My stomach tightened as we spoke. Not because the conversation was tough. But because we were coming to a realization.

As my mentor-coach, Natalie helps me find the edges. Today we were exploring over-functioning. My over-functioning. The internal motor that keeps the legs moving even when it’s time to sit. Or putting in more hours than required.

Our conversation was no longer about corporate life. Our conversation was about dream interpretation.

I find it very rewarding to explore the symbolic language of the psyche. I keep a regular practice to record and reflect on my own. This practice might spool to three hours in a single day. It depends on what I remember. Some days are easier than others.

Honing this skill helps explore the person I am becoming. And to serve others to hold their own space.

However, this conversation turned in a way that I did not anticipate. The dreams were hinting at doing too much. Inside, there was an urge to nail the meaning. To lace the icons with intentions. To say in words what the psyche was sharing in images or scenes.

Then Natalie asked one of those questions that can unhinge a moment. “What would happen if we don’t give it a meaning? What if we sit with the mystery?”

That’s when the room disappeared. My face leaned towards the keyboard. An idea bubbled up from seemingly nowhere. It was the story of Schrödinger’s Cat. A point that a famous quantum physicist, Erwin Schrödinger, was trying to make.

In explaining the effect of observability on physical reality, Schrödinger gave us a thought experiment about a cat in a box with a decaying isotope. The cat may or may not be alive in the box. If you open the box, then either possibility would collapse into a single certainty.

Schrödinger was trying to explain that when we observe a phenomenon, then all possible outcomes resolve into one. Possibility and observation are opposites.

This felt like a nudge from my unconscious mind. Resist the analysis. Resist the conclusion. Resist finding the patterns underneath the surface. Because in finding meaning, we lose possibility.

Except that keeping it open does not feel natural. It feels awkward. Similar to writing your name with the opposite hand. The job gets done but it takes longer and is not so pretty.

Or like changing how you play chess. Stare at the board, then move a piece. Interpret the rhythm of the game, then respond. Except this time we don’t.

When discomfort enters the mind, the body gets restless. That was how it felt.

Maybe solving the mystery was merely a regulation strategy and not true insight. Maybe all of the context-driving was a way for the ego to feel safe. Even if we did not agree with the situation, ‘understanding’ someone’s intention gives us authority.

The conversation with Natalie opened up another door. It invited several key questions.

Where in your life does ‘not solving’ something feel like underperforming?

What would be the impact of stopping mid-flow?

Where are you shutting down the unconscious mind in order to tidy things up yourself?

Charles Darwin might serve as an inspiration. In 1836, Darwin came home from the voyage on the HMS Beagle with many different observations recorded in his notebook. We believe that his concept of the “Theory of Natural Selection” was clear in his mind in 1838. However, he did not publish On the Origin of Species, until 1859 – a full 21 years later.

He was known to take a gravel road he called his “thinking path.” I have to believe that those walks freed the conscious mind from trying to figure things out. That in moving the body down a familiar road, a portion of his unconscious mind could toss over the question like a river stone in his hand. He could feel the contours of the rock and know its shape. He did not have to see it.

His hidden intelligence had no internal clock. No deadlines. No forward movement. Just space for novelty.

Imagine if that was available to you right now. That big problem or situation you are trying to figure out.

Maybe the discipline isn’t to put the puzzle together to form the picture. Maybe the reward lies in the possibility of what the picture might be.

That it should arrive at its own moment, not yours.

This is not about dodging issues or avoiding the hard work of inner calibration. It’s about being ok with not knowing when something will arrive.

At least this is what I am sitting with on this cold, Spring morning. Hours before the sun kisses the trees and the machine of civilization cranks out another frenetic day.

After the Merchant Marine Academy, Dad went to work as an engineer. Work took him to California where he met Mom. While they were building a life together and raising a family in Arizona, I learned something he never spoke about. Mom had to.

Dad was proud of our Italian heritage and the endless possibilities of red sauce.

On occasion he had the opportunity to go back to New York to entertain business connections. To show hospitality, Dad took an African man to his favorite place in Little Italy.

Back then Little Italy was a magical place where Italian products, Italian food, and Italian culture breathed freely. It was a ghetto. But that’s where you go for authenticity.

Dad and the business guest sat down at a table draped with a white table cloth. The staff were all men.

Shortly, the waiters laid a place-setting in front of my father and not his guest. Dad had to order the setting. The menu. Then the whole meal.

As dinner concluded, Dad promised the man that next time, they would dine in Harlem.

That story has stuck with me for forty plus years.

I shared it in a job interview. The sales leader wanted to know how I’ve advocated for a customer inside the corporate system where we worked. My story to get a small feature added to a product did not show what I believed. My father’s story did.

I tell that story to young people in a new way. Not to teach inclusion. But to illustrate that when you don’t have a story within your own life, you can gently and respectfully lift one from your storywell.

That place where your soul has been forever altered. These are the stories from people you love and admire.

Undoubtedly you will have many of your own entries in the storywell. Battles fought. Traumas endured. Surprises realized.

