Colleagues,

MVP: Five minutes can alter the direction of your day

In February, I started a 12-week course called The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. It changed the way I talked to myself and engrained some positive habits. One of those habits is morning pages. 

Essentially, before doing anything else after waking up (except making coffee of course) you write three pages. You can write whatever you want, but the idea is to get all of your thoughts and worries out of your head so you can be less disrupted by them later. 

This week, I urge you to write as soon as you wake up. If three pages sounds like a lot, start with five minutes. Set the timer for five minutes, that’s all. Write what you are feeling, what you’re dreading, or maybe what you need to do that day. Get out all of your worries or thoughts that take up your space and energy. 

After you do it, ask yourself if you feel any different. Is your mind quieter? Is your jaw less clenched or your breathing a little deeper?

Though I know writing down your stressors or spiraling thoughts first thing in the morning won’t make them disappear, spending any amount of time with them means they exist somewhere other than inside your mind. Maybe they are a little less powerful now. 

Five minutes. See how spending five minutes with your thoughts and emotions can transform your day.

Sending Sunshine,

Mara

Colleagues,

​August 26, 2022:

MVP: What do we do when we think we know where we are going but can’t see the destination?
 
Two weekends ago my son Collin and I hiked into one of my favorite places on earth, Black Balsam. Sitting like a crown on the Blue Ridge Mountains, Black Balsam offers stunning views. I never tire of this place and have come to know it well.

We hiked in about four miles, spent the night, and then began the hike out. I call these forays my 24-hour soul cleanse!
 
On our way out, the fog came in thick and heavy. 
 
The stunning views were replaced by an eerie quiet.
 
I know this area well, so there was no fear of getting lost and I knew what I could see behind the fog.

I think we experience this as leaders too. We have to do something we know well. We know what the outcome will (or should?) look like, but everything is obscured.
 
It’s Friday, so let’s reflect:

• In low visibility, should we trust ourselves and keep moving forward?
• Or slow down and consult our maps?
• What is the danger in slowing down compared to the danger of moving forward without clarity?

 
Cheers!
 
Frederick

Colleagues,

April 19, 2022:

​MVP: Presence is powerful
 
Like you, I have many different projects going on. I have many different people to serve.
 
Last week, most of my work came to a grinding halt as I was with Pam and my brothers and sisters-in-law helping my father-in-law, Tom, cull a lifetime of things from his house. You may remember that my mother-in-law, a remarkable woman, passed away in October, 2020. This past week we all helped Tom sort through her things.
 
I had not prepared myself for the emotional intensity of this process and found myself incapable of doing the business things I had planned to do.
 
Instead, I focused on being fully present for my family. 
 
As difficult a time as it was, it was also beautiful and has brought us all closer together.
 
You see, everyone else was also fully present.
 
Takeaways:

• We all have a limited capacity for work and sometimes that capacity is consumed by things outside of work. This is called life and it is okay.
• THE most powerful thing we can do for others is to be fully present!

 
We’ll talk more about presence tomorrow, but maybe today, force yourself to slow down.
 
Here’s a challenge for you: today, with at least three different people, use your presence and body language to convince them, while you are with them, that they are the single most important person in the world.
 
Just try.
 
Then let me know what happened.

Cheers!

Frederick

Colleagues,

December 16, 2021

MVP: A-B > A-Z

About thirty minutes away from me is The Road to Nowhere, a partially completed road that was promised to link several rural communities with ancestral cemeteries when the original roads were destroyed as part of the dam building during the time of rural electrification.
 
The Road to Nowhere has many of the hallmarks of Big Change. The goal was ambitious given the terrain and habitat, the resources were inadequate, and unanticipated events derailed the project. Now there is a half-built road that does nothing for original goal.
 
Like so many Big Change projects, it lies abandoned, only halfway completed.
 
Think about the big undertaking that you have committed to in the past. How many of them yielded the promised results?
 
Instead of Big Change, consider investing more time identifying the root problem, and then figuring out one tiny thing you can do to improve the situation by working A-B.
 
Cheers!
 
Frederick

Colleagues,

MVP: Stop fixing things!

Note: I’m challenging myself to keep every message under 100 words this week. Just for fun.
 
What do leaders do?
 
Many people look to leaders to fix things.
 
That’s a trap.
 
If you are busy fixing things, how will others learn to do their own fixing? 
 
If you are busy fixing things, who is helping people grow?
 
Fixing things feels good, so it is easy to jump in and start fixing.
 
How can you break the habit?
 
Try asking the issue’s owner, “What are some possibilities for improving the situation?” Then be quiet and listen.
 
Cheers!
 
Frederick