Where I Didn’t Expect Gratitude to Take Me

We say thank you almost as much as we say hello. It’s common courtesy, acknowledging the value of a comment, a gesture, a favor, and of the worth of those around us. It binds us to our fellow humans, even if we do it somewhat mechanically.

In recent years I’ve been thinking about a deeper level of gratitude. David Brooks highlighted this for me in a column he wrote several years ago called “The Credit Illusion.” When we are in our twenties we are very impressed with our own talents and accomplishments. But by the time we are in our fifties, certainly by seventy, we recognize how much our life owes its shape to others.

Yes, I succeeded in college but I could only go because my parents valued it, could afford it, and sent me. And that was possible only because in the last two hundred years their parents or great grandparents journeyed from Western and Eastern Europe to a country where college was possible for and valued by people like them. They avoided two major wars that ravaged their populations and came to a country that was expanding economically.

My parents provided a stable home. They provided the foundations of my faith. Yes, I took advantage of the opportunities presented to me—educationally, economically, relationally. But I didn’t create the opportunities. Others made them possible. And I have been moved to give thanks for them and their parents more and to congratulate myself less.

Practicing this type of reflection and gratitude can lead to what I call confident humility. The humility comes from recognizing that so much (most?) of who I am is not my own doing. At the same time in gratitude I am saying what I have received is good, perhaps very good, and that produces confidence.

Confident humility, in turn, gives me the freedom to listen to others. I don’t have to lead with criticism of others to show how smart I am. Whether it is about church, politics, diets, family, or how bad the Chicago Bears are, I can open myself to learn from others who have different ideas than I do.

I don’t have to be threatened by new viewpoints or people who disagree with me because I know most of who I am came from others to begin with. Surprisingly, gratitude has thus taken me on a journey of listening and of learning new things—yes, of even learning I was wrong.

The end of a year and the end of a decade are good times to reflect and to be grateful. They are times to listen for the good, for the true, and for the beautiful regardless of the source.

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photo credits: Pixabay 1778011 (University of Arizona); SecularEthos (thank you)

The Road to Community

It’s not too early to think about that graduation speech you are going to give next May. David Brooks has some ideas about what you should not say.

Early in The Second Mountain, David Brooks delivers a devastating critique of the hyper-individualism one usually hears in commencement speeches: Be yourself. The future is limitless. Look inside for truth. Follow your passion. This, Brooks says, is the counsel of despair for most college students have no idea who they are, what they are passionate about, or how to go about making a future. Such advice rather than energizing them, puts the full responsibility for their lives on their own shoulders which cannot bear the weight.

The image of the second mountain suggests what Brooks has in mind instead. The first mountain is that of personal achievement, of individualism, and personal happiness. But this is often followed by a descent into a valley of moral, career, or financial failure—or just a vague depression. We ascend out of the valley to the second mountain via self-sacrifice, committing ourselves to something bigger than we are alone.

As the book progresses, we learn of Brooks’s own valley—divorce, children leaving the nest, living by himself in a small apartment, and his crushing loneliness. On his way out of the valley Brooks created Weave: The Social Fabric Project of the Aspen Institute. We thus hear a number of stories of people and organizations building community in a variety of ways, large and small, to repair or broken society. We also hear of his journey into a community of faith, and the people who walked this path with him such as John Stott and the woman he eventually married.

After his critique of individualism, the book focuses on major four commitments that are larger than ourselves—vocation, marriage, philosophy and faith, and community. Along with his introductory chapters, the last two sections are the strongest in the book.

In his opening to The Second Mountain, David Brooks says he is correcting his previous book, The Road to Character. I think, however, the two are simply companion volumes. While the earlier book focuses on the valid and important work of character development that each of us is responsible for, Brooks’s newest book highlights the importance of community for who we are.

