THE LEAFLET

August 15 2024

what my best bosses had in common, what if it’s all practice, what if it’s all volunteering

WHAT MY BEST BOSSES HAD IN COMMON

A colleague recently asked me to share what I appreciated most about my best bosses. I’ve been pretty lucky in this regard. I’ve also made several career moves based on bosses I wanted to have, almost to the exclusion of everything else. I took pay cuts, moved far away, did low-status stuff - all to work for a leader I thought I could learn from on a mission that really mattered to me. 

When I looked at the four people I’d name as the absolute best of the best, they had these things in common:

  1. Very high standards that they refused to compromise

  2. A joyful embrace of the hardest parts of the job 

  3. A big, patient, wise sense of where we fit into the grand scheme of things

  4. A narrow, impatient, sorta crazy obsession with the little, early indications of how things were going right then, in the little scheme of things

Each of the four had very different personalities and styles from one another. All of them inspired people to achieve improbable, ambitious things (often without deliberately doing anything that was supposed to be “inspiring”). 

Read the rest here.

WHAT IF IT’S ALL PRACTICE?

A coach once shared with me some neurological research related to practice. She told me that repetitions over time built literal pathways in the brain. The argument was, in part, that the pathways built over time are paths of less and less resistance. It’s easier for the electricity to flow through those built paths. It’s easier over time to do things the way you’ve already done them. 

The part that really threw me for a loop was when she said: Eric, you’re always practicing. Your whole day is practice. The way you talk to yourself is practice. The moves you make are practice. You are perpetually building the brain that will make some future moves seem like the best moves or even the only moves.

You are writing the default rules of yourself. Every day, you put your hand back on the pen. Pay attention. Are you writing or are you tracing?

Read the rest here.

WHAT IF IT’S ALL VOLUNTEERING?

“At every moment, we are volunteers.” -Stephen Colbert

No matter how much agency you’ve exercised to arrive in your current situation, no matter how much you’ve made your own dang bed, you can feel trapped. Your story of your situation can have the very real feeling and very treacherous vocabulary of duty, obligation, fate.

You may, in fact, be trapped. Your hand may be forced. I may be recommending to you, just a carriage break from now, a fiction. 

Let’s run that script. 

What you are doing is offering. Your work is a contribution. A gift, in fact. You have more than you need and you are sharing it. 

Read the rest here.

COMPELLING QUOTES

Design thinker John Maeda on simplicity in The Laws of Simplicity:

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

Writer Verlyn Klinkenborg on “the point” in Several Short Sentences About Writing:

Writing isn’t a conveyer belt bearing the reader to “the point” at the end of the piece, where the meaning will be revealed. Good writing is significant everywhere, delightful everywhere.

Writer Anne Lamott on perfectionism in Bird by Bird:

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.

Keep going, keep growing,

Ben & Eric