No Map. No Guide. No Limits.

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…]

While it’s still summertime, and some of us still have time for summer breaks or vacations left, here’s another reminder/insight that my book research has not taught me, but certainly has reinforced for me.

In searching for programs and professionals who help women of all ages discover, develop, or reconnect with their more authentic selves and voices, one of the common elements I’ve found in programs that seem particularly effective is, as one program director put it, “pressing PAUSE.” As in, pressing the pause button on our task-oriented daily lives and activities, and removing ourselves from the noise into a place where we can immerse ourselves in enough silence, space, and reflective time to hear what the voice of our innermost self might be trying to tell us. And that goes for men as well as women. We ALL need it, if we’re going to stay centered, grounded, and if we aspire to have our external lives remain aligned with what our internal selves value most.

A therapist talked about the importance of finding both time and a place of refuge to reflect. Pam Erickson, the director of a semester-long residential program for high school sophomores talked about the importance of pulling girls out of their routines into a place far enough away that they could get some perspective on their “normal” lives, and devote concerted time to figuring out what they wanted, as opposed to what everyone else (including culture and the media) expected of them.

It sounds so simple, and yet, go ahead. Just try to remember the last time you pulled it off. I interviewed a retired dean of Smith College who, when she was at Smith, developed a three-day retreat for seniors, to give them time to deeply reflect on how or how much their ideas of success, and their own goals, were a product of other people’s narratives and expectations for them, and to ponder how they might redefine those things for themselves. And when I asked her if she thought those workshops might be valuable to adult women, as well, she said, “Absolutely. I think it’s essential. But I think they wouldn’t have time.” [click to continue…]

A few days ago, I was in the grocery store. It was mid-day, so there were a lot of moms and kids around. And one of those kids, whom I estimated to be a bit shy of two years old, threw a loud, dramatic and protracted fit when his mom denied him a candy bar he wanted. His wails and screams could be heard throughout the store. And yet, as annoying as the child’s temper-tantrum was, I also recognized that he was, in a sense, just being 2. He was also, arguably, being “authentic.” No fronts, no editing, no impulse control, no “shoulds” involved. Throwing temper tantrums is what 2-year olds do, when they don’t get what they want. It’s highly annoying, but it’s also (big sigh from all parents of toddlers) age-appropriate behavior. At that stage.

I tell this story because one of the big surprises I’ve discovered in researching a book on the power and importance of an authentic voice is that there is a lot of confusion about what, exactly, “being authentic” means.

In a recent opinion piece in The New York Times Week in Review section, for example, a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania argued, in a piece called “‘Be Yourself’ is Terrible Advice” that “nobody wants to see your true self.”

The professor, Adam Grant, went on to cite the story of a writer who’d done an experiment, a decade or so ago, by trying to be “totally authentic” for several weeks. Important to note, here, is that being “authentic, in that writer’s mind, evidently consisted of behaving very much like the character Jim Carrey played in the film Liar Liar. (In that film, Carrey is put under a spell where he has to be completely, brutally-and audibly–honest for 24 hours, saying everything he thinks out loud, no matter how inappropriate or hurtful or damaging those thoughts or words are.) You can imagine the results of the writer’s experiment. [click to continue…]

Every now and then, I hear from readers who are wondering what I’m doing, now that I’ve retired my “Flying Lessons” aviation column. The answer is, I’m currently researching a book I hope to have completed by the end of the year.

The book is about the power and importance of an authentic voice: why it matters, what it can accomplish, and how to find it, nurture it, protect it, and bring it into the world in a meaningful way. It might seem that this is a big departure from flying adventures, but it’s not, really.

I called my column “Flying Lessons,” because I’d come to the conclusion fairly early in my flying and adventure career that the biggest reason I valued the challenges and experiences it entailed wasn’t the “whoo hoo” adrenaline high of physical feats. It was what all those adventures and challenges taught me about myself, other humans, life, living, and the world. And the biggest lessons all my adventures taught me were always about myself. My true self. Where my limits and strengths and talents lay, and what experiences resonated most strongly with things I valued–or discovered I valued –at my core. And if I was a blissfully happy woman for all the years I spent exploring the world and writing about it in my column and other articles, it was because that writing allowed me to bring that ever-evolving authentic self and voice into the world in a way that contributed something of value.

In other words, the single biggest lesson that all my adventures and experiences over the past 27 years has taught me is the power and importance of finding my authentic core and voice, learning how to hear and be guided by it, and then figuring out a way to bring that voice into the world, in ways that had a meaningful impact others, and gave me both joy and a sense of fulfillment. [click to continue…]

I‘m thrilled that more and more study is being devoted to evaluating the impact of elements such as passion, purpose, meaning and having and expressing an authentic voice in our lives … even if the results often seem like a statement of the obvious. It seems almost self-evident, for example, that people who feel more engaged by their jobs, or believe that their job is important, or matters, show less job stress and perform better in those jobs than people who don’t. (I’ve even written about the importance of believing that what you do matters in previous posts, here and here .) Or even that people who feel that their lives have purpose live longer (the psychiatrist and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, came to that conclusion back in the 1940s, after observing concentration camp survivors).

Nevertheless, it’s helpful to have scientific support for some of those ideas. And as scientific research methods and capabilities have expanded, some interesting, and very specific, data has emerged. Take, for example, a recent study by the Rush University Medical Center researchers, quoted in an article in this month’s Atlantic magazine.

To quote the article, “Researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found that a third of people whose brains, upon autopsy, display the plaques and tangles of Alzheimer’s never exhibited memory loss or intellectual impairment. The best predictor of whether someone would escape these symptoms was whether they felt strongly that they had a purpose in life. Those who did were two and a half times as likely to be unafflicted as those who didn’t.” [click to continue…]