No Map. No Guide. No Limits.

A couple of weeks ago, a team of Yale and Stanford psychologists released a paper that caused a bit of a media flurry, with headlines like “Why Finding Your Passion is Terrible Advice.” The point the researchers were trying to prove was that if people believe that they have an already-formed passion inside themselves that they just have to “find,” and then all will be blissful and easy from then on, and working on it won’t feel like work … they’ll be less likely to explore new areas, where they might actually discover or develop an unexpected passion for something outside their initial comfort zones. They’ll also be less likely to stick with anything that becomes difficult, because they expect a “passion” to be easy.

One of the co-authors of the paper is Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, who became famous for her best-selling book Mindset. In that book, she argued that people who have a “fixed” mindset; who believe they are unable to change who and what they are—either smart or dumb, shy or outgoing, competent or incompetent at something—are less willing to risk new things, and less resilient at persevering long enough to get mastery of anything, than those with a “growth” mindset. This latest paper attempts to expand those notions to the concept of passion.  [click to continue…]

So, I’m closing in on the last chapter of my book on voice. And yes, it feels like the last five miles of an ultra-marathon. But the March for Our Lives, this past weekend, in which hundreds of thousands of young people and adults gathered in some 800 events across the country to protest gun violence and demand better gun control laws, has too much to say about voice to let it pass without comment.

For starters, there’s nothing like half a million people raising their voices in solidarity, out loud and at the same time, to demonstrate the power of voice. Literally. But it also illustrates an important point about voice that doesn’t usually get as much attention.

When we talk about “Finding our authentic voices,” we often visualize it as an individual, and deeply personal, endeavor. Being “ourselves.” Answering to our own inner compass and guide. Some of the people who argue that authenticity is a bad thing, in fact (and yes, there are some who make that argument), generally say that it’s a selfish and narcissistic goal; contrary to values of community. But in truth, developing an authentic voice and getting it heard in the world is very much about community.

To be sure, there are elements in the process of developing an authentic voice that require solitude and reflection. We have to learn how to become more self-aware, so we can hear what our inner voices are telling us. We have to confront inner fears and demons, and question the assumptions we’ve made about ourselves and our lives. Our voices are also formed through our interactions with the world; events, experiences, or activities that affect us or resonate with us strongly. Often, in fact, we only learn what matters most to us when something happens to bring that value into sharp relief in our lives.

So where does community come into it? Well, sometimes, the communities we’re a part of–schools, churches, neighborhoods, families, and friends–help give us the opportunities or experiences that show us who we are, who we can be, and what we do and don’t care about. But beyond that, strengthening an authentic voice and getting it heard in the world depends greatly on having a supportive community to validate, amplify, and help us use that voice to have impact on the world. [click to continue…]

I‘m still on official book leave, working on my book about the power of authentic voice (hence the long spaces between posts on this site), but I’m expecting to have my manuscript done in the next 4-5 weeks, so posts should start coming more often soon!

But two things converged last week that seemed worth mentioning; two events that, even as they shared some characteristics, were also vastly different in tone and impact. And that’s what makes them interesting.

On one side of the world, the Winter Olympics were in full swing. Lindsey Vonn was fighting for last Olympic glory, the men’s curling team was hurtling toward unfathomable gold from hometowns in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and Jessie Diggins was defying a human’s need for oxygen on her gold-medal cross-country ski race. Not to mention the US Women’s hockey team, toughing it out through a sudden-death shoot-out round with Canada to eke out the team’s first first-place finish in 20 years.

There’s something remarkable about Olympic athletes, whom we all but forget about for the 3 years and 49 weeks in between Olympic competitions. Day after day, they get up, train, sacrifice, ache, hurt, and doggedly keep pushing themselves for a few seconds or minutes of glory, where they put it all on the line for the prize, with very little in between heady victory and crushing defeat.

In many ways, the Olympic athletes seem to personify the idea of passion; unimaginable sacrifice in pursuit of a dream from the heart that nothing can quench or stop. Their sport is their art; a real-world expression of an authentic passion, dream, and voice that demands to be heard in the world. Their determination and passion comes right through the television screen; breathtaking in its intensity, and almost envy-producing in its clarity. Who of us would be willing to make those sacrifices and bet so much on 90 seconds in a half-pipe or downhill racecourse? And yet, the end product is awe-inspiring not only in its audacity, but also in its beauty. This is passion draped in all the sparkle of sunlit snow, dazzling run times, and incredible aerobatics on thin blades of steel. No wonder we all dream of finding a passion that consuming!

