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Today is April 26 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you make a crazy idea work?” This use of a ‘crazy’ strategy to navigate the chaos is uncommon, strange, and misunderstood. The etymology of the word crazy stems from the late 16th century (in sense ‘full of cracks’): from craze; perhaps of Scandinavian origin and related to Swedish krasa meaning ‘crunch.’ Can you tolerate people viewing your idea as one ‘full of cracks?’ Are you able to see how people might view your idea as crazy? If navigating the chaos required you to make a crazy idea work, could you, do it? Jimmy Wales, Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin did. Wales left graduate school before completing a PhD to take a job in finance and later worked as the research director of a Chicago futures and options firm. In 1996, he founded the web portal Bomis, a male-oriented web portal featuring entertainment and adult content, with two partners. Although Bomis struggled to make money, it did provide him with the funding he needed to pursue his idea for an online encyclopedia. In March 2000, along with Larry Sanger, Wales launched a peer-reviewed, open-content encyclopedia called Nupedia. Nupedia was to have expert-written entries on a variety of topics and attract enough viewers that would allow advertising to be placed alongside the entries. Due to an arduous peer-review process, however, Nupedia failed to achieve any level of growth and published just 24 articles. To help facilitate its growth and simplify the submission process, Wales and Sanger implemented a new tool called a wiki that programmer Ben Kovitz introduced to them in January 2001. Wiki stems from Hawaiian wiki wiki ‘very quick.’ This new tool would revolutionize the level of collaboration possible for anyone with Internet access around the globe. When Nupedia’s experts rejected the wiki for fear that mixing amateur content with professionally researched material would compromise the integrity of Nupedia’s information and damage the credibility, Wales and Sanger labeled the new project “Wikipedia” and went live on its own domain five days after its creation. In a 2006 TED talk Wales said that Wikipedia began with a very radical idea and that was for “all of us to imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” As a radical and innovative global collaboration platform Wikipedia now has over 290 editions with the English Wikipedia having the largest collection of articles reaching over six million. A pair of Swedish inventors, Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin, know all too well how to make a crazy idea work since they designed the invisible bicycle helmet known as the Hövding. Developed over the course of eight years, the Hövding is also known as the world's first airbag bicycle helmet as it is stored in a decorative pouch worn around a rider’s neck. When a rider crashes, a helium canister inflates the nylon hood within milliseconds. Hövding started out in 2005 as a master’s thesis by the two founders who were studying Industrial Design at the University of Lund. Haupt and Alstin had the idea of developing a new type of cycle helmet in response to the introduction of a law on mandatory helmet use for children up to the age of 15 in Sweden. To design their invisible helmet, Haupt and Alstin collaborated with a variety of experts in various fields to create an innovative set of sensors that trigger the helmet to inflate out of its pouch upon a bicycle’s impact. They added sensors to the Hövding that analyzed movement patterns 200 times a second to know when the rider is in a real crash. Normal movements made by riders won’t trigger the Hövding. In 2006, Hövding won the Venture Cup, after which Hövding Sweden AB was founded. Haupt said, “We don’t like, as designers, to have this attitude that it’s people who need to change, instead of the product that needs to change. And that’s why we decided to see if we could improve them.” By creating a whole new mind, they succeeded in creating a solution to the vanity aspect of wearing bicycle helmets. People want a product that leaves their hair intact. Their understanding of this vanity aspect helped the two innovators realize they “needed to really think new if we wanted to solve the problem.” Over 150 000 airbags for cyclists have been sold in over 15 countries and 5,017 people have Hövding to thank for protecting their head in bicycle accidents. As stated on the Hövding web site “Continuing to believe in our vision and proving time and time again that the impossible is possible has given us the unique expertise that ultimately landed us several global patents. But our journey has only just begun, as we’ll never stop moving forward. All our employees share a motto that is at the heart of everything we do — At Hövding, we thrive on the impossible.” English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead noted “every really new idea looks crazy at first.” People thought Wales was crazy to launch Wikipedia. People thought it was impossible to create an invisible bicycle helmet until Haupt and Alstin did it. How often do you make a crazy idea work? How often do you support others as they are trying to make a crazy idea work? Who or what is holding you back from trying to make your crazy idea? Do you even allow yourself to have crazy ideas? Can you move forward when people think your idea looks crazy?

