partners who were there before the fame?
They made me join a pod…
Everybody leans on you… and you cannot name a person you lean on…
We had wound down my 12-year partnership at the end of the summer. Not having someone to bounce ideas off of worried me a little, since I have always had partners. Then Positive Intelligence would not let me do it alone either. It was required: pods of at least 3 other coaches, a weekly call and a daily check-in. Daily. I remember thinking that was completely over the top. I am a coach. I do this for a living.
I did not think I needed it. That is exactly why I did.
One of the exercises had me standing out in a summer rain, literally, doing the visualization, washing the voices off. I did it the other evening without a second thought. The neighbors did not ask. I did not explain.
I have a name for the moment a pattern finally becomes visible: The Pit of Despair, my own homage to The Princess Bride. You do not climb out of it alone. Mine has unhelpful voices, Restless, Hyper-Achiever, Hyper-Rational… with the helpful ones right beside them, Curiosity, Explore, Empathy. The pod’s job was to make sure I could tell which one was talking.
…two acoustic guitars, partners since 1991
Counting Crows started as 2 people. Adam Duritz and David Bryson, an acoustic duo in the Bay Area in 1991. Bryson had already played in Mr. Dog and The Clique and ran his own studio, Dancing Dog. He was not a hired hand. He was the other half.
35 years later he is still in the band. Through the Rolling Stone cover, the crisis, the bartending, the breakdown in the 2000s, and every lineup change around them. In the HBO documentary Bryson credits Adam’s decisive leadership, contentious at times, with keeping the band together.
That is a partner talking, honest about the hard parts, and still in the room.
Asked on CBS in 2014 what the band gives him, Adam did not say fame, or money, or the songs. “A lot of times it’s just I know where I’m supposed to be.”
Hanginaround…
Hanginaround was the lead single from This Desert Life in 1999. No. 28 on the Hot 100, and No. 1 on the Triple A chart. 6 of them wrote it together: Bryson, Duritz, Gillingham, Malley, Mize and Vickrey.
Adam said the loops in the track made him think of “being on a loop myself,” looking back at his Berkeley years. My own loop runs on repeat too. My coach once named the whole pattern out loud: showing up after leaving one group of people, only to realize the same dynamics were waiting in the next room. Repeat. Repeat. The common denominator was me.
My pod was 3 people Hanginaround my calendar every single day, whether I felt like it or not. Most days I did not. Those turned out to be the days it mattered most.
…the Judge hates witnesses
What I did not understand about the daily check-in, until about week 3, The Judge does its best work alone. It sounds perfectly reasonable in your own head. Say the same sentence out loud to someone who knows you, even you can hear it fall apart in the air…
Positive Intelligence gives the Sage 5 powers, Empathize, Explore, Innovate, Navigate and Activate. Empathize comes first, and it starts with you. That is much easier to practice with a partner who will not let you skip it.
By the end of that first year I had written nearly 300 of these daily reflections, and I was still not entirely clear why I kept doing them. What I do know now: every one that mattered had a partner reading it before I hit publish, and I have always had partners, going back further than that 12-year one.
partner Intelligence…
You do not need a formal pod, and nobody needs to stand in the rain. You need 6 people to remind you of what your unique Intelligence is. And… for you to listen to the stories they tell. I have done this personally and now with 1000’s of leaders. Your own Judge says “… that can’t be true… I am not that person”. Yes… you are. They have been Hanginaround you long enough to see your extraordinary… when all you see is ordinary… or worse…
Your “Simple… Not Easy” move: find 6 people who know you well… A peer, a spouse, a friend from 1991. Ask them “What do you see when I work with you? And tell me a story about it”. Then… watch the Judge surface… turn that voice down… and listen… and take notes 😉
Helping leaders quiet the Judge and find the work they do that is “easy” for them and relax into it…. Schedule time with me here.
You are only 6 conversations from relaxing and… Hanginaround
