Ripe

His voice laced with melancholy, he wonders out loud how long it will be before he lands in the 7 box.  We’re talking in the vernacular our company uses to review talent. The tool is called the 9-cell, a simple matrix with an X-axis indicating potential and a y-axis for performance.  The further an individual is placed to the right in the matrix, the more potential she’s perceived to have, the further up, the stronger the performance.  The 7 box sits in the top left corner.  It’s the place where you’re performing at your highest level and have experienced all the growth you're capable of in the organization.  Others view you as a positive contributor, successful in your area of strength, happy to remain exactly where you are.

 

So why does the 7 box feel like the end?

As he’s sharing his thoughts on this year’s evaluations, my mind wanders to how I would feel about landing in the 7 box. The coveted boxes are 8 and 9:  Eight, just to the right of 7, where you’re considered a top performer, ready to make the next move soon or the 9 box in the top right corner, where you’re firing on all cylinders, about to be shot from a cannon into the stars.

 

It’s the lack of potential the 7 box screams to the universe that has us feeling uneasy.  And the tone that voice in our head uses, telling us we are somehow less because of it. It’s not surprising these thoughts might bring us down, especially where earnings increases can be substantial for those who move onward and upward, and status is determined by title.  Many executives, furiously climbing the ladder for years, can’t imagine themselves being stopped.  There’s a real sense of a loss of control.  You’ve done all you can and now it feels like it’s only a matter of time before the powers that be are poised to put you out to pasture.

 

I’ve heard it said that adults in their 50’s are considered to be at the happiest age; researchers attribute this to the belief that accomplishments align with expectations at this point in life. We have amassed a substantial body of work and we’re able to stand back and study it objectively. We decide we can stop killing it; we no longer have something to prove.  We take the pressure off; happiness comes when we’re at peace, content right where we are. Maybe those goals we had for our younger selves don’t reflect our true selves.

 

Could it be the 7 box is an indication we want more out of life, that our true calling is on the tip of our tongues, ready to manifest itself if we can bear to listen?  We’ve spent our careers fitting into the organizations we’ve worked in.  Now we’re discovering who we are, and our potential lies in interests and opportunities to employ our talents that don’t even exist in this place, this industry, this field we’ve called our own for so long. What if the 7 box means this organization we’re part of doesn’t fit us?

I’m willing to bet this is why the 7 box makes us so uncomfortable.  If we don’t do this, this thing we’ve been honing and perfecting all these years, what will we do?  We’ll need to take the riskiest step of our lives, potentially, and move in a completely different direction to realize our potential.

 

So I would argue sitting in the 7 box doesn’t mean we’ve exhausted our potential.  It means we’ve developed all we can here; we’ve outgrown this place. We can stay, work reasonable hours, creating a balance that allows us time to satisfy our interests in the outside world or we can move on to a new full-time job making real a pursuit we’ve only dreamed about.

To me, potential is about curiosity, in our jobs, in our relationships, in living.  If we’re always curious, and keen to stretch ourselves in order to satisfy that curiosity, we are boundless. The 7 box isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning.  

Brew

Coffeehouse Rock is its own music genre now.  Only in the 21st century. Perched on a rock retaining wall, legs dangling over the edge, I'm sipping my coffee in the early morning sun, watching birds swoop gracefully across a backdrop of densely packed evergreens climbing layered foothills. The words start to come to me and for a minute I'm disappointed they'll fly away before I can capture them. Until I realize I can write with my camera. Only in the 21st century.

This weekend in Colorado has been a godsend; an excuse to unplug if I want one, yet connectivity available if I choose it.  His brother built a house in the mountains.  His sister-in-law has made it a home. It's rustic and glamorous all at the same time:   Queen Anne chairs upholstered in rich red brocades, bejeweled chandeliers, a gun sleeping in its leather holster on the massive carved walnut bedpost. 