Today is April 25 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often are you building meaning into your life?” Life has always been chaotic. Such a belief may run counter to those who have convinced themselves some degree of normalcy is achievable. In his April 17, 2020, Wall Street Journal article "Shattering Illusions of a Benign World,” Robert K. Kaplan wrote “The Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh has noted the regularity of middle-class life dangerously promoted the illusion that the natural world is predictable and benign.” The natural world is far from predictable and benign. In his New York Times column entitled "Some People Turn Suffering Into Wisdom" published April 21, 2022, David Brooks wrote “Grief and suffering often shatter our assumptions about who we are and how life works. The social psychologist Ronnie Janoff-Bulman notes that many people assume that the world is benevolent, that life is controllable and that we are basically good people who deserve good things. Suffering and loss can blast that to smithereens.” Today’s reflection challenges you to reflect upon how often you leverage your mind, body, and spirit to build meaning into your life amidst chaos, grief, and suffering. John W. Gardner served as the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Lyndon Johnson. In a November 10, 1990, speech entitled "Personal Renewal" delivered to McKinsey & Company in Phoenix, Arizona he provided a deeply insightful view of personal development and the value of building meaning into life. In his speech Gardner focused on viewing life as an endless process of self-discovery. He observed that life is neither a mountain to summit, a riddle to answer, or a game to win. Instead, Gardner proclaimed: “Life is an endless unfolding, and if we wish it to be, an endless process of self-discovery, an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own capacities for learning, sensing, wondering, understanding, loving, and aspiring and the life situations in which we find ourselves.” At the end of his speech Gardner told the story of a father whose 20-year-old daughter had been killed in an auto accident. The father found a piece of paper that she carried with her. On that paper was the following paragraph from a previous speech of Gardner's: "Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account." Michael Punke built meaning into his life even if it meant dealing with bouts of pneumonia. Punke grew up in Torrington, Wyoming where he and his brother engaged in various outdoor activities such as fishing, hunting, hiking, and mountain biking while growing up. He graduated George Washington University with a degree in International Affairs and then Cornell Law School where he focused on trade law and became Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell International Law Journal. He worked as a government staffer for Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) and served at the White House as Director for International Economic Affairs and was jointly appointed to the National Economic Council and the National Security Council. While working in Washington, D.C. Punke had a desire to write a political novel but nothing caught his interest. Once he came across the story of frontiersmen Hugh Glass however, he knew he discovered the topic for his novel. According to Tim Punke, Michael’s brother, Michael “used to get up at five in the morning, go into work and write for three hours, and then he worked at his job for eight or ten hours.” The book took four years to complete and the final year was particularly intense as Punke caught pneumonia four times. Although initial sales of The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge were disappointing, Punke sold the movie rights to his book in 2001 to producer Akiva Goldsman and 14 years later The Revenant was launched as a major motion picture. From April 2010 to January 2017 Punke served as the United States Ambassador to the World Trade Organization. While a high-ranking federal employee, Punke was prohibited by ethics rules from talking publicly or to the media about his work, attending events, signing book copies, or conducting any other activities that could be seen as promoting his work for his personal enrichment. He was, however, allowed to earn royalties and other payments from it. Punke's brother Tim and wife Traci frequently spoke for him instead during press events for The Revenant. Punke wrote a book that had a great deal of meaning for him. There was no guarantee that the book would sell, or 14 years later would be made into a major motion picture. Like Gardner, Punke understood the value of building meaning into life regardless of one’s life situation. How often are you building meaning into your life? How often do you remind yourself that ‘life is an endless unfolding, and if we wish it to be, an endless process of self-discovery?’ Who or what is holding you back from building meaning into your life? How often do you remind yourself that normalcy is an illusion and the natural world is far from benevolent, controllable, and benign?

Today is April 24 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you ask for help?” Leveraging your mind, body, and spirit sometimes requires us to consider asking for help. The inability to ask for help is, according to author Robert Kiyosaki, “one of the biggest defects in life.” It would be difficult to identify someone who navigated the chaos alone; completely unassisted by anyone. Asking for help is a sign of strength. Failure to recognize this will most likely result in stalled progress along your navigation. The task of navigating the chaos is too arduous, too long, and too dynamic to be completed by any one person without assistance from a single individual. Life’s questions are often too challenging to answer alone. Research suggests those who have navigated the chaos understand how asking for help is a strength, and not, as often misunderstood, a sign of weakness. As Forbes noted, the Great Work Study, conducted by the O.C. Tanner Institute, showed 72% of people who receive awards for their work ask for advice, help, insights, and opinions from people outside of their inner circle. In doing so, those workers generate fresh ideas and perspectives on how to solve problems that they otherwise would not have imagined. Asking for help and advice creates better, stronger, more successful results than not asking for help. Additionally, Joan Rosenberg noted in Psychology Today, "asking for help is an essential aspect of emotional strength. When you are willing to lean on those who offer their help and support, you become more centered and calmer. That sense of inner peace is another outgrowth of emotional strength.” The Wright brothers are one example of how asking for help made a difference. In 1878, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright received a toy helicopter with twirling blades powered by a rubber band as a gift from their father. This toy sparked their interest in flight. After designing and building a printing press, the brothers opened a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. By 1896, the pair had manufactured their own brand of bicycles and turned their attention toward flight. Between 1900 and 1902, the brothers experimented with kites, gliders, and a wind tunnel and on December 17, 1903, flew the first successful heavier-than-air powered aircraft near Kill Devil Hills, about four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Throughout their work on the airplane, the Wright brothers pioneered wind tunnel designs and tests as shared space for flight design where they could collaborate with each other as well as those interested in supporting their vision. Along the way the Wright brothers enlisted the help of many people. For example, in a letter to the Smithsonian Institution, Wilbur wrote “I am an enthusiast, but not a crank in the sense that I have some pet theories as to the proper construction of a flying machine. I wish to avail myself of all that is already known and then if possible, add my mite to help on the future worker who will attain final success.” After collecting reference material from the Smithsonian and other sources, the Wright brothers began studying their predecessors. They were surprised to learn that, despite humanity’s centuries-old interest in flight, little progress had been made in aeronautics before 1800. Until that time, few trained scientists or mechanics thought it a sensible undertaking. The brothers also received help from Charles Taylor the man who built the engine for the first powered aircraft. Taylor, a mechanic who worked in the Dayton, Ohio, bicycle shop owned by Orville and Wilbur Wright, is credited with building the lightweight engine that powered the craft that took flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C., on December 17, 1903. As Michael Muskal of the LA Times wrote on July 22, 2014 “If the Wright brothers get the credit for starting the aviation industry, Taylor is the man with a greasy wrench who made it all work.” In 2014 officials at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton unveiled a bronze bust of Taylor. In a post on the museum’s website, director Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jack Hudson, praised Taylor and wrote: “The importance of Charles Taylor’s role in helping the Wright brothers achieve their dream of heavier-than-air powered flight should not be understated. His development of a lightweight engine for propulsion was critical, and Taylor’s story of innovation serves as an inspiration -- especially for those pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.” Latin American civil rights activist César Estrada Chávez noted “You are never strong enough that you don’t need help.” Asking for help is difficult. Getting feedback from others might be perceived as a weakness. But remember, it is just that – a perception. If you are looking for a strategy able to help you grow stronger, more confident, and successful, try asking for help. Doing so might be the one strategy to surprise you while navigating the chaos. The Wright brothers asked for help and changed the course of history. How often do you ask for help? If you are not asking for help why do you think that is? How often are you providing help to others even when they do not ask for it? How responsive are you when others ask you for your help? Do you invite others to ask you for help? If not, why not?

