Month: April 2024

Part II: Exercises & Practices

In my last article, I wrote at length about definitions and terms. This was to get us into the right mindset, and to get a glimpse of our summit. What mountain are we climbing and what do we expect to find at the peak?

The answer to the first question is we aim to write our grand strategy—variously called a ‘personal credo’ (Jim Loehr) or mission/vision statement’ (Stephen Covey). To the second question, the answer is we expect to find—through self-examination, deep reflection, and honest assessment—ourselves. This process is an annealing of our core selves, our inner citadel.

The Cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

Joseph Campbel

This article is all about the exercises and practices by which we will gather the various ingredients we need to mix to produce our ‘grand strategy.’ It’s now that I need to emphasize this summit is not our final destination. What I mean is the rough draft ‘ultimate mission’ and ‘grand strategy’ is not where we stop. It is merely the first way-point on our journey.

To over-stretch the metaphor a bit, it is here that we acquire our map, compass, and other tools we will need to guide, direct, and lead us on life’s journey—the destination of which is for you to decide.

The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul.

David O. McKay

OUTFITTING YOUR EXERCISE SPACE

You only need four things: an approach, two tools, and a dichotomy. I suggest here a journaling practice with a professional approach. I’ll briefly describe the two tools to support your practice. But more importantly, I’ll detail the (false?) dichotomy of time versus energy management.

Journaling is my number one self-care practice. The root word jour, found in both journal and journey, comes from the Anglo-French jurnal from the Old French jornel meaning “a day; time; a day’s travel or work.” This leads to the Modern French journal, properly “that which takes place daily,” the adjective meaning “daily, of the day.” Day and daily are both derived from the Latin diurnus meaning “day,” related to “dairy” and “journal.” (I like Entymology online.)

All this is to say your daily (or twice daily) journaling should encompass your day’s work or travel—notes about your day. We will start ours with ‘reflective journaling.’ The rest of the post will present specific, Socratic-type (critical thinking) questions as a launch pad for reflective writing. These are exercises that help you build and solidify your physical and emotional awareness.

Moving forward your journal can become both a planning and review tool. You can record self-assessments used to help objectively observe and evaluate your choices and the resulting outcomes. Approached this way it becomes like a lab notebook recording your experiments and training results.

The journal becomes the place to collect self-knowledge, record awareness-building practices, and develop the skill of tuning in and understanding your internal states. The thing to remember now is that while journaling and responding to thought questions in an interesting activity on its own, the goal of these is two-fold. One, to gather data about yourself you are unlikely to discover any other way, and two, to use deliberate practice to build the skill of paying attention or listening to your interoception.

To ‘have a practice’…is to follow a rigorous, prescribed regimen with the intention of elevating the mind and the spirit to a higher level.

Stephen Pressfield, Turning Pro

Think of this journaling as a practice. As Stephen Pressfield writes in Turning Pro, “We come to a practice as Warriors,” but remember, “the real enemy is inside himself.” The space of the practice is sacred. Therein you exercise and strengthen the better angels of your nature and purge the imps and demons.

The professional displays courage, not only in the roles she embraces (which invariably scare the hell out of her) or sacrifices she makes (of time, love, family) or even in the enduring of criticism, blame, envy, and lack of understanding, but above all in confronting of her own doubts and demons.

Stephen Pressfield, Turning Pro

The Tools

It doesn’t matter what you journal in, nor what kind of pen or pencil you use. The key to choosing tools is picking ones you will use consistently. A feeling of enjoyment will increase consistency. Or more correctly, lack of enjoyment will eventually lead to abandonment.

Writing In

I’ve used cheap composition notebooks and steno pads. For a time, sold one the old world romance, I used Moleskine notebooks—different sizes, both side and top bound. I prefer lined paper but have used un-lined and gridded (though I never got into ‘Bullet’ journals).

You may find, as I have, that you need several different journals for different purposes. Most of my journaling occurs in a Leuchtturm 1917. I use A5 size, lined, anthracite, or sage hardcovers. Planning, executing, and evaluating my ‘training missions’ (longer discussion for a future post) I use a Levenger “Circa” notebook, ‘letter’ size (9 3/4 x 11 3/8), with a hardcover designed to look like a ‘Composition Book’—my lab notebook.

Physical training is tracked in an A6-sized ‘green book.’ ‘Green Book’ is a nickname for the government-issued green hardcover notebooks found in military administration and other government offices. The lined paper is perfect for Skillcraft government-issue ballpoint pens and No. 2 pencils. I have several of these ‘green books’ acquired while I was in the Navy and working for the Forest and Park Services.

