How To Live In Chaos: Control vs. Agency

Time to read: 16 seconds

Every photo will be vintage. It's pretty and fun.

You didn't hear from me this morning. I was planning and thinking and feeling about what to write when 11:00 CT came and went. Sometimes, it's hard to figure out what to say. I let it go until I knew what I wanted to say.

Clients have been telling me about chaos: changing leadership, health scares, challenges with children, corporate restructuring, and the impact of political decisions on their lives and businesses.

So, I am doing a series on chaos…How to think about it. How to live with it. How to thrive in it.

If you know anyone who is struggling in chaos…personal, professional, or political, please share it with them. They can sign up here.

We start next week.

Lessons I Live By #6

Time to read: 16 seconds

More vintage!

Today is short: Happiness is counter-cultural. Satisfaction is revolutionary.

Think for a moment of all the complaining you heard today. Perhaps your own complaining :-). People complain constantly about their jobs, the service, traffic, food, family, fill in the blank, and people complain about it.

What if instead, you found reasons to be satisfied? Grateful? Even happy?

Sometimes being fulfilled and happy feels like a salmon swimming upstream.

Try it. It feels good to swim upstream.

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Lessons I Live By #5. Stop Overthinking!

Time to read: 47 seconds

Gorgeous copper MCM dish

Are you the person who spends hours perfecting a slide deck or obsesses over the wording in every email to get it Just Right? Today's lesson is for you.

Stop overthinking.

The way I think about it is develop an action-orientation. Move faster. Hit send. Pick up the phone.

(A caveat: some things require thoughtfulness and time. Writing most emails is not one of them. And if an email is that sensitive, then it's better to call.)

A couple of weeks ago, I used the word tenant instead of tenet in this newsletter. I so appreciate the emails I received to correct the mistake. And despite the mistake, the earth kept spinning. With his newsletter, I have a rule that I write, read/edit once and hit send. If it took me hours each week to produce this, I would stop from the stress and time suck.

If you're ruminating and overthinking, you probably already know what you want to do. You are just afraid to do it. (What if you make a mistake? What if someone is offended? What if your words come out wrong?)

Trust yourself. If something goes sideways, you have the skills to clean it up.

Just hit send.

If you love this newsletter, please share it with your colleagues. They can sign up here.

Lessons I Live By #4. No Such Thing As Win-Lose

Time to read: a few short seconds

1960s Bambi and Faline. Some of you won't care (like my husband. Someone of you will love them!)

Once upon a time, back in my corporate days, our main competitor had a major win in the market. I observed to one of my colleagues that this was bad news. "They win, we lose," right?

She said actually, a win for our competitor was good news for us because it meant there was a pathway and market for our similar products. Ah, that is what win-win looks like.

In life and work, your only options are win-win and lose-lose. Win-lose is a fallacy based on scarcity and fear. Win-lose implies there isn't enough to go around, and puts you in constant competition with your colleagues, friends, and neighbors. The fact is that someone else's success means success (however you define it) is available to you, too.

A rising tide raises all ships. Look for ways to raise the tide and find a win-win. It's good for you, and good for everyone else, too.

If you love this newsletter, please share it with your colleagues. They can sign up here.

Lessons I Live By. #3

Time to read: 36 seconds

Happy winter in the US!

Today's lesson: Nothing is urgent.

For years, I behaved as if everything, every day was urgent. Homework! Cooking dinner! Scheduling! Planning! Coaching! I drove myself and my family crazy.

The truth is, I was uncomfortable with uncertainty and lose ends. I operated as if urgency ensured everything would get done. I believed it was possible to force life to be certain if I just tried hard enough.

This lesson took me a long time to learn, and I'm still learning. Nothing is urgent. (OK. A broken arm is urgent. A natural disaster is urgent.) In daily life, very little is urgent. However many things are important. We often sacrifice the truly important under the falsehood of urgency.

Homework is not urgent. Your email is not urgent. Your relationship with your children and employees is important. I found that I confused the two and focused on the wrong things. Take a good look at what is actually important in your life and figure out how to focus on that. Drop the urgency.

Your life and work will get a lot easier!

If you love this newsletter, please share it with your colleagues. They can sign up here.

Lessons I Live By. #2

Time to read: 36 seconds

Beautiful vintage things are more fun than boring stock photos of office workers.

Last week I talked about your integrity and how it's never for sale. For all you perfectionists, this week is for you.

Yes, behave with integrity. And you are human. You will screw up. You will do something deliberately or accidentally that is out of integrity. At this point, many people do one of two things:

• You double down and convince yourself that what you did is in integrity. It's amazing how the human mind can bend to make yourself feel good. (Even though you likely don't actually feel good. You just convince yourself you do.)
• Become self-critical about everything you do wrong and what a terrible person you are.

Neither of these stances is helpful. #1 keeps you out of integrity and creates separation from yourself and others. #2 is a good distraction from your actual integrity. There is a 3rd option.

Take responsibility for yourself. Admit your fault. Seek repair. Clean up your mess.

It's uncomfortable and hard and the only path to actually feeling good and staying in your integrity. I've called the office back when I lost my shit. I've apologized and moved over when I realized I cut in line. If I can't repair it with the actual person, I talk about it so I can be more conscious the next time. I hate doing these things. And I love doing these things.

Integrity isn't a rigid stance. It's a constant awareness and refinement and monitoring and correcting.

If you love this newsletter, please share it with your colleagues. They can sign up here.

Lessons I Live By. #1

Time to read: 45 seconds

As 2025 gets rolling, I've been thinking, what are the essential tenants I live by as a coach? Over the 15 years of my training and work as a coach, I've learned and changed a lot (for the better, I hope)!

For the next few weeks, I'll share one principle I live by every day. Here's today's:

Your integrity matters. In fact, it's the only thing that matters. At work and in life, you make compromises. Your thoughts and opinions about things change as you mature so there's room for your definition of integrity to change, and each day, in every interaction, behave with integrity.

If you believe in kindness, then you must operate with kindness…in traffic, at the coffee shop, and with annoying family members. It's always about YOUR kindness, not THEIR behavior.

Many things try to seduce you away from your integrity…other people, money, opportunity, power, fear. Know where you get tempted and build strategies to support yourself in the face of challenges. Here are some possibilities:

• Pay attention to how you feel in your interactions. You know when you are out of integrity.
• Write notes to remind yourself of what you stand for and what matters.
• Talk to friends when you wonder if you've compromised yourself.
• Clean up your messes when you screw up.

Next week is for all you perfectionists!

P.S. If you love this newsletter, please share it with your colleagues. They can sign up here.