Those treasures belong in the storywell, too.

I’m older now than when my Dad left the corporate world and sense that the little stories matter more than the big ones.

Where in your life are you stepping over memories that quietly moved you?

The ones that did not seem impressive or persuasive. The ones that do not defend a point of view. Or kept the listener from taking another bite of dinner.

They were just the ordinary stuff of life. A quiet moment when we stopped following the routine. Out of instinct or intellect. We chose differently. We saw others choose differently.

These might just be the most useful stories of all.

Because the invitation these days is not about doing something. It’s about being present with something.

Here is my question for you. What are the stories that keep choosing you?

The ones that keep showing up. Not the ones we curate to make a point. Or to turn the conversation at dinner. Or to make an impression during an interview.

The ones that mirror the honesty of life.

They might be stories about small sacrifices for other people. They might be moments someone remembered your family member struggling with health issues. They might be a kind word by the flight attendant as you boarded the plane.

Maybe those are the ones you pull out of the storywell when you talk to the next generation. Not because it makes anyone, or anything, larger than life.

But because it opens up the imagination to lead a better life.

I sat in the exit row. Which meant more leg room and the distinct sensation of two side walls on both sides of the seat. It’s not a noticeable feeling until you consider that the flight just stretched by another two hours. It feels like they are closing in when you hear this kind of news. I shift my weight from cheek to cheek.

“There is no turning back,” I thought. Make the connection to Montreal or not. You are going to New York.

The dead feeling intensified. Crappy cell coverage and no wifi. Laptops cannot come out.

It was like sitting in a waiting room with stale magazines and no idea when your number would be called.

When was the last time you were suspended from where you were to where you wanted to go?

These moments can trigger impatience. The physical limbo can tip something over in the psyche as well.

When the energy to move forward is held up, then where does it go?

In the last month, many former colleagues have been talking about something they noticed. They are trying to figure out where they are going next. It’s usually framed in career language. But it doesn’t have to be.

As the conversation unfolds, they admit that there is more momentum than intention.

Like a tin robot, fully wound up, their life marches forward. And every once in a while, they pick up the robot in their mind. It doesn’t matter if there is traction, the legs simply move. The glazed eyes staring without focus.

My mentor-coach and I have turned this idea over for myself.

For weeks, I was late for the airport in my dreams. Sometimes the rental car surged ever faster despite smashing down on the brake.

Sometimes it is not enough time to run back up to the room to pack. The flight is leaving at 3pm. The watch says it’s 2.

Six weeks long and the psyche is saying “you are in the liminal state.”

With a nudge from a friend, I have reframed this in-between place. Maybe this is not a place to escape from. Maybe this is a retreat.

The caterpillar spins the chrysalis. It takes the energy to move forward and uses it to move inward. This is the dance of transformation.

With this newly found appreciation, I am now praying.

A Prayer for More Tarmac:

Oh, all that is Holy, please give me the inconvenience of slowing down.

Help me to arrive at not arriving.

Take away my first, second, and third choices for how things should turn out.

Allow me to move from mindless marching to simply standing still.

Ease my need to achieve. Show me the gift of boredom.

For in remaining fully present in the now, everything is possible.

Even in this cramped space, sitting in a metal tube, on an acre of asphalt, let me reclaim my being from my doing.

This might not un-wedge your discomfort.

For me, I’d like to see where this goes.

On the surface, regular life looks regular. Meetings crowd the calendar. PowerPoint slides get a new background. Spreadsheets are updated with the latest numbers. And memos read with manufactured enthusiasm.

Stepping back, this year does not feel any different than last year for me. Or maybe for the last ten.

The reporting structure is different. The job title is different. But my function in the company is largely the same. I speak with customers about the exciting things we are building.

Except that I am starting to notice something. AI seems to be speeding things up even if the scenery looks the same.

In a lot of places I am seeing that we are moving from measuring outcomes to measuring the time it took for those outcomes. Because if we automate the mundane, then there should be more time for high-quality work. So there should be more of it.

It’s not enough to win a big sale. We are counting how many minutes you are NOT in front of a customer. I find it hard to find the humanity in that kind of system.

This leads to pressure where people may feel ground down even when the effort is authentic.

Many of my peers in the Tech industry are asking ‘What skills do I need to stay relevant in the era of AI?’ It’s a question that is bigger than that sector. But this is where I spend most of my time.

I hear underneath that question something deeper. ‘How do I relieve the tension?’ The tension between how things are and some invisible future where everyone moves like a bionic human.

‘How do I fit into a business model where AI agents do my work better than me and in a fraction of the time?’

Maybe it’s time not to relieve the tension. Maybe it’s time to sit with it. And ask a more important question.

Who should I become when technology removes all of the surface work? What is the tension trying to tell me about where I should place my attention?

Maybe the invitation is not to be faster. Or smarter.

Maybe the invitation is to remember.

Remember what it means to be human. To bring creativity, collaboration, and meaning-making to problems.