Half a world away, there was also passion on display. But it wore a very different and grimmer face. One hundred high school students–survivors from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead–were boarding buses and traveling 450 miles to the state capital in Tallahassee, to demand that legislators pass stricter gun control laws. While the legislators seemed less than receptive to the students’ demands, the protest sparked other demonstrations and dominated the news cycles in a way other reactions to shootings had not. Part of the reason for that may have been timing: the many shooting deaths that had gone before, changing public opinion, and better-organized infrastructure to help spread the students’ impact beyond the borders of Florida. But part of it, unquestionably, was the raw, undeniable, and breathtaking passion that emanated from the students’ faces, actions, and words. This was not an act. This was authentic; passion from the heart. [click to continue…]

Given that the holidays are fast approaching, I decided to take a quick break from my book writing (still all-consuming, but I’m making progress …) to share a story that has two seasonally-appropriate, wonderful and uplifting aspects to it: chocolate so exquisite it exudes an irresistible aroma, delights the taste buds, and melts perfectly at body temperature … and proof positive that persistence in entrepreneurship really can make a dream come true.

If you scroll back through the archives of this blog, you’ll see some terrific posts by a college classmate of mine named Steve Wallace (no relation). I reconnected with Steve at our 20th college reunion, a number of years ago. And in typical reunion-small-talk-fashion, I asked Steve what he was doing, these days.

“I have a chocolate factory in Ghana,” he replied. When I recovered (“I have a chocolate factory in Ghana” is not exactly the response one expects when asking a former classmate for an update), he told me the story of how a Wisconsin boy ended up pursuing such an unusual entrepreneurial adventure. It’s a great story, summarized in Steve’s first No Map. No Guide. No Limits. post: “Why Start A Chocolate Factory in Ghana?”

Even better, Steve has now put the details of that story, with all its poetic, adventurous, sumptuous, frustrating and educational glory, into a book, released just last month, titled: Obroni and the Chocolate Factory. (Obroni, for anyone not from Ghana, means a foreigner–particularly, a light-skinned foreigner.)

There are many reasons why I loved the book, and love Steve’s story in general. [click to continue…]

Creative problem solving is a critical component to surviving uncharted adventures, whether it’s on a mountain, in a start-up cubicle, or in the everyday challenge of balancing self, family, work, and raising healthy, loving, and emotionally balanced children. And yet, coming up with those creative ideas and solutions often seems like a mystical, magical process. How did Mozart think of all those note combinations, anyway? How do entrepreneurs think of something radically new and different … the Google search engine, the iPhone, pantyhose, retractable dog leashes, or the iconic invention everything else is compared to: sliced bread (invented in 1928 by Otto Frederick Rohwedder). How do those people think of those things, while their next door neighbors didn’t?

The same goes for executives who think of creative, “third way” business strategies the rest of the pack didn’t manage to come up with. For example: we take mid-sized, upscale “boutique” hotels as a given, now. But once upon a time, the industry “norm” consisted of two very distinct models: big, urban hotels with all the amenities, and small, widely distributed motels that offered more basic services but in many more locations outside of urban areas. How did Isadore Sharp, founder of the Four Seasons hotel chain, in 1960, not only come up with the idea of of breaking that mold and creating a third option: a motel-sized hotel, in an urban area, with all the amenities … but also come up with the courage to pursue a model that everyone said couldn’t work, because a smaller facility wouldn’t have enough customers to make all those amenities pay for themselves? [click to continue…]

Back when I lived in Silicon Valley, I used to have tea, sometimes, with a very prominent and successful venture capitalist who’d gone to the same college I had. I would pick his brain on topics relevant to my writing, from the value of failure to the origins of passion, and he seemed to enjoy the discussions. I, of course, was getting valuable insights from an experienced entrepreneur and VC, but I wondered, sometimes, what he got out of our talks. So I asked him once. He said it was a refreshing change of pace to talk to a 47-year-old who understood more about persistence, life, passion, and the long game than many of the on-fire 27-year-olds with the next great software idea who were constantly pounding on his door.

