The Power of Positive Peer Pressure

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For the first time in my now middle-aged life, I recently ran a half marathon. If you would have asked me a year ago what I thought of such athletic endeavors, I might have called them a popular form of torture. So what in the world could have inspired me to do this?

Positive peer pressure.

A friend invited and challenged me to train for the race and run it with her. Knowing her enthusiasm for athletic feats, I said, “Sure. Why not?” She sent me a training plan, and we began to train, each in our own cities. On the day of the half marathon, as we were preparing to drive downtown to the starting line, she told me she had decided not to run due to an injury from which she had not sufficiently recovered. It was wise not to tell me beforehand. Already dressed and ready to go, I wouldn’t back out—despite the freakish cold front that had dropped the temperature to 33º on a March morning in Alabama.

And so with all the other runners, I gathered in downtown Montgomery for the start of the race. I had trained at just under a blazing fast 12 minutes per mile, so I placed myself between the appropriate pacing groups and waited for the gun to crack the air. We were off, and more motivated than ever not to stop, for who would want to walk in such cold?

It turned out to be a lovely jog through the city. I had gotten the clothing right and was warm enough. The course was laid out well. The water stations were adequate—and it gave me joy to see a few parishioners of the small Greek Orthodox community where I serve part-time staffing the first water station. Of course, the half marathon wasn’t without its challenges: running up the hill and over the interstate on Perry Street at mile 10 was brutal, as was the wind on the overpass. At no other point did I want so much to stop.

But I didn’t stop. I ran the whole thing, 13.1 miles. And (probably due in part to adrenaline) at an average mile pace 30 seconds faster than that at which I had trained.

All because of positive peer pressure. And fittingly for this reflection, my training partner met me at mile 12 and ran the last mile with me. 

I’m not sure I’ll ever run another half marathon. If I reach old age, I’d like to enjoy the functioning of my knees without unnecessary pain. But the whole experience was an immensely gratifying achievement. I hope I never forget it and that I apply the lesson and strategy of positive peer pressure over and over again. And as you, dear reader, work toward your goals, which are often in a “discomfort zone” if they truly have transformative potential, I hope you will remember the immense power of positive peer pressure and consider ways to give yourself this incredible support for your challenge. 

May your efforts be blessed!

The Calculus of Priority

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No one can have it all. Knowing this, however, doesn’t seem to prevent me from trying to have it all every now and then. So sometimes I write to remind myself of truths that I easily forget, like this one about trade-offs:

He who is not indifferent to fame and pleasure, as well as to the love of riches that exists because of them and increases them, cannot cut off occasions for anger. And he who does not cut these off cannot attain perfect love.

Maximos the Confessor, First Century on Love, #75

Not many people will strive for one thing—like “perfect love” or an Olympic gold medal—at the expense of all others. If they do, it’s because that one thing is worth it to them. Most of us will pursue some sort of balance, maintaining what we deem to be the best prioritized tension between everything we want. This calculus of priority is something we all need to work out for ourselves, but it is a zero-sum game.

If you’re as prone as I am to forget this reality, it would do you good to consider questions about your priorities that help you rebalance or refocus: What do you want most? About what do you care most?

Bridle the Beast

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Over the past few years—a stressful period during which a contentious presidential election, a coronavirus pandemic, and the death of George Floyd all occurred—you may have felt some anger from time to time, beyond your normal experience of the feeling. Even if you wouldn’t call it “anger”, increased levels of impatience or frustration certainly count.

My interest in anger began a few years ago, when—to my shock—I found myself resembling this masterful description of the wrathful:

When some word or deed or suspicion causing annoyance has roused this disease [of wrath], then the blood boils round the heart, and the soul rises up for vengeance. As in pagan fables some drugged drink changes human nature into animal form, so a man is sometimes seen to be changed by wrath into a boar, or dog, or panther, or some other wild animal. His eyes become bloodshot; his hair stands on end and bristles; his voice becomes harsh and his words sharp. His tongue grows numb with passion and refuses to obey the desires of his mind. His lips grow stiff; and unable to articulate a word, they can no longer keep the spittle produced by passion inside the mouth, but dribble froth disgustingly when they try to speak. 

Gregory of Nyssa, Homily 2 on the Beatitudes

Not my proudest moment. But because what I’ve learned from this experience may be helpful, I write to share a few thoughts about anger.

First of all, anger is a gift. It’s a natural response to a threat and a motivation to protect what needs protection, a sign that something needs to be confronted. Moreover, it’s the energy to get things done. Without anger it’s difficult—if not impossible—to achieve certain goals.