I also found a kinship between this book and Ben Sasse’s, Them. Our increasing isolation from one another has led us to gravitate toward twisted forms of connection. As Brooks says, tribalism is the evil twin of community. The first is defined by who is our foe. The second by who is our friend. Both Brooks and Sasse emphasize the need to renew community and social networks (to actually get to know people face to face) to break down the hate that unnecessarily divides Americans from Americans.

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Photo credit: Alan Sun

The Grand Landscape of Scripture

When it comes to the Bible, scholars and non-scholars have something in common. We can both get lost in minutia.

Academics can get lost in the details of philology and morphology. The rest of us are prone to proof-texting, ripping verses or phrases out of context as if the Bible were a book of disconnected timeless truths or a mere handbook for living.

When we miss the big picture, Chris Wright and Gary Burge come to our rescue with excellent companion volumes—The Old Testament in Seven Sentences and The New Testament in Seven Sentences.

Each offers seven grand themes sparked by iconic verses in the Bible that help us see the majestic vista of God’s work. Wright’s choices from the Old Testament are creation, Abraham, Exodus, David, prophets, gospel, and wisdom. In the New, Burge walks us through fulfillment, kingdom, cross, grace, covenant, spirit, completion.

The two books link together in another way. Wright appropriately notes how the Old Testament points to and is fulfilled in Christ. Burge regularly points out how the New is based on and rooted in the Old. In plain and engaging language, both authors provide this necessary service because we have little hope of understanding Jesus or the apostles without engaging both testaments.

The result is a complete, brief, and readable overview of the Bible. Each book provides discussion questions for each chapter. Taking one a week, then, any church or small group could in under four months lift their heads from the weeds to see the grand landscape that is God’s story.

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Note: I received complementary copies of both books from the publisher. I also was responsible for signing Chris Wright to do his book for IVP, though I had retired before the book was released and did not participate in its development or final form. My opinions are my own.

What Predicts Success in Life?

Talent is overrated. Hard work is undervalued. (Writers, take note.)

That’s the message psychology researcher Angela Duckworth argues throughout her book Grit, a message she illuminates with varied stories and interviews. The combination of passion and perseverance (her definition of grit) is a much greater predictor of success than any innate ability.

High school students who stick with an extracurricular activity—any activity—for at least two years are much more likely to graduate from college and succeed in life than those who don’t.

She also argues that grit is not itself a talent, just something we are born with. Rather we can grow in grittiness through practice and by becoming part of a gritty culture. Parents and coaches who offer loving support and high expectations can help their children and athletes not just improve in skills but grow in their stick-to-it-tive-ness.

Duckworth’s perspective is much like that of psychologist Carol Dweck in her book Mindset (which I reviewed here). For Dweck, the fixed mindset believes talent, ability, brains are God-given and there is nothing we can do to improve. The growth mindset focuses on improving, on learning. The outcome is secondary. The result? Those with the growth mindset tend to do better than those with a fixed mindset.

Duckworth gives a nod to the fact (as research shows) that our environment (society, family, culture) can profoundly affect our grit. The culture of Finland, as one example, can train a whole country to be tough in adversity. So grit is not merely a matter of pulling oneself up.

In fact, our environment can also have a profoundly negative effect and train us in helplessness. More research is needed in this area than Duckworth provides. Our background doesn’t doom us, but she says little about how it makes emerging from this handicap infrequent and a major challenge. Exceptional people from difficult backgrounds don’t invalidate the rule. They prove the rule.

One other helpful bit I’ll mention: While “Follow your passion” is good advice, we don’t always know what our passion is right away. It takes trying many different things, sometimes over a period of years. But, she advises, while experimenting, don’t quit in the middle of a season or a semester even when you realize it is not for you. See it through to a logical stopping point—another way to grow in grit.

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photo: Lapland Winter Snow (adege, Pixabay)

The Story Behind Write Better

For decades I have loved, reread, recommended, and extolled William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. He is wise, practical, enjoyable to read, and absolutely on target for new and experienced writers.

