Stupid Bumbling Human Syndrome - and I'm Sorries

Boy, did I make a BIG gaff this afternoon.

A new friend invited me to join her at a meeting for one of the local city council candidates. My friend and I have other plans today, too, and so we are sort of hanging out this afternoon. After the meeting we went to a dress rehearsal for the San Diego Opera's school education and entertainment program. It was a rehearsal for their cute version of Sleeping Beauty. But that jumps you too far ahead.

As we rounded the room making self-introductions at the politico gathering I made a joke that I thought (notice the italics) was funny. Many people laughed. It was one of those sorts of jokes that was so obviously a joke that it was funny. Or so I thought.

I won't retell the joke here because doing so would only reinjure my friend and return a very unpleasant feeling deep in my gut. So what happened?

After we left the meeting my friend asked me, "So what prompts you to make a comment like that?"

"Sometimes funny things just hit me," I said.

"Do you understand how embarrassing something like that is for me?" she asked.

I was shocked - probably as shocked as she was at my joke. I really was stunned by how she described her interpretation of the joke - and how she thought the others probably interpreted it.

I immediately let flow a river of profuse apologies. She explained her vantage point and I explained mine. She was concerned with the perceptions of the other people. I respect that. "I don't have any responsibility for the responses of others," I eventually said, though the most important thing I want you to know - and believe - is that I am deeply sorry for embarrassing you and causing you discomfort - and that my intention was so opposite how it was interpreted that I'm both dumbfounded and terribly hopeful that you understand that."

We talked some more so each of us could understand the other's point of view. We had coffee and watched the rehearsal. Then we parted until we meet up with a bunch of other friends for dinner downtown tonight.

As she dropped me off a little while ago, I made another apology and said it would be the last time I bring it up. She said she was glad I apologized and that it was over and done with. Phew!

What really happened?

I acted as if intimacy was high with me and everyone in the room, not picking up that though my friend and I have a growing intimacy, I was a stranger to the others - and my primary responsibility was to my friend. Big misread.

I forgot that sometimes it's best not to say what comes into my head. In a line of work that relies heavily on intuition, it's remarkable to me how sometimes it plays no role whatsoever in how I behave. I got a razor sharp lesson in humility. I also got a bayonet-shaped lesson in social caution.

I also got a fresh lesson that my perception is not true for everyone. It is but one way of assessing a situation. Everyone else has an assessment, too.

I don't think any lasting harm has been done, but that might turn out to be more hope than insight. We'll see.

I did what the situation required afterward - I said I was sorry. I didn't say, "I apologize," I said, "I'm so sorry." There is a big difference. "I apologize" is the intellectualized, slightly-too-fancily-phrased version of the heart-sided "I'm sorry." I'm sorry is a much more potent phrase...but I digress.

Anyway, "I'm sorry" is what I got right. What I got wrong reminded me that sometimes I'm just a stupid bumbling human. I hope that's true for us all. I feel less stupid that way! In any case, the remedy for Stupid Bumbling Human Syndrome is to make heartfelt I'm-sorries, get the lesson, and move on.

Here's to hoping for a nice dinner with my friend.

Bonds on Steroids...and Integrity

Recently, during a press conference, the San Francisco Giants baseball player, Barry Bonds said he thinks Congress is wasting its time investigating the use of steroids by professional baseball players since there are much bigger issues at hand. He cited the reconstruction needs after Hurricane Katrina.

To say that recovering after the major hurricane is more important than baseball is trite, not least because it is so obvious the point hardly needs making. But, Barry Bonds doesn't understand what is really at stake, or if he does, he doesn't want us to pay attention to it.

What is at Stake
The idea that "baseball is just a game" misses the larger point of the steroids-in-baseball issue. The issue is about integrity and what is humanly possible. Baseball players who use steroids are unfairly competing with those who don't - and that is an integrity issue that shakes our understanding of what is possible. The issue strikes at the heart of one of the biggest questions we ask ourselves as humans - How much can I honestly achieve in my life?

The way I see it, the issue is big because we want our competitors to show us what is possible. When a long-standing record is broken, we want to believe that the old boundary of what can be achieved in a human life is also broken - and pushed out. We have even more potential...Wow, wonderful, beautiful. It's an important idea. I think many parents, trainers, coaches, artists and educators would agree.

