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Why I Can’t Talk With You Anymore

by Walt | Jun 18, 2015 | Leadership, Success | 1 Comment

It seemed funny at the time: My seventeen year old son and his girlfriend, sitting in the back seat, side by side, texting each other, rather than talking.

It doesn’t seem as funny now.

The technology that is meant to connect us often doesn’t. Instead, we have become increasingly scattered and distracted, dwelling in a state of continuous partial attention. We tweet in 144 characters. We text in abbreviated words. We take in information in bullet points and sound bites.

We are expected to be always on, always accessible. We stand like players on a digital tennis court, waiting for a ball to be served over the net, not wanting to miss a play, and always wanting to be seen as available to volley back.

We have lost the capacity to sit still, to be still, and to know the beauty and the grandeur of quiet and solitude. We have lost the capacity to create space for creativity; and we have lost touch with the power of reflection.

At risk is our capacity to relate, really relate; to communicate deeply… to look each other in the eye and talk… really talk.

I participated recently in a mock networking event for graduating business students. Bright and driven; at the top of their class. And not a one could hold my gaze in conversation.

And last week, traveling through the Newark airport, we stopped for dinner. On each table – firmly mounted between the place settings – an iPad – to order our food and drinks and surf the net and update our statuses and… everything except a (real) connection with the person across the table… because that would require looking over or around that now sacred tablet.

Some studies have shown that stepping away from our smartphones and tablets can have the same physical and mental impact as going cold turkey from smoking or drugs. But what might it be like to put our tech aside for just an evening… or a day… or a week? What might it be like to reconnect with ourselves… and with those we love?

Disconnect to connect. Will you give it a try?

It’s A Lie

by Walt | Jun 11, 2015 | Success | 2 Comments

‘Tis the season. And I so enjoy the opportunity to talk with with graduating high school and college seniors.

One of the things I tell them is: Don’t believe “the lie.”

This is the lie we tell; the lie that was told to me; the lie teachers and parents and well-meaning adults tell; the lie I myself have told my own children; the lie we tell ourselves; the lie that each of us must battle every day:

IF you work hard, take all the AP courses get good grades, join lots of clubs, get involved in student government, do lots of extracurricular activities, do community service, take an SAT preparation course, write a great essay, graduate at the top of your class, get into a great college, one with a great name, an expensive college, work hard, get good grades, get involved in student government, volunteer, get an internship, get two internships, graduate at the top of your class, get into graduate school or a professional program, work hard, write for a journal, publish, present, graduate with honors, get a good job (you know, one with benefits), work hard, settle down, find a partner, get married, buy a house in a nice neighborhood with a big mortgage, get a nice safe car like a Volvo or a mini-van, in fact, get two nice cars, have 2.2 children, get a place at the shore, work a lot of hours, stay really busy and productive, see a lot of clients, sell a lot of product, network a lot, volunteer, sit on a lot of boards, belong to lots of civic organizations, become the boss, the manager, the partner, the senior partner, get the corner office… then… then… finally… you will be successful… and then…then… finally… you will be happy.

It’s an empty, hollow promise.

In groundbreaking research at Harvard, Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, has demonstrated convincingly that it is happiness that fuels success, not the other way around. Happiness comes first.

Many folks who have lived that lie for decades find their way to my doorstep for coaching feeling discouraged, depleted and demoralized. They have all the toys, all of the indicia of “success;” and yet, inside, they are empty and miserable. They can’t figure out why.

Because, happiness is not “out there” just beyond some “cognitive horizon” (as Achor says).

Happiness is here; it is now; it is in this moment.

May we claim it for ourselves.

May we have the courage not to perpetuate the lie.

Why The Solution Isn’t The Problem

by Walt | Jun 4, 2015 | Leadership, Success | 0 Comments

More and more, businesses and organizations are embracing mindfulness and meditation as tools to increase the performance of their people as well as a way to reduce stress and overwhelm. Which is a good thing, because these are powerful tools, and important objectives.

But there’s a shadow side to this sudden enlightenment; a disconnect. The effort treats a symptom and not the cause.

Ours is a culture of overwhelm. We’re always connected. We’re always expected to be on. Nights, weekends, holidays, vacations. No refuge. No means of escape. Everyone suffers. And, as Claire Cain Miller said in her recent New York Times piece, “The pressure of the round-the-clock work culture – in which people are expected to answer emails at 11:00 pm and take cell phone calls on Sunday morning – is particularly acute in highly skilled, highly paid professional services jobs like law, finance, consulting and accounting.”

While mindfulness and meditation are great – I’ve been a practitioner for decades – the solution is to tackle the real problem: The truth is that the way we work doesn’t work.

The research is crystal clear: After 50 hours a week of work, our productivity plummets; multi-tasking robs of us our focus; and too little sleep saps us of our energy and our acuity.

But here’s the rub: Profit is a siren call. Long hours have become a status symbol; busy is a badge of honor; and we actually get huge hits of pleasure-inducing cortisol from our smartphones, text messages, emails and alerts.

Organizationally, to boost the bottom line, it’s tempting to put a Band-Aid on these challenges by dialing in a bit of mindfulness (and by the way, I’d be happy to come in and do that for you). But better to encourage your people to adopt more sustainable work habits. Model and promote good boundaries; discourage 24/7/365; reward work completed within the business day and week; and honor the time and space outside of work.

And entrepreneurs – yeah I’m talkin’ to you – creating a more sustainable rhythm to your work is critical to your success. While it’s great that you have the freedom and flexibility to choose whatever 18 hours of the day you want to work, having a rich, full and deeply satisfying life requires that you nurture the entirely of your being, and not just that nutty, passionate, success-driven piece.