While I have been dispensing writing advice for decades (to authors, in lectures, in writing), when I thought about doing a book on writing myself, I was met with two thoughts—neither encouraging. First, how could I possibly say anything better than Zinsser when he says so much so well? Second, what would I possibly put in a book that Zinsser doesn’t already cover? Was anything left to say?

Most other books on writing fell into one of two categories. Either they were memoirs of famous writers with a few writing tips sprinkled here and there, or they were detailed guides to punctuation, grammar, word usage and so forth. While both sorts of books can be helpful, what I appreciated about Zinsser was his middle path of providing principles. His advice was concrete enough to put into practice but general enough to be broadly applicable. That’s the kind of book I also wanted to write—if I could.

I began by making a list of possible topics. Soon I saw they fell roughly into the three categories of craft, art, and spirituality. Half of Zinsser deals with craft but he says almost nothing about the other two. What he writes in that first part about simplicity, clutter, words, and usage is unsurpassed. So I focused on topics he doesn’t cover such as structure, persuasion, narrative in nonfiction, titles, and more. While he also addresses openings, endings, and audience, I took a different but complementary approach.

The last two-thirds of what would become Write Better would clearly be distinct. My five chapters on art consider the nature and practice of creativity, the value of breaking the rules of writing, the significance of tone, the glories of metaphor, and how saying less leaves room for art.

Zinsser had a Protestant upbringing and actually edited a book called Spiritual Quests. But he wrote little on the topic. In his final edition of On Writing Well, he considers the attitudes authors have toward their work—regarding voice, enjoyment, fear, and so forth. I consider some of these topics and many others in my final part on spirituality and writing, but within an explicitly Christian framework.

Something else I could offer that many writing books don’t include is a window into the mysterious world of publishing. Several appendices pull back the veil a bit on this realm of intense interest to writers.

I still recommend Zinsser. My aim is for Write Better to join him in the underpopulated category of principle-based books on writing.

Disrupting Distraction

When we talk about our faith, we may be thinking of beliefs, ethics, and worship. But what others hear, says Alan Noble, is our preferences. They see these as lifestyle choices we use to craft an identity—like jerseys of our favorite sports team, our vegetarian diet, or volunteering to tutor.

What makes engaging others about religion even more difficult is our culture of distraction. Social media, entertainment, busy schedules and more all keep us from reflecting on ideas, on substantive issues, on our own lives. Both people of faith and people of no faith rarely stop long enough to wonder about our path in life. Yes, I too reflexively take a dose of social media even in the bathroom.

In Alan Noble’s transforming book Disruptive Witness, he unpacks these two forces—identity formed by preferences and endless distraction—based on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. With gentle but persistent insight, Noble considers how our culture makes faith a challenge for all of us, in ways we may be largely unaware of.

The second part of the book looks at practices we can engage in to break or disrupt these forces—personally, as a church, and as we interact with culture. These are not suggestions for evangelism as we might typically think of them. They are more like spiritual disciplines to reorient our own lives before (or as) we engage with those outside God’s family. I could wish for more here, but Noble gives us a necessary beginning.

This important book deserves a wide reading for understanding ourselves, our neighbors, and our world—and for living more closely attuned to the reality of God.

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photo credit: Pixabay LoboStudioHamburg

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher. My opinions are my own.

The Unexpected Ways of Originals

Adam Grant made a huge mistake.

Grant had the opportunity to invest on the ground floor of a revolutionary e-commerce enterprise. As he talked to the entrepreneurs, he discovered they had no experience in e-commerce, they were hedging their bets by not quitting their day jobs, and their decision-making process seemed interminable. He turned them down. The result? The new company was a massive success.

How could he have been so wrong? That drove him to write his book, Originals. The result? A wealth of research, wisdom, and ideas about how original thinkers work, the counterintuitive strategies they sometimes employ, and unexpected factors that contributed to their success.

And how do original thinkers work? From Beethoven to Edison to Picasso they outproduced their peers. Each is famous for several works of genius. What is little known is the thousands of works they generated that are forgotten. Producing so much in quantity increased their odds that a few would be landmark creations.

