Week 21.28 Greetings from Nashville

I had the good fortune to visit Nashville this weekend. The city appears to be thriving in the post-pandemic world and the streets were filled and noisy, 24 hours a day from what I can tell. There were no new cases of COVID, over 50% of the county was vaccinated. When the pandemic struck 16 months ago, I was confident that we would not recover in under a year, when we would be returning to a more normal life. With 2020 hindsight, I think it is safe to say that we are recovering faster than I ever imagined and we are not going back to the normal life we knew.

Although you wouldn't know that by walking around Nashville. I had heard that it was the bachelorette party destination; I don't think I realized what that meant. The downtown streets were packed and there were live bands in every bar. Stores were full, as usual, some restaurants had lines out front, others seemed to have too much space. I don't have a baseline for Nashville, but I cannot imagine this was much different than it was before the pandemic.

And at the same time, I have also noticed how many people are rethinking their lives. Sunday night I had dinner with an eclectic group that included a former high school principal, an architect, a writer, a Broadway producer, a coach, and the founder of a high school aptitude company. The dinner conversation was lively as usual. And there was an unusually reflective tone to the stories that people shared. More than usual, people have spent the pandemic rethinking their lives, intentionally or otherwise. Some who were frequent flyers found that after taking a pause, they were not committed to constant travel as they had been before and were ready to hang up their wings. There was a sense at the table that while life was coming back to normal, our lives have been changed. There was a sense of joy to be with other people... in person. There was a desire to find more meaning, more connection, more humility, less grandeur.

It is as hard to know how long this will last any more than we knew how long the pandemic would last. And, of course, in much of the world the pandemic rages on, and there is always the potential for a new variant that sets up back. For this moment, it is a little easier to see the inner beauty of each individual, after a year of introspection, I am finding people I am meeting more authentic, honest, and open. I hear stories of people who are rethinking their jobs and their careers. It feels like there is an acceleration of a trend that has been over a decade in the making. Businesses will have to consider how they support intrinsic value creation in the job, rather than offer the extrinsic rewards of money and ping pong tables. The best employees learned that they have options and are more mobile and virtual than they ever thought and will be reconsidering long commutes. And the best leaders will be inspired to, as Hubert Joly writes in The Heart of Business,  pursue a noble purpose, put people at the center of the business, create an environment where every employee can blossom, and treat profit as an outcome, not the goal. 

We heard amazing bluegrass music at the Station Inn. Nashville reminded me of the exuberance of the human spirit, our resilience, and our ability to adapt and change. Traveling again was exciting and connecting with new people was invigorating. Moments together felt important especially when there were quiet and ordinary. I am so curious to see what aspects of the pandemic stay with us, and which ones go back to the way they were. After more than a year of pandemic lockdown, I am looking forward to how we can all work together and take our collective optimism of a new start and accelerate some positive radical changes.

Week 32 of 52 Weeks of Giving: Hands On Nashville

Hands On Nashville (HON) builds capacity for individuals and agencies to meet needs through service. Its programs connect volunteers to opportunities supporting 200+ nonprofits, schools, and civic organizations; help these partners reimagine volunteer potential, and bring awareness to the challenges facing the people and places in our community. https://www.hon.org/

Non-work Life by Chris Males of TIGNUM

The world is re-opening. A possible true summer vacation is quickly coming. The opportunity to reconnect with your family and friends in a meaningful way is finally here. But are you ready? As you get ready to reconnect away from work, Chris shares a few key strategies to be very helpful.

While it may not be possible to be perfect (from a performance perspective) at both work and home, it is definitely possible to maximize your impact at both. The challenge is that this doesn’t happen by chance - it has to be a conscious choice. The good news is that this approach is possible and practical, and it can help you create more meaningful moments away from work. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chris-males-418b324_dont-find-balance-find-meaning-why-we-activity-6818183457953452032-lnPL

TIGNUM teaches and coaches tangible solutions to enhance the personal readiness of leaders and their teams. They take them from... exhausted to energized, overwhelmed to in control, fragile to resilient, frozen to adaptable, fixed mindset to mentally agile, being busy to creating value ...so that they can make a massive, positive impact in their world. https://tignum.com/

Workplace Exodus: Why Burned-Out Employees Are Leaving in Droves By Dr. Diana Hendel, Dr. Mark Goulston

Just as COVID is winding down, a burnout epidemic is rising—and it’s fueling a mass exodus of workers. A psychiatrist and a workplace trauma expert say the timing shouldn’t surprise us. COVID has been incredibly stressful, and life is forever changed—and it’s not the last traumatic event we’ll weather. We live in a time of chaos, and there will be disruptions from time to time. Employers and employees are just going to have to figure out how to get through them together. Here are ways that employers and employees can address burnout https://yfsmagazine.com/2021/07/10/workplace-exodus-why-burned-out-employees-are-leaving-in-droves/

How The Greatest In The World Reverse Engineer Success Dr. Ruth Gotian

For years, I interviewed extreme high achievers such as Nobel laureates, astronauts, and Olympic champions to figure out what made them successful. I then reverse-engineered their path to success and boiled the commonalities down to their core elements, which I, in turn, teach to others and focus on in my upcoming book, The Success Factor. The process I used of reverse-engineering is a common practice used by elite athletes and thought leaders; everyone from Olympic champion Simone Biles to Microsoft founder Bill Gates. In his new book, Decoding Greatness, social psychologist Dr. Ron Friedman teaches various ways to reverse engineer everything from a chocolate chip cookie recipe to the personal computer. The research on pattern recognition, creative genius, and skill acquisition has reverse engineering at its core. At the heart of disruptive innovation, Friedman argues, is the ability to act on curiosity by taking a proven formula of success and adding a unique twist. Using some of the techniques in Decoding Greatness to uncover the genius beyond what you admire and are curious about most will help you unleash your creative innovations and help set you on the path to success. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ruthgotian/2021/07/06/how-the-greatest-in-the-world-reverse-engineer-success/?sh=79911d315c7b

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And, as always, thank you, Marshall, for making all of this possible.

With love and gratitude

Scott