Hey there! Here’s one leadership idea and one resource I’ve found beneficial this week:
1 idea: No bad weather
Back when he was a teenager, my friend Trent was an extreme camper. He and his buddies would trek out to the wilderness and sleep directly under the stars—sometimes in frigid temperatures. Zipped up in their mummy sleeping bags with only their faces showing to the sky, they’d endure freezing winds for the thrill of being close to nature.
On one occasion, they expected some particularly challenging weather. In preparation, he and his friends lined up their bags in a row and draped a carpet across themselves. When Trent opened his eyes in the silence of the morning, he found himself covered in six inches of snow. But it wasn’t a terrifying, teeth-chattering experience; it was a serene and blissful moment that remains with him decades later.
Trent still spends a lot of time outdoors as the owner of a landscaping company, so it’s not uncommon for him to encounter what I would think of as bad weather. But even though his teen years are long past, he continues to embrace a Scandinavian philosophy that seems radical to most Americans:
“There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.”
I wonder: how might embracing this idea more broadly reduce our stress and increase our success in life? If it’s true that “the only way out is through,” then our happiness in life would be greatly improved by learning how to succeed in our current circumstances rather than frantically trying to avoid them altogether.
In other words, what if we spent less energy judging our circumstances as "bad" and more time looking for the right mindsets and resources to navigate them? This could mean:
Less time complaining about our boss and more time talking to mentors about how to “lead up”
Less time frustrated by our kids’ behavior and more time reflecting on why we get so worked up when they don’t cooperate
Less time worrying about our uncertain futures and more time enjoying the moment
Less time lamenting the bad weather and more time bundling up for cold or wet walks through our neighborhoods
If we spend our time trying to avoid the bad, we’ll find it at every turn. But if we approach every situation as a challenge that also carries an inherent gift, we’ll be surprised how often we find that, too.
***
What ‘bad weather’ are you facing now?
What ‘clothes’ do you need to get through it more effectively?
What gifts might there be in this moment that you could embrace more fully?
1 resource: Lessons from Scandinavia
I stumbled across There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather by Linda Åkeson McGurk when researching the origin of this quote, and I found it fascinating. This blend of memoir and essay chronicles the experiences of a Swedish woman who moves to Indiana and has to adjust to the fundamentally different beliefs around raising kids in the outdoors. If you're curious to learn about how parenting works in other cultures, or you've ever thought your kids should "just go play outside," you'll find the book thought-provoking.
You can find the book on Amazon or wherever books are sold.
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