Sunday Best – June 4, 2023
Sometimes a tiny moment tells you all you need to know.
Recently I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing a flurry of business transactions, and as always there have been important insights to gain from reading footnotes and compiling financial models and comparing notes on strategy.
In a sea of dealmaking, two examples stand out. One CEO showed up for a series of long meetings, where I expected them to give a rousing intro and then disappear. Instead, they stayed the whole time – front row, phone down.
The second CEO paused mid-conversation with another Very Important Person to thank someone who had brought them a drink – by name.
These actions illuminated more than all of my models put together.
They reminded me of the power of presence.
Friends, when something really matters, let’s be sure to tend to all the details that will make things hum.
But even more than that, let’s show up.
Not just in person,
but present.
Sunday Best – May 28, 2023
On Tuesday, I was stopped mid-scroll by a posting of the astounding conehead mantis, perched like a showy supermodel on a twig.
On Thursday, I was halted mid-run by the buzz of honeybees over my head, gathering pollen from the fleeting blossoms of the saguaro cactus.
And just this evening, I was paused in my pruning by a miniature beak peeking out from a nest of hatchlings, not even a foot away from my shears.
Dear ones, as we lumber through our gigantic lives,
let’s look up,
and down,
and over.
Let’s gasp in wonder
at the little things that run the world.
Sunday Best – May 21, 2023
Character is habit long continued.
– Plutarch
I just love it when an essential concept can be found across lots of different dimensions of life. Everywhere I looked this week, the power of habit, and of compounding. shone through.
A company grew at a modest 5 percent a year, but kept it up – doubling in size long after faster-starting peers had faded.
New seeds sprouted to life in a patch of well-tended soil, improved by years of compost and millions of earthworms, nematodes, and other creepy crawlies.
Best of all, a dear friend recounted the joy of walking his grandchildren to school each day, just as he had for his children decades before.
Dear ones, if you are like me, you take great joy in crossing items off of an endless to-do list, full of the tasks that keep life moving, buzzy and ever-shifting.
Perhaps a good companion would be a “keep doing” list.
Full of the things that make life, life.
Quieter, and compounding.
Evergreen.
Sunday Best – May 14, 2023
Every spring, there’s a weekend in May when the violets and lily of the valley are both in bloom, and I search in the back of the cabinet for the mini elephant-shaped creamer to hold a teeny tiny bouquet, which then fills the entire room with fragrance. During the following week, I smile every time I see it. Two minutes of attention for a whole week of joy!
Dear ones, life is busy and distracting, and some days can be bleak.
Let us seek out the tiny joys all around us,
and bask in their light.
On this day especially, one possible joy is the chance to reflect on all who have nurtured us. Mother’s Day is complicated and painful for so many, and at the same time we have all been mothered – by family and friends and teachers and communities and forests and lakes and pets and books and ourselves. I am one of the very lucky ones who has been supported by all of the above – and most of all, luckiest of all, by my own dear mom, with the most steadfast love I will ever know. If you have ever cared for a person or place or idea with even a tiny fraction of this kind of devotion, thank you. You have made our world a better place.
Sunday Best – May 7, 2023
The oak tree: not interested in cherry blossoms.
– Matsuo Basho
This week I’ve been part of two celebrations of extended commitment, and both have illuminated a quiet, steady, durable form of leadership, the kind that compounds over days and months and years into something monumental.
What a joy to see examples where where the prize does not go to the loudest, fastest, or flashiest, but rather to the most thoughtful, the the most constant, the most effective.
May we recognize these oak-like leaders in our midst.
May we honor and cherish them at every turn.
May we endeavor to deserve them.