Our broken hearts. On a Monday, it’s easy to lose heart. Your “to-do” list looms with over 100 items, the phone starts ringing, the line out your door began at 7:30 am and you already have over 50 emails marked “urgent”. Not to mention that the daily news with its pile-up of poverty, political polarization, injustice and melting polar icecaps threatens to drag us all down.
Leaders and burn-out. Many of the executives we coach suffer from burn-out. The expectations of stakeholders seem impossible, they have too many direct reports demanding their attention and too little time for family, friends and recreation. Their workload feels Sisyphean, with little progress made at the end of each day.
What Should You Do?
The larger view: Start with reading the celebrated American Buddhist nun’s most recent writing on not losing heart. This excerpt was taken from Pema Chödrön’s most recent book Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World.
Basically, she offers a simply shift in perspective. Citing stories from her work with students who found out they were dying from cancer and prison inmates with life sentences, she reminds readers that we don’t have time for pettiness. We need to pull ourselves up and remind ourselves that everything we do matters. Do we want to add to the suffering of the world or try to maintain our own confidence and well-being? If we can do so, we’ll benefit our family, our workplace and everyone with whom we communicate. “Happiness is contagious,” writes Chodron.
So is depression, as recent brain science has confirmed. It’s hard to function as an effective leader when dogged by depression.
Perspective and problems. We can’t solve it all today, but we can do what we can today. While we can’t solve all our work, family and social problems in one fell swoop, we can add to the good in the planet or contribute to the bad. What we do matters, even if it’s just in a small sphere of influence. Ripple effects are real.
Read my article “Leading Through the Storm – The Eagle Perspective” and explore why how you view problems can affect how and if they get solved.
What Do You Think?
September 23, 2019