Steroids in baseball is like doping in cycling and the old suspicions of the Chinese and Russian Olympians using illegal drugs to enhance performance. It's a question of what is possible in life and THAT is a very important question. Of course, the issue of doping also says we have an idea of what is fair and what isn't. Clearly, we believe using drugs to enhance performance is unfair.

The Human Potential
The question of fair competition stems from the American desire to know what is naturally possible for the human to achieve. When we learn that professional athletes use drugs to enhance performance, we lose trust in them. We feel defrauded because we looked to them to show us evidence of what the natural human is capable of...and they tricked us. It makes us question what is possible in our own lives. Plus, also from a fairness standpoint, since we know they receive accolades and substantial rewards for the results of their trickery (usually before we discover it), we inherently know that they are no longer trustworthy and we resent the faith we once had in them. We then know we should no longer pay attention to what they achieved because they did not achieve their feats honestly. Then we question just what and who we can have faith in.

So, the question of steroid use in American baseball is really about our cultural values of fairness and integrity. Steroids are to baseball what accounting fraud is to business. When we discover a fraud, we want it corrected and the people to pay a price so that our cultural value of honesty and integrity is upheld.

For this reason, I like that sports and congress are taking it so seriously. Questions about what is acceptable in our culture are worthy of deep and unrelenting inquiry.

The Reluctant Hero
Maybe Barry Bonds doesn't want to be anyone's hero. I think he's not playing the game for us; he's playing the game for himself. There is nothing wrong with that. Plenty of people pursue careers because they enjoy the work. Surely it's true of me. It so happens I "do" the work by helping other people. Bonds is in the process of mastering his physical gift for baseball. That baseball fans put him on a pedestal is not his fault. But, he seems to want everyone to stop asking him questions and poking into his affairs. But, that's not possible, nor should we want it to be.

There is an implicit social contract between professional athletes and the public. The contract says that since so many people are going to watch what they do, and since they, more than most people, generate their incomes from amassing small contributions from lots of people, they must accept the role of leader, whether they want it or not. Unfortunately for them, perhaps, they are leaders because they have a lot of followers. I'm not saying this unstated social contract is right, I'm just saying it exists.

So, in a way, Barry Bonds doesn't get to step away from this scandal. He doesn't get to refuse his role in helping us learn what is going on. And besides, he's not likely to successfully renegotiate the role by telling us to stop seeing him as a leader. It's too late for that. I think that's the point Congress and the journalists are making with their incessant questions.

What Bonds Should Do
If Barry Bonds were a different sort of person, he would encourage the investigations on the grounds that knowing the truth is important for the integrity of the sport, much less our culture. He knows he's idolized by children. Teaching children about honesty and integrity is very important. He could play a role in educating children - except that apparently he can't.

He should be talking about sports competition as an important way for people to see what is possible. He should be talking about how being honest in all we do is central to what it means to live a good life. Being honest in how professional athletes play sports is as important the businessman being honest about how the company is run.

Unfortunately, these are not the points Barry Bonds is likely to make. I just wish he would. A lot of people are listening...

All Valuable Hearts

I just witnessed something fascinating; during Judge Roberts' nomination hearings in the US Senate, a senator from South Carolina offered his views about the value of all human hearts.

He's not a cardiologist. No - he's talking about the inherent, inalienable value of a person, regardless of their belief system. Regardless of one's value system, they have a good heart. No small idea, that.

Let 'er Rip
Often in this kind of exploration someone (a little too) quickly rebuts, "What about Hitler? Did he have a good heart?" That question would move us way beyond what I can share with you in this blog. Plus, it's an example so far outside what most of us would deal with in our middle- and upper-class lives that I won't delve into it here. Senator Graham does hint at that question in his remarks, so I hope you keep reading.

By all means, let's examine that question in rich dialogues with our friends and colleagues. If we do it well, we will learn a lot about each other and our individual selves. Anyone who wants to explore the subject via email, drop me a note. Start us off with some of your ideas.

The South Carolina Senator was in safer territory; he was talking about the hearts of US Supreme Court justices, and more broadly, everyone in the judiciary. No small idea, that, either.

Open Philosophy
Before I link you to what he said, I want to say what I think he was really doing. By saying that despite the fact you may have a different value system from mine, you have a good heart. I might consider your values wildly different from mine, or downright dangerous, but I still know that you are loved, and you love. I know you are lovable, too. So, I think Senator Graham was sharing with everyone a significant philosophy. It takes courage to do that - to share that sort of thing, especially when it's controversial.

