~5 min
THE JOHARI WINDOW IS A SIMPLE MODEL FOR SELF-AWARENESS. It divides what is known about you into four boxes:
Open: I know it. You know it.
Blind Spot: You know it. I don’t.
Facade: I know it. You don’t.
Unknown: Neither of us knows it yet.
I’m going to focus on your blind spot(s). There are things about you that are obvious to everyone, yet nearly invisible to you. Your tone. Your approach. Your pride. How you react under pressure. Strengths you underestimate. Weaknesses you rationalize.
A Saturday Morning Challenge: Ask someone who knows you well today, “What is something about me that is obvious to you but that you think I may not see?”
Then comes the hard part. Just receive whatever they say. Resist the urge to explain.
I SPENT THIS PAST WEEK IN THE COLORADO MOUNTAINS.
A few lighthearted recommendations from my downtime:
Listen:
Arden Jones, a fantastic young DJ from California. I saw Arden play a high-energy set composed of a mix of EDM, pop, and rap.
Read:
Biological War, A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen. I wrote about Annie’s previous book, Nuclear War, A Scenario in NTL #22. Spoiler alert: similar to Nuclear War, Jacobsen explains plausible scenarios of how we (humans) end civilization as we know it.*
The Terminal List by Jack Carr. I’m late to the game here, but my friend Clay recommended this thriller which is also a series on Amazon with Chris Pratt. It’s an easy, fun read.
Drink:
Tokaji, a Hungarian dessert wine, recommended by my friend Beau.
Rent or Buy:
E-bikes. I used to think e-bikes were for cheaters. They are actually for people who want to see more of a place, at least that’s what I’m telling myself.
I DO THE SAME HIKE EVERY DAY while I’m in Colorado. I wrote about it in NTL #51. The hike is hard, and for ten years I’ve timed myself up the mountain. It is the purest form of competition: me versus me.
This week, at 48, I set a personal record, beating my previous best by 30 seconds.
This is a completely meaningless accomplishment to everyone but me. Yet there is something uniquely satisfying about beating an earlier version of yourself. Why did it feel so good?
What gets measured tends to improve. What gets repeated tends to compound.
For ten years, I’ve done something hard over and over and kept score. The clock tells me exactly where I am—no excuses, comparisons, or opinions required. This competition against myself has become something I look forward to.
We tend to assume aging means accepting gradual decline. Eventually, of course, all of us decline. But that doesn’t mean improvement has to stop along the way. You can always improve at any stage of life.
The 48-year-old me beat the 38-year-old me up the mountain. Now I have a new time to beat.
OUR SON STARTS HIGH SCHOOL NEXT WEEK. With our longtime driver now off to college, an old family joke has suddenly become relevant again:
If you want to get there on time, go with Dad. If you want to get there fast, go with Mom.
I’M RETIRED AFTER 15 YEARS OF COACHING MY BOYS. From four-year-olds running in the wrong direction to high school basketball, I’ve spent countless hours at practices and games. Along the way, I’ve watched otherwise lovely people become remarkably irrational. A few hard-earned lessons for parents with kids ages 4 - 18:
ON COACHING
If you know the sport, consider coaching. You’re already going to be there, and you’ll get to know your child’s friends in a way you otherwise wouldn’t. If another parent knows more than you, ask them to coach. And if you do coach, don’t make it about you.
Thank the coaches. I’m amazed at how few players and parents thank the people who invest hundreds of hours in their child’s life and development.
If you start a season, finish the season. Barring something extraordinary, don’t quit. Families who quit are, in fact, teaching their kids to be quitters.
ON WINNING
Before age 13, the teams that practice and play the most usually win the most. Hard stop. If winning youth championships is your goal, the formula is pretty simple.
After 13, talent starts taking over. The funnel gets much narrower. You may also realize you wasted a lot of weekends in Holiday Inns chasing trophies nobody remembers.
If you win most of your games by a lot, you’re probably wasting your time. Find better competition.
If you lose about as much as you win, it sucks. It’s also probably good for your kid. Sports are one of the safest places to learn how to deal with disappointment, failure and setbacks.
ON DEVELOPMENT
Fundamentals are undefeated. Mastering any sport begins with mastering the basics. If you’re paying someone to train your child, I’d encourage 90 percent of that training to be focused on fundamentals.
Train at game speed. If your child has real talent, eventually skill work has to resemble the speed, pressure and decision-making of competition. Otherwise you’re training them to be great at training.
Make them own their development. This one is huge. If you’re driving the workouts, lessons, practices and ambition, eventually the sport becomes a job. If they’re driving, your job is to support them however you can.
Put them around players better than they are. Watching your talented kid smoke everyone feels good. It also sets them up for a rude awakening when they eventually meet someone more talented. True competitors need to be stretched.
ON PERSPECTIVE
Never play more than two sports at the same time. More is not always more.
Rest and recovery are part of training. No kid thinks they need either. Most parents underestimate both.
Avoid posting your child’s highlights on social media. Your parents care. Almost no one else does, and some people are secretly rooting against your kid. Send the great clip to the people who actually love them.
Your child will never play as much as you think they should. What’s so awful about your kid sitting on the bench a little? Not forever, but maybe getting hosed on playing time every now and then isn’t so bad. Better yet, tell your kid to “do something about it” and see what happens.
MY BIGGEST LESSON AFTER 15 YEARS: Youth sports are not about producing college athletes. It is more likely than not that your kid isn’t good enough. If they are, college coaches will find them, I promise. Your job is to create an unusually effective laboratory for learning commitment, humility, resilience, teamwork, discipline, failure and joy.
Send this to someone who could use some level-setting on their relationship to youth sports. If you got this from a friend, take a deep breath. You can do this.
FROM MY FRIEND, EVAN: Being unoffendable is easy right up until someone is offensive. The ego loves justice, feeling heard, and seeks a tiny parade in its own honor. But when you come to terms that your standing with God is not based on points, applause, or winning then your being offended starts to run out of oxygen.
I’VE LED STRATEGY FOR STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT PROJECTS FOR 20+ YEARS. I’ve seen just about everything, including smart people setting enormous amounts of money on fire because they had the wrong strategy for getting a project approved.
Stakeholder engagement is a fancy term for answering a pretty simple question: How do we get a potentially controversial project built, developed or opened with as little opposition as possible?
The projects change. The opposition and strategy to win are remarkably predictable - and not necessarily intuitive.
I’ve worked around tollways, fracking, publicly financed arenas and all kinds of other projects people decided they didn’t want in their backyard. Data centers are the latest addition to the list and projects are now being delayed or canceled because of organized opposition.
Tisha Schuller understands this dynamic exceptionally well. Read her great post, “Arc of Outrage: Everything We Do Is Making It Worse.”
A WORD TO RANDOMLY USE THIS WEEK: prevaricator is a person who avoids telling the exact truth. They lie, mislead, or use tricky, evasive words to dodge a direct answer.
A skilled prevaricator can describe potential in glowing detail while artfully obscuring the headwinds that could derail it in the near term.
Faith improves my life. Here is a verse I like from the Bible:
“But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.”
A QUOTE WORTH READING:
“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
~IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO IMPROVE~
*Added to my to-do list: Research and save to buy a remote ranch. Purchase more guns and ammo. Consider adding a deep freezer or two. Think through water purification techniques and drilling a fresh water well. Write an evacuation plan.
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@renzistone33 on X, LinkedIn & Substack
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