THE LEAFLET
October 26 2023
zoe’s story, emotional narration, write the dangerous memo
WHAT ZOE’S DISABILITY TAUGHT ME ABOUT HUMAN GROWTH
I will often let out a long breath and say to myself, with even more passion than I could have imagined before, “I can’t wait to watch her grow.”
My firsthand experience with Zoe taught me a lot about the way we look at growth as a society. Watching her live a life that doctors said was impossible has given me faith in a different kind of approach than is typically taken.
It led me to believe in a new Growth Cycle, one where we can learn to look at the tragedy that is the loss of human potential not just with hope and action, but with confidence.
-Ben
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TELL YOUR PEOPLE HOW YOU EMOTIONALLY PROCESS HARD STUFF
Tell them what you make of what has happened, how you experience(d) it emotionally, and what you are now doing in light of the facts and mission you have.
When you have assembled a Diverse Group of People Trying to Do Something that Matters, you will encounter difficulties. Something that Matters can only be accomplished through confrontation with those difficulties. You do a service to your people when you help them sort the trivial from the trying from the traumatic and offer them a model of responsibly navigating each.
A tried and true professional feels things honestly and then does things diligently. Show them what that looks like.
-Eric
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WRITE THE DANGEROUS MEMO
You have an idea about how things could go better around here. It’s like a mosquito that hovers around your brain. You swat it away even when it isn’t biting you; it somehow floats back.
The thing you could improve is not really your job. It’s not in your lane or your wheelhouse or your department or your silo. Maybe you haven’t built a relationship of deep trust with the person who is responsible for this thing. Maybe the person who is responsible for this thing is one or two or three layers above you in the org chart.
You have two paths:
You can sit on your idea and let it sour.
You can share your idea and see what happens next.
-Eric
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COMPELLING QUOTES
Filmmaker, activist, and Sikh interfaith leader Valarie Kaur on experiencing grief and wanting to make change, from her marvelous book See No Stranger:
If you feel hopeless, that’s ok. What matters is the work your hands do.
Blogger, marketing maven, and author Seth Godin, from his inspiring book The Song of Significance:
Significant work involves tension, change, and the transitions of starting and finishing. What we’ve done will change what we do. What we do will change who we are. And the cycle continues. The challenge of leadership is helping people put that history to work in a positive way.
Bestselling author, therapist, and Holocaust survivor Dr. Edith Evie Eger, in The Gift:
We can stop burdening and pressuring ourselves, telling ourselves that something is necessary for our survival when it isn’t. And we can stop looking at our choices as obligations… When we talk as though we’re forced or obligated or incapable, that’s how we’re going to think, which means that’s also how we’ll feel, and consequently, how we’ll behave. We become captives to fear: I need to do this, or else; I want to do that, but I can’t. To free yourself from the prison, pay attention to your language. Listen for the I can’t, the I’m trying, the I need to, and then see if you can replace these imprisoning phrases with something else: I can, I want, I’m willing, I choose. This is the language that empowers us to change.
Keep going, keep growing,
Ben & Eric