Communities, Quotations, and Inspiration: Learning With and From Our Colleagues

I wake up this morning to a “homework assignment” from a colleague (George Couros, via an email message to his list of contacts): read through a list of quotations he compiled during 2023, select one of the quotations, and compose a set of reflections “written, audio, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, blog, MySpace, or whatever, and tag me on it in any of those spaces (except for MySpace!).” So I read through that lovely collection of thoughts from a variety of sources—some familiar, some new to me. And a funny thing happens: while I enjoy reading them, none of them makes me want to spend time composing a set of reflections. None of them offers me the open door that could entice me to enter another world.

So I set them aside. Breeze through some of the other bits and pieces of reading I want to do before diving into all I hope to accomplish today. Then, seeing a Facebook post from Deborah Doyle, another cherished friend/colleague/source of inspiration, I pause. Because it contains a lovely quotation. One that completely pulls me in. And one that puts me back into virtual touch with a writer—Paulo Coelho—whose work I very much admire: “Close some doors today. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere.”

I pause. I feel a door opening slightly. That door that insists I drop everything else and take the time to peek to see what hides behind it.

The skeptic in me kicks in, asking “Are those really words from Paulo Coelho, or is this another of those Internet moments like the one reminding us that Abraham Lincoln counseled against believing everything you read on the Internet?” So I do a few quick searches and find plenty of references to Coelho having said or written those words, but no site providing a precise, definitive annotation confirming where or when he wrote or said those words.

But the trainer-teacher-learner-writer in me swats the skeptic down. Reminds me that it does not really matter whether Coelho is the source. What is important is that the sentiment is appealing. Applies to so much of what my colleagues and I live and breathe and do. That a friend has given me a key to open and pass through that door. And that it is a wonderful reminder, at the beginning of what appears to be another year of wonderful possibilities, and exploration, and growth, that one must pass through open doors to see what’s on the other side.

It all comes down to how we choose to use the limited time we have. Those words remind us that we all are faced with far more doors than we will ever have the time to pass through. That for each door ignored, another beckons. And for each one chosen, other doors remain unopened, as do the experiences we might have had by choosing them over those we chose.

For those of us who want to do it all—open every door; try every dish on the menu at our favorite restaurant; read every book written by the authors we love or see every film made by those who consistently create enticing dreamy worlds into which we can escape; study and use the numerous languages we hear around us as we move through communities where English (or whatever mother tongue we speak) isn’t the only game in town—the choices can be overwhelming. And the decision to close a door so we can make space for a different is sometimes painful, sometimes filling us with dread or guilt for walking away from something or someone important to us. But setting aside the pain or guilt in recognition that the closing of the door might ultimately be better for us and what/who we leave behind, we find ourselves applying a different set of eyes and ears and desires leading us to something tremendously stimulating and rewarding.

Reading and absorbing books including Daniel Goleman’s Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence,  Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, and James Hollis’s Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up over the past few months has provided an enormous sense of perspective and encouragement in terms of deciding which doors to open—and how many. Each writer takes me closer to the realization that we are going to be much happier and productive if we take the time to decide how many doors we are going to open, close, or leave closed before trying to determine what it might reveal. Which door is most important and potentially rewarding to us now. Each writer reminds us of the importance of choosing the most important door right now. And not wasting time or energy in this particular moment on worrying about what those other doors might have offered that would have been more appealing.

It’s a realization that is at the heart of all that we do as trainer-teacher-learners: we help ourselves and our learners to focus. To be mindful. To produce the most rewarding experiences possible by choosing that single door that most appeals to us now. Opening it completely so we can see what lurks behind it. Exploring what is there to our own satisfaction whether that set of explorations requires a few minutes, a few days, a few months, or a few years. Absorbing it in ways that allow us to more fully contribute to the communities in which we live and work and play. And, when we pass back through that door or through another we discover along the way, we carry with us what we have gained so we can share it with others. As George and Deborah and other beloved members of my various communities of learning share with me, today, the reminder that a small, well-connected set of words is sometimes all it takes to lead us through a door into the world of our dreams.

Giving Thanks 2023: The Quality of Our Gatherings

Reading and reflecting on Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters a couple of years ago proved to be absolutely transformative in the way I approach training-teaching-learning and more personal interactions. Hers is a book—particularly in Chapter 5, “Never Start a Funeral With Logistics”—that reminds us how often waste the initial moments of many gatherings immersed in inconsequential matters (e.g., where the bathrooms are, where we can park when after the leave the main event and drive over to a reception held nearby, or—one I have repeatedly heard at the beginning of onsite events—what to do in case of a fire or an earthquake) instead of by pulling everyone together literally and figuratively with a scene-setting, compelling story that draws us in as quickly as a cold open pulls us into an engaging television program, movie, or book. Hers is a book that makes us aware of the staggeringly suppressive nature of many of our gatherings—which is a result of our having made them all too brief and easily forgettable because they lack the easy-to-create foundations that would make gatherings memorable, rewarding, and transformative.

