#127: Evolving Your Life

Dear friends

Thank you for your caring messages after last week’s letter. Your generous responses reminded me of this line from Jerry Colonna’s Reboot “When leaders, parents, lovers choose to share the reality of their heart, it gives everyone in their lives the chance to know them, to hold them—to trust each other.”

Some of you asked where the V.S. Naipaul quotation came from, it comes from his essay The Strangeness of Grief. And, if you are grappling with the loss of someone you love, you might also find solace in Chimamanda Adichie’s Notes on Grief or in my letter on Living with Loss.

Today’s letter is about the power of evolving your life through intention, action and reflection.

Before we get started, I have written something that I would love your feedback on. Six Quotes to Consider is an experiment in curating different authors’ perspectives on a subject. Please read it and tell me what you think. Is it useful? Interesting? Or unnecessary? My hope is that you feel like you’re having a conversation with some inspiring folk and that you leave enriched, seeing more possibilities in the world.

/ strategy 

There are times in our lives when we want to chart our ‘next’ – the next phase of our life, our next business, or our first business. Sadly, the impulse that we feel is often smothered by the pressure to be completely unique from inception. Unable to think our way to that perfect vision, we give up hope of creating something new. And so, we resign ourselves to what is, which is almost a guaranteed route into resentment.

For this reason, I found Professor of Innovation Studies, Dan Breznitz’s distinction between invention and innovation useful. Actually, liberating.

He says, “In technical terms, invention is the process of coming up with a truly novel idea, while innovation is the process of using ideas to offer new or improved products and services at the same factor cost”. His book, Innovation in Real Places: Strategies for Prosperity in an Unforgiving World is filled with examples of the benefits unlocked by innovation.

Whilst invention is alluring, we may be better off starting by innovating with what we have.

To illustrate the point, I went back to Tom Richman’s Inc feature about Tom’s of Maine. If you don’t know Tom’s, they manufacture personal care products from natural ingredients. They’re an interesting business, donating 10% of their profits to nonprofits promoting health, education, and the environment. And they encourage their employees to use up to 5% of their paid time to volunteer in their local community.

But, none of this was expressed back in 1968 when Tom Chappell quit his life insurance sales job to start a business. All he and his wife Kate knew was that they wanted to live in Maine, and they cared about environmental issues. They hoped that their business could blend those concerns.

Richman explains what happened next, “They called the company Kennebunk Chemical Center, after the town they settled in. Its first product, Chappell’s own creation, was a nonpolluting cleaner for dairy equipment. The second was a phosphate-free liquid laundry detergent, ClearLake, which Chappell sold first along his dairy route and later through supermarkets. Environmentally commendable, ClearLake didn’t clean awfully well.

For a couple of years, the company stumbled along looking for a niche. Then Chappell met Paul Hawken. Hawken’s Erewhon chain of natural-food stores was finding a receptive market — and no one, Hawken claimed, was making a decent soap for the natural-food customer. Maybe Chappell should try. He did. Naming it was a problem. Why not just Tom’s, Kate suggested finally — Tom’s Natural Soap. Hawken put it on Erewhon shelves, and it sold. Hello, niche. Natural- and health-food stores needed other personal-care products for their shelves. Kate and Tom and their pickup crew in Kennebunk developed them, wrapped them in funky packages, and expanded their distribution. The brand evolved over time into Tom’s of Maine; so, eventually, did the company name.”

Far from starting out with a clear idea, the Chappells steadily innovated their way to a company that has become a benchmark in its category. The name changed, the products changed but they kept exploring their intentions, kept looking for ways to better live the life that they wanted.

Doesn’t that give you hope? We can let go of the need to invent. We can even let go of the need to absolutely know. We can set a direction with some smidgeon of intention, and through committed action and learning we can evolve our future.

/ self

The bulk of Richman’s piece isn’t actually about how Tom’s the business started, but rather about how Tom the founder lost his way.

As the business started to grow, he brought in new partners and hired professional managers. Chappell then found himself out of his depth. He didn’t have the language to respond ‘professionally’ to his new employees, so in turn, he says that “everything with them was so objective that I found myself being wholly subjective. They would defer to me when I wanted them to agree.”

Simultaneously, he put in place mechanisms to quantify everything. The rigour worked and they grew market share, but he lost interest and started to contemplate selling, not something he wanted to do, but it wasn’t fun anymore. He was pouring over spreadsheets not thinking about evolving products that would make a difference in his customers’ lives.

Before making the final decision, he decided to go back to school. Not business school though. He said to Richman “Business school? God, no. Never. Business school was the thing I spent my time trying to undo in people.” His desire was to find a way to reconnect with himself. He contemplated doing a course in writing or literature but eventually decided on Harvard Divinity School.

He reflected that the result was that he could now explain his decisions as flowing from a clear set of values rather than calling them ‘founder’s instinct’. As he developed a stronger understanding of his values, he began to appreciate them more. As he understood their power, he was able to be less defensive and so could partner with the professionals he’d brought him. He let them do what they do best, whilst guiding the vision. Sometimes the most powerful way to connect with others is to understand and appreciate what we bring to the world.

/ soul 

The last lesson from Richman’s interview with Chappell is that Chappell learned “…to look for personal fulfilment in the here and now, not in the achievement of some future success. The beauty of life, he says, is in the journey. That bit of wisdom has put the numbers that were dogging him into perspective. Quantitative goals, such as market share or net sales, can’t invest purpose in a process that has none. The quest simply for more of anything is inherently unsatisfying. If there is no point or joy in what you are doing, or if you lose sight of the point, then just measuring your progress can’t make it worthwhile or fun.”

Of course, in the creation of a life, we all have bills to pay and must make money to do so. Not keeping an eye on those numbers would be foolish but living a life without connection to a purpose that makes sense to you – whatever that may be – robs you of your unique power and the ability to connect with others. Once Chappell found the language to express what he cared about, he was suddenly able to collaborate with the professionals.

Colonna quotes The Gospel of Saint Thomas as saying “If you bring forth what is in you, what is in you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is in you, what is in you will destroy you.”

I wish you a week in which you’re able to see yourself a little more clearly and have the space to evolve your life with intention.

Karl

PS: If you’d like to work with me, you can find out more about my coaching practice here. If this is the first time that you’re reading this letter, you can subscribe here.