That’s what comes to mind for me now. Maybe we should focus less on the bionic and more on the human.

How are you leaning into the awkwardness? What part of you is unsettled?

I don’t have an answer for myself. I do have a commitment to not to relieve the tension. But see what message it has for me.

If you are not familiar, it’s a French term and a French concept. It suggests that you can plant the French grapeseed or graft French vine shoots in another country. Yet you still won’t have French wine.

The essence cannot be stolen. It belongs to the land. The soul of the soil.

The argument usually starts with geology. Mineral composition of this slope or that one.

Then it extends to meteorology. Temperature rising and falling in a unique local rhythm. The rain is doing its part.

Today you might find the argument centers on biology. Scientific treatises about the microbiome, those particular bacterial families that surround the roots and define the plant’s health.

The through line: like politics, all wine is local. It is the product of its environmental signature.

Lately my attention has turned to what’s underneath my own story, my own signature. About who we are and why any of us act in the way we do.

With curiosity, not conviction. Might there be something underneath the surface of our own behavior? That terroir of our personality.

Let me give you an example. I know someone who told me that he cannot make it through the airport without people sharing their life story. This man doesn’t invite it. He simply walks past the security, past the Starbucks, past the over-priced, over-salted snacks, down the long corridor to the gate.

Then it happens. He is the right person and this is the right time. So, these strangers might feel.

You might notice this magnetic pull, too. Where are you having the same conversation over and over again? Something not consciously invited, yet familiar.

My friend invited me to look into the signal I’m broadcasting. His suggestion is to look for repeated patterns. What is the behavior you allow, if not invite? How are you making it safe? What is the rhythm of your own metronome?

This reflection is not about self-correcting. It’s about self-attuning.

What is in the soil that feeds the tree of your own nature?

The first word to come to mind is “goofy.” Goofy is the term we use when you grow out of being silly. Silly is before 9. Goofy lives at 19. It can blossom into becoming funny, if you’re lucky.

Jim Carey speaks about how he grew up honing that skill. He liked the attention of performing. And he felt that he had to cut through his mother’s depression. I imagine that was, and probably still is, in his terroir.

My goofy does not inflate as big as Jim’s. More of a rubber ducky than a bouncy castle. And that’s ok.

What is more interesting is knowing the source of this goofy streak.

For me, I sense there’s a need for inclusion and acceptance. Fear of rejection and judgement. It’s people pleasing without an act of service. There is nothing utilitarian about goofy.

Or it might be the joy of creative play. Spinning the story in real time without plotting the ending. Getting lost in the rhythm. Feeling it somatically. A break from the Inner Critic.

At 16 years-old, I wore a coat and tie and danced with a belly dancer in front of 300 people.

My father was the kind of man to acknowledge his staff in big ways. Mom and I drove up from Houston to Little Rock. Dad was working for a large pipeline company. They were piloting a new project on the back of his experience. He was away from home for 9 months to lead the effort.

We came up for the celebratory dinner at the completion of the project.

I remember walking with Mom earlier that day. We had just left a liquor store that had a 4’ x 6’ sign behind the cash register that read ‘Forget the dogs. Beware the owner.” Underneath those words was a picture of a smoldering shotgun.

Mom and I rounded the corner. Two Black men were walking in the opposite direction on the sidewalk. I felt the burn of fear in my stomach. It was broad daylight, but something felt wrong.

They never looked up. They simply stepped into the street.

My sensation was replaced by the hollow feeling of something more profound. Maybe it was a painful history that conditioned these men to fear us. Maybe it was a conditioning in my own family to fear them. I will never know. For me it was confusing. It was sad. I didn’t know what to make of it.

I never spoke of it until now.

During the evening event, Dad held the audience’s attention for what felt like a timeless, single exhale. He congratulated the whole team. He called out individual contributions in a way that sparkled.

It made me imagine a life of public speaking as a career.

After the speech came the entertainment. The sound of her costume preceded her entrance. She wore puffy pants, bangled jewelry, a stone-crusted head dress, and hand symbols. The rhythm of the music and the dancing began slowly.

She glided across the floor of the hotel ballroom. At first left then right. Her arms moved in fluid motion. Part dance. Part invocation. She was calling for a partner.

Mom and I sat front and center at an 8-top round with a large white table cloth. The dancer caught my eye. Then her hands pulled the invisible cord tied around my heart.

I sashayed up to the front in exactly the way that a white boy raised in parochial schools would. There would be photos later to confirm how awkward it actually was.

But it lit up the crowd. They roared over the music. The whole effect seemed to be noise cancelling.

While the seal was broken, there would be no others that would join us. No one else took the risk.

I shared the stage with a woman with liquid hips moving to a sensual melody. I just tried to keep up. To let go. To be free.

In the years that passed, I never really considered the importance of that moment. I remember the backslaps and joyous congratulations after the dance was over. That was nice. But that was then.

Now the memory settles in differently.

That 16 year-old, Dungeons-and-Dragons loving, debate-nerd and junior-artist stood up.