To view you as stupid or ignorant or a bleeding heart, or cold-hearted would be to view you with a hard heart. Naturally, I'm free to view you with whatever kind of heart I want...or already have. But, that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that, in my worldview, you are inherently valuable.

A society, a company, a family won't work if, as Senator Graham says, "the only way you can have a good heart is [for you to] Adopt my value system..."

No, your heart and mine, the heart of your stupid sister, the heart of your cantankerous coworker, your bossy boss's heart, the heart of your sweetheart and the sweet heart of innocent newborn are all the same...equally good. In the context of a senate confirmation hearing, I love that Senator Graham had the courage to talk about something so un-hard.

For what it's worth - Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is a Republican.

The Transcript
Here is the transcript of the senator's interesting remarks:

Senator Graham Press Release
Date: 09/15/2005
Senator Graham Questions Judge Roberts on the Final Day of Confirmation Hearing

SPECTER: Senator Graham, you are recognized.

GRAHAM: Yes, Mr. Chairman, just for a couple of minutes.
I'm trying to compile questions from the past where the answers were very similar to the answers of Judge Roberts about, I can't comment, I can't give you -- I can't answer your question because it may compromise my integrity to judge in the future. And I would ask permission of the committee to get a chance to organize this because there are so many volumes.

And what I would like to be able to demonstrate to the committee is that the pattern that he has displayed in terms of saying, I can't give you an answer because it may disqualify me is not unique to the Senate and very similar to past nominations. And we've got some examples of that.

But if I may, and I know we've been here and Lord knows this guy's been through the wringer, I just want to comment a little bit an unhealthy area I think we find ourselves in [during] the last hour.

Most of us are lawyers, and I would hate to be judged by the people I've represented in the past totally.

I've represented some people that are not very nice.

(LAUGHTER)

But I gave them my all.

I've represented people on Air Force bases that were so unpopular, Judge Roberts, that no one would eat with me, because it was my job as the area defense counsel to represent that person.

Your heart -- nobody can question your intellect, because it would be a question of their intellect to question yours...

(LAUGHTER)

... so we're down to the heart. And is it all coming down to that?

Well, there are all kind of hearts. There are bleeding hearts and there are hard hearts. And if I wanted to judge Justice Ginsburg on her heart, I might take a hard-hearted view of her and say she's a bleeding heart. She represents the ACLU. She wants the age of consent to be 12. She believes there's a constitutional right to prostitution. What kind of heart is that?

Well, she has a different value system than I do. But that doesn't mean she doesn't have a good heart.

And I want this committee to understand that if we go down this road of putting people's hearts in play, and the only way you can have a good heart is, Adopt my value system, we're doing a great disservice to the judiciary.

Thank you.

SPECTER: Thank you very much, Senator Graham.

Thank YOU Senator Graham.

Hanging Out with Problems

In my office now sit two large boxes full of Activate Potential note pads. I bought them as promotional items - the useful kind, not the kind you pawn off on your kids or toss in the trash the minute you are out of eye-shot of the dummy who jammed 'em into your hands.

No, these are useful - and I'm excited to have them so I can give them out. Thing is, I've had them for two months. I started with 1000 and now have about 995 left. If I am so excited to give them out, why do I still have almost all of them? Well, because they don't fit in No. 10 envelopes, of course.

For months these boxes have sat. For months I've done nothing with them.
For months I've been thinking about how the pads are too big for number 10 envelopes. I mentioned this to the guy who printed them when he asked, "How are the pads working out for you, David?"

"I like them, but I'm giving them out more slowly than I thought I would," I said a bit embarrassed.

"Why?" he asked.

"Well, they don't fit in a standard envelope," I said with a dismayed tone.

"Yeah, I noticed that. Try a greeting card envelope. I can get you some if you want."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," I said, a little too quickly. "I'll let you know."

I'll let you know? What the heck?!

Mundane and Still Powerful
Why didn't I jump on that solution? Think about it...why didn't I just say, "Heck yeah, that's a great idea, give me 100 greeting card envelopes?

Because I was STILL too darn busy contemplating the problem. I had not yet switched to imagining a solution.

Get it? I was hanging out with the problem!
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The answer was SO simple - and I couldn't imagine it because all my inner eyes were directed at was this silly mundane problem.

