Staring Into the Infinity Box

My team is one of the most passionate, hardest working group of individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. The following is a talk I gave them on New Year’s Day to usher in the new decade.

Seth Godin’s blog post from January 1 of this year is the perfect starting point for this…

A box of infinity… It’s hard to look right at it.

The possibility that lies before us, the chance to connect, to lead, to be heard–it’s bigger than it’s ever been.

Tempting indeed to avert your eyes, because staring into infinity means embracing just how small we feel. We avert our eyes because to realize how much potential we have to contribute puts us on the hook.

But whether we ignore it or not, the infinity of possibility remains.

Dance with it.

Imposter Syndrome is something that all of us deal with, and one of the things that helps us overcome it the most is to read some encouraging words. So before we get started with my long-winded monologue, I’ve got some cards and pens up here.

Would each of you just write some simple words of encouragement to someone on the team. Don’t address it to anyone specifically… I’ll get them handed out at the end of the evening, but just imagine this is a card that sits in someone’s desk drawer, and they pull it out to read it a few times over the next year when they need some affirmation and encouragement that they got this—that they can do it and that you believe in them.

Over the Christmas break, I found myself in a conversation with one of my cousins that strikes me as relevant to this evening. I’d like to share it with you.

For those of you who know me well, it won’t surprise you to hear that I’ve always been a bit of an enigma, a black sleep, to my very laid back and modest family — two words that certainly don’t describe me. In their defense, farming and small-town construction are fairly far apart from punk rock and plastic surgery — and so it’s become a bit of an informal Holiday tradition for someone in my family to ask, “So, what exactly do you do?”

Over the last couple of decades, I’ve tried to answer that question a myriad of different ways. I’ve played them songs, shown them photos, and even delivered one of my impassioned monologues. And yet, each time, I’m met with the same reaction: bewildered stares and furrowed brows.

This year, the question came from my cousin Anthony, and I decided to take a different approach. When Anthony asked, “So Rob, what exactly do you do these days?”

My response went a little something like this…

“Anthony, I’m glad you asked, because I think about it all the time. Certainly, part of my job is helping those around me see who they could be. Another part of my job is to get people excited about doing things they would never have chosen to do themselves. But Anthony, I know you care a lot about me and my happiness. So here’s what I think is most important for you to know…

Every morning, I get to stand in a circle with some of my best friends — people who are so different from one another, but who care deeply about one another. People who want to do a great job for the sake of others, and together, we do our best to create a future that couldn’t have been without us.”

I was quite pleased with myself, because Anthony simply responded, “Wow. That sounds awesome.” And he’s right. It is.

But then I couldn’t help myself. I kept going…

“Man, it’s amazing. It’s the hardest thing we’ve ever done in our lives. We all laugh together, we cry together, we make a rukus, and we have this vision that is absolutely insane. We lose sleep over it all the time, but it’s so worth it, because we truly believe we’re going to change the world.”

That’s when it happened… Anthony gave me the bewildered stare and the furrowed brow. Damn it. “Well,” Anthony said. “I guess if that’s what makes you happy…” and he trailed off.

According to girlboss J.T. O’Donnell, Anthony’s reaction shouldn’t come as a surprise. She’s spent the last 15 years studying why women and men are or are not passionately engaged in all parts of their lives.

What she’s found is that if there is no joy and deep purpose in someone’s career (career, as in, “the way a person contributes to adding value to someone else’s life”), then it’s nearly impossible for them to experience joy . at all.

She says that “less than 1% of people love both the team they work with and the role they play in their career—both of which are required to feel significantly satisfied, energized and inspired in all parts of their lives.”

Unfortunately, what we see in countless studies is that we live in a world where—not the majority, but—the vast majority of adults have resolved to settle for a life full of average… average finances, average marriages, average self awareness, average friendships, and especially average careers. Careers that are:

• Not too hard,
• Not too demanding,
• Pays predictably,
• Seemingly stable,
• Moderately impactful,
• Leaves plenty of room for their hobbies, and
• Doesn’t require too many hours.

To most people, I just described the (seemingly) perfect job and the perfect life. But as J.T. O’Donnell found, it leads to anxiety and longing.

And then there are people like you. People who have chosen a different path, the difficult path on purpose.

