What do you trust?
It starts as a knot.
Almost empty.
But with sharp edges.
It pulses. Waves reverberate up and out.
Catching in my throat.
This what loss feels like to me.
I've written before in this series about real loss. This not even that. This the fear, the worry, the doubt at people saying no. Telling me that they don't want to remain part of my network, LeanMind.
Don't want to remain part of me, that's how it lands.
This the cost of identifying strongly with what you're doing. When the graph points up, I feel up. When it arrows down, down. That somehow I am my work.
It was holding this too tightly that precipitated the last fall, the last exit, an inability to hold the tension any longer. And seeing it for what it was. A life defined by numbers and hard, shiny objects, felt empty.
Enter, sometime later, LeanMind. A life defined by contribution, meaning and service. And the same thing.
How though to hold all this a little less tightly?
The Tide We’re Swimming In
The wider cultural tide in which we swim is one of adding.
Add clients.
Add projects.
Add businesses.
Add investments.
Add people.
Add frameworks. Habits. Ideas.
But what if the real the win, the real work is the opposite? To subtract.
This the quietly subversive ask at the heart of what LeanMind is about. It's why people are in the network. They're doing the work of subtracting, of refining, of sharpening the tool; the insight and understanding to know, in the words of Zen giant Suzuki Roshi, the most important thing.
Not a top 3 or 10. To know the most important thing.
This plays out in practical ways. Like not, as one member shared yesterday, a 'to do' list as long as your arm. Or even your finger. Rigour, discipline enough to know just the two most important things today.
This forces thinking. It lends a jeapardy. What will I miss if I do this?
I'm reminded of Warren Buffet's investment advice. Imagine you have a stamp card with just twenty slots. These your only available investments for your entire life. What do you pick? Choose wisely. And for the long term.
Sure, you'll miss some. But you'll think harder for the long term. Beyond the fluctuations of the heart.
When it's forced on you
But what happens when the subtracting is forced upon you? This a different kind of work.
There's a word in Buddhist teachings - Papancha. It speaks to the proliferation of noise at which the mind is so expert. Layers and layers of chat, doubt, imaginings and story.
Maybe here is where the real subtracting is won. Can you feel the thing - the person says no, a client walks, something you don’t like, again - and resist, subtract the response?
Trust
All this requires a trust.
That you've chosen your one or 20 well. Or the one or two today. That the walking client is just that, a walking client. Each come with a cost. The jeapardy spikes hard and sharp.
Instead, trust.
Trust that there is a divine order at play. Trust that even when your mind shouts louder.
This i return to often.
Not least in my morning sit today, wrapping up with a question, a reflection. What do you ask of me today? How might I best serve you? Who or what the 'you' in all this? Good question.
I believe that there's a mystery and wonder at the heart of this experience we call life. A mystery and wonder that has it's own intelligence. It's own rhythm and order. That is playing things out to a tune not of my making. I feel too that my connection to this rises up and out of my belly. The deep, the dark, the depths. Letting go to here is empowering. A relief.
Subtracting here is a letting go into the void of my belly. Appreciating a cavern of emptiness reaching from down low up to the pinch of my throat. Words come from here. Thoughts. Responses. Arising from the depths, and caught and shared by me as ideas. These borne of their own tide, not of my making or doing.
This what the changing tide is asking of me.
And this the biggest subtraction of all. The real subversive act.