And, second, what counterintuitive strategies do they use? Scientists are twelve times more likely to win a Nobel price if they write poetry, plays, novels or other works, than if they don’t. And twenty-two times more likely if they perform as an amateur actor, dancer or magician. Originals are not mono-focused but wide ranging.

Originals tend not to be risky in all areas of life but only in some. They don’t let impulse or intuition carry them away. They pursue their dream while continually reviewing options, downsides, and problems, as well as strategically procrastinating to make sure they’ve thought things through carefully.

Counterintuitively, successful originals also take on rolls as moderate radicals who are willing to compromise and form unlikely partnerships, rather than extreme radicals who only espouse the purity of their cause (as I previously wrote about here). They also turn anxiety into positive energy while keeping calm in the face of opposition or hostility.

Third, what unlikely factors can contribute to originality? Birth order. Being an only child or being deep in the pack of a large family can make originality more likely. Birth order is no guarantee, however. And regardless of where we fall in a family, we can all increase our creativity and impact by using some of the strategies noted throughout.

The author’s definition of an original as someone who is different or inventive is not much more than a tautology. He would have been better off to concretely define creativity as combining two things or ideas which hadn’t been joined before or by combining them in a new way.

Those who have read Daniel Kahneman, Susan Cain, and Chip and Dan Heath will also find some ideas familiar. The book is, nonetheless, a pleasure to read with its combination of engaging stories, solid research, and usable, memorable principles.

From what makes a great base stealer to how to parent for moral development to why you should get rid of the suggestion box to how to write great headlines to creating change as a minority, the book is wide ranging and can keep you, like the author, from making some big mistakes.

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photo credits: Pixabay Flybynight (Edison); Pixabay Keithjj (baseball)

The Messiness of Creativity

At the beginning of Wired to Create, Scott Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire dismiss the four-steps of creativity that Graham Wallas proposed a hundred years ago. Such a notion is just too simplistic, they say. I was interested in this because I make use of Wallas’s ideas in Write Better. And the authors have a point. Creativity is messy and doesn’t always follow a straight line, which Wallas’s scheme can imply.

I found it interesting, however, that at various points in their book Kaufman and Gregoire comment positively on each of the stages Wallas identifies, though they don’t reference him.

Regarding the messiness of creativity, Wallas says something very similar. When we come across a problem, we have to investigate it from all directions. Our research and reflection must be wide ranging. We never know ahead of time what data, experience, or experiment may prove useful. This is similar to the dozens of sketches over a period of weeks that Picasso prepared before he painted his masterpiece Guernica, a story told in Wired to Create. Wallas calls this first stage preparation.

The authors also consider the quintessential “aha” moment of inspiration—the most common notion people have about creativity. That is Wallas’s third stage (illumination). Such epiphanies, they note, are often preceded by a period when we are relaxed, daydreaming, or distracted, such as when we are on a walk or in the shower. The authors give French mathematician Poincaré as an example–just as Wallas does in describing his second stage (incubation).

Creativity is not just a moment, however. The authors say it can take weeks, months or years to work out an idea. Creativity requires perseverance and follow through to see if the idea can become reality. That’s Wallas’s fourth stage (verification).

Kaufman and Gregoire and certainly correct that there is much more to creativity than Wallas’s four dimensions. They highlight the important roles of play, solitude, mindfulness, and sensitivity, among others. Creativity is a complex, multidimensional process that cannot be completely encapsulated in four linear steps. But the four steps are still part of the process.

photo credit: qimono Pixabay

Why Some Innovations Succeed and Others Don’t

Coming up with a great idea can be hard enough. Getting the idea adopted can be even harder. Why do some innovations change the world and others go nowhere?

The reasons are many. In Originals Adam Grant highlights one factor in the story of the American suffrage movement.

Lucy Stone launched the women’s rights movement in 1851, inspiring thousands to join the cause for women’s right to vote, work, receive an education, and own property. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were among her early followers. But after years of leading together, in 1869 Anthony and Stanton split from Stone, nearly causing the collapse of the movement. What happened?