There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There’s just life. So we might as well get it right. And then, as Oprah says, we’ll meditate.

The Silent Killer

by Walt | May 28, 2015 | Leadership, Success | 1 Comment

You don’t see it; and yet it lurks. Unfettered. Unabated. Rampant.

It kills everything you value:

Your productivity

Your creativity

Your attention

Your time

Your relationships

Your sanity

Distraction. Distraction kills.

Every three minutes of the day, you suffer an interruption; or you interrupt yourself. And every time you are interrupted or distracted, it takes (read this as ‘costs’) you 11 minutes of your precious time to refocus. You don’t need to be a math wizard to see the impact: Not only do you feel as if you never really get caught up; you never really do.

Here are 5 ways to beat the killer at its own game:

1. Work in block time. Science shows that you work most effectively in uninterrupted 60 to 90 minute blocks of time in which you do just one thing. The operative words: uninterrupted; one thing.

2. Turn off your chimes and alerts. You control these. And unless you’re working on a space launch or you’re on call to deliver the next royal princess, it’s not likely that every single message or piece of information in real time is absolutely necessary.

3. Schedule your social media time. Social media is critically important to the success of most enterprises. But it’s an easy place to hide out when you’re feeling bored or stressed or aimless. (Or suffering a FarmVille detox.) So schedule the block of time when you’ll ‘do’ your social media; then do it; and move on.

4. Turn off your smartphone. Barack and Vladimir have ‘people’ who field their calls. But your world will not lapse into darkness if you miss a few. And the respite you enjoy will yield a 100 fold.

5. Go tech free. For an evening or a day or a week. Get off the grid entirely. Soak in the silence. Read, write, reflect, create. Be – really be – with yourself… and with those you love.

Distraction kills focus.

Focus is power. Your power.

Protect it. Defend it. Take it back.

The Paradox of Connection

by Walt | May 21, 2015 | Success | 0 Comments

He sat at the bar, a Guinness to his left, next to a neatly stacked sheaf of paper. With an expensive looking pen in his hand, he wrote. Longhand. Slowly. Deliberately. With care. From time to time, he would stop and appear to ponder and reflect, sip from his Guinness, and write some more. A letter clearly; to whom, I couldn’t say.

He wasn’t more than 30, clean cut, nicely dressed. But this behavior… so aberrant; so weird!

No tablet. No computer. No smartphone.

Just a pen and some paper. (And a Guinness.)

So jarring to us was this sight that we called him over to our table as he was leaving the pub.

Barney was his name.

Barney was a visitor to our little village in Co. Cork. He grandfather had bought a place some 50 years ago. And Barney liked to come to enjoy the solitude, he said.

“And what about this (weird) writing thing?” I inquired.

“I like how it feels,” he said. “I like how I get to really think about what I want to say. I love that it takes time. And that it goes off in the post; and someone gets to open it and hold it in their hands and read it.”

We had a wonderful conversation with Barney on those lost arts of writing and connecting and deep communication that have been subsumed by email and text messaging.

Barney is a rarity (an oddity?) indeed.

In last week’s Wall Street Journal, there was a primer on Snapchat, Periscope and Meerkat, wonderful additions, the author suggested, to the ever-growing panoply of methods to communicate what you’re doing and how you’re feeling at any given moment.

I am a lover of technology. It allows me to live and work and serve my clients anywhere in the world I might me. I don’t want to be a Barney. But I do want to connect powerfully, meaningfully and deeply. And that’s difficult to do when we’re always on.

It is the great paradox of connection: That more hyper-connected we are, the more scattered and fragmented and disconnected we become.

So here are some recommendations on how to reclaim a sense of well-being, without resorting to being a Barney:

Pick a primary mode of communication. Unless you live in a little village in Ireland and have no clients or business interests to serve, it won’t likely be the post. But there is nothing more disconcerting to have a chain of communication that starts as a message on LinkedIn, continues as an email, and then morphs into a series of texts or Facebook messages. Putting aside the “paper trail” necessary in business communication, this is just crazy making and an invitation to error. You teach people how to treat you and how to work with you. Teach them a way that leaves you sane.

Be deliberate. Just because our technology allows you to communicate instantly, doesn’t mean you have to. You can take the time, like Barney, to slow down, to think and reflect on exactly what it is you want to say. It’s ok to step back, allow the dust to settle, formulate your thoughts, and get clear on your desired outcomes.

Don’t check your email (or smartphone) constantly. On average, folks check 150 times a day. There’s a huge time cost to doing this. Recent research suggests that we are interrupted (or interrupt ourselves) every 3 minutes of the day; and that it takes at least 11 minutes for us to refocus, to re-attend to the task that we were doing. If this is true, not only do you have the sensation, the feeling, that you can never catch up, you actually never really do!

Don’t check your email first thing in the morning. Your email inbox is someone else’s agenda for your day. If you are clear on what you value most and what your high value targets are for your day, do those things first. No one dies if your email waits until mid-morning.

Go off the grid. Experience what is like to not be hyper-connected. Connect with yourself; connect with those you love. Have a tech-free dinner; a tech-free weekend; maybe even a tech-free vacation. Talk! Read, write, reflect. Reclaim that still point within you. In that stillness is your power.

Our businesses and our lives rise and fall on our relationships. And as humans, we are hard-wired for connection. But real connection doesn’t happen in a 140 characters or via Snapchat.

I don’t want to be Barney. But he’s definitely onto something.