Represent

After we drop the older brother off at school, my younger kid and I typically listen to some old school rap or underground hip hop on the way to his school.

One morning last week, a song titled Represent from one of my all-time favorite albums, illmatic, came on. Like the phrase "your face is tight" that was popular when I was in high school in Baltimore (it meant something like "ha, you're embarrassed!"), "represent" showed up in a number of hip hop songs and culture.

When I heard the song last week, though, it showed up as a question in my mind:

What do you represent?

In every room we enter, in every conversation we engage in, in every relationship, we're representing something.

We often pick things to represent that make us look cool, or smart, or caring. Which brands do you where and advertise in visible labels on your clothing? (One of my kids refuses to where Reebok because he's a Nike kid.) It's one of the reasons I try not to wear clothes with labels, and it's nearly unavoidable!

What we represent matters, because we're creating and putting out into the world what we're representing.

Not only does what we represent create more of that in the people and the world around us - the world we see is actually a reflection of what we bring to it. (Becoming aware of this in the areas and situations we're struggling in is often a powerful insight for my clients.)

Represent a fear for safety everywhere we go, and we see threats in everything.

Represent a need to be noticed and admired, and we see competition and desperation.

Represent an undistinguished drive to 'be right', and we see problems and not-enoughness in ourselves and others.

Represent kindness and compassion, and we get more of it.

Represent understanding and integrity, and we create more of it.

Represent wholeness and completeness, and this moment and this life become perfect.

What are you already, unintentionally representing?

What would you love to live your life representing?

Much Love. ❤️

P.S. Working with me has a profound and lasting impact on people's lives - their experience, their intentionality, and their impact. If you want some of that, reach out and let's talk.

Powerful Chemical Reactions

One summer lifeguarding when I was younger, we were told to clean out the pump room. 

In addition to pumps, the pump room had all the chemicals used to keep the pool clean and healthy. Since the bags were expired, we carried them out to the dumpster and tossed them in, regardless of which chemicals were in the bags.

They all sat in the pump room together without a problem, wouldn’t they be fine in the dumpster too?

After tossing a handful of bags in, a green smoke started to rise out of the dumpster. Clearly, and quite ignorantly, we started a potentially lung-destroying chemical reaction.

If we had thought about it, maybe we wouldn’t have done it. Or maybe we still would have because we were teenagers and didn’t think about or care about the consequences. Or maybe we were too young to recognize the power and opportunity of being responsible.

Even as adults, though, many of us create poisonous chemical reactions in the rooms we enter. 

Years ago, my wife shared with me how my energy when I enter the room with her and the kids can be jarring.

My energy didn’t match the existing energy in the room, and my family felt it. My being showed up as an interruption in the otherwise consistent experience they were having together. 

My being caused some dissonance for my family.

It’s true! I could tell. And taking ownership of my impact in the room with my family has been powerful in all areas of my life - if I can have a dissonant impact in the chemistry of a room, well then I can have a harmonic impact too.

I’ve still got room to grow in this, and nearly every one of us does.

How we’re being, how we’re showing up, has an inevitable impact on the chemistry in every room we enter.

Our being is often felt even if we're not meaning it to be. Our being can cause resonance or dissonance.

Our being has an impact whether we're aware of it or not - it's hardly ever neutral.

Just like those chemicals in the dumpster.

And there’s no one else who can control our being for us. That's up to us.

How are you committed to being (showing up) in the areas of your life?

Intentionality starts here.

Much Love. ❤️

P.S. Working with me has a profound and lasting impact on how people show up in their lives - for others and themselves. If you'd like to experience that, reply to this email and let's talk.

Only Extraordinary Leadership Produces Extraordinary Results

My colleague and I were stressed and worried. We were the two leaders in the room, and we did NOT produce the result we were supposed to produce. 

I spent 12 months in an intense leadership training program in my mid-20s, then another 6 months coaching other participants in the program. I’d produced excellent results over that time. What happened tonight?!

While my colleague and I reflected on the whole evening and what went ‘wrong,’ we were feeling exhausted and uncreative. Even though neither of us said it, we were both dreading our superior coming in and getting frustrated with us.

But that didn’t happen. 

Instead, I experienced one of the most powerful lessons in leadership I’ve ever witnessed.

Our superior came in, heard what the results were, thought quietly for about 10 seconds, and then she said:

“I’m sorry. I must not have prepared the room as well as I thought. This is on me.”

Immediately, my stress and worry disappeared. My heart lightened and my mind cleared. All of a sudden, I could see clearly how I could’ve performed better throughout the evening. It felt so good to do this reflection, and the exhaustion we felt just moments before had vanished.

At around the same time as this event, in my first year teaching, I took responsibility for blaming a class of 14-year-olds for my feeling irritated and stressed. Afterward, a student said, “Mr. Scott, you shouldn’t apologize. It makes you look weak.”

I told him, “Michael, taking responsibility is the most powerful thing I’ve ever done.”

Taking responsibility is not how leaders typically behave. Somehow, that hasn’t made it into a typical leader’s training program. This is a little surprising, given that the results an organization produces (or fails to produce) always point towards leadership.

But they’re human too! So their initial reaction is often defensiveness, justification, dismissal, a power play of some kind, or blame. 

There’s nothing wrong with those reactions. They’re just…ordinary. 

Since they’re leaders, though, we have higher expectations of them than our peers:

That they’ll hear us when we speak to them.

That they’ll make room for our experience and emotions, which are all valid.

That they’ll not take things personally. 

There’s nothing wrong with ordinary - it’s just not extraordinary.

Extraordinary listening.

Extraordinary respect.

Extraordinary understanding.

Extraordinary compassion.

Extraordinary ownership.

Extraordinary results.

Ordinary leadership creates ordinary results. Extraordinary leadership creates extraordinary results.

The first powerful step towards extraordinary leadership is a willingness to take 100% responsibility for the results.

Much love. ❤️