When I’m out and about, I carry a hand-made “Traveler’s Notebook” with Midori refills (weekly planner and graph paper). This is for calendar time management and a capture tool rather than journaling. We will return to this tool in later posts.

Writing With

For writing, just like my choice of paper, I gravitate to finer instruments but can use whatever is at hand. These could be pencils (I prefer ‘H’ hardness), cheap or free ballpoint ‘stick’ or ‘clicker’ pens from hotel rooms and other places. As far as ‘bulk’ pens go, I’ve been using Pilot’s G-2 07 or 10 ‘gel roller ball’ pens. I also like Uni-Ball’s Vision Needle.

Fancier? I have a Mont Blanc “Meisterstruck” roller ball—I love the pen, but not so much the refills. Fortunately, Monte Verde makes a fine point refill that has excellent ink flow.

My old (2000) Rotring 600 ballpoint and newer 800+ mechanical pencil (0.5mm lead in ‘H’ with tablet stylus tip) ride in my Traveler’s Notebook. In 20 years I used that Rotring to stroke thousands of citations. It now has some patina, character, and a wonky push button. I also use a Rotring ‘multi-pen’ (black, blue, and red ballpoint, and pencil lead) for marginations and note-taking while reading. Monte Verde refills for the multi-pen and Pentel refills for the 600.

At home, I love to use fountain pens. I use a Lamy Safari, several Pelikan Classic M 205s, and a Pilot Vanishing Point. But for the past two years, the only nibs that have touched my primary journal are the fine-point gold ones on my YSTUDIO pens. Pure joy writing with those.

Now having said all that—well, written, actually, with a Pilot G-2 10, in blue, on an OfficeMax Docket Gold legal pad—it doesn’t matter what you write with or in (or on). What matters is that you write.

Writing is one of the most powerful forms of energy investment for creativity. Writing is scientifically proven to best stimulate the neurological pathways for cognitive and emotional learning. Writing is a kind of psycho-neuromuscular activity that helps integrate the conscious and subconscious minds. Writing clarifies thought and helps break the whole into examinable parts.

Energy Versus Time

Time or energy? Which paradigm is more important? I think the question misses the mark. Like most dichotomies, there is a middle way.

Your time is finite. As mentioned here, and as we will talk about again in future posts, we need to embrace our finitude. There is nothing you can do to get more than 24 hours in a day. You cannot manage your time. You can only manage what you do with your time. This is what I will refer to as ‘personal management’ which we will discuss in depth in later posts of this series.

Right now we are still talking about ‘personal leadership.’ Since it’s clear you will need to ‘spend’ time (quantity) on these exercises, the question becomes “How?” (quality). Let’s focus then on the ‘energy management’ paradigm.

The Energy Management Paradigm

I learned about this concept of energy management at the Human Performance Institute Corporate Athlete program. Then again when I was certified to be a facilitator of that program. Doctors Jim Loehr and Jack Groppel are co-founders of the Human Performance Institute. I’ll lean heavily on Jim Loehr, Tony Schwartz (his co-author), and Jack Groppel’s books: The Corporate Athlete Advantage, The Power of Full Engagement, and The Only Way to Win.

Feeling forever starved for time, we assume that we have no choice but to cram as much as possible into every day. But managing time efficiently is no guarantee that we will bring sufficient energy to whatever it is we are doing.

Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement

The number of hours is finite and fixed. But the quantity and quality of energy is adjustable. Not infinite, for sure, but renewable and trainable. It is the skillful management and application of your energy to the time you have that determines your performance.

Every one of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors has an energy consequence, for better or for worse. The ultimate measure of our lives is not how much time we spend on the planet, but rather how much energy we invest in the time we have.

Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement

The Corporate Athlete program teaches how to be “fully engaged” in your “Ultimate” and “training missions”—be it work, family, self, or other purpose. How can you ensure full engagement? By being physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond your immediate self-interest.

In short, if you want to approach this project of drafting your Ultimate Mission and Grand Strategy as Stephen Pressfield suggests—as a professional approaches a sacred practice—then you need to be fully engaged. You want to be energized, connected, focused, and aligned. Pick time blocks to do this when your energies are at their highest.

When I was working, that was early morning, before the demands of the day drained my mental and emotional energies. You’ll be able to intuit your best times. Perhaps in the evening when everyone else has gone to sleep, or mid-day after lunch.

