As presented at the Spring 2021 From Vision To Action Executive Roundtable on April 8, 2021.
The Road Is Not The Journey
As many of my clients and students know, I like to tell stories. I also like to listen to stories. I find them fascinating and intriguing, influential and powerful. I grew up in a family of story tellers and I suspect I have passed this on to both of our sons.
Some of my stories are quite long. Others are dramatic. And some are just crazy, comical and delightfully insightful.
After 35 years of consulting and 40 years of teaching, living and learning, I have come to the conclusion that we are wired as human beings to connect, understand, and remember stories, not just statistics or data. John Kotter, author of The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 2002), wrote: “The single most important message in this book is very simple. People change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings. The flow of see-feel-change is more powerful than that of analysis-think-change.” From my experience, I believe the flow of story telling, namely hear-feel-change, is just as powerful and transformative as the see-feel-change process.
For many years, people would come up to me once I had told a story and say, “Geery - you got to write those stories down.” So, in late 2017 and early 2018, I sat down and started writing. The result was the booklet in the From Vision to Action Series called “The Map Is Not The Road”. It was a legacy project for me and important step in my journey personally and professionally.
Then, on June 1, 2018, after the booklet was published, I sat down for coffee with one of my Kitchen Table Cabinet people and gave him a copy. He looked at the cover, paused and said to me, “The road is not the journey, Geery.” And thus, I started a multi-year journey of reflection, many conversations, a vast amount of reading, and many cups of coffee and sharing, all of which has led me to this morning.
According to the dictionary, a road is defined as “a means to an end; a static creation; a way to overcome obstacles; the creation of an engineer.” On the other hand, a journey is defined as “a process over time” and it involves intent and choices. It also involves movement, but not always moving.
Our life is a journey, be that physical, mental, emotional, social, and ultimately spiritual. Our life is the sum of all the experiences we have had to date. It is a journey of highly interconnected relationships, experiences, and choices.
As we gather here this morning at the Spring 2021 Roundtable, we need to remember that we are all a part of one, great big, never ending story. I am one small part of something really quite big. We are all a small part of something really quite big.
I think acknowledging this gives us the foundation to do two of the hardest things in the world, be that in the world of leadership or in our personal lives. First, we must start from the place of respecting all people, no matter the situation. My late brother-in-law Warren role modeled this so well. He never met a stranger in his life journey. And, second, we must remember that we are all connected, no matter our class, our privilege or our experiences. You and I are on the same journey. We are part of a larger whole.
Here are three important lessons I have learned in my life journey.
Listen to Your Heart
This Roundtable that we are all participating in here this morning started with a dream, a most terrifying dream and a loving, supportive and kind woman, my wife Jane.
When I finished five years of teaching high school history, I was exhausted and burned out. It was not just a physical or emotional thing. It was a whole life thing and I just needed to move on.
So, I searched for a new job and finally found one in the trades. Every day, I went to work. I tried to be happy in the new job but, upon reflection, I was just going through the motions.
Then, one August night, I woke up covered in a cold sweat, hyperventilating, and terrified. I was shaking so badly that I woke up my wife Jane.
“Are you alright?”, she asked.
“No,” I responded.”
“What happened?”
“I just dreamed that my boss was about to cut out my heart.”
“Wow. What is the message of this dream?”
“I need to listen to my heart.”
“What is it saying?”
“I need to quit this job.”
“Okay.” And with that she rolled over and went back to sleep.
Once I had recovered my breath, I lay in bed and realized I had just made a huge decision. I was newly married and we had a child under the age of one. And I had no idea where I was going in life or what I was supposed to be doing. I just knew that I was way off my path. I was not where I needed to be. So, in the morning, I gave notice. And shortly thereafter, I came home.
I framed up the first week of not working as a vacation. This was much needed as I had finished teaching one day and the next day started in the trades. But after a week of vacation, I needed to figure out what to do with my life.
So, every morning after breakfast, five days a week, I would walk up the steps to the landing on the second floor of our home, sit down at a small table with my college, electric typewriter and write a letter.
