Introduction
Over the past year, I have enjoyed putting together 1,000 piece jig saw puzzles. While some are more fun than others, I thoroughly enjoy opening the box, pouring the puzzle pieces out on to our card table, and beginning the process of sorting them to find the edge pieces. Once I have the edge put together, and all the other pieces are laid out on various old cookie sheets, it is time to sit down and start piecing it together.
I didn’t know until recently that there is a term for someone who likes putting a jig saw puzzle together. They are called a dissectologist. Now that is one fancy term! I just like seeing the picture come to life as the different pieces interlock with each other.
When it comes to life’s journey, I think we spent a lot of time trying to get various “puzzle pieces” to interlock. We look for the pattern and/or the picture, but somedays we just can not find it. I know from my times working jig saw puzzles that I can look and look and not find the missing puzzle piece to finish a section. Then, a day later, I look and see the piece instantaneously. It is as if the piece appears magically on the tray. What was lost has been found!
When coaching people who are struggling in finding their metaphorical puzzle pieces, I listen carefully and often ask questions. Here are two questions I have used at times from a book by Graham Alexander called Tales From The Top: Ten Crucial Questions from the World’s #1 Executive Coach (Nelson Business, 2005):
- What knowledge about yourself are you missing that could make a significant difference in your life and/or your company’s performance?
- What are you demanding of your people that you’re not demanding of yourself?
These kinds of questions have many diverse and important answers. And these answers are not discovered in a single sitting. Instead, they are revealed over time and through on-going dialogue. From my experience of being with people doing this work, there are four outcomes when they engage in the process of finding the missing puzzle pieces in their life and in their work.
Deep Inner Work
First, they come to value the journey of doing deep, inner work. Cal Newport in his book, Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success In A Distracted World (Grand Central Publishing, 2016), defines deep work as “Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.” Newport uses a work based definition of deep work. I believe the same concept can also be applied to our non-work life, i.e. actions performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your understanding about yourself and others to a new level of perspective and insight.
The first step to doing this kind of deep, inner work is to carve out time and space where it can happen in a distraction-free zone. Newport points that “The reason knowledge workers are losing their familiarity with deep work is well established: network tools…. In aggregate, the rise of these tools, combined with ubiquitous access to them through smart phones and networked office computers, has fragmented most knowledge workers’ attention into slivers.” He continues by sharing that “A 2012 McKinsey study found that the average knowledge worker now spends more than 60 percent of the work week engaged in electronic communication and Internet searching, with close to 30 percent of a workers’ time dedicated to reading and answering e-mail alone.” I would say that in 2025 this is happening even more so at work and at home. I also would note that deep, inner work is considered secondary to managing home and work logistics. Still, deep inner work is important if we want to move from a fragmented life to a unified life.
For me, this ability to do deep, inner work happens routinely now, because I learned a new way of starting my day from my youngest son and his wife. They call it slow coffee, which is an uninterrupted quiet time period at the start of the day. Sometimes, they read a book and sometimes they catch up on the news or their social media feeds. The goal is to slow down, enjoy the coffee, and prepare for the day. I choose to do this now for 30 minutes after breakfast, seven days a week.
During my slow coffee time, I incorporated a morning practice that my wife has done for many years. She calls it her daily readings. It is a time to quietly, and with no interruptions, read a various of resources from faith related books and other inspiring authors. It is a time to slow down, center myself, gain perspective, learn something new, and reflect.
Nowadays, I have a stack of five to six books next to my favorite chair and I routinely spend some time with each of them over the course of the week. The combination of slow coffee and daily readings has been a powerful way to start the day and to stay centered over the course of the day. In short, it is my way to connect with something greater than myself in the midst of dealing with daily living minutia.
Safe And Open Space
Second, they realize the significance of finding and/or creating safe and open space. My morning readings and slow coffee time are one form of a safe and open space. But, in reality, there are many different forms of safe and open spaces. From taking time for reflection, visiting with dear friends or mentors, or finding a faith community that is supportive, the goal is to stop, and take stock of what is going on inside of us and around us.
Kevin Cashman in his book, The Pause Principle: Step Back to Lead Forward (Berrett-Koehler, 2012), writes “All too often, we allow ourselves to be carried away by our busy-ness. We are too hyperactive, too reactive to even notice the hidden value-creating dynamics waiting just under the surface within us and around us. Tethered to our smartphones, we are too caught up and distracted to take the time necessary to sort through complexity or to locate submerged purpose. In our urgent rush to get ‘there,’ we are going everywhere but being nowhere. Far too busy managing with transitive speed, we rarely step back to lead with transformative significance.”
In this same book, Cashman reminds us of the second Law of Thermodynamics: As activity lessens, order increases. He notes that “The Pause Principle is the conscious, intentional process of stepping back, within ourselves and outside ourselves, to lead forward with greater authenticity, purpose, and contribution.” I believe this is a very important point and what makes the creation or discovery of safe and open spaces significant. As Cashman continues, “The greater the complexity, the deeper the reflective pause required to convert the complex and ambiguous to the clear and meaningful. Pause helps us to move from the transitive or hyperactive to the transformative…. All real change begins with self-change; pause is a catalyst of self-change.”
When we give ourselves permission and choose to be fully present within a safe and open space, we have the opportunity to do something that is very important, namely to deconstruct how we are engaging with our life and take stock of whether or not our life choices are, or are not working. Then, we can reconstruct a better way of moving forward. Some people do this on their own. Some people use a book to assist them in this work. Some people ask for help from a coach, mentor, or trusted friend. The key is that the deconstruction and reconstruction is done in a safe and open space.
To be continued on Tuesday.
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