Today is April 23 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you exercise rebellion?” Every now and then leveraging your mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos and translate one dream after another into reality requires you to exercise rebellion. Going against the norm, fighting against a long-held belief, or challenging the status quo are three forms of rebellion most often exercised by those who have navigated the chaos. True rebels, however, are often misunderstood. Such misunderstanding provides opportunities for society, friends, and even family members to judge rebels and their behavior as reckless, careless, and irresponsible. But if you wish to make possible what others said was impossible you are going to need to exercise rebellion as you navigate the chaos. Frenchman wire-walker Philippe Petit and Polish kayaker Aleksander Doba provide two examples of individuals who exercised rebellion and accomplished what no one else did. On August 7, 1974, a week before this 25th birthday, Petit exercised rebellion and walked across a tightrope between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Knowing with one false step he could plummet 1,350 feet to the ground, Philippe walked back and forth eight times, totaling appropriately 45 minutes. Petit worked on his wire walking skill for close to a decade before this Twin Towners attempt. For example, he gained fame for his unauthorized high wire walks between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and of Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia in 1973. Commenting on his ability to exercise rebellion as a strategy to navigate the chaos and translate one dream after another into reality, Petit said: "Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge - and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope." The 2008 film Man on Wire told Petit’s story and won the 2009 Academy Award for best documentary. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Petit's book, To Reach the Clouds, released in paperback with the title Man on Wire. The title of the film is taken from the police report that led to the arrest (and later release) of Petit, whose performance had lasted for almost one hour. The film is crafted like a heist film, presenting rare footage of the preparations for the event and still photographs of the walk, alongside re-enactments (with Paul McGill as the young Petit) and present-day interviews with the participants, including Barry Greenhouse, an insurance executive who served as the inside man. Much like Petit, Doba exercised rebellion in his life to navigate the chaos. At 71 years of age, Polish kayaker Aleksander Doba saw each day as a challenge and completed three solo-trans Atlantic kayak trips. He once kayaked the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle. Along the way, he was thrown from his kayak in a storm. The rope tethering Doba to the kayak came undone. He passed out. He woke up on shore to the sound of screaming-his own. Doba does not regret this experience. As Elizabeth Weil of The New York Times wrote “What most of us experience as suffering he repurposes as contrarian self-determination, and that gives him an existential thrill.” In 2010 and again in 2013 he kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean westward under his own power. The two voyages were the longest open-water kayak voyages ever made. He was named 2015 Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic. In 2017 he completed an eastward kayaking trip across the Atlantic. Doba has no interest in dying in his bed. As he said in a March 22, 2018, New York Times article by Elizabeth Weil, “If you are not willing to suffer, you can do nothing. You can sit and die but I do not want to be a little gray man.” True to his word, Doba died at 74 years of age on February 22, 2021, while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, a dormant volcano in Tanzania. According to eyewitness reports he felt well the entire journey but after reaching the top asked for a two-minute break before posing for a photo. He then sat down on a rock and "just fell asleep.” If you think about that for a moment it truly was a beautiful way for Doba to die. Since he ‘did not want to be a little gray man,’ he died doing what he loved and fell asleep after reaching the mountain top. While the two individuals included in today’s reflection accomplished remarkable physical and mental accomplishments, rest assured your exercise in rebellion need not be too dramatic. As with each Navigate the Chaos post, the stories included merely serve as a reference point and serve as an example that exercising rebellion is yet one of the hundreds of strategies available should you decide to leverage your mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos. How often do you exercise rebellion? How often are you criticizing others who are exercising rebellion? Is there someone in your life that could help you exercise rebellion or at least process the thought with you? Have you ever helped anyone exercise rebellion? How often do you ‘refuse your own success?’ How often do you ‘see every day, every year, and every idea as a true challenge?’