I never talked about that evening with my Dad. I never asked for how he felt or what he thought.

He was the big boss. The only one who felt fire was his goofy, second son.

Up from Houston. Keeping Mom company for the ride up and down the long stretch of Texas highways.

What was once unnoticeable, hidden, or reclusive, is available for consideration. There is a family in the woods. And not just one. Many.

Professionally, we may work hard to stand out. Especially in large corporate systems. High rankings come from highly visible accomplishments. And with attention comes a bonus or a promotion. It’s not enough to do. One must be seen doing it.

At least that’s been my observation 30 plus years into it.

We may strive to do well and get ahead. Ambition is a vital instinct in the professional world. And that’s ok.

Then there’s another kind of impulse overtaking me now. It feels more important to blend in than stand out. Because attention no longer carries value. In fact, there is a cost.

I remember sitting with this feeling during an interview with George Clooney. He was standing in a water taxi passing crowds along the canal in Venice. He was wearing blue-fade sunglasses. Just enough to hide his inner thoughts. Flashes popped from the paparazzi. Finger pointing from the tourists. Waves from the locals.

In that televised piece, he admitted that while he moves through the public spaces, he is fully aware that he is in the frame. So, he manages his appearance, monitors what he says, and is conscious of where he goes. It’s scripted even if it’s in his own mind.

Then behind the brick wall of a retreat, he drops the facade. In that space, there is no show to direct.

Do you feel this in your work? That in showing up, you have to be a certain way. On point. Agreeable to a fault. A ‘team player?’

For me, there is another call for rest. Like the winter exposure, the colors are washed out and the air is dry. The energy swings in a new direction.

It’s an instinct to put others in the spotlight. It's a desire to fade into the tapestry on the castle wall. To be a part of the furniture on the set. Not the protagonist in the play.

It shows up in simple ways. The outfits are more neutral. Neither bright nor high contrast. More attention is spent on how quietly to find an off-centered chair.

Choosing silence over grand opening statements in meetings. Comments appearing only as nudges when the conversation stalls.

The End of Year review no longer tingles. The expression ‘going above and beyond’ loses its sizzle. In fact, ‘Meeting Expectations’ sounds like the right target. Because the real energy is not to stand out, it’s helping others to stand up.

To be clear, saying these things is risky. Not because I’m confessing to ‘dial it in.’ It’s risky because the ego gets smarter as you get smarter.

There is a chance that I’m weaving my own hero narrative. To play the role of Spock behind the locked door with the toxic radiation flooding in, whispering "The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the one.” The trap is convincing yourself that this is a put-others-first kind of nobility. And in doing so, elevate a Sage persona.

If you are reading this with a degree of skepticism, I am, too.

What I can say is that this seasonal change has me revisiting assumptions. To look between the trees now and again. To explore my relationship with the concept of mediocrity.

The Summer version of me would describe ‘mediocrity’ as a meal you eat, but would not order again. Much less recommend to others.

As a leader who wants the best for the organization, mediocrity might show up as a sense that a team member is ‘good enough to get by,’ but ‘not good enough to make a real difference.’

I realize now that there is something deeper. That I was too critical of those who are quietly performing. Because impact cannot be entirely measured by corporate systems.

I felt this tilt at the same moment columnist David Brooks spoke about the move between ‘building your resume,’ and ‘building your eulogy.’ With that line, my entire body collapsed into my stomach.

The winds now flow from the Eulogy Pole. And questions gently appear as I drive past these wooded homes.

Would we be better off if performance reviews are better authored from neighbors than an HR function?

Would ‘unimpressive on paper’ be erased if we valued ‘deeply human when remembered?’

What would the world look like if we focused on how we showed up, not now we scored?

Attention falls, once again, on things to do. Goals to meet. Deadlines to hit.

It’s a kind of tightening.

Meals are made in advance to save time later in the week. Laundry is folded immediately and put away. Calls find their way to the calendar well in advance.

No longer do we swim in languid waters of the holiday break. It’s time to move.

And yet something in us goes to sleep. Quietly. When we dance from task to task, we don’t dwell. We act and react. We dash and we duck. An endless flywheel of doing more and pondering less.

To me, it feels like a petite death. But it is not a strange feeling. We know this one.

This is how I sense it.

Every night we all die. The day is over. We are on our backs. The lights go out. We are dead to our hopes, dead to our concerns, dead to our family, and dead to ourselves.

It is not a frightening proposition, because we rise in the morning.

But this is another kind of death. One that sits with our waking selves.

We get up. Go to work. Do our thing. Write down stuff that needs to be done. Get lost in social media. Realize how much time we got lost on social media. Ignore the notifications. Make a call. Make a dinner. Make a mess. Connect with loved ones. Flip on the screens. Get tired.

Then a kind of emptiness peeks at us at the end of the day. Or maybe at the end of the week. When the body calls for rest. Or the mind calls for distraction.

It’s a cycle that may turn into weeks, months, or years.

I’ve been thinking about what we forgot as a result.

