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#78: Think global and act local vs. the reverse

I’ve often heard people say “think global, act local” and while the phrase made sense, I never really paused to think about its downstream impact until recently. As a thought experiment, I wondered what would happen if we “think local, act global”. I didn’t have to think very hard to realize that colonialism, the global spread of silicon valley mindset (chasing unicorns, quick-builds and fast-exits), and performative social media interactions are all examples of thinking local and acting global.

Thinking local and acting global makes it easier to lean into our self-protective tendencies. Easier to accumulate more and more material safety for our immediate habitat at the expense of the others that we may not (or may not want to) see. The impact of our actions becomes distant and invisible. We especially don’t stick around to see the long-term effects. It becomes easier to do and harder to feel. Our actions, emotions and impact become siloed.

When we do the opposite to think global and act local,  we instinctively lean into the following behaviors: An awareness that humanity is interconnected in unbreakable ways, and a sense of agency over actions and outcomes in our local habitat. When combined, these ways of operating strengthen our empathy and sense of ownership.

Thinking global and acting local, we may initiate and experiment with small scale localized actions to see what works. We may feel inspired to share learnings with others who are better positioned to add value to their own habitats. Our local becomes an incubator for the global.  We gain the capacity to contribute not only to our own context, but also to our collective intelligence so others may be able to support their local contexts. An apt metaphor might be everyone adding logs to the collective fire for shared warmth. It becomes easier to not only do but also to feel. Community organizing and our approach for Polio and Covid vaccinations are examples of thinking global and acting local.

Which version of our world feels better to live in? How will we choose to think and act?

“To become a different kind of person is to experience the world in a different way. When your mind changes, the world changes. And when we respond differently to the world, the world responds differently to us.” ― David Loy: Professor, writer, and Zen teacher

#73: The chokehold of finite games

We all choke at some point in life. When we intend to do something, and the moment arrives and passes without us having done it. Maybe it happened because we didn’t really want to do it in the first place or the complete opposite. That we really wanted to do this thing but it felt difficult and overwhelming; we didn’t feel ready or enough and not trying eased the pressure momentarily.

The stakes either felt pointless or high. But regardless of the emotions underlying the chokehold, the mind likely saw this game as finite.

James Carse, a history professor, wrote the book Finite and Infinite Games in 1986 and it offers a practical way to think about our work and commitments. Per Carse, a finite game is played to win and an infinite game to continue the play. In finite games, we obey rules, play within boundaries and announce winners and losers. In these games, like politics and sports, we seek power and strategize to win in front of an audience. In the infinite game, since our purpose is to continue play, we play with the boundaries themselves knowing they exist to support the goal of unending play. In this game we seek internal strength to keep participating alongside other participants. A symphony or parenting might be good examples.

Two other notable points in this text – 1) Participation in every game is voluntary and, 2) there can be many finite games within a larger infinite game but not the other way around. Extrapolating from these I wonder…even if forces larger than us pressure us to play in a certain (often finite) way, we can exercise a choice in how we operate. We can do the same work and choose to view the larger game as infinite.

When we think of our larger context as a finite, zero-sum, winner-takes-all game, it’s harder to play like an infinite-minded player and summon the perspective, creativity, playfulness or ease that might come with thinking regeneratively. In the finite mindset we strive to dominate through winning but in the infinite mindset we strive to keep on playing.

This doesn’t mean that we’ll never choke when we play the infinite game. It means that the sting will feel more manageable and we’ll have the stamina to keep going.

“Strength is paradoxical. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish as a result of my play with them, but because I can allow them to do what they wish in the course of my play with them…
Infinite players are not serious actors in any story, but the joyful poets of a story that continues to originate what they cannot finish.” — James Carse, Professor of History and Literature of Religion

#65: Coloring the work in our own colors

Two people doing the same work will do it differently. They will color the work with their context, perceptions, judgments and resulting actions. There are examples abound in our everyday lives but here are a few public ones from politics and business to clarify the point—Barak Obama and George W. Bush held the same office with the same supporting structures but their governments ran differently. Imagine if Steve Jobs built Amazon instead of Apple or Jeff Bezos built Facebook instead of Amazon. Those that follow these leaders and their unique styles might be able to extrapolate the kind of companies Amazon or Facebook might have been in this alternate universe. Each of these humans has unique strengths and blind spots given their life journey and wiring. It’s easy to see this blend—of strengths and failings, informed perspectives and gaps in understanding—in public figures because of their magnified influence on society and culture but these forces exist within each of us.

I’ve noticed however that when I care enough for something, I want to support it with all of my strengths and none of my failings. It’s how parents might feel when they hope to pass along all their good traits to their children but none of the suboptimal ones. But of course, this is impossible. The next generation pulls from the entirety of our genetics, DNA, capabilities and gaps. The same applies to work. Good work asks that we step forward as our whole selves which includes our ideas, perspectives, and strengths but also our blind spots and failings. Trying to surgically suppress our shadows only turns us into distorted and inauthentic caricatures of ourselevs. Also note that suppressing our limitations is different from understanding them, which is critical if we care about the impact of our presence and work.

