“Vision is meaning. Meaning is historical."
— Matthew McConaughey (True Detective) —
Hello and my very best to you and yours.
Here are three things that I've been thinking about that I'm excited to share with you.
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On the beauty of aging
I’m kicking around an article entitled, ‘On the year I got old.’ At the horribly old age of 46, I feel it in my bones. I hurt my neck tying my shoes. Rather than blast music when driving, I often opt for silence. I get what feels like a 36-hour hangover when I eat an extra slice of pizza. Pretty depressing stuff.
But it isn’t all bad.
In fact, it’s quite nice. I’ve never been super-competitive with work. But now I find myself just being in awe of others. It’s fun to watch them do their thing. People truly are incredible. I’ve also gotten pretty good at letting the small stuff slide. Only a few things really matter. This realization has been liberating. I now wake up only terrified of a few things instead of thousands;).
But one of the aspects of aging that doesn’t get as much play as it should is the beauty of seeing how our experiences, skills, and knowledge stack to make stuff we couldn’t do before.
I couldn’t have written my book earlier in my life. I need to live, learn, and have time to reflect until the dots I’d collected began to better connect.
The same goes with a client I’m working with now. He recently stepped away from a 15-year career as an executive producer and showrunner for the History Channel to pursue his dream of creating feature films and documentaries. I couldn’t have been able to help him tighten his messaging in a way that gets responses from studio heads until this point in my career. I needed to better understand human behavior and improve my craft to confidently play in that arena.
I was reminded of this when hearing Michelle Yeoh talk about how she was successfully able to pull off a very complicated role in Everything Everywhere All at Once (where she literally did everything everywhere all at once).
“I've spent the last 40 years of my career rehearsing for this role because I was suddenly doing comedy, physical comedy, drama, action, horror — every single genre all packed into one.”
Sure, in some aspects getting old just means getting old.
But I’ve come to realize getting old also means getting better.
***
on giving people space
My youngest has the football (soccer) seed. He’s good. Both footed. Unselfish. Good finisher. But there’s a kid on the team who has made things difficult. He not only doesn’t pass, but whenever anyone on the team has the ball during games, he crowds them, and oftentimes, tries to take it from them.
“Get away from Luc,” his dad yells at just about every practice. “Give him space.”
A big part of football is learning where to go when you don’t have the ball. You not only have to give teammates space, but you have to learn to spot open spaces so they can pass to you.
The same applies to life.
When we overcrowd, interrupt, or try to steal other people’s spotlight to demonstrate how cool we are, we don’t do anyone any good.
Let people breathe. Give them room to figure things out for themselves. The more space we create for others, the bigger the chance they’ll pass us the ball.
***
on embracing silence
My gym partner, Vlad, is a Ukrainian guy who came to my town when the war broke out three years ago. He and his team relocated here so they could safely run their business which provides online training to medical professionals in the Ukraine.
I asked Vlad what it is about his president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that made him so loved and he immediately said, “His humanity. He’s one of us.” Vlad then pointed me toward a clip from Zelenskyy’s interview with David Letterman.
“...war puts us in different conditions. Different conditions of existence. The conditions in which you have to choose to either remain human or turn into an animal, a terrorist, a marauder, a rapist. I saw all that. We all saw the consequences of the Russian occupation. War is a choice. And it’s a difficult choice to make because hatred toward your enemies overwhelms you daily. Hatred towards enemies who took away the life you had before…But you have to suppress your hatred. To know that it’s the enemy and you have to fight by the rules.
As in staying human.
And that’s a hard choice.
And I have started to love simple things since the beginning of the war. Children, life, mornings. Just wonderful. There are no sirens. Silence.
Silence is a very important word.”
***
And speaking of disturbing your silence, I recently linked up with executive coach Tammy Gooler Loeb for her award-winning podcast — Work From The Inside Out. I had a lot of fun with Tammy as we dove into my very up-and-down career journey and lessons learned. If interested, you can tune in below.
Challenge Your Imperfections to Embrace Your Authentic Journey
That’s it for this week.
Onwards.
—Michael
PS: The best way to help me keep the lights on and to keep newsletters like this one free is to grab a copy of my book and leave an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads.
Shy by Design: 12 Timeless Principles to Quietly Stand Out
It makes for a great gift for any of your shy or reserved friends, colleagues, and family members who have something to say but struggle to bet on themselves.