The ten-year-old version of me wanted to be a magician.

To glide onto stages with a top hat. To cut things into two and mend them just as fast. To reveal cards that you picked and I never saw. To change your expression from skepticism into wonder.

That kind of job.

But that is not what happened.

School ended, and I needed to find work. Because money buys nice things like food and shelter and a trip to Disneyland with the kids once in a while.

Then twenty-five years later I had a moment. Maybe not unlike a moment you’ve had.

I found magic in a book. It led to other things. Podcasts. TED talks. YouTube documentaries. Conversations.

It felt like a wink from the Universe. That uncanny feeling on the back of your neck. Or in your stomach. Like you suddenly noticed something without a change in the landscape.

The material came in a wave. They were treatises about a purpose-driven life. They were authored by Michael Singer, Ekhard Tolle, Joe Dispenza, Simon Sinek, and Ram Dass.

While these works appeared with fresh ideas, they were always there. As if they were waiting for me.

I found that these works might be spirituality-based, psychologically-based, or professionally-based. Whatever it is, it wakes you up.

My friends felt grounded with other authors.

Regardless they inspired new thinking. Fueled new conversations. Pushed our intentions further into what feels right.

Then triggers pull us back into the routine. An email ping. A reminder notice. An urgent request for help.

Then the ideas fade as the task list extends. That new person we want to become turns into a memory of a dream. At least that’s the risk.

It feels familiar, not known. Just out of reach. Or maybe something we will put off until this other thing gets done.

Except this year. This year I’m sitting with the expression “Living on purpose.”

It just popped into my mind on a walk.

It seems that for years, getting up in the morning was an accident. A happy accident. But an accident, nonetheless.

“Living on purpose” has two meanings for me.

First it puts focus onto “the purpose.” The meaning behind why we take action. It puts into sharp relief every action as either aligned to our purpose or not aligned to our purpose.

It’s an opportunity to choose the former and delegate the other.

The other lesson is “living.” To bring energy to the world. This flips the script from “having to get up to meet the day” to “getting to get up to meet the day.”

It’s the kind of joy that makes cleaning toilets fun. If you don’t mind the hyperbole.

The real question is not whether living this way is worth it. The real question is how to get there and stay there.

The search for meaning can take a whole life to figure out. Or maybe it’s just an evolution of figuring it out. I’m not sure. I’m still in the middle of this life.

What I can say is that it’s important to put a reminder in a highly visible place. To nudge yourself in the state where the body moves without the mind.

It might be a post-it note on the bathroom mirror. It might be a meeting reminder with no real meeting. Or it might be a picture of your pet silently staring behind a silver frame next to the monitor.

My psyche was at the peak of a metaphysical fever. One that created a kind of fuzziness and detachment you get after 3 glasses of champagne. The world moved around me indifferent to whether I existed or not. The surroundings were both familiar and strange.

Alone at the restaurant, I ate an overpriced dinner and watched a YouTube video on Carl Jung.

“…the problems that crop up [in the second half of life] are no longer to be solved by the old recipes: the hand of this clock cannot be put back” – Carl Jung

The call with my coach just before dinner went exceptionally well. The process of individuation was in motion, but there was a stall. An uneasy feeling about how to move forward. Then over the course of that hour, it occurred to me that I had to give up something precious. Something that helped me become the professional.

Two days before, my boss held a small meeting with me and another one of his trusted advisors. Our conversation turned towards strategy for the new year. How could our team become the fulcrum by which the broader organization could lift?

I leaned in to share a feeling: our colleagues might be clutching tight as the world spins. The technology paradigm is shifting. The corporate system wants to avoid business disruption by outside forces. However, people are unnerved by new policies and unfamiliar uncertainties.

It’s like our hands are white knuckled on a cliff’s edge. There is a sense we have to climb, but we would have to let go of one hand. We would have to become even more unstable to reach up. And reach up into uncertainty. So we hang tight.

Summing it up, I said, “That which keeps us safe, keeps us stuck.” Except that I was not witnessing this phenomenon from the outside. I was confessing my participation.

That’s when I noticed my own fever.

In that coaching call two days later, I had to face my own dis-integration. This was no longer an abstract concept about other people. This was a personal crisis. One which forced an uncomfortable choice to let go of my grip.

I had to let go of that thing which anchored my operating model for 30 plus years. The List.

From slips of paper to electronic notes, every commitment got loaded into a long list. The Tech Industry calls them “Action Items”. The rest of the world is happy with “To-Do’s”

The List was cared for daily – new items were added and completed items were pruned. It was color coded. Date stamped. Then arranged like a constellation in the digital sky of my calendar.

This magical routine kept me on track to goals. More importantly, it kept me honest to my word.

It kept me company in the chaos of the quarter. It waited for me while I slept. It was my onside coach whispering “You got this!”

And now it lives in exile.

That simple decision was how I became unmoored eight days before Thanksgiving.

In the glow of festive lighting at the Domain in Austin I wandered after dinner.

