Wisdom I Paid For. So You Don’t Have To. (Part 1)

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Recently, a friend, who is also a Professional Coach, asked me the following question:

What is a piece of wisdom that you feel you have consumed and digested in your life and would now like to share with others? She continued, “Wisdom that has been an especially powerful force in your life and in who you are today…”

Well, I have a few things to share, but first, it’s important to get aligned on the meaning of wisdom.

One of the best definitions of wisdom I’ve heard is from Gedale Fenster. He says, “Wisdom is the memory without the emotion.” This is true because how can we learn the genuine lesson embedded in an experience, especially painful experiences, if we are still mired in our emotions? It’s only from a neutral mind space that we can say, “Oh, I get it now!”

But there’s more to wisdom, and it has to do with how it distinguishes itself from pure knowledge. I believe that wisdom is the metabolized knowledge we share with others. You see, we can be smart and savvy, but that’s different from being wise. Genuine wisdom always has a social good component to it.

As Chip Conley, the founder of Modern Elder Academy, puts it, “Wisdom requires us to evolve from a consuming caterpillar to a benevolent butterfly.”

This is what it means to move beyond knowledge gathering (this generation’s favorite pastime) to wisdom cultivating–an act that transforms our painful life lessons into precious gifts to others.

So, yes, wisdom…

I let my friend know that I don’t have one piece of wisdom that’s better than all the rest, but I can give her fourteen!

And with that, we were off to the races!

(Because this reflection runs deep, I’ve chosen to share it in two parts, over two weeks. Each post will offer seven pieces of wisdom to take in at your own pace).

1. This, too, shall pass.

Perhaps no other truth has helped me get through life’s difficult moments more than this one. But as with almost everything in life, there are two sides to every coin. As dearly as we want the difficult times of our lives to end, by the same measure, we want to believe the good times will last forever.

There are several attributions to the origins of this wisdom, and my favorite one, unsurprisingly, relates to Jewish folklore. King Solomon is said to have asked his wise men to find a ring that would make a happy man sad and a sad man happy, and when they couldn’t, he had a ring inscribed with the Hebrew phrase, “Gan ze ya’avor,” which translates to, “This, too, shall pass.”

I have those words inscribed inside a locket I sometimes wear to remind me to appreciate every blessing, especially the blessing of being alive and healthy.

Because, of course, this too shall pass.

2. Whose business am I in?

I entirely owe this insight to one of my Coaches, Byron Katie. Talk about wisdom! Katie is the OG wise woman of our times. From her, I learned that there are only three kinds of business in the universe: yours, mine, and God’s.

Whose business is it if there is a storm during my next race? God’s.

Whose business is it if the race director cancels the race? The race director’s.

Whose business is it if I’m angry at the race director for cancelling the race? Mine.

Taking myself through this simple but powerful set of questions daily keeps me grounded and responsible for keeping my proverbial side of the street clean. It’s so very easy to think we should get involved in the uncontrollable (God’s business) and the unwanted and unnecessary circumstances (your business), putting ourselves on a road that often leads to unintended consequences.

The next time you are unsure about the next best step, ask yourself, “In this moment, whose business am I in?”

3. You’ll live.

Yep, just like grandma used to say when we complained and whined about the latest injustice we’re enduring. Our generation of parents thought it was borderline abusive to tell a child, “you’ll live”.

Every feeling needed to be validated. Every child needed to be “seen” at all times, or else we feared they would need to spend a lifetime in therapy to get out from under our, at best, lackluster, and, at worst, damaging, parenting style.

God forbid, we should say to our child who was having a tough time, “Honey, you’ll live.”

It is a remarkable gift to instill in ourselves and our children the belief that we can live through difficult situations and won’t die because of them. It’s the gift of resilience, grit, and commitment.

My inner child thinks she’s going to die ten times a day. She’s dramatic and thinks it’s the end of the world if it’s too hot, someone honks at her, or she suffers an injury that grounds her. When people are rude, unkind, or unfair to her, she thinks the way to make herself whole again is to teach them a lesson.

But as the adult in the relationship, I have to hug her and whisper in her five-year-old ear, “I love you, let it go, you’ll live.”

4. Take a hike.

This is so often, literally, the solution to most problems. Something magical happens when we take what feels like an impossible problem onto the trails, the park, or the beach.

The combination of movement, fresh air, and the grounding effect of the earth under our feet often unlocks our creative minds. Solutions that were entirely out of reach in the confines of our everyday life and workspaces effortlessly appear.

Time in nature may not erase the problem, but it almost always makes it less daunting. And that difference in degrees can be enough to get us back in the game of life.

Wallace Stevens said, “Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.” I took it so seriously that I moved to a little village by a lake, which changed my life.

5. Start with a question.

It’s not a simplification of the work to say that most people come to coaching to find answers.

What should I do next?

Who do I keep in my circle of friends?

How do I have a difficult conversation with my wife?

When is the right time to launch a business?

How do I set healthy boundaries without being selfish?

How can I let go of procrastination (for good)?

Why does it feel like the same problems keep showing up in my life?

How do I live the life I want, rather than a life others want for me?

The list is endless, but the one thing that applies to each quest is that it begins with a question. Yet, most of us believe that we should only begin with the answer.

We don’t speak up, contribute, or collaborate because we think that if we don’t have the answer, we should stand back.

6. Develop a taste for saltwater.

I don’t know where I first heard this counterintuitive truth, but in the years since, it’s become a powerful and consistent practice in my life.

Most people avoid pain. I’ve taught myself to see discomfort as training. I love ideal circumstances as much as the next person. Still, when I’m operating under ideal circumstances, I realize that 100% of the time, I’m exactly the same person at the end that I was when I entered the situation.

Regular water is good, but it doesn’t make me grow, learn, or transcend. It doesn’t make me more confident, capable, or skilled. But the saltwater that is pain, discomfort, and unexpected challenges always leaves me with a valuable gift.

7. Become anti-fragile.

Although I’ve been working on this skill since childhood, I didn’t know what it was called until Nassim Taleb coined the word.

You see, we all know what it means to be fragile, that is, easily breakable. So what’s the opposite of fragile?

Most people think it’s resilience.

When a glass falls to the ground, it shatters because it’s fragile. When a plastic cup drops, it bounces but doesn’t break, because it’s resilient.

But there are things in life that, when faced with adversity, not only don’t break, but actually become stronger than before. That’s being anti-fragile.

It’s good to become resilient. It’s a superpower to become anti-fragile.

Stay tuned for Part 2, which is coming next week.