Category Archives: culture

My Best Friends

Posted on by
5

NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

What draws you to your favorite people? 

For me it’s presence, openness, conviction, kindness, honesty, constancy, and most importantly, curiosity.  My best friends hold me up and hold me accountable.  They ask open, honest questions, and they really listen.  They see, hear, understand, accept, and love me.  They make joyful effort to meet me in my struggles to observe, understand, and integrate my experiences—to learn.  They keep me honest, never letting me get away with small-minded BS.  And they are all master learners themselves.

Lately I notice people, mostly men, who speak in declaration, refutation, and rhetoric.  They rarely ask questions that aren’t leading, dismissing, or prelude to soliloquy.  They interrupt incessantly.  I used to suffer greatly from encounters with such haute-pedants, from the utter unilaterality of conversation.   If they listened at all, it was to argue rather than to understand or broaden perspective.  Exhausting.  Today I moderate my expectations in such exchanges.  I accept what is, let go my wishes to be understood.  I focus instead on understanding, and my learning burgeons—often as much about myself as anything or anyone else.  My best friends point me to this higher plain of attention.

Tonight I see my tribe as a small, über-productive beehive.  Every day we sisters (and some brothers) survey our vast and diverse environment for new nectar.  It can be dangerous out there, but we’re tough and make it home.  As one dances out the journey, others attend and minister with love.  Together, we take everybody’s learning and make the sweetest honey, the insights and wisdom that nourish and sustain us—that drive us onward, seeking ever farther, wider, and higher meaning and purpose. 

How does your hive make you better?

Credentials and Credibility

Posted on by
1

NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

Who do you trust?  Why? 

Margo and I were friends.  So when she recommended Christine as a life coach, I trusted enough to make the call.  I had no idea what a life coach was; “CPCC” was meaningless to me.  But after the intake call, her credibility and expertise were well-established, and she has been my coach ever since.  That was 2005.

I spent $900 and a weekend on Zoom last month for Ozan Varol’s Moonshot Academy.  I trusted in the value of the experience based on my interaction with Ozan’s Inner Circle to date—for two days I would give and receive peer coaching in a creative and challenging environment.  And bonus, I met Andrew, Kes, and Nicole.  Each of us aims to learn, share, expand our horizons, and do more good, hallelujah!

Kes’s last blog post goaded me to differentiate between credentials and credibility—my own and others’ alike.  Do I deserve your trust in clinic just by virtue of my MD?  What about when I speak and write on communication and leadership?  Why should you trust me?  Why should I trust you?

What are credentials?  My list includes education, work/life experience, recommendations/references, and body of work (eg peer reviewed publications). 

What establishes credibility?  My list: Attitude (humility, honesty, curiosity, reciprocity); consistency and integrity; purpose; quality of relationships (and thus references).  Christine’s credentials are solid.  Like any good professional she expands her expertise with continuous study.  But her credibility stems from her honesty and integrity—who she is.  It’s why I refer patients and friends.  Their feedback glows, and Christine’s credibility expands.

So perhaps credentials are superficial—what we’ve done, what’s immediately visible…  And credibility is deep—who we are, what we’re about.  I know which is more important to me.

Keeping In Touch

Posted on by
2

NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

How have you maintained and nurtured your ties this year? 

As the days get shorter and colder, I feel the annual personal regression set in.  In 2020, this carries new and important implications.  The busier I get, the more I value quiet and solitude.  But my soul sings in connection—broad, frequent, and deep.

Since March I count at least six new, recurring engagements with friends and family, occurring over phone, Zoom, and snail mail.  They have all held me up and calmed me down through tumult.  And they all occurred organically—all of us seeking comfort, connection, and meaning through the chaos and morass.  All signs point to these as my social and emotional beacons through the coming winter.  What will your beacons be?

At work, this year has tested our teams.  Even the most resilient ones have strained under the stress of complex and prolonged uncertainty.  Though we returned to work in June, we are still not together like before.  We’ve had to find new ways to stay connected, including weekly video calls and now the possibility of daily, one-song, video dance parties.  I see more clearly now where I can connect more regularly one on one, and how individuals may need me to show up in different ways.  I would have told you for many years now that I understand this concept; today I feel at least one step closer to living it for real.

Relationships are already hard.  Cultivating and sustaining healthy ones in the midst of crisis, in an increasingly Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world, takes extra attention and effort.  I must constantly attune and retune. 

Every encounter is an opportunity to try; it makes me better, and I’m grateful.