Time stood still while my legs kept moving. I glided past shop windows lit up with the promise of holiday joy. No intention to go anywhere, see anything, or be with anyone.

An hour later, my feet found the hotel lobby bar. A night-cap to be enjoyed alone in a crowd. David Whyte spoke slowly and deliberately in my earbuds.

That evening might as well have been a wake. It was to bear witness to something passing out of this reality and into another.

It seems comical to grieve the loss of an action list. Even one so bejeweled as mine was. But this was a real safety blanket.

However, if there was a transformation at hand, something had to die. The rules of the morning cannot govern the afternoon.

Online, my soulful friends talked about reconciliation with their inner selves, too. They also seemed to be wandering in the night of their psyche. Making peace with parts of themselves they brutalized or ignored.

While the List was gone. Life carried on. Work got done.

Thanksgiving came and went. Christmas raced in. People came to the house and went. Then I promised my sweet wife ‘10 days in PJs.’

We needed to be present with each other as the year winded down.

What emerged was more than connection. What emerged was reflection.

Our culture still carries the tradition of New Year’s resolutions. I know because it gets televised at this time every year.

It got me thinking about how to honor the intent within the context of a new operating model.

What if we stopped chasing resolution and sat with resolve?

What would open up for us if we stopped trying to forecast a future?

To give up on goals that signal prosperity like losing a certain amount of weight, reducing the credit card load, or learning a new skill.

What would open up if we put our attention on ‘resolve’ not ‘resolution?’

Consider this. Resolution completes. It is fixed. It is measurable.

Resolve endures. It is dynamic. It is immeasurable.

Resolution is the terminus of a conflict. Be it friction in the physical world. Or a contest in the mind.

Resolve suspends the clock. It is interior work that turns conflict into contrast. It does not invite conclusion. It invites determination.

As you stare into the new year, which of those concepts serve you better? Resolve or Resolution?

Do you need the security of planning for tangible outcomes? Or might the journey be worth more than the destination?

For me, I still write things down. They are on unlined index cards. Purposefully small. Often lost. Except that when I don’t have them, I’m no longer lost.

He kept me from danger. Kept me from being outed with others. Kept my failures smaller than my frame could carry them. His voice was kind in its caution.

At nine, he did not have a name. In fact, I never noticed him until I was into adulthood.

His namesake is a character in an epic tale. A story so alluring that it swallowed every bit of my imaginary life as a teen. Except my relationship with that Gollum wasn’t so cozy.

My heart was with the Fellowship. That Gollum was an antagonist to the reluctant hero, Frodo.

When Peter Jackson brought Tolkien’s story to the silver screen, my perspective on Gollum changed. At first it was the stunning performance by the actor wrapped up in the magic of CGI.

And then when the mystery of movie-making quieted, I saw Gollum for who he was. He was a part of us we put into the shadows.

Caught in an obsession, Gollum forgot his natural self. He was possessed with his Precious. A power that lived outside of himself. Something to make him invisible. To make him disappear.

That is when my inner voice got his name.

My Gollum wanted nothing more than to keep me safe, keep me hidden.

He spoke fiercely at the ridgeline, 15 feet above the natural pool of water. He reminded me of the poor boy who dove into a pool and became a quadriplegic. That same boy went to my high school.

Gollum helped me fill out the application to grad school for painting. I was just finishing up the undergrad in illustration. He helped me explain to my Dad why teaching art was the right move. Except that I did not want to teach art. I wanted not to think about carrying the weight of adulthood at 23.

Gollum reminded me that Israel was a dangerous place in 2006. He pointed out what was on the State Department’s website: go only if you must and assume the risk. Kidnappings are real. Gollum told me that it was disrespectful to ignore the warnings then expect your government to bail you out.

Gollum lulled me into a nap instead of calling the hiring manager back. Gary was a brilliant sales leader, but I had never carried a bag before. Gollum suggested that I could take a little bit longer to think it over. Until time ran out. Gollum argued that the job level was too low even though the pay was the same.

My legs were never tired, because Gollum carried me on his back. His backpack was thin and flat. Not quite sized for a man. More like the shipping box for 20 Super-Sticky Easel Pads.

It may have been cramped to be in, but I didn’t have to walk.

With time, I realized that I went only where Gollum wanted me to go. Emotions followed. At first shame then rage followed. How could I let this little monster be in charge?

My hands stiffened, ready to strangle the Gollum. It was a sheer act of will not to lunge. Even if he was only a character in my mind.

Gollum’s eyes widened like a child. His broken smile revealed jagged teeth and the foul smell of fish.

His skin was despicable. Yellow-grey and bumpy. The skin of an animal that never sees the light.

Gollum acquiesced at that moment. He assured me that those years of meditation made me wise. Too wise to cause harm. That to hurt the Gollum would be a violation of principle.

And then Gollum hid. He left the backpack right where I was.

In the months that followed, I forgot about Gollum. And returned to the routine of a corporate life. A life embellished with Zoom calls, trip reports, and end-of year reviews.

