My two favorite things in the world are:
1) seeing people in their zone of genius
2) seeing people as absolute beginners
When you witness greatness, it’s a reminder of how much we can master.
When you witness suckage, it’s a reminder of how brave we are to try.
Yet when it comes to leaders, we tend to only showcase greatness. And that’s too bad.
When we PR their lives, it’s as if our leaders have crossed some magic finish line where the acceptance speech goes:
“I’ve done all the things and I’m great at them all. I’m going to now go polish my trophies and count my money.”
Considering that leaders are supposed to inspire folks, this backfires. It creates rarefied notions of success that lead more to feelings of “why bother” than “why not!”
My idea?
LinkedIn should have a new section called Inexperience. It can go right there under the Experience section.
Share a new language you’re butchering. Upload a picture of the cookies you burned. Tell a story about losing at pickleball to an 80 year old wearing a knee brace (IYKYK).
You can invite people to submit testimonials of how truly bad you are. Each week you can report back at how poorly your progress is going. Maybe groups will sprout up with names like Two Left Feet or Green Green Thumbs.
Who’s with me? What would you list first on your Inexperience section?
Until next time, remember that culture is the new creativity.
Absolutely love this. Brings me back in a flash to my first masters swim class years ago when living on Maui. My wife is a great swimmer. Getting in the pool, I glanced over at her gliding through the water three lanes over. I was in the slow lane, fidgeting. When I finally started swimming, it caught the attention of the person coaching the session. Since my head was above the water as I flailed, breast-stroking the 25 meter length, I got to watch her walk around from the opposite side, leaving the Ironman triathletes in the fast lanes to race one another. She was waiting for me at the far end of the pool when I finally got there. "We're glad you're here. Can I give you some tips?"
Funny you posted this today -- a friend posted a picture of "failure scones" on FB yesterday. They looked terrible. And nothing she bakes ever looks bad. Okay, rarely. So I thought, "Hmmm... did the scones fail or did she bake herself a scone treat for failing at something?" Because getting a treat when you try and fail should be a thing. Like maybe a Toblerone ;-)
Now we can talk about my cucumber plant. It's gorgeous. Full of hundreds of flowers. Yet, I've had one not-so-good cucumber this year, misshapen, small and tasteless. Did I fail? Or did Mother Nature? No clue!