“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
- Peter Drucker
I was sitting with a new friend over coffee a couple of weeks ago. We have begun to grow close over some closely relatable aspects of our lives, and over a mutual willingness to support.
As we sat down and shot the shit, the conversation went from fatherhood – a topic upon which I can honestly only speculate – to family, and then to setting healthy boundaries.
After listening for a long time, and sharing bits, he asked me a question and I dove in to my personal journey of establishing healthier boundaries with my family. I talked about therapy, I talked about discomfort, I talked about insecurity. Then I passed the mic back to him and he shared even deeper about his experience.
At one point, I laughed, saying “it’s crazy how many conversations I’ve had with close friends about how we’re all discovering the need to set healthier boundaries with our parents in our 30s! You’d think they would have helped us figure all that out by now.”
He looked at me quizzically and replied “You talk about this with your friends? I honestly haven’t talked about anything remotely like this with anyone other than my wife.”
It made me grateful for the space I am in life, and that my closest people are in relative proximity to that. It made me realize, while many of us are treading through life with close friendships in tow, not all of us are taking full advantage of what those friendships can bring to us.
I’m not in a space where I’m just dumping all of my shit on any person I end up talking to, but I am far more transparent with what I’m dealing with than I used to be.
Losing my dog is making me aware of this – I have something that’s prominently top of mind that’s affecting my mood day to day, I’m trying to kick it but I have a void in my heart right now and I’m okay with that. That said, anytime someone asks me how I’m doing, I’ve lately taken to “I’m doing OK”. If they ask further, I explain why. If they don’t, it’s left at that.
In the past, with something like this, most people would have to dig and dig and dig to strike the root cause of my “OK” no matter how significant it was in my mind at the time.
I don’t know where I’m going with this, I just found it profound that my pal was so caught off guard with the relief he felt in sharing some real shit with another person he trusted, and I almost recoiled with gratitude in retrospect that I have that habit alive in my life today, understanding that many don’t, and that I’d shudder to consider the weight I’d carry in my day-to-day if I didn’t.
It all makes me consider culture. What are cultures you can affect with intention over the course of your life? Some people are in leadership roles and directly impact the culture of their committed environment, choose the standards upheld and the actions which merit reward. Others don’t implement these anywhere outside of their household. Some, barely even there. Some don’t even have a house to hold.
Consider that Drucker quote in the opening – poor leadership relies upon short term strategies; play by play or game by game thinking that changes with the weather, always being learned anew by the team. Strong leadership understands what leads to a win regardless of the forecast, and employs a commitment to culture that remains unchanged across the gut of the journey, tools that a team can master over a prolonged period, until intention is habit is reaction is the way.
Some people have no opportunity in their life to decide which direction a culture or even a strategy will lead. I’ve found that, although in smaller and lesser funded capacities, I must be eternally grateful for the opportunity I’ve already experienced in my young life to dictate direction. To choose, then uphold. Not just to follow.
I cherish the spaces in my life where I get to direct culture. In my home, on my teams, in my relationships, I get to set the tone in how we should show up, and I’m perennially vulnerable.
I had a friend who was battling addiction and mental health challenges last year. During that period he wanted to start rapping. He’s a mid thirties Sicilian man with no background in music. For some reason, I encouraged it. Another friend thought I was enabling poor behaviors. Idk, his writing seemed therapeutic to him, and he was being very authentic in his rhymes.
He’s since gotten sober, and he isn’t rapping any more. Idk how that’s relevant, Idk if my encouragement was right or wrong, I just wanted to affirm him in his chosen creative outlet. Maybe, just maybe, that practice helped him get back into rhythm? Iono.
"Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage."
- Brené Brown
You know I love me some BB – Brené, not bareback. Ok, maybe both. That’s too far, sorry.
I’ve been choosing to trust that fear is actually my beacon towards truth, and I’m leaning into it. I’m wrestling with it, and I’m using it to push me from behind. The fear I’m alluding to isn’t that sense of doom when a grizzly bear is hot on your ass in the wilderness, or the feeling when someone pulls a gun on you. The fear I refer to is the discomfort and flared nerves that flutter by your belly when a topic encroaches on intimate, when an insecurity beckons, when assurance flees. The uncertainty, the unknown, the immeasurable social nuances that we fail to quite grasp. In those moments, I lean in, and I keep eye contact, and I see what happens next.
I’m finding that nobody is fearless. I’m finding that in those moments, we all grow.
Say it out loud, see how it feels.
For some reason, coupled with the fact that this is ep thirty five, I’m thinking about KD. Fact of the matter is, KD saved the Golden State legacy, though he caught a whole lot of flack for it. But he’s authentic as fuck. What a G.
I’m healing, wading through the emotions of losing my best friend, my favorite thing, and I’m not hiding that. I’m owning it, because it is a profoundly beautiful thing to have something in my life I loved that much, and I’m not going to diminish that.
I’m piecing back together, and I’m inching back towards center.
Talk soon, love.