Have you noticed that Kermit the Frog, much like Winnie the Pooh, has an ability to bring on a smile?When I think of the Rainbow Connection it’s almost impossible for me not to smile, not to shed a light tear, and not to think about the wonder and awe of being a child - free to question and free to explore.Questions are our ability to wonder and be curious. Through our curiosity a tension is created. The kind of tension that invites us to action. What if we ended work one hour early, what would we do? What if we could spend one hour today do something that brought us a simple joy? Would you do it?I challenge you to take 3 minutes and 14 seconds today to listen to Rainbow Connection. When you look at the lyrics, the song is a serious of generous questions that invites the listener to doubt conventional wisdom and what they’ve been told and enroll into the possibility of something more. Consider the questions presented:Why are there so many songs about rainbows? What’s on the other side?Who said that every wish would be heard and answered when wished on a morning star?What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing? What do we think we might see?Have you been half asleep? Have you heard voices?Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailor?It seems a simple entry, but truly this entry might be one of the most important ones I write yet. I believe that because my life has been a series of questions and explorations. Never settling on an answer, but always looking for the invitation to explore what’s next - hope; the sweet sound that calls the young sailor.Stay curious.

Skepticism is doubt.Is this really the right way to go?Is this really what we’re doing?What if there was another way?Are you sure?If you are doing this, you are not doing that; why aren’t you doing that?Doubt creates friction.What if I don’t do that?What if it’s not the right way to go?What if there is no other way?Friction invites you to act.What are you going to do now?When will you do it?How will you do it?How might you leverage skepticism and skeptics?Skepticism helps you reinforce your “why”. It focuses your intention.Forces you to commit. Doubt creates friction creates an invitation to act creates commitment.Is that last gut check helping you consider all available data before you commit. ?Know all the things you can, and then decide.I grew up with two lawyers for parents, so my introduction to skepticism wasn’t entirely positive. But, now older, I have a deeper appreciation. In fact, I might be more skeptical than not. In fact… I believe skepticism is a powerful force for making change happen. How?Because when I resolve to do something now, I can feel confident in myself that I have considered it.Leverage your skepticism and your doubt to make change happen.Feel confident in yourself and your decisions.Make things better for those you serve.

I recently launched a program to help customers see the value of using the software - I work for a software company now. The program was for showing that more is possible if you choose to act. We knew why were we doing it, but we had a hard time figuring out, “did this work?“What was so difficult?It wasn’t collecting data. We had lots of data.What was the challenge was pursuing the right data point.What was the data point that helped us tell our story? Was it the trend of how many people logged in? Did that increase? How do we make an apples-to-apples comparison against the people who did not use that program? Oh wait, that data doesn’t work.Figuring out what to build is half the fun. The other half is figuring out how you will tell the story that what built made the change you sought to make.Don’t forget to do the second half before you start building!

Alice, from Alice in Wonderland, did not fall down the rabbit hole because she knew what was down the rabbit hole. She fell down the rabbit hole because she was curious. She had a question. What is down the rabbit hole?Asking the right question invites us to go down the rabbit hole and discover. Discoveries upend our concept of homeostasis - they are agents of chaos.You can’t make change happen unless you’re willing to roll up sleeves, get a bit dirty, and see where rabbit hole takes you.Like the Walrus, I enjoy contemplating why the sea may be boiling hot, or whether pigs have wings.

Being on the hook is a generous feeling.On the hook you are accountable.On the hook all eyes are on you.On the hook you could fail.On the hook you could win.There’s a generous tension that pulls at you asking, “are you sure you want to do this? what if you’re wrong?“Well what if I’m right? What if I’m happy? What if making that decision actually helps myself and others? What if I learn something about myself? What if I become a more confident version of me?Too often we’re afraid of being wrong, not having a net to catch us, or unsure of how others react.Not often enough are concerns for our happiness, and what that happiness means for us, and how we might use that to help others.What we’re on the hook for is not what could go wrong, but what we will do when things go right.