After the death of our friend David Moebs many years ago, my wife (Licia) and I realized that one of the greatest losses we felt was the absence of the long, deeply personal gatherings the three of us so frequently had. Going to a movie, a musical performance, or a play was often only the beginning of a gathering; the real action was the conversation we had afterward, over coffee or a full meal, when we relived the movie or concert or play by dissecting and gaining a greater appreciation by talking about what each of us had seen and felt, and how the experience of watching and discussing it together brought us so much more than we would have gained by seeing it alone and then filing it away into one of those rarely-visited filing cabinets of memories that gather dust in our minds. The effect was cumulative: each conversation built upon and added to what we had previously shared; each further created a unique relationship continually fertilized and nurtured by each additional moment we put into that relationship.

This personal version of the art of gathering has been renewed for me at work and play, particularly since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying shelter-in-place approach inspired me to become creative about how I seek and nurture those relationships that thrive because of the amount of time and effort my friends and I put into them. In fact, two gatherings that have been nearly set in stone on my schedule for the past few years exemplify the spirit and pleasures of what Parker so enchantingly describes: a weekly virtual dinner and book discussion via Zoom (generally beginning at 4 pm PT on Saturday afternoons and often continuing for at least a few hours) with Licia and our longtime friend Jerry Rehm, who is now retired from his position as manager of the Holocaust Museum bookstore in Washington, D.C.) and a full-day onsite monthly gathering with another long-time friend, Ann Harleman, whose novels and short stories always leave me feeling as if she has opened doors to worlds I might otherwise not have encountered.

There were many years when my relatively brief, immensely pleasurable encounters with Jerry were few and far between. We initially met nearly 30 years ago while attending what was then the annual American Booksellers Association convention (later BookExpo America)—one of those wonderful opportunities when those passionate about books would gather to see what was about to be released by publishers into the hands of booksellers, reviewers, librarians, and others who help connect books and readers. Long after that conference stopped serving as a gathering that drew us together, I would see Jerry and his partner once every few years when professional conferences sponsored by the American Library Association or what was then ASTD (the American Society for Training and Development, later rebranded as ATD, the Association for Talent Development) gave me an excuse to be in Washington, D.C. for several days at a time. Our gatherings, however, grew less and less frequent until a national tragedy—the insurrection in January 2021—reignited the lovely conversations that he, Licia, and I cherished.     

It was Licia who took the initial step to reconnect the three of us. Seeing news reports of the insurrection in progress and knowing that Jerry lived fairly close to the Capitol Building, she called to see whether he was safe. And, in Jerry’s inimitable fashion, he quickly assured her he was fine by responding with the words “Yes. I’m under the bed, eating chocolate.”

Their exchange by phone made the three of us realize how much we missed each other’s company. Building upon the pandemic-era successes I was having in staying in touch with friends via Zoom for everything ranging from weekly virtual brunches to highly-interactive learning sessions, we started that second year of the pandemic with a commitment to talk via Zoom every couple of weeks (choosing 7 pm ET/4 pm PT as a good compromise that would allow us to have our dinner together and talk about whatever we had done since our last call). At some point early in that series of calls, Jerry mentioned a book he was reading—Jonathan Sacks’ Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times—and said he wished we were reading it together so we could discuss it. So we did. And then read another. And, at latest count, we’ve read and discussed parts or all of nearly 30 books, with no end in sight, so we’ve in a very satisfying way recaptured that long-lost cherished pattern long, meandering conversations that begin with the reading of a book and make the experience far more deeply rewarding through conversations that explore what the writer accomplished (or failed to accomplish) and how the work we’re exploring connects to and flows into other aspects of our work, lives, and play.

Our monthly Sunday gatherings with Ann have even more fully blossomed in the spirit of the “I am here” days Priya Parker describes in Chapter 4—“Create a Temporary Alternative World”—of The Art of Gathering. Whereas her version of those gatherings grew out of a conversation with her husband during which “we agreed to set aside a full day every now and then for exploring a single unfamiliar neighborhood” and evolved into daylong gatherings with small groups of friends who realized that the length of those gatherings added depth to the conversations and “forced a degree of presence rare in New York and the tech-addled modern world,” ours began as two-hour brunches alternating between Ann’s home and ours on a specific Sunday each month, and have evolved into daylong events where we start over a home-cooked meal at home and then (weather permitting) venture out for long walks where the conversations continue—and never flag. Sometimes it’s about we’ve been doing, including our own writing-in-progress; other times it involves making travel plans together; and, as was the case yesterday when rain kept us from venturing away from the brunch table, we spent a few leisurely hours discussing books we had been recommending back and forth (including Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, James Hollis’s Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up, and Peter Block’s Activating the Common Good: Reclaiming Control of Our Collective Well-Being) and, not surprisingly, circled back briefly to The Art of Gathering in terms of what it suggests and what it continues to inspire in us—which is a deep sense of gratitude for the quality of the gatherings we continue to nurture with those who are important to us.

N.B.: This is the sixteenth in an ongoing series of posts on the theme of giving thanks.