Author: Tenneson Woolf

A friend emailed me today. She shared her appreciation for a recent event that I got to co-host on the inner and outer of evolutionary leadership.

My friend asks, “How can I marry the inner to the outer?” Her question is a response to naming many valuable inner practices — meditation, breath, time in nature, slowing down — and longing for those, or the feeling created by them, to be part of the everyday teams and meetings that we are all part of.

Earlier today, another two people that I’m coaching asked a question about meeting format. They were asking a similar question about the outer. I gave them simple suggestions, in this case, to help shift a meeting from unintended passive listening to deliberate engagement with one another. I shared the basic story — you want them to turn to each other, to discover meaning together, rather than just hearing it from one person, albeit a smart person.

I suggested three rounds of questions to engage. 1) What was meaningful to you in what you just heard? 2) What does that have to do with us? 3) What does this inspire you to do?

Here’s the point. Turning to one another to share story and be in questions together activates an inner quality through an outer act. I’ve observed this many times. People who don’t know each other become close quickly, because they have shared authentically. Even people who already know each other become closer, often in surprising ways.

The surprise that I love seeing is when people recognize that by this turning to one another, they have experienced something joyful, and, that they got a lot done — sometimes the next steps to a project.

This header of evolutionary leadership continues to feel promising to me. In part, because it creates this marriage that my first friend was speaking, reminding us of what is possible yet has often been trained out of us.

I recently shared this with my son, embarking on a rite of passage journey. It was a moment of father’s advice.

I’ve met a lot of people that are good at figuring out the whole plan, every detail. That’s impressive. However, one of the skills you can master further, and that I believe is even more important, is just figuring out the moment in front of you. It requires a deep faith. You’re actually very good at this. Paying attention to the moment in front of you is a way of listening. It’s a way of being inspired. It’s a way of being directed. From one moment to the next. It’s a freedom to just start where you feel inspired, knowing that all is a contribution. 

There are times when only a few things can be said. Only an essence. I find this as a father. I find this also when I am working with groups and teams who are trying to live into a different paradigm, perhaps their own rite of passage.

For me these are times when I hope that I’m getting it “right.” That thought itself is worth some attention — it’s rather nerve-racking to think of needing to get it perfectly right.

But, back to the beginning. Turn this on self. “Get it right for the moment,” I try to remind myself. Or the best sense of “helpful” for the moment.

Fear of all the other moments can be far to distracting.

“The alchemical woodcut says
that a child will not become an adult
until it breaks the addiction to harmony,
chooses the one precious thing,
and enters into
a joyful participation in the tensions of the world.”

Robert Bly

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I’m grateful to my friend Quanita Roberson who shared this Robert Bly quote. Quanita is a rather wise person, whose friendship I’ve enjoyed for the last 2.5 years, though the depth of it feels like 25 years.

It is the maturing that comes with entrance, with willingness to “participate in the tensions of the world,” that really catches my attention. I don’t want that maturing everyday. But I do most days. Realness is freeing.

Today this quote is poignant in particular as I send my son off to begin mission service. There is a separation, which evokes in me a hope that he will find his way, even in the struggle. It evokes some fear in me too. Will he be OK? However, I would rather he, and myself, grow into this participation in the tensions.

Today, that’s what love between me as Dad and he as Son looks like.