafford implores us to do in the poem above: “You have to explain about the thread.” 

I am often in a position to do exactly that. In the classroom or at a speaking engagement I am frequently asked about my own thread. Why do I do what I do? How did I get started? What are the steps I took from there to here? I always respond in the same way, that I knew exactly what I was supposed to do with my life when I was 17 years old. A bright red thread emerged through my experiences in musical performance and student leadership. I was intuitively aware that the abilities developed and practiced in those early settings were the strengths I would call on throughout my adult life. I held onto the thread through the first few years of college but lost it completely once I had to marry my intuitive sense of it to the harshly practical world of “knowing what you want to do with your life.” I didn’t know how to manifest my nascent understanding of my thread into a next step. And I was too afraid to explain about the thread. I wasn’t willing to say, “This is my thread. I don’t know much about it but I do know a few important things, not least of which is that it’s mine. Will you please help me figure out where it leads?”

Instead, I let it slip away. As it turns out, it did not let go of me. We played peekaboo on occasion, a flirtation here and there, but it took over 10 years and an extraordinary confluence (aka, the thread working hard behind the scenes) of people and events to land me in front of a classroom of aspirational leaders. The specifics of that first class are hazy because my memory is dominated by the aliveness I felt at having my hands on the thread once again.

Most recently, my thread has led me to the college classroom and the opportunity to teach and mentor undergraduate students. The thread has a solid sense of humor. It says, “You struggled to claim me as your own. Others struggle, too. Here is your chance to help a few people struggle a little less, to find the thread a little earlier, and to gain the confidence and declare their commitment to hang on.”

There is no “magic.” There is finding your thread and there is holding onto your thread because “while you hold it you can’t get lost.” There is demonstrating to all who cannot see it that what looks like magic is just your commitment to trust where it will lead. Sometimes, like Teller performing for a full house, we hang on with artistry and elegance. Sometimes, like Teller in the early days of practice, we hang on in spite of our fumbling because our curiosity compels us to learn where it wants to go.  And sometimes we don’t hang on at all. But it is there, waiting to dispel the illusion that we can find our way without it.

What is your thread? Where is it leading?
Who have you explained it to? Who have you asked for help?
What makes it hard to hang on?
Is there someone whose thread confuses you?
Will you listen to them explain about the thread?

For further reading, here’s another reflection on “The Way It Is” by Parker Palmer.

DAVID BERRY is the author of “A More Daring Life: Finding Voice at the Crossroads of Change” and the founder of RULE13 Learning. He speaks and writes about the complexity of leading in a changing world.