But for all the good it can do, anger is a double-edged sword with enormous destructive potential. It needs to be managed. Here are three principles by which to do that:

  1. Bridle the Beast—Sometimes you’ll be fuming. Unless you’re an extraordinarily virtuous person or surrounded with relationships of exceptional trust, it’s generally not advisable to blow your top. Practice self-control, the ability to pause between stimulus and response—at least for that moment if not forever.
  2. Look it in the Face—Once you separate yourself from the anger you feel and objectify it, you can examine it, which will enable you to state at whom or what you’re angry and why. Very often, just hearing yourself articulate these facts can reframe or refresh your perspective. Sometimes you’ll find your anger justified, many other times not. Once you can say why and at whom or what you’re angry, you can engage in confrontation much more constructively.
  3. Relax the Reins—Sometimes the anger will stick around and move you to action. Sometimes it will trot away after being identified as selfish or unjustified. But if it remains, you must let yourself take appropriate action and engage in constructive confrontation and conflict. Without this final step, you run the danger of repression, resentment, and even physical illness. 

A more difficult spiritual path by which to manage anger is to purify it through detachment and the uprooting of self-will. Desire, particularly when it’s thwarted or its object is threatened, drives anger. The more we sacrifice self-will in favor of a desire for something greater, the less problematic anger will be.

That’s all very philosophical, and there’s a chance we could still blow our tops from time to time. So finally, humility and asking forgiveness are indispensible for those moments when our failure to manage our anger turns it into a bucking bronco instead of a well-trained racehorse. 

The Tree and the Cancer Cell

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Reflecting on an unexpected growth in business revenue during the pandemic of 2020, a client sagely quoted the naturalist Edward Abbey: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” Or of a coronavirus, one might say these days.

If my client’s business were a tree, one could say that it is producing more fruit than he expected. He’d probably say the unexpected quantity is even weighing down the branches as he’s looking to hire new team members to relieve that pressure. As long as his motivation is to care for his overburdened employees or serve his clients better, he’s avoiding the “ideology of the cancer cell.” It’s growth for the sake of a higher value.

But when growth becomes the highest value of a company, all sorts of dangers lurk in justifying this good-sounding end by potentially harmful means. At what human cost does the acquisition of the fast-growing tech startup come? How do you know when to stop? Does the market (perhaps the ultimate limiting force) have a conscience?

Whether it’s a dogwood or a redwood, a tree will only grow so large. After it reaches its limit, its only growth is by multiplication, by creating seedlings. A single tree is limited by its environmental context. Perhaps that’s the most important difference between the tree and the cancer cell. The tree is limited by the other elements in its environment. The cancer cell’s ability to exist in a system with other kinds of cells is compromised by an operational defect that makes it—to anthropomorphize—an idiot, caring only about itself and its perpetuation through uncontrolled, destructive proliferation.

Unlike the tree and the cancer cell, living things with consciousness can choose the kind of growth they seek, both for themselves and for the conscious systems in which they work and live.

A Solution for Being Stuck

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In a recent conversation with one of my clients, he shared that his business showed a growth in sales during the pandemic of 2020 that had defied all expectations. 

Furthermore, he had just become acquainted with someone he sensed would have high potential as a member of his team, but hiring is a big decision, and he was understandably hesitating. Did his business actually need the new role he was considering? If so, was now the right time to create and fill it, or would it be wiser to wait? If now, then was the person he had in mind the right choice?

A wrong answer to any of these questions could cost him, so he chose to use our time to think through them. Hiring someone without the necessary qualities for success in his business and its culture would be costly. Hesitating to create and fill this new role might mean missing out on acquiring a talented performer who seemed to sync with company culture. Creating a role his business didn’t need did not seem efficient…

At the mention of this word efficient, I recalled an episodeª of a podcast in which one of my favorite leadership consultantsº had argued that striving for excellence in more than one of three areas, among which was “operational excellence”, was a recipe for mediocrity. When I shared this thought with my client, he realized that the personal attention he gives his clients is clearly more important to him than the efficiency of operational excellence. This insight about his priorities cleared a path for his action.

“I can’t do it all,” he said at the end of our session, reflecting on the insight he had gained. It’s enough to do the most important things well. The pursuit of perfection can paralyze us, but the power of priority can propel us to action.

ª https://www.tablegroup.com/hub/post/19-making-strategy-simple/

º Patrick Lencioni was referring to The Discipline of Market Leaders by Brian Treacy and Fred Wiersema (https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/michael-treacy/the-discipline-of-market-leaders/9780465003976/).