In the evening we sit "in front", tucked in seats with bright orange patterned cushions, nestled in Mother Nature's Omnimax theater, 360 degree views of endless mountains. As darkness falls we stare up from the hammock, a star shooting across a speckled sky, the crescent moon setting in the west. Enveloped in such majesty I can't help but think how small we are.  Yet in this place we live large in all the ways that really matter.   

At daybreak we brew our coffee one over-sized mug at a time, crowned in a foam of whipped milk.  We crawl back into the king-sized bed, three or four of us tucked under warm quilts; we ask questions, contemplate answers, offer insight, witness epiphanies, howl with laughter, brim with tears. 

He comes outside to join me, our legs swinging side by side.  A deer comes into view.  I'm afraid this beauty may exit stage left before I can capture it.  Until I remember I can take a picture with my journal.  He tells me this buck is "in velvet", timid with soft, fuzzy antlers; a babe who can do nothing but wait patiently for the confidence and power he'll garner rubbing velvet off to reveal a hardened rack.

And so it is for all of us, in velvet at every age, fighting with ourselves to accept who we are, live out our values, expose the tenderness within.  We can get lost in the trappings of our racks, hiding behind their armor, masquerading in their ornamentation.  It takes a vacation like this to recalibrate.  And to think I debated about taking it. 

I smile as he spouts this trip's coffeehouse logic:  "There's never a good time to go on vacation; never a bad time to express love."  It really is all we need.  Even in the 21st century.

Pedagogy

They call it a “long read”.  I shouldn’t be surprised anymore that we need to warn people to brace themselves, the idea or position piquing interest might take a while to ingest. Where has our patience gone?  Doesn’t anything worthwhile take some time?

On this particular morning I welcome a long read, especially one that has me waxing nostalgic about the years I thrived on a college campus.  When I think back about my time away at school, I need to dig deep for anything other than rich, positive memories.  It’s like dopamine floods my brain, hearts and flowers float out of my mouth, and a goofy, ethereal smile of pleasure spreads across my face.Those were good times.

I’ve always felt that the act of going away to school is a rite of passage all young people should partake in.  The experience can be viewed as a homogenous enclave, this microcosm where everyone is roughly the same age, there for roughly the same reasons, but it’s also the place where many of us got our first taste of true diversity, where we were agape at the idea that being different and expressing yourself was not only welcomed, but expected. At least this was the case for me back in the 80’s. The college campus opened my eyes to the world.

Is it different for our kids today?  Has their steady diet of streaming social media and radical reality TV sated any appetite for alternative ideas or opinions?  The perspective The Atlantic brings me in this morning's long read is worrisome.  The culture at college campuses seems to be shifting from free expression to overprotection.   A pattern of slow suffocation is emerging in the free speech both students and faculty take for granted.  It threatens to raze the teaching of critical thinking the freedom to express an extreme opinion provides.

 

The traditional college experience is a fruitful collision of the nascent exposure to radicalism and the blossoming of critical thinking.  It’s access to diverse perspective at a time when young minds are ripe to analyze it. Are we sending jaded kids to school now who have seen so much, been sheltered so fiercely, they’ve become closed to new ideas before ever really being opened up?

College is about the free exchange of ideas, talking about what’s taboo, a safe place to test the waters, to be a little out there.  In this space professors and fellow students ask questions of us; we ask questions of ourselves.  We’re allowed to place an idea on the table and study it, absent of an emotional reaction, to talk about it without fear of retribution.  This is the path to learning how to think critically, to put our feelings to the side and make objective assessments that become the foundation for solid leadership; leadership of others and more importantly, of ourselves.

I want my kids to experience this kind of learning.

 

And so this morning I think maybe I need to market the college experience to my boys in a new language, one they understand, covet and embrace.  College isn’t about sitting at a desk, following the status quo, with all the boundaries many young people find so distasteful about high school.  It’s about questions, experimentation, range and lively debate; a resuscitation of the creative thinking they’ve begrudgingly forced into dormancy.

If we’re going to discover and free who it is we are meant to be, we need to be allowed to think beyond who others say we should be. This is the long read worth making time for.

For more on The Atlantic’s perspective, read here.

You’ll need at least 20 minutes.