Writing Challenge

Try

It’s time for a brand-new shiny Mantra!

My apologies to Sherry McGuinn, I have been wanting to get to this prompt, but have gotten off track until now. A bit back Sherry posted a story talking about how her mantra lately has been, “I can’t catch a break”, and how depressing that can be.

I definitely hear you, Sherry. Breaks are fickle little bastards and hard to catch in the best of times, much less during a full-out pandemic, and all of the rest of the things going on in this unmitigated cata-pocalypse of a year. (catastrolypse? Tree Langdon ♾️ help us out here.)

In my experience, breaks are a jittery bunch of little rascals that seem to know when you are looking for them and scatter to the winds. The best way I have found to nab one is to pretend that I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about catching one and make like I am having all sorts of fun on my own.

Pretty soon one or more of those curious little dickens can’t contain their nosiness and wander over to see why you are having so much fun. That’s when you snatch one of the cagey bastards, pin ’em down and exploit the crap out of them.

Huh, maybe that is why they are so edgy to begin with? Anyway, I sincerely hope one (or even a pack) of those buggers wanders over your way real soon, Sherry!

You asked us what our mantra is currently, and I think that is an apt question to ask these days.

Way back when I was a firefighter/paramedic working on the line my mantra was a commonly used one that happened to fit the profession like a glove.

Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome.

That was pretty fitting because that is what we did day in and day out. People call 9–1–1 when their physical, emotional, mental, or “whatever” capacity to deal has been tapped out. A small percentage of the time it is big, bad stuff like a cardiac arrest or a structure on fire.

But a majority of the time what we did was bring a fresh perspective into the situation. A bunch of well-trained people with cool tools and medical equipment can deliver a whole lot of perspective to many situations. And, if not, we had an ambulance that could take you to a place where even more perspective was available.

It was amazing how many times we walked into a brand new, “never seen this before” situation. Even after scores of years on the job. That required a good capacity for problem-solving and improvising, so the Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome mantra was a pretty useful one.

After 20 some odd years of doing that, I moved into a role where I was in charge of a large system and a direct and indirect leader of many people. While the previous mantra was still fairly applicable, it didn’t give a lot of help in the leadership arena.

Over time doing that I developed a new mantra based on the rules of improvisational comedy. I know, sounds odd right? But, follow me here, the rules are simple and easily adaptable to most all situations. They are:

Say yes

Make your partner look good

Be curious not critical

Pretty simple concepts and yet those 11 words contain a lot of wisdom. I can’t tell you how important it is as a leader to never shut out a subordinate or dismiss their ideas out-of-hand. Saying yes doesn’t mean automatically saying yes as a response when an employee asks for something. BUT, it does mean saying yes to the conversation and allowing it to evolve. Ask them why?

Often critical communication is disguised as something else at the outset. If you don’t say yes to the conversation, you will completely miss what may be your one and only chance to have that significant interaction.

Making your partner look good sort of goes without saying (although not to everyone). Any team (and as Joe Luca pointed out, none of us are truly alone) performs better when they boost the performance of their teammates. Such behavior is almost always mirrored and results in a synergy of efforts.

And finally, sort of hand-in-hand with saying yes, being open to at least listening to new (and maybe crazy-sounding) ideas is the way many an upstart business became Apples or Amazons. If Jeff Bezos’ best buddy told him it was stupid to sell books online out of his garage, what would have happened?

So, those rules of improv became my new mantra and really serve me well still today, as they are equally applicable to relationships with partners, kids, acquaintances, neighbors, etc.

But I agree that unprecedented times call for a new mantra. I don’t know if I have settled on an exact set of words as yet, but the theme is pretty much, “just keep going”. There are a couple of quotes I like on the topic:

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” — Thomas A. Edison

And

“Courage doesn’t always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day whispering ‘I will try again tomorrow’.” — Mary Anne Radmacher

And here Pink has narrowed it down to one word: “Try.” The best mantras are sometimes the shortest.

Things are weird, and I don’t like it. Not one bit. I find myself occasionally wishing things were just instantly back to normal. But then I try and remind myself that they could be worse — and maybe they will be soon. Who knows? Sometimes we don’t appreciate just how good we have it at the time.

So, then I give up on that circular mind-mamba and just focus on what I need to do today, and next week. That seems to give some clarity. And, when that isn’t quite enough, I just remind myself about the power of doing just one thing. No matter how small.

If I can write one paragraph, well — then I can probably write another. And so on. There is a lot of power in just doing one small thing.

The breaks are coming. Right now they are hiding around the corner laughing at us, but worry not. Our time will come.

Cheeky little bastards have to sleep sometime… 🤫 😼

I know for sure that B. A. Cumberlidge. has written to this prompt:

And here is Joe Luca’s:

Sorry if I missed anyone else’s! But I would like to read it.

P.G. Barnett, Kristi Keller, Helen Cassidy Page, Caroline de Braganza, Chris Hedges, Rasheed Hooda, Kira Dawn, Desiree Driesenaar, Gurpreet Dhariwal, Kathryn Dillon, James Knight, Dawn Bevier, conny manero, Mary Holden, Tessa Schlesinger, Carolyn Riker, Tina L. Smith

If you like this, you might like some of my other recent writing:

A recent poetic response to a prior challenge:

And another more spontaneous poem:

Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.