Today is April 22 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you overcome adversity?” It would be nearly impossible to find someone who leveraged their mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos who did not have to overcome some degree of adversity. Achieving anything in life is synonymous with overcoming adversity. This is important to remember as you work on translating one dream after another into reality. Come across a roadblock? Need to jump over a hurdle? Figuring out a way around an obstacle? Deciding on how deep to develop a relationship? Welcome to the club. Adversity is experienced by everyone as some point. While it is true that some deal with more adversity than others, it is equally true that you are capable of learning how to overcome adversity by working through one obstacle at a time, reflecting upon how you did it, and then remembering the lessons along the path forward in life. Debbie Macomber and Rick Allen are two people who had to learn how to overcome adversity while they navigated the chaos. The backstory of Debbie Macomber, a #1 New York Times bestselling author, provides an example of adversity for today’s reflection. Like almost everyone else who has ever translated their dreams into reality, she started out in life having to navigate one obstacle after another. Macomber is dyslexic and has only a high school education. Without the benefit of a formal college education, Macomber dedicated herself to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. She rented a typewriter and sat in her kitchen to develop her first few manuscripts. She did all this while raising four children. After five years and many rejections from publishers, she was not to be deterred and turned to freelance magazine work. Macomber attended a romance writer's conference, where one of her manuscripts was selected to be publicly critiqued by an editor from Harlequin Enterprises. The editor tore apart her novel and recommended that she throw it away. Macomber refused to give up. She scraped together $10 to mail the same novel, Heartsong, to Harlequin's rival, Silhouette Books. Silhouette bought the book, which became the first romance novel to be reviewed by Publishers Weekly. As Macomber recalled in an interview: “When I started out 35 years ago, I saw a quote from Phyllis Whitney: ‘There has never been an easy time to sell a book.’ I wanted this more than I ever wanted anything in my life. I got rejected so fast, my manuscripts would hit me in the back of the head on my way back from the post office.” But Macomber never gave up. “It has a lot to do with stubbornness and desire,” she said, adding that she similarly trained herself to run despite a lack of athletic ability. In both cases, “It was making myself stick to it until I could do it. It got to the point where it didn’t hurt anymore.” As French-German theologian Albert Schweitzer noted “one who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which one can overcome adversity.” Like Macomber, musician Rick Allen learned how to overcome adversity while navigating the chaos. Rick Allen is someone who learned how to not let anger derail his dream. Allen played drums for Def Leppard but a car accident resulted in the amputation of his left arm. Unable to play the drums, Allen sunk into a state of depression. Thanks to a strong support system Allen spent two years learning how to play a newly designed drum set with his feet and right arm. Allen noted that “taking risks always comes with a fear of failure but when I trust my true potential, I am able to push through my fear and follow my heart. Before I sat behind the drum kit my head told me I was defeated and not even to try but my heart knew better. With the help of people around me saying I could, and by using my creativity in creating a way to play with my feet, I was able to take a chance to achieve what may have been impossible.” Allen’s approach of not letting his anger derail him symbolizes Eleanor Roosevelt’s belief that “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” How often do you do that which you think you cannot do? How often do you overcome adversity? How often do you nurture yourself with self-love upon overcoming adversity? Have you ever said “I can’t do” something yet never even tried that which you declared you were incapable of doing? How can you leverage your mind, body, and spirit to help yourself address an adverse life situation? Do you have role models in your life of people who have confronted adversity and found a way to navigate the chaos? How often do you remind yourself to be strong, courageous, and confident as you go about navigating the chaos? Are there people in your life who remind you that you are strong, courageous, and confident? Are you open to hearing people when they tell you that you are strong, courageous, and confident?

Today is April 21 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you let pain or anger change you?” Managing your emotions, dealing with pain, and processing your anger will challenge how you leverage your mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos. As you put in the daily grind of translating one dream after another into reality, pain and anger are two emotions you may experience along the path of navigating the chaos. Today’s reflection offers you an opportunity to nurture the self-awareness required to better understand your relationship with the various types of pain and anger you experience. Remember, as you navigate the chaos people, events, and situations will come across your path daily and how you react to each will determine your navigation efforts. Afterall, your response to life situations is often the only thing in your control. The first reflection today comes from American singer and songwriter Johnny Cash who said: “There's no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.” How often do you go into grief and loss? If you do not go into grief and loss but experience dramatic life situations, how do you think that makes you feel? When you have experienced grief and loss how long did you avoid going into it? How did such avoidance impact your ability to navigate the chaos? Did you allow pain or anger to change you? Did you realize how pain or anger was changing you? When you went into grief and loss and came out the other side, how did that transform you? Today’s second reflection on pain and anger comes from poet Nikita Gill who wrote: “Pain changes people. This is no secret. But your pain speaks with wisdom. When you are a child, the same pain teaches you to not touch fire by burning your fingers. When you grow older the fire turns into people. Your pain will teach you how to be careful, but it will also teach you how to be compassionate to others, be kind to those who are hurting and how to be strong in the face of adversity. Allow your pain the power to change you in a positive, beautiful way.” Have you witnessed how pain changes people? Did you touch fire as a child and learn not to do it again? Have you learned not to engage with those who ignite your pain and anger? Have you allowed pain to teach you how to be compassionate to others? Have you let your pain and anger serve as a reminder to be kind to those who are hurting? The third component of today’s reflection comes from the 2005 American romantic comedy and drama film The Upside of Anger. Evan Rachel Wood’s character Lavender 'Popeye' Wolfmeyer, had to process pain and anger and wrote: “Anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks. It can change you, turn you, mold you and shape you into something you are not. The only upside to anger, then is the person you become…hopefully the person you become is someone who wakes up one day and realizes they're not afraid to take the journey…and that anger leaves a new chance at acceptance, and the promise of calm in its wake.” How often has anger or resentment stopped you in your tracks? How often have you allowed anger or resentment to stop you in your tracks? Did you allow anger to mold you into something you are not? Did you ever possess the self-awareness to take the journey, remain open to acceptance of life on the upside of anger, and believe in the promise of calm in its wake? The questions stemming from today’s three references may be difficult to process at one time. These are challenging thoughts to process. Some of these questions may even stir up more emotions than you are ready to deal with at this time. But these questions also offer a reminder that navigating the chaos requires a great deal of work. Translating one dream after another into reality demands more from us with each passing day. Experiencing pain and anger is a natural part of the human experience. The more you can increase your self-awareness to understand how pain and anger change you, the better your chances of navigating the chaos. How often do you let pain or anger derail you? Why do you think you let pain or anger derail you when you do? Have you ever caught yourself allowing the pain and anger to derail you? How often do you remind yourself of the transformational power of pain?