My will was strong enough to stand up to the Gollum, but it was not clever enough to notice him return.

Once after a meditation retreat, I declared that I was done with the corporate system and promised to depart in 12 months. My sweet boss showed support even though his face read differently.

My strategic mind built a countdown clock. A quarter-by-quarter practical playbook for how I was going to leave and leave this place better than I found it.

Six months later, in Madrid, I told my boss that I wasn’t going to go.

I was not the only one who grew. Gollum got smarter too. He learned to disguise his voice. He spoke compliments about my spiritual journey. He said that I was a sage and there was nothing to fix. His lies were carefully, meticulously, and delicately crafted.

So, I stayed in a machine that prioritized productivity over people. I told myself to be patient when the meditation retreats were no longer working. I told myself that when the Muse returned that I would pick up the paintbrush once more.

Then out of reflection, I found the backpack and invited the Gollum to come back. He did not have to fear my anger. He did not have to hide in the shadows and polish his words. He would be welcome to join me.

Except that I would be carrying him. Maybe you have felt this, too.

I thanked him for all of the times I arrived home safely despite foolish choices. I thanked him for a large circle of friends. I thanked him for keeping me in a job that provided a good life for my family.

And still, the Gollum is heavy in his own right. Not enough to put down. But enough to notice.

It is a joyful endurance. One that opens a new kind of freedom. Sometimes, that’s how it works out. What we wish to leave or never exist, becomes the opening to new possibilities.

The human ritual is: “what do you do?”

What follows is rehearsed and socially acceptable. It might be a title and an industry. It might be a short sentence about how you got there. Or even an aspiration for what’s next.

“I’m a tax auditor working in the chip industry.”

“We gave up our corporate jobs to become farmers.”

“I took this job as a program manager, so I can get back to leading others.”

These work until there is an interruption. Getting fired. Passing into retirement. Then there is a pause.

Then the words that follow feel artificial. Not like us.

“I just left (this company). I’m looking for a new spot where I can….”

“I’m retired. Well, semi-retired… I keep busy.”

“I’m spending a lot of time volunteering right now. No one seems to be hiring.”

It feels like we crawled onto a branch. Then someone sawed off the limb.

What follows is a kind of disorientation. An endless fall without a thud. Stability is evasive.

It’s naked imposter syndrome: the feelings are as intense, however there’s no job to claim that you are not qualified to be in.

It’s not fun.

What we forget is the other hats we wear.

We are siblings, parents, volunteers, creators, degree-holders, neighbors, friends, mentors, citizens, hobbyists, exercisers, lifelong-learners, players, referees, travelers, foreigners, natives, patients, clients, providers, tax-payers, rule-followers, the instigators, the funny ones, the serious ones, the quiet ones, the life-of-the-party.

No one sawed off these limbs. Just the one tagged with a paycheck.

Why do these feelings emerge? Why does our sense of self shake when the one branch is pruned?

Shel Silverstein gave the world a beautiful narrative in his book, The Giving Tree. Wikipedia describes the tale as having many interpretations. From sacrificial love, to political commentary, to abusive relationships, to environmental activism. From Mother-Child to satire.

A perfect illustration for how art invites many meanings.

“You bring to the book your own past, your own obsessions, your own neuroses... the book kind of makes you see what you want to see in there.”
– Robert Greene in talking with Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic)

What I see in the story is the enduring stump.

The tree gave away its fruit, its branches, and the majority of its trunk. And yet it prevailed as the tree. It still had something to offer even if it was to support the child into old age.

In real life, when branches fall from trees after a storm, there may be clean up work, but the tree stands.

We witness this every season. And in every season of our life. The tree stands.

What do you carry forward once the branches are picked up?

Each job was never more than a branch on your tree. Old ones fall away to make room for new ones.

Sometimes we prune by our own volition. Sometimes organizational conditions take it out.

In these moments, I find it helpful to linger. To breathe in the moment however long it takes.

I feel it’s important to allow grieving in order to foster growth. To deny one is to weaken the other.

It might be helpful to reflect within this elongated moment.

Nature puts her energy into the sprouts, but it doesn’t arrive like a miracle.

It comes from a source. It comes from the stump whose fingers reach deep within the Earth for nourishment. This is the fuel for transformation.

What messages come to you when you speak to your own source? What is that unifying force which held up all of your branches?

The story I was telling myself was that long hair was a recipe for disaster in a convertible.

Except that I did not own a convertible. I owned a mortgage and a wedding band.

The plan was to say nothing when I returned. This was supposed to be a visible statement of a personal evolution. This was about action, not words. So says a 29 year-old.

That haircut was the culmination of an evolution that had begun five years prior. When I walked into the National Photo Lab as an employee, I chose to inhabit my legal name, not the familiar name.

Because Anthony could be an Assistant Manager. Tony could not.

Tony was the guy who carried a silver tray at catered parties, wore purple camouflage at night, and turned the main living space of a one-bedroom apartment into a studio.

Anthony had business ambitions.