The first line of the letter was always the same: “Dear God. This is Geery…”. And I would write and write until I had nothing left to say on that day. Then, I would put the letter in a folder, and go downstairs to engage with the day. I did this week after week, and slowly the path before me became clear.
James Kouzes and Barry Posner in their book, A Leader’s Legacy (Jossey-Bass, 2006), wrote “There’s solid evidence that the best leaders are highly attuned to what’s going on inside themselves as they are leading and to what’s going on with others. They’re very self-aware and they’re very socially aware... leadership development is first and foremost self-development.”
I believe that the best people are also highly attuned to what’s going on inside themselves and to what’s going on with others. As Kevin Cashman wrote so many years ago, “If you want to become a better leader, you must become a better person.” Truer words have not been shared. And in life’s journey, becoming a better person is paramount.
I have learned that in order to become a better person listening to the heart is critical. It helps us to know the difference between what is and what is not essential. That is the essence of life’s journey, namely figuring out what is essential. I have learned from this life journey that what is most essential is all of the small stuff: listening, kindness, compassion, respect, and love. It is all about family and friends, children and grand children.
Some would say that these are the “soft skills” of life. I, on the other hand, have come to conclusion that these are the hardest of hard skills. It involves seeking wholeness rather than fragmentation as the foundation of one’s life. It involves learning, unlearning and relearning. It requires resilience more than effectiveness. Listening to one’s heart requires us to be present to our life journey and to move forward with faith.
Embrace The Journey
Many years ago, my late father-in law invited our family to Pioneer Days in their local community. It was the annual gathering of people who show cased old fashion methods of farming and living on the farm. Along with a wide variety of old tractors and old farm machinery, there were displays about quilting, canning, sewing, etc. It was a fascinating adventure into the past with so many interesting things to see and do.
In the afternoon, my father-in-law took me aside to show me something special. We walked to the edge of a large field where a line of older men stood, watching and waiting. Then, in the distance I noticed someone coming toward us with a team of horses and a mold bore plow.
“That man is one of the best in this area for working with horses and a plow,” my father-in-law explained. “This is the way we used to do things when I was growing up.”
The man next to me leaned over and said, “Yes, indeed. I brought my boys over earlier to watch him work. They didn’t get it at first.”
Just about then, the horses and the plow passed by us. Everyone got real quiet. I did too.
“Did you hear it?”, asked the man next to me.
I had heard the horses and the man calling to his team, but I was not sure this was what they were talking about so I replied, “I’m not sure.”
“When he comes round again, focus on the plow and the sound of the earth turning. You don’t hear that any more. It is the legacy of farming.”
He continued, “Nowadays, everyone gets so wrapped up in bigger and better machines that they miss the sound of the earth turning. At times, they forget the beauty of simple action. They forget the gift of the earth. They forget that we are in the business of growing food, not just using bigger machinery. At times, they forget the relationship between the plow and the seed. Each needs the other in order to be successful.”
During the last 35 years, we have plowed a lot of ground together and we have planted a lot of seeds. We also have cultivated a lot ideas. And we need to accept the fact that not all of them have grown to full maturity.
Still, we need to remember that the dictionary definition of the word “embrace” means “to accept something”. When we choose to embrace the journey, it means to accept the fact that plowing new ground and planting seeds is worth the effort.
Shortly after I self-published The Map Is Not The Road booklet, I shared a copy with my dear mother-in-law. When she finished reading it, we visited and she told me that the stroke she had in 2015 was her “flat tire experience.” As she explained, “from there on, I have been in a new country. Choices reduced and experiences reframed…. I’ve entered a new state. New road signs, new map-makers, yet all the maps of the past are still in the glove compartment, for references when needed.”
I’ve had my own flat tire experiences in life’s journey. Some are private and others are personal. A few of them were professional. For example, I remember the day when nearly a year and half’s worth of work was canceled because one corporation was purchased by a larger corporation and they no longer wanted to provide on-going leadership training. Another time, after partnering, designing and presenting leadership training for a few years, a different company decided to move the entire process internal, and I lost this major contract. Each time, I wondered what would happen next and how the business would move forward. And each time, I learned some important lessons.