Today is April 20 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you use your voice to deal on your own behalf?” Leveraging your mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos will often require you to use your voice to deal on your own behalf. For some people this comes early in life. For others, it may take a while or even decades. The point is not to worry as to when you find your voice, but to keep searching for it. You might even experience some degree of success while navigating your personal or professional life while still learning to speak for yourself. Afterall, that is what happened to award winning actor Meryl Streep. The moment Meryl Streep read the script for The Devil Wears Prada, a 2006 American comedy-drama film directed by David Frankel, she knew it would be—in her words “Yuge.” But despite a truckload of awards and a reputation as the greatest actress on the planet for her award-winning work on screen and stage during the previous four decades, Streep had always been reluctant to negotiate for more pay. Maybe it was the character Miranda Priestly, a fashion magazine editor so powerful she could terrify underlings without even raising her voice, that pushed her to do it. The Oscar-winning actress felt emboldened and told Variety in a 2016 interview. “The offer was to my mind slightly, if not insulting, not perhaps reflective of my actual value to the project. There was my ‘goodbye moment,’ and then they doubled the offer. I was 55, and I had just learned, at a very late date, how to deal on my own behalf.” For many women, using their voice to deal on their own behalf is still a work in progress. A 2019 study reveals that while most women do not negotiate when it comes to a new job offer — those who try to get more money were generally successful. In a study of 1,008 adult women by Langer Research Associates, 64% said they did not try to negotiate their pay the last time they were hired. But out of those who did negotiate, a whopping 71% said they were generally successful. So why don’t women negotiate more? Fear seems to drive the hesitancy. Fear to appear selfish, fear of putting one’s needs before the good of the organization, and a fear of being rejected are factors women should work through prior to negotiating. So too is a lack of self-care. One reason people practice so little self-care is that they allow it to fall by the wayside if their to-do list gets over-crowded. Laura Boxley discovered through her research that some people “might feel as though self-care is frivolous or selfish in stressful times.” F. Diane Barth echoed similar sentiment in Psychology Today when she wrote “A major problem for many people is time. With so many other things to do, self-care can feel selfish or indulgent.” Nicole Schwarz proposed another theory and wrote many people “have learned to live in chaos and have become comfortable with feeling exhausted and being overworked leaving no time for self-care.” According to Kristin Neff, author of Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, the lack of self-reflection and self-care stemmed from “the great angst of modern life.” This angst, according to Neff, consists of a belief held by many: “No matter how hard we try, no matter how successful we are—it’s never enough. There is always someone richer, thinner, smarter, or more powerful than we are, someone who makes us feel like a failure in comparison.” In her poem The Journey, poet Mary Oliver wrote about the need to stay true to your own voice and wrote: “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice… little by little, as you left their voice behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do – determined to save the only life that you could save.” Today’s reflection challenges you to engage in the reflection required to better understand your level of self-care when it comes to leveraging your voice to navigate the chaos. How often do you use your voice to negotiate a better life situation? Who or what is holding you back from using your voice? Are you holding someone back from using their voice? How do you support others to find and use their voice? How often are you engaged in the self-care required to nurture your voice? How often do you define self-care as frivolous or selfish? If so, why is that? How often do you allow the ‘great angst of modern life’ to interfere with you engaging in the self-care required to nurture your voice? How often do you realize that using your voice allows you to ‘save the only life that you could save?’

Today is April 19 and the Navigating the Chaos question of the day to consider is “how often are you working on your well-being?” With all the issues needing resolutions, questions requiring answers, and problems demanding solutions, leveraging your mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos requires one to consistently work on their well-being. Any forward progress, no matter how small, requires one to engage in frequent well-being. This is even more true during periods of tremendous upheaval. Dr. Russell Grieger, a licensed clinical psychologist and author of Developing Unrelenting Drive, Dedication, and Determination: A Cognitive Behavior Workbook believes that “insight is necessary but not sufficient,” and helps his clients understand “that, to get better, they need to work hard, really hard, not only during our sessions, but also in the days between our sessions…The measly forty-five minutes you spend with me each week pales in comparison to the hours you spend with yourself, unwittingly rehearsing and practicing your irrational thinking and dysfunctional behavior. I'll do everything in my power to teach you what to do, but, if you don't work your therapy every day, you could very well come to our next appointment next week worse than better.” Grieger’s comment to his patients that they must put in the hard work between sessions is central to this entire Navigate the Chaos series. You are ultimately responsible to leverage your mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos and translate one dream after another into reality. And you must do so every day. Anything less would be a disservice to your well-being. Such a belief in a daily practice of well-being stems from the Ancient Greeks. In Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life, author Edith Hall examines the contributions of Aristotle (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher and polymath. Hall describes the ancient philosopher’s belief that becoming conscious of our skills, talents, and aptitudes (dynamis), and then using our resources to make the most of them (energeia) is the foundation of living a good life. The ancient Greeks called the attainment of the good life eudaimonia, usually translated as well-being or prosperity. As John Haig wrote in a review of Aristotle’s Way in The New York Times, “There is a pernicious, but widely held, belief that turning over a new leaf always involves turning our worlds upside down, that living a happy, well-adjusted life entails acts of monkish discipline or heroic strength. The genre of self-help lives and dies on this fanaticism: We should eat like cave men, scale distant mountains, ingest live charcoal, walk across scalding stones, lift oversize tires, do yoga in a hothouse, run a marathon, run another. In our culture, virtuous moderation and prudence rarely sell but, taking her cues from Aristotle, Hall offers a set of reasons to explain why they should.” In our social media world, one could easily misinterpret skydiving, swimming with sharks, or mountain climbing as paths to well-being. Aristotle would disagree. To borrow Haig’s observation fueled by the Greek philosopher ‘virtuous moderation and prudence rarely sell, but they should.’ And you would do yourself a great service by considering this ancient wisdom. Hall’s research clears a rare middle way for people to pursue happiness. This prosperity has nothing to do with the modern obsession with material success but rather “finding a purpose in order to realize your potential and working on your behavior to become the best version of yourself.” Author Ted Chiang is working on becoming the best version of himself. Chiang takes his time writing and has only published 15 short stories since 1990. Fellow author Grady Hendrix said of Chiang "Right now as a writer, what you're told is: the best way to be successful is to be insanely prolific because the more your name is out there, the more every book is an ad for yourself. And then you have someone like Ted who just sits and thinks very carefully about what he's doing, and then he does it. There is something that's very counter-cultural about him that I think is important." If you want to leverage your mind, body, and spirit you will invariably need to work on your well-being every day of the day. This Navigate the Chaos blog series is one way to do so that only requires a few minutes each day to read each post and consider answering its related set of questions. To increase your self-awareness as to how you pursue well-being, consider answering the following set of questions. How often do you engage in a daily exercise focused on your well-being? Do you remind yourself you and you alone have the responsibility to leverage your mind, body, and spirit in order to practice well-being? How often are you developing your skills, talents, and aptitudes? How often are you making the most out of your skills? Are you consciously pursuing the attainment of a good life or are you checking off one fanatical accomplishment after another to showcase it on social media? How often do you believe that in order to achieve a higher level of well-being you have to ‘eat like cave men, scale distant mountains, or run a marathon?’ Have you ever stopped to consider the role that moderation and prudence have to offer to your well-being? How comfortable are you being counter-cultural in order in your pursuit of well-being as you seek to live the good life?

