The Tribe Gathering - Sunday Mindset For The Week Ahead

“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” — Aristotle

Cairns, also known as prayer stone stacks, were once used by our ancestors to mark burial sites, placed along coastlines to warn of danger, built as part of ceremonies to ward off evil, & used to communicate hunting trails and trade routes. Today, they still serve as markers for hikers to point the way home and to safety. Though, most recently, the hobby has become more of an act of meditation and mindfulness, and in many instances the visual for a social media post.

If you’ve not tried this yourself, let me assure you there is something so very calming and fulfilling about sitting in a creek and stacking rocks. Though that may sound silly, it’s all a matter of your mindset and how intentional you are with both feeling the experience and your rock placement, which is paramount! Start by breathing. Really feel the air entering and leaving your body and do so slowly. Feel your heart rate decrease as the water moves around you. Focus on the water babbling over the rocks, your legs, and the curves of the creek washing away any thoughts you have regarding wins, losses, bills, and budgets. Feel the current billow over your hands and the temperature changes in the water. The sun on your back and the warmth it provides. Feel the rocks around you. Every cut, groove, and even the texture of smooth and rough edges. Some balance on others, and some don’t. Some can be the basis for a structure, where others topple too easily. Some must be used to counter-balance and though they may not be as aesthetically pleasing, they serve a vital purpose in holding your structure together.

The questions we can take away from the experience are, if I can find such peace in that space, how can I apply that same intentionality to the space I also share with other people? In every relationship we have we can apply this construct and find that same peace? Can I know them that deeply? Their cuts and rough edges and seek to help them find balance even when they make mistakes and must pivot. Can I learn from them where I need to pivot and grow?

On a recent podcast that will post this week, I spoke with a coach whose career covers a vast spectrum of both age, gender, and sport. From soccer to basketball, middle school boys to professional women in the WNBA, Coach Lisa Petitte, mastered the art of being intentional.

Intentional is an adjective: done on purpose; deliberate. To be a servant leader, one must practice being intentional in every word and action we execute each day. Coach Petitte’s approach to this practice was done in the same manner an artist applies brush strokes. Measured, calculated, & layered. Aware of the hue, balance, depth, and width of the impact in each stroke to the big picture. Coach Petitte, always set aside time for her players on purpose. And once in a space together she analyzed everything about them and asked the hard questions while also giving them a piece of her heart. She used honesty, trust, and love to not just teach a game, but to deliver life lessons from the parallels. I imagine for her and her players, sitting in the bleachers together, was their “creek.”

Intentional servant leadership is to be aware and curious, caring & sincere, open & honest. Vulnerability is a necessity. In our daily path how aware of others are we? To take that into consideration itself is to be more intentional. As a call to shift your paradigm, if such a shift is needed, please consider David Foster Wallace’s words as Kenyon College’s 2005 commencement speaker.

“The most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.

“This is not a matter of virtue. It’s a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.”

As servant leaders we must be more aware of the body language, vernacular, tone, inflection, changes in behavior, and other “tells” that the people we care for demonstrate. To get to this place of awareness though, we must first be intentional in the manner in which we establish a relationship with them. We have to give and receive pieces of intimate information from one another. What are their interests, dreams, goals, fears, strengths, & weaknesses? Who do they care about and what are their names? What motivates and inspires them? What causes them shame? What does courage and safety look like to them? What does service look like to them? We must ask questions that we don’t seek to provide answers for. But rather, assist them in discovering their answers to the most important question there is. WHY? We must seek to discover and uncover how we can support the people we lead and do so with the most sincere care we can apply to our coaching. And in like fashion we must do this in the way we communicate who we are with others. We must be intentional in our responses, answers, and consideration of them rather than ourselves while keeping the truth at the forefront.

Just as purposeful as our ancestors were when constructing Cairns with picking and choosing each stone, intentional placement of every stone, laser like focus on the attributes & imperfections, acceptance of which ones didn’t fit because it led to a better understanding of what is needed, we can become aware of everything around us, and the needs of the people we lead. The path of servant leadership and a place of selflessness requires you to be intentional in everything you do, say, and choose. We must reach this place ourselves first, before we can lead others.

If you can’t find a creek to go sit in, sit with a family member this week and be intentional in your awareness of how you can serve them. Take notice of the people around you in the grocery store after work and how an act of kindness could bring them joy. Take a walk with someone you lead and find out more about them as a person and how you can better support them. Analyze your rocks, place them carefully, find balance, live on purpose.

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