Life Is Learning: Lessons from 2018

This time six years ago I began a tradition of reflecting back on the previous year to see what I had learned about life.

A life without learning is not a life fully lived. For me, it helps to stop and look back once in a while to remember what I’ve learned… and to share with others who may benefit.

Here are a couple learnings from 2018:

Everything comes down to connection and belonging

Think about the last time you felt safe. Really safe. You felt heard. You felt like you belonged. You felt a sense of connection with others.

When we feel safe, we thrive. When we connect, we feel like we belong.

These are universal needs. They are hardwired into us.

Last year it slowly became crystal clear to me that my purpose in life is to help others find these needs.

This is a tall order. Not only because it’s hard. But because I struggle with both. I realized late this year that I’m on a personal journey to figure out how to connect and belong. Fortunately, this nicely dovetails with my job; to help the people in my organization feel that they belong so they can do their best work.

For more on this topic read Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly.

Embrace the suck (and the highs)

This year I subjected myself to two extremely challenging experiences that taught me a lot about how to navigate life. One of them involved a float tank.

One hour. Nothing but myself, a dark pool of salt water, and my thoughts.

During the float, my limbs and the back of my head started to fall asleep. That feeling, paired with the lack of all other stimuli, triggered anxiety. I felt like I was leaving my body. There were several (brief) moments when I questioned my existence. I kept breathing. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was moments away from hitting the escape button and getting out of there.

I stayed with it. Inviting the anxiety in, like an old friend.

It eventually ended. I was fine.

Why would I do this to myself? I saw it as great mental training.

Life is not always easy. Knowing how to embrance the suck of the moment is a useful skill to have. And being able to notice the good during an otherwise bad experience can make suffering less intense. In the float tank, the out of body experience came with a brief moment of equanimity where I felt my ego float away. I — capital I — didn’t exist anymore. I felt like I was part of the universe.

Teaching is a great way to learn

Back in March I began a teacher training program through the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute — a two day mindfulness and emotional intelligence course created at Google. Recently, I’ve started to co-teach the full program as part of a “practice” period.

The program teachers have said it incessantly, but now I understand: teachers make the best students.

In my short time teaching this year, I understand what they mean. This is contrary to what most of us are raised thinking: that teachers are symbols of authority. The truth is, very few of us are authorities on anything. The world continues to change so rapidly that it’s nearly impossible to be an expert in anything anymore. The best we can do is be open and curious — and as teachers, invite our students’ experiences to become a part of the curriculum.

Feeling empowered while distressed involves asking one simple question

Back in April, I attended the Mindful Work Summit in Northern California. Former Google-engineer and well-being expert Bill Duane, during his talk, expanded on Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s teachings —and it profoundly changed how I respond to distress, whether it’s a bad mood or a shitty situation.

Duane explained that when we are stressed, we tend to constrict our thinking. We zero in on what’s going wrong. Moving forward feels difficult because there seem to be few — or no — ways forward. We tend to ask ourselves “why is this happening to me?” This is a very limiting question.

To expand our possibilities, Duane suggests asking “what is being asked of me?” instead. It’s more empowering, expanding your mind find a path forward.

Never underestimate the power of a good “to do” system

This year I adopted the Get Things Done method for organization. Getting started involves putting aside one to two days to go through all of your “stuff” — physical stuff laying around your desk or apartment, emails, tasks, post-it notes, and all the “stuff” you try to store in your head.

In March I spent an entire Friday going through, categorizing, and organizing my “stuff.” It was a ton of work. There was a moment when my office was a complete disaster.

As I made my way through the piles and started to organize, I noticed I began to feel light and energetic. On a call with my meditation teacher that afternoon, she even pointed out how different I seemed.

Many of us lead incredibly busy lives — the lists of people to text back, emails to reply to, tasks to complete, or articles to read — feels infinite. Having a good system keeps these to-dos out of your head so you can use your brain for more useful tasks like thinking and doing.

Being able to “hold uncertainty” is a skill worth honing

There is so much about the world we don’t know. There is a lot about the people around us — even our closest friends and loved ones — that we don’t know. There’s also a heck of a lot about ourselves that we don’t know.

And as the world grows more complex, these uncertainties will increase.

We have two choices. We can get caught up in what we don’t know; freak out and become burdened by stress or anxiety.

Alternatively, we can choose to hold uncertainty. To make it our companion. To let it float through us and let our anxieties become more clear. Or, accept things as they are.

Another way to put this… curiosity is a skill worth developing.

What three things are you looking for in a partner?

In June I came across a podcast interview that changed my perception of dating and relationships.

Khe Hy of the Rad Awakenings podcast interviewed Sarah K. Peck, an author, blogger and entrepreneur I’ve followed for many years. The hour-long interview spans a variety of topics from diversity and inclusion to her new business Startup Pregnant.

At the end of the interview, they discuss Sarah’s approach to dating. After splitting up with her fiancée and spending a year trying online dating, she took a new approach. Per a friends suggestion, she wrote down the top ten things she was looking for in a partner. Then, her friend told her to pick three — because if she’s realistic, even she probably doesn’t have all ten of those things.

She met her future-husband the next week.

While it seems like magic, it’s not. Sarah says:

“When you write down what you want with a lot of clarity and specificity, you’re able to see it. It’s not that you conjure it out of thin air — [though] that’s what it feels like.

…if I tell you to go out in the street and look for everything that’s red, you’ll apply a filter to your brain and you’ll start seeing red lights and red stop signs and red cars. You’re priming yourself to see what it is that you want. And it works really well. It’s kind of phenomenal.

Naturally, I tried this. And it’s made a big impact on how I date.

I’m ready to dive head-first into the final year of my 20s. It’s been a wild decade, with many hats worn. Entrepreneur. Risk-taker. Triathlete. Captain. Writer. Culture-designer. Mindfulness teacher.

Whatever happens in 2019, I intend to spend a decent portion of it outside of my comfort zone (or better put, familiar zone). More on this soon.

Best wishes for a fantastic New Year.