Today is April 18 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you view your career path as a jungle gym?” Leveraging your mind, body, and spirit to navigate your career often requires you to think differently. Today’s reflection challenges your mindset to view your career path not as a traditional ladder but rather that of a jungle gym. In her book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, Sheryl Sandberg borrows a career development metaphor of the jungle gym from Fortune magazine editor Pattie Sellers. “People who view their careers as jungle gyms, rather than ladders,” observed Sellers, “make sure that their vision is always peripheral so that they can see opportunities that come along—and swing to them.” Sandberg continued that thought and wrote “A jungle gym scramble is the best description of my career since I could never have connected the dots from where I started to where I am today.” The jungle gym metaphor offers a different approach to career development than the traditional corporate ladder for a variety of reasons. First, the jungle gym allows you to move up, down, and sideways, whereas the ladder allows you to move only up and down. Having the flexibility of a jungle gym is an absolute necessity in today’s dynamic and ever-changing job market. Second, the jungle gym allows you to work with others, while the ladder only offers you the opportunity to walk over someone to get to the next step. Finally, the jungle gym has a wide base and therefore allows for a stronger foundation as compared to the ladder that has two legs and is subject to wind, shifts in weight, or unpaved surfaces. In a June 14, 2021, LinkedIn article entitled "Why the career jungle gym matters now more than ever," Sellers updated her position from years earlier and wrote “Here’s why the jungle gym concept is more important now than ever: The world is ever more fast-changing and unpredictable, and the rung above you on the traditional ‘career ladder’ may not be a stable or safe rung.” To navigate the jungle gym Sellers identified the following five traits to practice: Risk tolerance/understanding, Resilience, Curiosity, Flexibility, and Optimism. Her top choice out of the five was flexibility - in both managing and being managed. According to Sellers, “Success favors the nimble, people who are open and adaptable and ready to swing toward opportunities as they arise. You need all five traits to navigate the jungle gym safely and well.” Creating options via the jungle gym is especially relevant for new college graduates who possess high expectations that their degree will result in an immediate dream job following graduation. In What Colour is Your Parachute? Richard Bolles concluded, “Even in tough times there are jobs to be had, but applicants have to work far harder to get an employer’s attention. They need to market themselves better and consider a broader range of employers.” In considering a career move, are you only looking up or are you considering other options that exist all around you? One such person that considered her options is Whoopi Goldberg, the only African American woman with an EGOT (an Emmy, A Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony). Goldberg disputed that she was ever on anything so clear as a path and said “You can’t create a career. It goes where it goes.” Having a jungle gym approach allows you to have a career that ‘goes where it goes.’ Research supports the jungle gym approach as an effective strategy to use when navigating your way to the corner office. In 2018 researchers Elena L. Botelho and Kim R. Powell published The CEO Next Door: The 4 Behaviors that Transform Ordinary People into World-Class Leaders and found substantial evidence that a jungle gym approach was overwhelmingly an effective strategy to use while navigating one’s career. Specifically, Botelho and Powell discovered three “catapults” people used to propel themselves into the CEO role and wrote “The catapults are so powerful that even people in our study who never aspired to become CEO ultimately landed the position by pursuing one or more of these strategies.” First, more than 60% of CEOs took a smaller role at some point in their career. They may have started something new within their company (by launching a new product or division, for example), moved to a smaller company to take on a greater set of responsibilities, or started their own business. Second, more than one-third of sprinters catapulted to the top by making “the big leap,” often in the first decade of their careers. These executives threw caution to the wind and said yes to opportunities even when the role was well beyond anything they’ve done previously, and they didn’t feel fully prepared for the challenges ahead. Finally, it may feel counterintuitive, and a bit daunting, but one way to prove your CEO mettle is by inheriting a big mess. It could be an underperforming business unit, a failed product, or a bankruptcy — any major problem for the business that needs to be fixed fast. Ninety-seven percent of CEOs undertook at least one of these catapult experiences and close to 50% had at least two. Accelerating your career through these catapults doesn’t require an elite MBA or a select mix of inborn traits, but it does require a willingness to make lateral, unconventional, and even risky career moves. It’s not for the faint of heart. But if you aspire to top leadership, you might as well get used to it. Not every move has to be so calculated though. Consider the role and value of the lateral move as found using the jungle gym metaphor. Lisa Alteri, Chief People Officer for Kraft Heinz U.S. believes people should “lean into their curiosity and embrace the power of the lateral move.” Doing so, however, means letting go of one’s ego. As Alteri noted “It’s hard to quell that evil ego. In general, there is an obsession about titles because titles are associated with status, and that’s where the ego comes in. But you as the individual care so much more about the title than your current or future organization does. And those lateral moves can bring so much more than a title.” As you navigate the chaos of your career, are you stuck in the old paradigm of a ladder or have you accepted the more agile strategy of a jungle gym approach? How often do you leverage your mind, body, and spirit to give yourself permission to accept the fact that your ‘career goes where it goes.?’ Have you turned down a lateral move before because you believed it would not help you climb the corporate ladder? If so, how did that work out for you? How often are you not even considering opportunities that a)would allow you to move to a smaller company, b)gave you an opportunity far beyond your capabilities, or c)allowed you to inherit a big mess?