A Cure for Instability

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The deadline for mailing gifts to arrive in time for Christmas is quickly approaching. If you’re lucky, you may receive a very personal gift during this holiday season. Even if you’re not so fortunate as to get a hand-knitted scarf from a friend who took up yarn-wrangling during the pandemic, you’ll probably receive something. You’ll probably give too.

Most of us know intuitively that something has been lost in our post-industrial, technologically advanced world. In the midst of unprecedented wealth, power, and knowledge, there is a tangible disconnectedness. Add to it political tension, a coronavirus pandemic, and the resulting economic disruption, and we live in a world of profound instability.

In the midst of this, I was lucky enough to give a gift to someone who understands gifts the way ancient people do. Nearly every time we speak by phone, she reminds me of the gift I gave her and how meaningful it is to her. And she recently gave me the “meta-gift” of understanding gifts the way she does, a book that taught me that there is a cure for this instability in which we live, for which the holiday season presents a golden opportunity: the giving and receiving of gifts. 

In The Gift,º Marcel Mauss presents a stunning survey of gift-related practices in ancient societies from every corner of the globe. His observations and conclusions provide us with a few precious principles that all of us can apply to create stability in an unstable world:

  • A gift is a living thing: It carries with it the spirit of the person who gave it. To give it is to give part of yourself, and to receive it is to receive a part of someone else’s essence. When we give and receive gifts in a truly personal way, we revivify our experience of life.
  • Giving is a good cultural norm: “In ancient societies, people were anxious to give. There was no occasion of importance when one was not obliged to invite friends and share the produce of the chase or forest; to redistribute everything at a potlatch; or to recognize services from chiefs, vassals, or relatives by means of gifts. Failing these obligations—at least for the nobles—etiquette was violated and rank was lost.” The social pressure to give gifts is not a bad thing.
  • It’s in our best self-interest to give: There is an old Hindu teaching that the secret of fortune and happiness is to give, not to keep, not to seek but to distribute it that it may return in this world and in the other. According to this teaching, self-renunciation and getting only to give is the real source of profit and the law of nature. It is in the nature of food, in particular, to be shared; to fail to give others a part is to “kill its essence”, to destroy it for oneself and for others: “He who eats without [this] knowledge kills his food, and his food kills him.”
  • Giving and receiving gifts creates a sense of reciprocity and connectedness: The person who receives a gift does not merely recognize that he has received it, but realizes that he himself is in a sense “bought” until it is paid for.

Mauss concludes with a few suggestions for modern societies: “The rich should come once more, freely or by obligation, to consider themselves as the treasurers of their fellow citizens…Meanwhile, the individual must work and be made to rely more upon himself than upon others.” Ending with the famous image of King Arthur’s round table, Mauss asserts: “The mere pursuit of individual ends is harmful to the ends and peace of the whole, to the rhythm of its work and pleasures, and hence in the end to the individual.”

These ideas have implications on many levels, from the individual to the national. In a time of instability, giving and receiving gifts may be the most deeply human way to cure it and the disconnectedness that fuels it. 

º https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Gift/

The Burden of Leadership

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We are approaching a political election in a tumultuous time of pandemic and civil unrest. Hoping to gain some clarity for myself ahead of Election Day, I’m rereading a classic over the next week or so. I’m sharing my reflections on it here in case they may be helpful to you also.

One of the greatest bishops in Church history, Pope Gregory the Dialogist, begins his Book of Pastoral Rule thus:

Most dear brother, you reprove me with kind and humble regard for having wished to escape by concealment from the burdens of pastoral care. Now, lest these burdens might appear light to some, I am explaining, by writing this book, how onerous I regard them, so that he who is free from them may not imprudently seek to have them, and he who has been so imprudent as to seek them may feel apprehension in having them.

Gregory’s opening paragraph frames the work as his defense or apology for trying to avoid his office. Following the example of other great bishops, such as John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Rome also calls to mind Plato’s philosopher-king from The Republic. Whether secular or religious, ideal or real, whether from a preference to study philosophy or for a life of prayer—none of these rulers wanted their leadership roles.

As we consider those “running for” office rather than running away from it, Gregory’s example suggests the following questions for evaluation:

Who wants it less?

Who feels the burden of it more?

The political culture of the United States doesn’t support the practical application of the first question as it makes an election a competition to win. 

So if I could ask the candidates a question, it would be: For you personally, what is the most burdensome aspect of political leadership?

The Solution to Anger

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The loss of actor Chadwick Boseman at the relatively young age of 43 is truly sad. Yet as we remember him in this moment of U.S. history, he gives his fans a parting gift in his portrayal of leadership in Black Panther, a story that expresses some of the societal themes with which we are currently struggling.

