Sunday Roundup: Finding and Celebrating Deep Wins
Don't Forget to Find Time to Celebrate Meaningful Wins
In January of 2020 I published my book MBA Insider, How to Make The Most of Your MBA Experience. It was something that I set out to do during Christmas of 2019, and through a dedicated effort and commitment to writing on weekends throughout 2020 (not to mention an insane amount of coffee) I was able to write, edit, research, re-write, edit and publish the book in about a year's time frame. While my desire to write a book and the time invested in the draft, manuscript and editing took place in 2020, it was a culmination of many years of writing, thinking, and ideating around something that I cared deeply about. And to see it on Amazon.com and to share the first batch of authors copies with my family on Christmas Day exactly 1 year from when I said I was going to write a book was perhaps one of the most meaningful wins I’ve had in my life.
(This was my Christmas present to my family, December 25th, 2019)
While those moments were great, what felt most enjoyable was that the book, for me, was taking seven years worth of work in one cover bound book. While people see the book as the end product, what they don’t see were the past attempts to draft ideas for writing a book, my past attempts at blogging (note: it’s bad!) and the hundreds of smaller articles I published on other websites because I didn’t feel that my writing could stand on its own merit. What also felt so great about it was that I was able to do it in a way that was unique to me.
The book features over 65 personal stories of people that I know personally from the years of writing MBASchooled and advising MBA students. One of my own core values is always to bring people on the journey with me, so to me, what made this so special was my ability to work on something meaningful and to put something out into the world that could be bigger than just myself. Sure, it didn’t win a WSJ Bestseller, it wasn’t on Oprah’s Book Club and the subsequent book tour was cancelled (thanks COVID-19!) but by creating something over a period of time that aligned with my core values and internal motivations was incredibly rewarding.
To me, writing this book was what Dr. Pippa Grange, would call a deep win. On a podcast with Dr. Brene Brown, Grange describes a deep win as:
“Where you actually can feel the richness of your journey, you are attached to the joy and the struggle, you are attached to the mess, and it is generally done for reasons outside of yourself and the fulfillment of our egoic needs. It is done more from a soul level — it’s done because we can and because there’s a wild desire in it.”
Admittedly, I’ve chased and had many shallow wins in my life. Promotions at work for the sake of feeling like I needed to keep up with others, applying to top schools to ensure I was keeping up my reputation and persona I was envisioning and architecting for myself, and striving for more responsibility, bigger budgets and more headcount to prove my value as a leader. Not all of these ended poorly, nor does it take away from the privilege, impact, and resources those experiences gave me. But like I wrote in my previous post, success if not properly defined turns into a hedonic treadmill that leaves you thirsting for more without true fulfillment.
Finding and achieving deep wins, the things that give us joy, soul, and energy and a feeling that we can’t get elsewhere. (I know this may be a little “woo-woo” but if I were to ask you right now to write down the most meaningful win you’ve had in your life and to describe what it felt like, I think you would get the picture)
Writing and publishing a book was a deep win, and I know it because when COVID struck and many of the original plans I had to build my brand around the book got put on hold. While COVID took away my chance at the time to go on a book tour, speak on stage, and grow my business, it couldn’t take away the feeling I got from knowing I put something into the world that I was proud of.
(celebrating with my friends)
Celebrating Wins
In February of 2020, to launch the book and celebrate it, I held a launch party in San Francisco. I picked a great venue (shoutout to Whitnie and First Round Capital!) invited close friends and family and about 12 of the people that were featured in the book, and spent some time after getting everyone together to share more about the book and how it came to life. There are few things in life that are better than having food, friends, and family all in one place, and in this case, the chance to acknowledge and celebrate a deep win was incredibly meaningful and impactful for me, as well as a chance to publicly thank and acknowledge the people who came along the journey with me.
As my girlfriend likes to remind me, we need to make space to acknowledge and celebrate our wins so we can truly appreciate the craft of our work, and the resources, people, and effort it took to create it. Many of us (especially if you read this newsletter) work in a job or profession that moves so fast and demands so much, that forgetting to celebrate our wins takes the soul out of living. As eternally famous high-school philosopher king Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Whether that’s cooking your favorite meal and eating with your significant other to celebrate a personal milestone, or inviting a group of people together to celebrate a shared mission, celebrating your deep wins is a way to reflect upon your pursuits, and acknowledge your impact, which in turn fuels your future aspirations and goals. I would almost go as far to say if you’re not making time to celebrate your wins, you are missing out a feedback loop of insight that can fuel new ideas and pursuits.
(Thank you Whitnie for helping me celebrate a deep win!)
Celebrating Wins during Difficult times
Let’s face it, we’ve all faced our challenges over the past 18 months. But we’ve all had our wins! Knowing that A) deep wins exist for all of us and B) celebrations matter, it's important to help others see their deep wins. Helping your peers and colleagues A) acknowledge their wins especially in hard times and B) Celebrating them helps build morale but more importantly lets others know that you see and value what they do.