In time, the photo lab became too small. I had to get a new job, get a new degree, get a new vocabulary.

So, I stepped into a corporate life at a large computer company to make slides for executives. Creative expression went from purple camouflage to PowerPoint.

The MBA took two and a half years. It coincided when the first-born was first born. That gave me a new kind of credibility.

However, the degree was table stakes; the real currency was executive relationships.

Technology moves fast and is well respected. Our company made things that other companies would use to redefine productivity. To redefine their business.

Every year, the business grew and the artist inside shrank.

It was a measured trade-off. The money was good. Travel took me to cultures I long imagined. The chance to work on special projects afforded a career lift.

25 years into High Tech, I was leading leaders with domain expertise on Artificial Intelligence and High Performance Computing. Managing up meant managing people who were many years older than me.

Then a particular kind of fatigue set in.

Not the kind you notice right away. It’s more like when your range of motion deteriorates slowly. It’s not that things stop working, you’re just stiff. The work stops being satisfying. Something feels out of place.

The fatigue is actually a quiet mourning. Inside, there is an orphan in search of caring parents.

It’s an identity that got buried underneath systems thinking – manage-by-objectives, end-of-year reviews, roadmaps, project plans – all the trappings of highly efficient organizations.

This is more common than you think. Artists who need to feed their families put away creativity for a regular paycheck.

Get a Masters in English Lit and the next thing you know, you are managing the IT network.

Or your dream of living large on the radio fell away to litigating contracts as an attorney to make ends meet.

There are many stories like this. It might even be your story.

I know what it means to manage a program or be managed by a program. To write year-end reviews that no one will ever read.

To squint to find the meaning in menial tasks. Ones that get recorded in systems of records so that leaders can optimize results. Weed out the weak. Reward the overachievers.

The kind of tasks that remind you that you can always take your soul to the dry-cleaner for a fresh press before the holidays.

What is missing is the path back to the gifts you put away.

I’ve come to see that the journey back doesn’t require a roadmap. It starts with a smaller, braver kind of reflection.

There is a moment between an action and a reaction. A moment between what someone asks for and how we respond.

Elongate the time between the first moment and the second moment, and we have a chance. We have to listen in that space. Then we can act in such a way that aligns with the integrity of our being.

Not with indifference to the needs of the organization. But with deference to the artist within.

Creativity needs air to breathe. It needs to feel the wind in its face as the convertible speeds down the road.

Just remember to look up, because I’m out there, too. Waving at you.

The kind that drowns mashed potatoes. The kind that tastes more like turkey than the actual turkey. The kind that coats the back of a spoon. That gravy.

In the science of gravy, 100 degree silky perfection drops about one degree per minute. That might mean we have about 10 minutes before hot liquid becomes a cold solid.

10 minutes to gather 14 people, say a prayer, get to the buffet line, then enjoy.

Logic suggests that the most important factor to hot gravy is how long the host is going to say the prayer.

My family does stand a chance for hot gravy.

Because I want something more profound.

So with love in their heart, they simply wait their turn at the microwave.

Conveniently at the end of the buffet.

I hope that one day, I can write as powerfully as Lincoln did for the Gettysburg address (about 2 min long).

The Lincoln family probably enjoyed hot gravy.

WARNING: This next passage is what solidified the gravy this year. I can only promise that you will not get the three minutes back. But it might keep you busy while leftovers reheat.

“Invocation” comes from the Latin verb “invocare” -- “to call upon.”

We see it in programming, religion, literature, and the law. Distinct disciplines, yet one theme. It summons an authority to action.

Most of us first encounter the word at graduation. That moment, early in the service, when the president confers grace upon students.

Elizabeth Swan invoked “parley” in the movie The Curse of the Black Pearl to stop marauding pirates. She called upon the ancient agreement to demand an audience with their captain. Even with the lawless there is a higher order.

You might even say that gratitude is an invocation, too. We call upon the emotion to set the tempo for the moment we share during the Holiday Season.

Gratitude is the name we give to the feeling when something is pleasing. That fortune favored us. Something we did not have to earn.

It is more than a response, it is a reflection. We stop and take notice of the extra-ordinary occurrence.

Strangely, it is also a memory we can call upon anytime. Grateful for the time we had together. Grateful for the gift that marked a special occasion. Grateful for the view outside of our window.

Summon your very best gratitude. Right here. Right now.

Not because something important happened. But because it is within our nature to be grateful.

Call upon this emotion to be grateful for the person you are. For the small number of wins and vast number of losses. For the unseen strengths and very visible weaknesses. For fearlessness and for vulnerability.

Let this feeling swell so that it radiates beyond your body. Let gratitude act as a beacon for others to follow. Unleash it into this room and let it spill onto the street.

Recognize that you have this power within you. Gratitude is a divine gift we all have access to. And with it the authority and the responsibility to use it.

Let this be the song we carry in our hearts… for the rest of the day, the rest of the year, and the rest of our lives.

For it may be the very thing that brings good fortune to ourselves and to others. Not the other way around.

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