“The thing about most 27 year olds,” he said, “is that for all their fire, they often give up when they hit the first really immovable obstacle in their path, and go looking for some other idea to pursue. A 47-year-old who’s motivated by deep passion and meaning, on the other hand, will look at that same immovable obstacle and start figuring out whether she’s going over it, under it, around it, or through it, and how to best do that.” [click to continue…]

I haven’t been posting very often, lately, because I’m deep underground, mentally, working on my book manuscript. A deep dive into a complex subject like authentic voice is all about momentum–allow yourself to be distracted by focusing on other writing, even for a few hours, and you’re likely to forget the train of thought you were pursuing through the tangled maze of data and material you’re attempting to wrestle onto a page. This situation is also likely to continue for the next few months, as I plow ahead on chapters. But my plan is to have at least a first draft finished by summer.
Occasionally, however, real-life events illustrate points I’m writing about. And seeing as I just finished a chapter, I’m taking a quick breather to note one such parallel before descending again into the depths. [click to continue…]

I got an email from the Explorers Club last week, giving tribute to former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn, who had died the day before, at the age of 95. It included an excerpt from the acceptance speech Senator Glenn gave in 2013, when the Explorers Club awarded him its Legendary Explorers Medal. In his remarks, Glenn extolled the virtues of curiosity:

“Exploring is another way of saying ‘curiosity in action,’ and if you think about it, there haven’t been any advances made in civilization without someone being curious about what’s out there – what’s around the next bend in the road, or over the next hill, or beyond that forest over there… and so on.

“This kind of curiosity is far more than just wanting to go and look at some new scenery someplace – it’s an attitude…

“Our whole history has been one of dragon pushing. Pushing dragons back off the edge and filling in those gaps on the maps.”

Glenn’s comments resonate with me, but for more reasons than just the ones he articulated. Yes, curiosity is what drives explorers of all kinds forward, expanding our body of knowledge–not only with regard to physical maps and territories, but in realms of science, medicine, and even human psychology. But the need to explore exists on a personal level, as well.

In my research on the development of authentic voice, one of the big themes that’s emerged is that an authentic “voice”–meaning the expression of our most authentic self, reflecting our core values, personality, dreams, passions, priorities, and individual thoughts and feelings–is not just something we “find” inside ourselves. It’s also something we develop and curate as we move through the world outside.

How do we know who we “truly” are? There are some traits we’re born with (researchers estimate that 50% of personality traits are “heritable,” or inherited/hard-wired). And even by the time we’re old enough to contemplate the question of who we are (and are not), we’ve developed another set of preferences, traits, and values. But who we become throughout the rest of our life; what our authentic voice evolves into, is more dependent on our own explorations. And if we don’t have a sense of curiosity about what might exist beyond the next corner, either within ourselves and our capabilities, or in the world at large, we’re not likely to do much of that exploration. [click to continue…]

If posts are a bit scarce on this site, it’s because I’m currently immersed in the writing stage of my book on the power and importance of a woman’s authentic voice. Wrestling a complex topic into well-behaved words on a page can feel like a re-enactment of Hercules fighting the multi-headed Hydra … which is why, no doubt, the best-selling author Richard Bach once said that he only wrote books when an idea took hold of him with such fervor and passion that it literally forced him across the room to his typewriter, and wouldn’t let up until the job was done.

But as coincidental luck would have it, the real world collided dead-on with my writing work last weekend. I was just finishing a section of the manuscript that dealt with explaining how the power of a woman’s authentic voice is partly dependent on having a well-curated voice; of a woman not only knowing what she thinks and believes, but also having some sense of when it is useful or important to share that information, and when it is better (stronger, more considerate, more strategically advantageous) to remain silent.

“There is nothing quite so annoying–or, ultimately, ineffective,” I wrote, ” as someone who has to speak their mind at all times, regardless of impact on others, the particular group dynamics, or appropriateness to the occasion. Timing matters. Giving other people space to disagree with you matters. What’s more, if you choose your battles, your words might be heard more clearly on those occasions you choose to fight. It’s worth remembering that some of the women who’ve changed the world by speaking their truth aloud had the impact they did because they weren’t yelling on the mountaintop all the time. Some particular issue, or moment, created such a disparity between their inner truth and what they were seeing or experiencing that they felt compelled to speak.”

And just as I was searching for a good anecdote to use to illustrate that point, Michelle Obama was kind enough to provide one for me. In a speech she gave in Manchester, New Hampshire last week, she gave a powerful tutorial on what it is like for women to be subject to, or fear, sexual harassment, intimidation and assault. [click to continue…]