Curiosity #105 - Be Alive

“We laugh, we hurt, we fall, we get back up. We're a mess.”
Ted Lasso, Season 4

We're going to be very careful with this week's newsletter.

Season 4 of Ted Lasso has come to an end, and we know not everyone watches the show at the same pace we do. So there will be no spoilers here. No discussion of what happened, who said what to whom, or whether Dani Rojas was ultimately revealed to be an international jewel thief.

Okay, we're pretty sure we can safely tell you that last one didn't happen.

But there is one line from the season that has stuck with us:

“Being messy just means being alive.”

We love that.

Because despite our best efforts, life has a stubborn habit of refusing to stay neatly organized.

🧹 Someday, When Everything Settles Down...

Have you ever caught yourself saying some version of this?

Once we get through this project...

Once the kids get settled...

Once things calm down at work...

Once we figure out what we're doing next...

Then we'll relax. Then we'll make time for that thing we've been putting off. Then we'll enjoy ourselves a little more.

There's just one problem.

Then keeps moving.

The project ends and another begins. One kid gets settled and another needs you. The work problem gets solved and a new one takes its place. You finally answer all your emails and, inexplicably, people send more.

We keep waiting for life to become resolved.

Life seems to have other plans.

🏟 Leadership Is Messy Too

We do the same thing as leaders.

We create strategic plans, goals, org charts, processes, job descriptions, and dashboards. All useful things. But sometimes they give us the illusion that leadership is supposed to be orderly.

Then actual human beings get involved.

Someone doesn't respond the way we expected. The person we thought was ready isn't. The plan that looked brilliant in the conference room doesn't survive contact with reality. A great employee leaves. A struggling employee surprises us. We make the wrong decision even though we had all the right intentions.

That's not necessarily evidence that we're doing leadership wrong.

Leadership is messy because people are messy.

And people are messy because they're alive.

👪 Parents, You Know Where This Is Going

Parenthood might be the ultimate exercise in trying to create order out of something determined to remain unresolved.

We spend years trying to get our kids ready for the next thing. Kindergarten. Middle school. High school. College. A job. Adulthood.

We worry when they're struggling and occasionally worry when they're not struggling because surely that means there's something we're forgetting to worry about.

And maybe somewhere along the way, we start believing there's a version of the story where everybody eventually arrives.

But our kids don't arrive.

Neither do we.

They keep changing. So do we. They make mistakes, figure things out, change their minds, fall down, get back up, and occasionally call us for advice before doing the exact opposite of what we suggested.

That's not a flaw in the system.

That's being alive.

🌀 Maybe Unresolved Isn't the Problem

We like closure.

Finished feels good. Checkmarks feel good. Knowing the answer feels really good.

But some of the most important parts of our lives don't offer much closure.

Relationships evolve. Careers take unexpected turns. Our definition of success changes. We outgrow things we once desperately wanted. We become people our younger selves wouldn't entirely recognize.

Maybe growth isn't finally getting everything arranged exactly the way we want it.

Maybe growth is becoming more comfortable living while it's unresolved.

That doesn't mean we stop trying to make things better. It doesn't mean lowering our standards or shrugging our shoulders when things go wrong.

It means recognizing that we can be happy before everything is fixed.

We can be grateful while we're still figuring things out.

We can live now instead of waiting for some cleaner, calmer version of life to begin.

🏁 Final Thought

For years, the word most associated with Ted Lasso has been written in blue letters on a crooked yellow sign:

BELIEVE.

Believe in yourself. Believe in each other. Believe that something better is possible.

Maybe there's another idea worth hanging beside it now.

BE ALIVE.

Laugh. Hurt. Fall. Get back up. Make plans and watch some of them fall apart. Love people even though they will occasionally drive you absolutely crazy. Try things before you're certain they'll work.

Make a mess.

Because perhaps a life well lived isn't one where everything eventually gets sorted into the right boxes.

Maybe it's one where we stopped waiting for that to happen.

Being messy just means being alive.

— Nick & Marnie
Your tea sipping, mess embracing, still figuring it out friends

More leadership musings

🍪 Biscuits with the Boss: 

Here's one to think about this week:

What's something in your life you're waiting to have “figured out” before you allow yourself to enjoy where you are?

Then try a second question:

What if it stays messy for a while?

Not forever. Just longer than you'd prefer.

Could you still laugh? Learn? Connect? Be grateful?

Could you still be alive?

🌎 This week in Here - There - Every F’ing where

Last Thursday took Marnie from her daughter Josie’s seventh-grade entrepreneurship class to a book signing in New York with her son David. Apparently, “let’s squeeze in one more thing” is a family value.

Getting to talk about building a business in your daughter’s classroom is pretty special—especially when your daughter is the teacher. Then David and Marnie headed to NYC for Chris Day’s MSP to MVP book signing, some good conversation, and the obligatory pizza. Three hours in New York. We believe in efficiency when carbohydrates are involved.

The photos make a lovely little collection. What they can’t capture is how much life had to happen for everyone to get there: career changes, businesses built, kids growing up, and plenty of figuring it out along the way.

Nobody in these pictures has everything neatly resolved. We’re glad we didn’t wait.

Believe! 

Nick & Marnie