“A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart.” - Abraham Lincoln. Imagine a moment when someone you trusted announced a change. Perhaps they were leaving? Perhaps someone passed away? Perhaps there is a separation? Perhaps someone let someone down? Now imagine what it’s like to be the person receiving that message.What happened?Did I do something?What does this mean for me?What am I going to do?Who’s going to take care of me?What about my family?Does this impact my bonus? What about our home? Our car? Our pool? It’s possible that we go through that process of frantic inquiry because we’re afraid. We don’t know what’s going to follow and suddenly our foundation feels weak. So what can that person we trust, that leader, do? Define the fear. That leader can say:Someone is leaving. I get that this is shocking/frustrating/sad/(insert emotion here) news for you. I imagine others feel the same as you now. That means the following will happen….This is what it means for you now… This is what this might mean for you in the future… Here’s what you can do now to find out more. Here’s what we are doing now to help people like you who are concerned about ___.As a leader, I spend most of my time helping people define fear. Using questions to help them uncover the truth behind what’s going on. If you, a leader yourself, can do that more and more, you’ll find that your team will come together and bond stronger than those that don’t. Define the fear.Give people something to hold on to. Tether them to the truth.

Don’t forget to give yourself time to play this week.That’s something we don’t do enough.Play.

I’ve been writing a good bit about decisions - specifically knowing when to quit, and knowing when to stick.I’m writing about that topic because it’s a fear that we all live with at some point in our lives. It’s real, and we avoid it. An that’s not healthy.You’re going to notice the posts shift a bit as I start to think more about questioning - and how discovery and fear are also two close friends.It’s a heavy but generous time. Thanks for being there with me.

The time, effort, and sacrifice you put into your work - what is the value of that? Can you quantify it in a dollar amount? Can you quantify it into any measurable unit?I don’t think you can.Perhaps each of us have a currency that is unique to us. Perhaps that currency is a chapter of a story that we’re hoping to tell ourselves about ourselves. If that’s the case, then what’s the actual story we’re telling ourselves?Let’s stick it out?Leaping without a net is a bad idea?The promotion is the key to making it matter?If I can just hang on with this person longer, they’ll change… I know they can.The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are powerful.So powerful that they likely impact our decision making ability.Grit - sticking it out until the end at all costs - isn’t healthy.Knowing who you seek to serve and serving them - and not letting anything keep you from that cause - that kind of grit - that’s the grit that matters.That’s living the good life.

Imagine two people who have been best friends their entire lives - Truth and Fear. They grew up together, sometimes separate, and always come back together as two people who are so glad they have each other in their life. I want to be friends with them. But Fear gets in the way… Fear is hyper-jealous.Fear keeps us from knowing Truth. Whatever Fear can do to keep us from getting closer, it will. Fear will tell us that Truth is out to get us, that we don’t deserve Truth as a friend, and it will question us - “Who are you to know someone so good as Truth? You’re an impostor.“Truth, on the other hand wants to be known. Truth is happy to know you, and show you things that you can’t un-see once you’seen them. But that’s exactly the problem… you can’t un-see what you have seen. And now that you’ve seen how the “sausage is made,” Truth gives you a choice - do something with it, or ignore it.The way I deal with these two is I embrace both.Fear and I are dance partners. I know it’s only trying to protect me from Truth. It’s trying to help me stay in a comfortable existence. It’s trying to keep me from disappointment. I appreciate Fear’s good intentions, though it’s ruinously sympathetic. Instead, I see past it. I look to see what Fear is keeping me from and I advance towards it.Truth is like a therapist. Truth reflects back my life to me in an unvarnished way and asks, “What are you going to do now that you have seen what you have seen?“Fear shows you (in its own way) how you might be more fully you, and Truth creates the friction necessary to decide and act.Both are good friends alone, but are better together.