Boseman’s character is strong while merciful, intense while self-controlled, and ultimately guided by virtue. While the character that Boseman portrays is fictional, King T’Challa is worth remembering in such tumultuous times, when at least from Mitch Albom’s perspective,ª widespread anger is engulfing and exhausting the United States. 

On the subject of anger, the 4th century desert ascetic Evagrius, who actually lived in Africa (north of the fictional Wakanda), has something worthwhile to say: the opposite of anger and its solution is love. For the Christian Evagrius, love expresses itself in many ways, as patience, kindness, sacrifice, et cetera, but its most important expression as a cure for anger is imperturbability and self-control. 

In his psychology, Evagrius writes of three parts or powers of the soul: the desiring, the spirited, and the rational. Anger comes from the spirited part. He asserts that the soul operates in a natural, healthy way when the desiring part desires virtue, the spirited part does battle for it, and the rational devotes itself to the contemplative observance of the created world. According to Evagrius, the virtues proper to the spirited power of the human soul are courage, perseverance, and imperturbability—not anger and its company (rage, resentment, hatred, et cetera).º

Doing battle for virtue means first doing battle to attain and cultivate it oneself. Leaders have additional responsibilities to the people they serve. While there are relatively few people with positions of leadership that allow them to pass laws, create policies, or reform systems, everyone can be part of the solution for an angry nation if we remember these two Africans—the one a fictional native and the other a real immigrant—and devote ourselves to the practice of virtue, and especially to dispassionate, imperturbable love.

ª https://www.freep.com/story/sports/columnists/mitch-albom/2020/08/30/mitch-albom-devastating-week-leaves-us-weary-worn-and-wondering/5668254002/

º For an excellent introduction to Evagrius on this subject: https://svspress.com/dragons-wine-and-angels-bread/

Fear’s Function

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If you were walking through the woods and saw a bear, which then turned to look at you, I hope you would feel some fear.ª The function of fear is to protect us from threats. 

Those pursuing power and greatness sometimes come to believe that the greater or more powerful they are, the less they have to fear. But this is a dangerous error.

When a man grows inwardly and increases in holiness, he is something great and marvelous. But just as the elephant fears the mouse, so the holy man is still afraid of sin, lest after preaching to others he himself “should be cast away” (1 Corinthians 9.27).

Saint John of Karpathos

If the saint fears sin, what does the person aspiring to worldly greatness fear? The lawsuit alleging racial discrimination or sexual harassment? Being convicted of theft or fraud? He often doesn’t seem to fear them before they happen, too late for fear to protect him.

In his first inaugural address,º President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the famous line, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It was meant to exhort his hearers to progressive action and away from the fear of paralysis and retreat caused by the Great Depression.

But please don’t quote President Roosevelt’s line out of context. Only a fool would aspire to be fearless.

ª Unless, of course, you were Saint Seraphim of Sarov.

º https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/froos1.asp

Prediction & Presence

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There’s a lot of effort put into forecasting—from the stock market and customer behavior, to the weather and the amount of material a company should order for manufacturing wool socks if the winter will be an especially cold one. Accurate prediction can be a powerful tool for management. 

But in human relationships and leadership, prediction has a much more limited value since it can trap us in rigidity, calcifying our thinking, emotional responses, or behavior. It’s helpful for the parent as manager to know there’s a high likelihood of a hungry or tired child at a certain hour, but it doesn’t exactly instill a growth mindset in anyone when we are too attached to a prediction about them. One of my seminary professors once called this “the sin of familiarity.”

We fall into this trap because prediction is attractive, for it creates the illusion of control.

In his beautiful book A Primer for Forgetting,ª Lewis Hyde shares “a discipline of the present moment” from British psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, namely divesting oneself of memory and desire in one’s encounters with another:

To make room for intuitive knowing, every analytic session “must have no history and no future.” The therapist who knows something from the past may as well forget it to make room for the unknown…“do not remember past sessions.“…for when such things occupy the mind, the “evolution of the session” won’t be seen at the only time it can be seen, in the present moment. Second, avoid all desire, especially “desire for results, ‘cure,’ or even understanding.”

My friend George, part of whose work is in the aforementioned forecasting for wool sock production, reframes and expands on this idea: “Interacting with others based on our expectations from past encounters can make us callous to the possibility that others (and even ourselves) can and do change. When we expect certain behavior, we’re likely to frame and respond to others’ behavior in the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and doing so, we may fail to recognize growth and change, which can prolong resentment and delay forgiveness.”

And so for an alliteratively plosive principle: Don’t let prudent predictions of the probable preclude the practice of presence to the possible.

ª https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374237219