Today is April 17 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you consider best versus right?” Leveraging your mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos requires making one decision after another. All too often, people fail to stop and reflect upon their decision-making process. Doing so allows people to gain the self-awareness necessary to better leverage their mind, body, and spirit and make the decisions appropriate for any given life situation. One decision-making paradigm that exists as a strategy to navigate the chaos is the framework of best versus right. As discussed elsewhere in this Navigate the Chaos series, all too often people believe that selecting or pursuing the best of something is the only thing that matters when in reality they should have been considering the right option. Deciding on best versus right takes a strong work ethic, a self-aware mind, and a conscious decision to consider one’s current life situation. The best is seductive but it is seldom right. This is often the case with the selection of what college to attend or major to select. People believe that they need to go to the best school. The best school provides the best education with the best major, and the best opportunities to get the best job for the best career to have the best life. Nothing could be further from the truth. When your mind starts to think in such a fashion, you may want to consider pausing for a moment and reflect upon your decision-making process. If you truly believe there is a best school, you are then assuming all other institutions are inferior and as such, anyone who graduates from those second-tier colleges will have mediocre careers. Do you honestly believe that those who graduate from the best schools, however best is defined, are the only people who succeed in life? Nonsense. As Elena L. Botelho and Kim R. Powell noted in their 2018 book The CEO Next Door: The 4 Behaviors that Transform Ordinary People into World-Class Leaders “earning an MBA from an elite university is not the fastest way to reach the corner office.” Moreover, additional research conducted by best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell provides further evidence. In his book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and The Art of Battling Giants, Gladwell noted: “We strive for the best and attach great importance to getting into the finest institutions we can. But rarely do we stop and consider whether the most prestigious of institutions is always in our best interest.” One person who navigated the chaos by implementing this strategy of deciding on the right over the best was Herb Brooks. The 1980 U.S. Olympic Men’s Hockey team’s defeat of the Soviet Union (and then Finland) to take home the gold medal provides a case study in best v. right. In the 2004 file Miracle the dialogue between U.S. team assistant coach Craig Patrick (played by Noah Emmerich) and head coach Herb Brooks (played by Kurt Russell) highlights Brooks’ approach. It is early in the team tryouts in Colorado Springs and Patrick is looking over a roster of the names of the final 26 players (which eventually will be cut to 20), and with a tone of surprise he says to Herb, “You’re missing some of the best players.” And Herb responds, “I’m not looking for the best players, Craig. I’m looking for the right ones.” As the head coach of the University of Minnesota Books picked several of his players as well as several from their rivals, Boston University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To compete with the Soviet Union team specifically, Brooks developed a hybrid of the rugged, physical North American style and the faster European style, which emphasized creativity and teamwork. He also stressed peak conditioning, believing that one of the reasons the Soviet team had dominated international competition was that many of their opponents were exhausted by the third period. In perhaps one of the greatest examples of irony in recent history Brooks was the last player cut from the 1960 Olympic team a week before the games started. Three weeks later, Brooks sat at home with his father and watched the team he almost made win gold in Squaw Valley. Afterwards, Brooks "went up to the coach Jack Riley and said, 'Well, you must have made the right decision—you won.’” This humbling moment served as further motivation for Brooks, an already self-driven person. “He was the right coach at the right time with the right players,” son Danny Brooks said. “And here we are 40 years later still talking about it.” How often do you consider best versus right? Are you so consumed by pursuing the best that you have overlooked what is right? Do you even have the self-awareness required to understand that your obsession with the best blinded you to what was right for you at a given life situation? Why do you think people obsess over the best at the expense of what is right for them? How do you define best in a given situation? For example, how do you define the best college? Why are you holding on to the belief that the best option is the only option? If you are using the strategy of pursuing the best have you ever stopped to consider how doing so might prohibit you from leveraging your mind, body, and spirit?

