You always have a point of view.
You don’t always have a chance to share it.
Look for the chance, and take it when it presents itself.
Traction
Skis are slippery on the bottom, which is great when you want to ski down a hill. But how do you get up a hill if you don’t have a ski-lift?
This is where skinning comes in.
Skinning is an old indigenous practice of affixing seal skins to the bottom of skis. If the sealskin is attached so that the grain of seal hair faces in the right direction on the bottom of the ski, it creates traction and you can slide your skis up a hill.
If you’re just starting out, you may feel like you’re not getting anywhere, and that can be frustrating. Just remember the beauty of traction is that once you have it, your entire journey becomes possible.
Emergencies and habits
Spending time at the dentist isn’t a fun past-time; you don’t go if you don’t have to and if you could avoid it, you would. But when your tooth hurts, the only thing on your mind is how soon you can get to your dentist’s office. Luckily, most of us have learned that habitual attention can help us avoid emergencies.
If people aren’t paying attention to you, it isn’t because you’re not important — it’s because you’re not important to them right now. Hopefully you’ve done the hard work of helping them instill good habits when you’re not top of mind.
Play your own game
Even though it’s possible for a professional basketball player to play baseball, you don’t typically see them doing so.
They spend their careers developing a way to play one game that is uniquely their own. Trying to translate that to another sport leaves them without an identity and at the beginning of a journey where every other player has a years long head start; even Michael Jordan was a rookie in a double-A league when he played baseball.
If you’ve spent years becoming undeniable at what you do, honing skills and building relationships while collecting useful experience, it’s ok if you want to try to play a new game.
Just don’t be surprised when people catch you making rookie mistakes.
(H/T JP)
Just keep going
As you pursue this thing that you’ve conceived you’re on the path of ‘keep going.’ Immediately, you’ll experience feelings. In fact, there’s no opportunity to not feel things – good or bad. Either way, whatever you’re feeling, it’s temporary and just because you don’t like a feeling doesn’t mean it isn’t doing you some good.
Once you realize that feelings are transient, there’s no reason to stop putting one foot in front of the other on the path of ‘keep going.’ You’re allowed to feel bad AND keep going. You’re allowed to celebrate the win AND keep going.
The reason to keep going isn’t for productivity. It isn’t to distract yourself from bad feelings, or because you’re never good enough and need to always achieve. The path includes breaks, vacation, and fun. The path also includes distractions and mistakes. The path offers quitting something and starting over. The path sometimes means staying too long.
The path you’re on leads to the thing you’ve conceived, and this thing you’ve conceived can’t be done without you. So wherever it is you are – just keep going.
Answer the question
If you’re in a group of people asking and answering questions you might notice…
The person asking the question might not have confidence in their question, either because they’re not sure exactly what their question is, or because there’s something holding them back from being direct. They’re hoping that the answerer will interpret their meaning and answer the intent behind the question, rather than the question itself.
The person answering the question doesn’t. Instead, they state some belief that’s adjacent to the subject of the question, but they don’t address the question directly. Whether or not the question was direct is irrelevant.
If you’re a listener and you feel like there is a chasm between the question being asked and the question being answered, you’re probably right. You can raise your hand, clarify the question or the answer or both.
What you shouldn’t do is sit there, assuming that someone else has all the answers.