The contradiction buried in a good life and good work is that we have to step forward completely with our blind spots and imperfections, and bring along a commitment to keep broadening our perspectives. We need the audacity to show up with all our warts and the humility to keep learning. The alternative is to just freeze and be paralyzed with fear of being proved imperfect, and this approach serves no one.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”― Maya Angelou: poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist.

#59: External stimulus and the need for better filters

In the last note I considered the need to dig a few high quality “wells” that are aligned with who we are and what we choose to become. Today I’d like to discuss external stimulus, my key stumbling block when I try to dig my wells with the focus I’d like.

Stimulus is the “detectable change, physical or chemical, in the environment of an organism that results in some functional activity”. We are designed to detect and respond to changes and stimulus in our environment because our survival depends on it. Our receptors detect stimuli (light, heat, sound etc.) and send timely messages to the nervous system, which then guides the appropriate effector (muscles, glands etc.) to take specific action. We are designed to take action when we meet stimuli; this occurs within us at a cellular level and is often outside our control.

No surprises that we live in a world of escalating stimulus; words, products, ideas, notifications all coming at us with the quantity and intensity we weren’t designed to handle. Our nervous system allows for fast-acting but short-lived responses but if it’s constantly in a state of response, when does it get to rest, reconstitute and regenerate? You can buy the best engineered car but if you habitually over-rev the engine, it will end in junkyard faster. That is what’s happening to our nervous systems. That is what’s happening to each of us individually. To our ability to grapple with complex ideas, create something of long-term value with patience, navigate life’s turbulence with resilience, and show up in the world as whole as possible.

Here is what I’ve found helpful:
While external stimulus gets in the way of digging my wells, paradoxically, defining the wells I want to dig with more precision has helped me create effective personal filters.

We all react to different stimulus, and have different points of reactivity and overconsumption— some over shop, some binge-watch TV, some overeat. I’ve done all of the above at different points in my life but my biggest point of overconsumption as I dig my current wells is information. My work leads me to an abundance of useful tools, information and knowledge. Any google search surfaces a multitude of options, making me wade through the noise to get the right signal. But since I have more clearly defined how I want to create what I want to create, I’ve been able to ignore 80% of that noise. I have a mental-model of the knowledge landscape I want to traverse, the ideas I want to explore now and those I might pick up later knowing full well that I may not be able to get to them. And that’s ok.

It has been clarifying and freeing because I’ve stopped poking myself with needless stimulus.

Above all else though, here is my most useful personal filter: I keep reminding myself that my days are limited and they become wastefully shorter when I chase every shiny object.

“Don’t go to great trouble to optimize something that never should be done at all.”― Kenneth Boulding, Economist and Educator

#51: The actor. The director. The actor and director.

I like John Krasinski because of how he actively embraces all parts of his creativity, from acting and writing to directing across genres. I admire how he kindles his intent with a mix of humility and courage to bring projects to fruition. He also seems to partner well with other heavy-hitters. I enjoy knowing how he’s evolving, even if I’m not the audience for that work. Since I pay attention when I hear of his new projects, I watched this 10-minute video where he breaks down a scene from his latest movie, A Quiet Place-II.

I was struck by what he said at the 9:33 mark. He explains why acting in a movie he directs is helpful for him as a director. That when he is on set with the actors, he can shape the energy of the scene as he goes; whether it’s whispering encouragement to someone or modulating and cuing their emotions through his own acting. For example, if he needs someone to be more emotional, he can act more emotional and they pick up the cue. He says – “You can weirdly direct through your acting, which is really fun”. Interesting!

Another thing that’s interesting is that a whole movie is built like this, scene by scene. Even when he is the actor engaged in the scene, the director part of him doesn’t leave…it’s right there all along, guiding him and through him the others. Showing up like this in every interaction requires sustained intellectual and emotional presence. John, the director, has a vision of the end goal and clarity around how every scene, resource and actor plays into it. While there is planning, there seems to be a fair bit of improvisation during execution. To do this well, he has to create an environment where all actors are aligned with the overarching vision and in sync with how that vision is brought to life; an environment where they have the psychological safety to bring their full expression to the performance and also improvise with good judgment. Isn’t that exactly what good leadership is?

Good leaders have a north star and a thoughtful execution map, they assemble the resources, the right skills and team; they set the board upon which the game is played. But they also make thoughtful adjustments to shape the team’s trajectory as the play unfolds. In films, not all directors have the benefit of being actors but in business most senior-leaders were once individual contributors, functional specialists, operatives, middle-managers etc. As they progress into leadership roles, they sometimes lose touch with their internal “actor” because of the many high-stakes demands of leadership. But what if there was a way for them to periodically jump in the scene with their team to see first-hand, understand and learn from them? (Without micromanagement of course). Would it help them lead better? Would it make their own journey, in Krasinski’s words, “more fun”?

“Observation is a passive science, experimentation an active science.”― Claude Bernard