Why is balancing the masculine and feminine a secret weapon for leaders?

Balance is hard. Nature gives us many great examples, but we’ve decidedly gone against nature.

The corporate world heavily rewards a masculine approach. Deliver results, crush outcomes, beat forecasts, get shit done.

Leadership is different.

Leadership requires a delicate balance between the masculine and feminine.

The heavy hammer vs. the soft hand. One is not inherently better than the other. Sometimes a direct, goal oriented approach will outperform a more collaborative, creative approach. Other times it’s reversed. Each situation, circumstance and environment will require its own balance on the sliding scale between masculine and feminine.

Too much masculine might lead to burn out, churn, and disconnection. Too much feminine might lead to a lack of accountability, missed deadlines and a lack of clarity. A custom approach will outperform a fixed style and mindset every single time.

The best leaders I know navigate this balance naturally. They had to learn from trial and error because it’s rarely being taught. It feels like this is changing and I’m seeing more and more teachings around the importance of balance and harmony. That change can’t come soon enough.

What is the Impossible Dream?

I saw a documentary today called the Impossible Dream based on a high school football coach who became a master of his craft.

It was a story I knew from my childhood as he coached my father, but this documentary took it to a whole other level for me. Over 50 years of guiding boys on their journey to become men.

What really hit me was seeing game footage of those students playing football in 1969 and then seeing them in person today as 70 year old men. What a wild trip this thing called life is.

Coach Signorino Sr. said something in the documentary that is going to stay with me for a long time. He said it was his job as a leader of the football team to stretch the potential of those who took the field.

He trained, inspired and led the students in ways that no one else could. Listening to these men tell stories about his leadership from a game that they played in over 50 years ago was so moving. The impact that man has had. Wow.

It felt great to celebrate him and my father who was a part of that team. I was also proud to see my friend Matt following in his grandfather’s footsteps as the third generation of head coach. Leadership, impact and legacy come in many forms, and today was a beautiful reminder of that.

What happens when the optimizer over-optimizes?

I looooooove the process of improvement. I was born with this desire to optimize everything. Optimize business, optimize sleep, optimize nutrition, optimize workouts, optimize relationships.

Everything. Must. Be. Better.

That’s a story that I bought into for a long time.

I would track everything I possibly could. I would monitor, tweak, iterate, scrutinize. If everything was running like a fully optimized machine at 100% capacity, maybe then I’d be happy and successful.

Turns out the key to happiness is not in trying to make something perfect. Perfection is a constant, never ending quest of disappointment. There’s no way to win that game. No matter how well its played it will never be good enough.

We are seeing this play out on a global level. If only we could be a little bit more profitable this quarter. Maybe this time we reduce the quality. Or cut corners. Or decrease headcount. We must improve the machine. At all costs. Or else.

I’ve found that after a certain point, it’s time to step off the hamster wheel of optimizing everything. What if I step off that wheel and I am happy, I am enough, and this life is beautiful… just as it is. What happens if we collectively step off of this optimizing wheel we’ve held as gospel, and we find that we have all that we need. Perhaps it is the endless seeking of optimization that is causing us to miss the abundance that has been here all along.

What if my path is different?

What if my path is……… different?

Different than what I thought it would be.

Different than what those closest to me thought it would be.

Different than what society expects of me.

Different from what I want it to be.

What if, at age 40, my path is still revealing itself? Can I surrender deeply enough to even see this path? Do I have the courage and perseverance to walk this path? Will I give myself the permission to walk this path?

What are sacred bricks?

A super simple formula that was shared with me for having a tremendous year…

“Each day is a sacred brick upon which I build the foundation of my year”

Every day is a new brick. And at the end of every day, you have to add that brick to your foundation.

Shitty day = shitty brick. Good day = good brick. You create your brick with your actions. If you want an epic foundation and an epic year, every brick counts. Don’t like the brick you laid today? Step it up tomorrow.

If we treat every day as sacred, we will produce sacred bricks. Don’t settle for anything else less than sacred. Sacred bricks are the goal.