Exercises

Since we have been following the ideas of the Human Performance Institute, let’s start there with our exercises. The Corporate Athlete program takes participants through their ‘change process’ to get from disengaged to full engagement. To summarize:

1. Define Purpose—answering the question “How should I spend my energy in a way that is consistent with my deepest values?”
2. Face the Truth—as we regularly underestimate the consequences of our energy management choices, facing the truth begins with gathering as much credible, comprehensive, and objective data as possible.
3. Take Action—that is to close the gap between who you are and who you want to be.

Purpose

For the purpose of, well, finding your purpose, HPI suggests you set aside time to ask yourself and answer the following questions:

1. What legacy do you want to leave behind (or how do you want to be remembered)?
2. How do you want people to describe you?
3. Who do you want to be?
4. Who/what matters most to you?
5. What are your deepest values?
6. How would you define success in life?
7. What makes your life worth living?

Answers to these questions for the core of what will eventually become the single most important document in your life: your Ultimate Mission. From your most cherished values, from the people you love and care most about, from life as it has been handed down to you, from all of your experiences—what is your most important mission in life? Your answer becomes the cornerstone of your new scorecard and your definitive moral stake in the ground.

Jim Loehr, The Only Way to Win

Values

Since values have come up a few times already, let’s review what I feel is the best exercise for figuring out yours. As mentioned in the last post, this comes from Breneé Brown’s book, Dare to Lead. Here again is the list. As before feel free to add values that you don’t see on the list. Otherwise, circle or highlight all those virtues that most resonate with you.

Those first ten or twenty or however many you highlighted, Brown calls “second-tier values.” Now narrow this list down to your core two. Many of your second-tier values can be grouped as they relate to one another. The groups of second-tier values support your top two—provide texture to them, so to speak.

Character Strengths

The next exercise is easier. Follow this link (or here) to test your character strengths. There you can go through a scientifically validated series of questions to determine your top five character strengths. There too you can review all the character strengths and learn how to go about working on weaknesses. That is, as mentioned here, we all have these character strengths to varying degrees, though we may or may not express them at any one time. While I suggest you record, meditate on, and lean into your strengths, I also strongly recommend you recognize and work on any that are underutilized and detrained.

A value in action is a virtue.

Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement

Virtues

There is no test for ‘your’ virtues. They are a choice of ideals to strive for. You could look at your top character strengths and recognize if you have more in any one virtue grouping as positive psychologists see them. Find a virtue lacking, you could set up a training mission to improve it. We will discuss “training missions” in a later article.

You could choose the Positive Psychology movement’s six:

• Wisdom
• Courage
• Justice
• Temperance
• Humanity
• Transcendence

Or you could consider the ancient Greeks’ simple cardinal four:

• Wisdom
• Courage
• Justice
• Temperance

And you could make up your own set or use verbiage that resonates with you as I explained here:

• Wisdom
• Courage
• Justice & Humanity (Love?)
• Temperance
• Transcendence (Love, again?)

The Sage

The next exercise is to consider ‘the sage’ or a mentor (or several). Let’s look at ‘the sage’ first.

The Stoic Sage represents an ideal: a person who lives a life of perfect alignment with the four virtues. The figure of near-perfection is seen as having achieved moral and intellectual perfection, always acting rationally and remaining calm and composed no matter what happens around them. It is considered almost impossible to become a sage, but the concept provides an ideal for people to aim for.

Mentors

‘The mentor’ is an archetype. An experienced advisor or confidante of a younger hero, the mentor has often been in the position of the hero in the past and therefore is in a position to guide them. Possessed of greater skill, knowledge, and experience than their student, they intend to pass on their knowledge and skill to their younger students.

Viewed archetypically, I have dozens of mentors I’ve never actually met. Joseph Campbell, because I’ve read everything he’s ever published. Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Wesley Audrey, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger, Vice Admiral James Stockdale, Mammy Till-Moby, Fumiko Hayashida, Shirley Chisholm, Muhamad Ali, Theodore “Teddy” Rosevelt, Winston Churchill, Heddy Lamar, Gertrude Bell. And my list is subject to grow. Note that each of these has virtuous qualities that I admire.

One of the best examples of this practice is Book 1 of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations wherein he thanks various persons for their mentoring.

From Rusticus I received the impression that my character required improvement and discipline, …and I am indebted to him for being acquainted with the discourses of Epictetus, which he communicated to me out of his own collection.

Marcus Aurelius

Now you have several exercises and practices with which to get started drafting your “Ultimate Mission” Some of these also give you pieces of your “Grand Strategy”—your mission statement or credo. In the next article, we will take further steps to finish your Grand Strategy. Then from there, we will shift from ‘Personal Leadership’ to ‘Management.’