Today is April 16 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you remind yourself of the porcupine dilemma?” The porcupine dilemma is a metaphor concerning the dynamics, challenges, and consequences of human intimacy and refers to the closer you get to someone, the more they can hurt you. That's why some space is needed for a healthy relationship. As you navigate the chaos by leveraging your mind, body, and spirit, it would behoove you to periodically reflect upon the role intimacy, both platonic and otherwise, plays in your life situation. Arthur Schopenhauer and Sigmund Freud have used this situation to illustrate the state of the individual in relation to others in society. In brief, here is the porcupine dilemma (also called the hedgehog dilemma) according to Schopenhauer: A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However, the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse, is the code of politeness and fine manners; and those who transgress it are roughly told—in the English phrase—to keep their distance. By this arrangement the mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied; but then people do not get pricked. A man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself. In his October 2020 Psychology Today article "The Porcupine Dilemma: What Sigmund Freud Knew," Dale Hartley noted that Freud kept a small metal porcupine on his desk to remind himself of the dilemma. In some shape, form, or fashion, the porcupine dilemma has been around for centuries. For example, in the early 17th century English playwright William Shakespeare published As You Like It and provided the world with the observation that “Most friendship is feigning, most love mere folly.” In one succinct sentence, Shakespeare summarizes the human element involved with the porcupine dilemma; friendship is fake and love is foolish. If we apply the porcupine dilemma to relationships we conclude that friends let us down and our lovers make us look like fools. Friendship and love, therefore, suffer when we get too close to people. A group of porcupines is called a prickle after all and a blunt reminder that getting close to people can result in disappointment, loneliness, or sadness. In her 2003 book Schopenhauer's Porcupines: Intimacy and Its Dilemmas: Five Stories of Psychotherapy Deborah Luepnitz examined this dilemma and how people who have fallen victim to it can navigate the chaos and move forward. Through a series of five patient case studies, Luepnitz discusses how individuals learn to adapt to the porcupine dilemma and leverage therapy to live a full life and concluded: “Psychotherapy cannot make us whole, but it does allow us to transform suffering into speech and, ultimately, to learn to live with desire.” Having desires is simply a part of being human but fulfilling those desires, whether it be friendship, love, or some other want, usually requires us to get close to people. And therein lies the dilemma. Just how close does one get to another? And how long does it take to get close to someone? In 1811 English novelist Jane Austen published Sense and Sensibility and suggested “It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.” Today’s reflection offers you an opportunity to ponder each aspect of the porcupine dilemma. As you leverage your mind, body, and spirit today to navigate the chaos keep in mind the role the porcupine dilemma plays in your life situation. How often do you seek friendship and love? How often have you been pricked by friendship or love? Have you ever pricked anyone who was in love with you or a friend of yours? How often do you consider how much love and friendship you need and what you are willing to do to obtain either? How open are you to providing love and friendship to others who seek either? How have you responded when you have been pricked? How did others respond when you pricked them? How do you respond to Shakespeare’s observation that “most friendship is feigning, most love mere folly?” Do you have a certain amount of time required to be someone’s friend or to fall in love with someone? How often do you remind yourself of the porcupine dilemma?

Today is April 15 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you pivot?” Successful American writer William A. Ward noted “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; and the realist adjusts the sail.” Those leveraging their mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos are often realists and make the necessary adjustments to pivot to translate their dreams into reality. Pivoting is difficult though, and often born out of necessity. For example, research into the world of business start-ups provides an illustration. For entrepreneurs and other engaged with a start-up or new business, changing direction is common. As Professor Amar Bhide at Columbia University has shown, 70% of all successful new businesses end up with a strategy different from the one they initially pursued. Examples of companies that started down one path but then made a pivot based on any number of factors include Netflix, Starbucks, Instagram, and Wrigley Chewing Gum. Netflix was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California. Netflix initially both sold and rented DVDs by mail, but the sales were eliminated within a year to focus on the DVD rental business. In 2007, Netflix introduced streaming media and video on demand. The company expanded to Canada in 2010, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean. Netflix entered the content production industry in 2013, debuting its first series House of Cards. In January 2016, it expanded to an additional 130 countries and then operated in 190 countries. As of December 31, 2021, Netflix had over 221.8 million subscribers worldwide. Starbucks was founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker at Seattle's Pike Place Market. In 1984, the original owners of Starbucks, led by Jerry Baldwin, purchased Peet's Coffee. By 1986, the company operated six stores in Seattle and had only just begun to sell espresso coffee. In 1987, the original owners sold the Starbucks chain to former director of marketing Howard Schultz, who rebranded his Il Giornale coffee outlets as Starbucks and quickly began to expand the company opening its first locations outside of Seattle in Waterfront Station in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Chicago, Illinois later that same year. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 countries, 15,444 of which were located in the United States. Out of Starbucks' U.S.-based stores, over 8,900 are company-operated, while the remainder are licensed. Instagram had its origins in San Francisco when Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger built Burbn, an HTML 5 check-in service, into a product that allowed users to do many things: check into locations, make plans (future check-ins), earn points for hanging out with friends, post pictures, and much more. They soon learned, however, that Burbn contained too many features and the users did not want a complicated product. They decided to focus on one specific feature, photo-sharing. The development of Burbn led to creation of Instagram. A month after launching, Instagram had grown to 1 million users. A year later, Instagram hit more than 10 million users. In 2010, Systrom co‑founded the photo-sharing and, later, video-sharing social networking service Instagram with Mike Krieger in San Francisco, California. In April 2012, Instagram, along with 13 employees, was sold to Facebook for US$1 billion in cash and stock. Wrigley did not always sell gum. In fact, William Wrigley Jr. stumbled on the value of gum while giving it away for free. Mr. Wrigley Jr. moved to Chicago in the 1890’s and took up work as a soap and baking powder salesman. He got the idea of offering free chewing gum with his purchases, and the gum proved to be more popular than his actual product. Wrigley went on to manufacture his own chewing gum brands, Juicy Fruit, Spearmint and eventually Doublemint. Research and explanations into why and how organizations pivot is found in Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter where, Liz Wiseman distinguishes between multipliers and diminishers. “Multipliers ask the questions that challenge the fundamental assumptions in an organization and disrupt the prevailing logic.” Such disruption often provides the catalyst the organization needs to pivot. Multipliers place a priority on leveraging and growing the intelligence of others. Diminishers, on the other hand, fail to ask questions and have a strong need to demonstrate that they are the smartest person in the room. Diminishers are stuck in the past, cling to cognitive inertia, and are thus, unable to pivot. If you are a leader or manager, or hope to be one day, you should consider asking yourself: ‘do I want to be a multiplier or a diminisher?’ How often do you think about the origins of companies you use on a regular basis? How often have you had to pivot in your life? Are you more of a multiplier or a diminisher? What skills, traits, or characteristics could you leverage in order to pivot in either your professional or personal life? Have you ever helped anyone pivot in their life? Is there someone or something preventing you from pivoting in your current life situation?