Anthony and Stanton were purists. They opposed the Fifteenth Amendment giving African Americans the right to vote because if women couldn’t vote, no other minorities should either. Stone instead built bridges to those favoring the amendment.

Stone also sought allies in an unexpected corner, in the family-values organization of the day—the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). The WCTU was conservative, largely made up of religious middle- and upper-class women who were unlikely to see Stone and her movement as upholding traditional values. Yet Stone forged an alliance by suggesting that the WTCU would have a hard time changing liquor laws if women couldn’t vote. The more radical-sounding “women’s right to vote” was reframed more moderately as a “home protection ballot.”

Anthony and Stanton were scandalized. But their differences didn’t stop there. “Stone was committed to campaigning at the state level; Anthony and Stanton wanted a federal constitutional amendment. Stone involved men in her organization; Anthony and Stanton favored an exclusively female membership. Stone sought to inspire change through speaking and meetings; Anthony and Stanton were more confrontational, with Anthony voting illegally and encouraging other women to follow suit.” (121)

The extreme radicalism of some scared away the potential sympathy of many. Though Stanton sought reconciliation in 1872, by then Stone was too wary of her unpredictable sisters in the cause. It took passing the torch to a new generation of moderate radicals before women won the right to vote in 1920.

Change the world? Yes. With creative coalitions, with tempered radicalism, by reframing the new as something old. A hundred years ago, women showed us how it’s done.

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Photos: Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection (Stone); Library of Congress, (Stanton seated, Anthony standing).

Writing Tip #17: The Big Reveal

How do you keep readers reading? How do you pull them through a chapter or article or blog without them getting bored or distracted?

Fiction writers aren’t the only ones who can use a mystery to keep readers engaged. Nonfiction writers can also withhold a key piece of information—the whodunnit! It’s what I call the Big Reveal in Write Better. How does it work?

Adam Grant uses the technique effectively in his book Originals. At the beginning of chapter two Grant tells of “an invention [that] took Silicon Valley by storm.” Steve Jobs offered $63 million for 10 percent of the company and the inventor turned it down. But Jobs was so enamored “he offered to advise the inventor for the next six months—for free.”

Legendary investor John Doerr pumped in $80 million, thought it would be the fastest company to reach $1 billion, and “would become more important than the internet.”

“The inventor himself was described as a modern Thomas Edison—he already had a track record of remarkable breakthroughs” which Grant details. The inventor thought he’d soon be selling 10,000 units a week but six years after launch they had only sold 30,000 total.

The product? The Segway, one of the most hyped tech devices in decades with the most disappointing results.

Grant immediately tells us another tale in the same vein. Two entertainers with no TV writing experience struggle to put together a half-hour sitcom pilot. The test audience in Los Angeles gave it bland to bad marks. Somehow, though, the pilot was aired—to yawns. But a passionate exec ordered a few more episodes against the wisdom of others despite the fact that one of the writers said he’d run out of ideas and was ready to quit. Over the next decade, it became the most popular show in America.

“If you’ve ever complained about a close talker, accused a partygoer of double-dipping a chip, uttered the disclaimer ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that,’ or rejected someone by saying ‘No soup for you,’ you’re using phrases coined” on Seinfeld.

Grant hooks us by putting two mysteries in front of us which we actively try to solve ourselves before the author reveals the answers. But he doesn’t stop there.

The author then asks, How can our predictions about innovations go so wrong—sometimes predicting a hit that becomes a flop, and other times forecasting a bomb that becomes a sensation? He outlines what’s ahead—again without giving away the solution. We’ll discover “best practices in idea selection . . . how to make fewer bad bets . . . meet two venture capitalists who anticipated the failure of the Segway . . . see why it’s so difficult for managers and test audiences to accurately evaluate new ideas,” and more.

If we want to find out about all these interesting results, we’ll have to read on. I did.

photo: Pixabay talliev