This ties nicely into my hot belief that being a good teammate is an underrated skill, but is even more important if you are a manager of people - employees regularly cite feedback (and lack thereof) as a major challenge in the workplace, so if you can find ways to help your teammates and people find their deep wins and celebrate them you start to build a culture and team where people feel seen and recognized for their work.
So here’s the summary:
Find Your Deep Wins - Take time to reflect upon your own deep wins, either in terms of what is a deep win for you, or in terms of the deep wins that you’ve had over the past year.
Celebrate them - Find ways to celebrate those deep wins. Whether it's on your own or with a group, make sure you make space to acknowledge what you’ve done, and how you are using your own talents and gifts to make an impact on something meaningful to you. While some of these can be with others, celebrating on your own and having the chance to self-reflect in a solo environment can be incredibly meaningful too.
Help others find and celebrate deep wins - Sometimes we have blinders on, and need help and perspective from others. This is especially true over the past 18 months, with all of us experiencing loss, grief, sadness, and difficulty in unique ways. Finding ways to publicly acknowledge the wins of others and to celebrate them is a very human way to relate and connect with others. While these have truly been difficult times, if you think deeply about those closest to you (at work or at home) i am confident you can find at least 1-2 wins you can acknowledge of those around you.
Finally, to close, I want to highlight a few community members who had deep wins over this past year, to acknowledge and celebrate them but also, hopefully to inspire you all to find and celebrate your deep wins, or those of your people. And with that, Happy Sunday.
Deep Wins From The Community
Meredith: When I decided to go back to school to get my MBA I did all of that really on my own, and on the incredible community of support I built for myself. It greatly diverged from the path I was on and it has fully changed the trajectory for my family'. Being able to forge that journey on my own, especially after graduating in the middle of the financial crisis, is a deep win for me. It is nothing like the life I was told I "should" have, it is better. And it is mine.
Cara: The deepest win i feel in this job is in spring and summer when students get jobs. The most special ones are students who you know would make wonderful managers and contribute heavily to a company, but for some reason the hiring process takes a long time. The sense of relief and happiness you feel when you get the Teams message/call that the right offer has come, it just doesn't get any better. More recently, I ran a week of mock interviews for students so they could meet alumni. We had far more students sign up than expected and I desperately needed alumni volunteers. I felt such gratitude for the 30-40 alumni who responded to my email and gave up their lunch or early evening to help out.
James: I wasn’t much of a runner growing up, but a few years ago I decided to run a marathon as a way to get in better shape and motivate myself to be more active with exercise. Training was difficult but the feeling of crossing the finish line and the euphoria that followed is something that I’ll always remember.
Jerry: During COVID, I managed to retain all of the employees on my team. That felt like a meaningful win to me because I know how hard some of my team members were struggling (and I was struggling) but when it all came down to hearing why they stayed many of them talked about wanting to support each other and the support they felt from me. Being a manager is so much more about people than I ever could have imagined, and knowing that I had created something where people wanted to come to work to despite the difficult circumstances was something I was proud of
What I Read
The Great Resignation is Accelerating (The Atlantic) - “Quits,” as the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls them, are rising in almost every industry. For those in leisure and hospitality, especially, the workplace must feel like one giant revolving door. Nearly 7 percent of employees in the “accommodations and food services” sector left their job in August. That means one in 14 hotel clerks, restaurant servers, and barbacks said sayonara in a single month.”
Time Millionaires: meet the people pursuing the pleasure of leisure (The Guardian) - “There’s a movement here that feels pretty organic,” says Warzel. “The pandemic was this massive controlled experiment in forcing people to embrace a different way of working. And what we saw was the opposite of what executives had been telling employees for decades: productivity and profits [rose]. Now, people are wondering what else employers were wrong about. What other ways of working have gotten out of sync?”
'Boomerang employees' who quit during the pandemic are starting to ask for their old jobs back (Business Insider, Paywall) “On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in August alone, surpassing the previous record set only a month earlier. But before you hold yet another farewell party for a departing colleague, consider this: Some of your former coworkers will likely return soon — as "boomerang employees."
Values, Money, Ego and Capabilities (Kat Cole) - “I learned that it’s not so much specific advice that people are seeking when navigating career decisions, as everyone’s situation is so unique. What seems to be most helpful is a starting framework that each person, leader, or team can make their own.”
What I listened To
Strategy: How to Win The Long Game When The Short Term Seems Bleak (Coaching For Leaders)
Career: What Golf Pioneers Teach Us About Taking Risk (Whitney Johnson)
Personal Development: Taking on Imposter Syndrome (Brene Brown)
Career Change: What it Takes to Make a Major Change (HBR Women at Work)
What I am Reading
Cheers,
Al
*Promotions, raises, more responsibility, top schools, titles, etc are not bad things. External measures are important. I just think it's important to balance them with intrinsic measures, and to be clear on your why behind you are choosing to optimize for any of these.