The solution was equally mundane. Hardly takes a Mensa mind to figure out the solution. In fact, a Mensa mind may just make these little solutions less possible; they can complicate what is simple.

Problem: The pads don't fit into the envelopes I have.
Solution: Get new envelopes.

DUH!

Can you think of a place in your work where you've been hanging out with the problem? Redirect your eyes to the solution...over there, on the other side of your mind.

Turn off your intellect and look at the problem like a 10 year old might. Implement that mundane and powerful solution and FINALLY MOVE ON!

DUH!

Out From Behind Our Masks

I have had a terrific weekend. Saturday I took a Norwegian friend out for a day-long trek into the Anza-Borrego Desert in the Jeep. It's a beautiful place, rugged, remote, expansive, humbling. I find it a tonic for the ceaseless ruminations and pressures of an urban life.

Yesterday and today I worked a lot on school work - many more hours than anticipated. I am not sure if the pre-work for the upcoming course is ridiculous in volume or I'm obsessive in my approach to it.

I received an email with pictures from a past client cum friend who is living her dream out in Maine. Once again she was knee-deep in a whale necropsy - and front and center when releasing rejuvenated seals. What an inspiration.

And, I finished three books. They are:

1. Between a Rock and a Hard Place - about Aron Ralston's battle for life during a six-day entrapment in a Utah canyon after a 1000-pound boulder pinned his right hand against the canyon wall. He liberated himself after amputating his hand. His story is not just about survival; it is about stipping away the noise of life and getting to the really important stuff.

2. Many Lives, Many Masters - about a Yale-educated psychiatrist, who, as director of the department at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami helped a woman plagued by anxiety attacks and phobias overcome them via past life regression.

3. Travels - a compilation of essays and short stories by Michael Crichton. He reveals himself as more than an entertainer; he is a deep thinker with insights about the human experience acquired by deep, if unintended, introspection. Let me tell you, he's not always happy with what he's found, and that makes him very human to me.

This book contains the best first line of a book I've ever read: "It is not easy to cut through a human head with a hacksaw." If that's not a grabber, nothing is!

Freedom
After all three of these books, the whale dismemberment pictures, and the desert excursion with my friend, even the schoolwork, I feel very satisfied. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a thinker and I much prefer learning and intimacy with a few people to large crowds and loud parties. But more than that, I feel like something is happening in me. I see people all over the place working diligently on pursuing what is most right for them - and doing so in ways that help other people.

Risk to be Free
Now I must admit there is a bit of a risk in putting this online, because some people think a "business coach" should be all business. But, I believe knowing the man makes truly knowing the businessman possible. In fact, it is not until we allow ourselves to drop the mask and reveal our true selves to the people around us that those people know something meaningful about us at all. For that matter, it is the only way we truly know ourselves.

There is freedom in knowledge. There is freedom in faith. There is freedom in fighting against death. There is freedom in helping other creatures. There is freedom in intimacy and openness. Freedom from what? From the feeling that who we are and how we live are separate. Freedom from leaving this world not ever having been really known. Freedom from the prison of having made ourselves unknowable. It seems that the crux of living (and therefore working) is about how much of our hearts and minds we can mobilize for the help and aid of other people.

I think the essential freedom people really want is to be deeply known by another person and to deeply know themselves, also. Maybe that's a digression.

What the heck has this got to do with executive coaching or small business development - I don't fully know. It's on my mind and in my heart right this second - and it seems right to put it out there for us to think about together.

Another Digression - or Maybe Not
I read that some 50 countries have offered to help the citizens of our Gulf Coast region recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. In responding to the offers, our Secretary of State made a statement about how we were accepting the offers in an order which gave priority to help from less-wealthy countries. She said it was because (approximation) people need to know that giving is a good thing, even if they are not of substantial means.

This is not a political idea I'm making here - I'm gonna let it rip unhindered:

That was an incredibly selfish thing to say. The gracious thing to do was to say, "Thank you. We are grateful for your help. We need and appreciate it. We are hurting and we are touched by your friendship. Thank you." It seemed that for once we should have turned the propaganda machine off and just been humble and grateful.

You wouldn't say to a friend, "Thank you for your offer to help. Because I think it's important for you to feel as though you're helping me, I'll accept your gift," would you?

I think this is an example of refusing to come out from behind a mask. We missed an opportunity to be truly courageous and free just then...and truly connected with our friends. Masks can be such dastardly things.