A path that requires a consistent level of stress, the painful process of personal growth, and sacrifices that those in this room—those we care most about—must bear with us. And all of this, just to have a shot at making a change in the world that goes far beyond ourselves… far beyond our immediate families… beyond our circle of friends… rippling out to people’s names we will never even know.

Now, to most people, we’re all crazy. I mean, to be honest, most of the people on our own team look at us a little sideways. The average person simply can’t understand how we could possibly put in the amount of effort and expect the level of excellence within ourselves that we do.

To no fault of their own, I think it’s because they don’t have a word for what they see happening within us. So all they can muster are words and phrases like “driven” or “entrepreneurial” or “bought in.”

Fortunately for us, the Greeks did. They had a very specific word for people like us. The word is “Eudaimonic.”

Someone who is Eudaimonic is “living in the fullest and most passionate expression of the unique spirit that we each possess.”

Said differently, it’s what happens to us when we get to show up with our whole selves and be fully alive in each part of our day.

It’s is experiencing the uncomfortable pleasure of being stretched intellectually. It’s believing that we can do it, not because we’re brilliant, but because those in this room are cheering us on. It’s the chutzpah (the passion) that creates our unstoppable momentum, because we know our mission extends to making the world a different place for our children’s children.

Let the record show, I’m glad we’re weird. And I’m glad we’re weird together.

Now if I can be honest, with everything we’ve all seen, believing all of this “change the world” talk isn’t that difficult. Like I said, we’ve all just seen too many confirmations of it. I think all of us would say not a matter of “if,” its a simply a matter of “when.”

But, there is something that continues to get in the way of our progress, and it would be negligent of me to not use this moment as an opportunity to point out what I believe to be this team’s most significant vulnerability. This is a vulnerability that, left unaddressed, will keep us from every making a difference that’s substantial enough to be noticed.

As a last 10% of truth moment, here’s what worries me most about this detraction of ours… I don’t think that most of you can see it. I think it’s probably a blindspot for you, and I’d like to shine a little light on it.

Y’all know how much I love that we’re the B-Team. But I think one of the problems with being successful people who have also failed, or been rejection, or been misunderstood, or felt sidelined is that those past wounds can still affect us in our day to day.

Those wounds can manifest themselves in different ways, of course. For some of us, it’s straight up self-doubt. Self-doubt says, “I can’t do this. I’m not experienced enough, I’m smart enough, I’m not whatever enough.”

Sometimes those wounds manifest themselves as negativity. Negativity says, “I’m going to be an emotional problem, so that I don’t have to solve any real problems.”

Other times it’s lack of initiative, and lack of initiative says, “If I just do what I’m told, I won’t get blamed for what didn’t get done.”

And then there’s my personal go to, distraction. And distraction says, “If I don’t focus on it, I can’t fail at it.”

Our team’s greatest vulnerability is that most of you believe that you are our team’s greatest vulnerability. That this team is going to change the world in spite of you, not because of you. That one day you’ll be discovered, not for being the way, but being in the way.

I’ve got some really bad news, friends. There’s no search party. There’s no rescue mission. No one is coming to save us, to wave a magic wand and remove our self-doubt, negativity, lack of initiative, or distraction.

So this year all of us are going to grow up a little bit. I want all of you to start waking up everyday and seeing in the mirror what me and everyone else in this room already sees each time we look at you.

Let me tell you what I see when I look at you. I don’t see our weakest link. I don’t see the one who’s not going to make it. I don’t see someone who has already had their time.

What I do see is our secret fucking weapon. I see a champion who has already done the impossible, and doesn’t have a single thing left to prove. I see a leader who has a critical contribution that only you can make. I see a friend who has my back.

Friends, this year is your year to show up. It’s your year to stop believing that the capabilities that are surrounding you are less valuable than the capabilities within you. I want you to decide that this is your year to dance with infinity, and to start believing in you every bit as much as we do.

To close, psychologists tell us that the combination of self-affirmation and peer-affirmation is the singular most powerful duo in becoming more whole and effective versions of ourselves.

So at the beginning of the evening, I asked you to scribble down some encouraging words... To offer some affirmations to someone on your team for those most difficult days of imposter syndrome.

I personally think we do a really good job as a team with our peer-affirmations and encouragements. And that’s why the words that you wrote, these are words from you, for you.