First, I learned that to embrace the journey is to respect the journey. I had to be willing to move forward and accept the path before me, not passively but actively embrace it. I needed to engage with the journey, not in denial but with eye’s wide open. As Brene’ Brown says, “To embrace the suck.”
As part of this embracing the journey, I needed to be willing to experience the moments of unknowing and still move forward. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Faith is taking the first steps even when you don’t see the full staircase.”
Second, I learned an important lesson years ago during a Fall Roundtable when Christina Smith, CEO of Community Support Advocate, shared that “our sacrifices must reflect our priorities”. To embrace the journey is to have the courage to begin something that you do not know how it will end. Having the courage to dream and dream big is what most people think is the challenge, but for me the real challenge is to start the journey without fully knowing what will happen during the journey. It is to commit to one’s priorities and to recognize that I may not fully know the outcome or the destination. Yet, I am willing to commit to the journey because I know what is most important. As the old Irish proverb reminds us, “a good beginning is half the journey.”
Third, to embrace the journey is to be humble and recognize that we stand on the shoulders of others, namely our mothers, fathers, teachers and mentors. These people loved us and encouraged us in spite of their challenges and in spite of our own challenges. As Linda Hogan, a Native American Chickasaw, wrote “You are the result of the love of thousands.” For when we have the courage to embrace the journey and are humble in the process, we will open doors, open minds, and open hearts. And the results will be transformative for all involved
Make your life a story worth telling.
Over time, many of my stories have become our stories. Some of our favorites include the following: What you feed grows; You can’t push sheep, you have to call them; The cannon story; The three stooges and certain hand gestures in Mexico; Canoeing around a light house in the middle of a hurricane; Seeing “capacity” in a room full of children with disabilities.
These stories are filled with key words and certain phrases. They continue through your sharing of them with others. They have the power, to transform us, to ground us, and to reconnect us with all that is good, vital and important in the world.
When I teach the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, I tell my students that words equal action, i.e. speaking is an action. As Krista Tippett in her book, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living (Penguin Press, 2016) wrote: “I take it as an elemental truth of life that words matter. This is so plain that we can ignore it a thousand times a day. The words we use shape how we understand ourselves, how we interpret the world, how we treat others. From Genesis to the aboriginal songlines of Australia, human beings have forever perceived that naming brings the essence of things into being. The ancient rabbis understood books, texts, the very letters of certain words as living, breathing entities. Words make worlds.” This is a profound truth. In the world of leadership and in our personal lives, words make worlds.
I want us to remember that as we move forward in life’s journey that words matter, that words shape understanding, that words create clarity, and that words make worlds. And we need to choose our words carefully. We also need to give ourselves permission to tell our stories, to own our stories, to live into our stories, and to share our stories. For each of us has learned something worth sharing in life and each of us is the better when we share it.
Moving forward from this time and place, I hope each of us can choose to live a life and to do work where you do not want to be some where else. I hope you will fill your life with amazing family and friends. I hope you will find your own voice, own your story and own your journey. I I hope you will always speak from your heart. Say “please”, ”yes” and “thank-you” more than anything else, and say “I love you” regularly to all those who are most dear to you. And finally I hope you will always remember that we are all in this big journey together.
The biggest and most important lesson in life’s journey is a simple one. As former President Barack Obama wrote, “What we do echos through generations.” In time, we all will become memories. But the impact of our choices and the impact of our actions can be detrimental or transformative. The choice is ours. My hope is that we choose wisely because we all have the opportunity to be a part of a great and empowering story.
Thank-you for a life time of shared experiences and shared memories. Thank-you so much for listening to all my stories and for sharing your stories with me. Thank-you so much for welcoming me into your work, your homes, and your hearts. I treasure our time together and your presence in the journey of my life. Thank-you for including me in this important work.
Geery Howe, M.A.
Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in
Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change
Morning Star Associates
319 - 643 - 2257
