Bob Baxley

The lack of debate or argument at the end of your presentation is a sure sign that what you’ve said is completely right. Of course it can also be a sign that you’re so completely wrong that no one wants to engage.

If your goal is to move onto the next thing, you’re necessarily going to have to let go of your current thing. Are you truly ready to do that? Can you shed the part of the current you in order to make space for the future you yet to emerge?

For at least a moment, stop obsessing about all that’s wrong in your life and instead take inventory of what is right. Identify what you value and that you already have. And focus on building from there.

Like buildings, companies are built on foundations that bore deep below their visible surface. Rather than being atop steel and concrete however, a company is built on people and culture — two constantly shifting materials that require ongoing investments in attention, tuning, and care.

As long as you’re producing things of true and lasting value, you don’t need to rush. The pressure to move quickly, to hustle, to work until exhaustion — that stems from the inability to clearly see or hold onto a vision. The most rushed among us are the ones that are the most lost.

Few creative projects get anywhere remotely interesting before at least three drafts, in most case not before five. Rarely do ideas spring to life fully formed. Rather they have to be disassembled, reassembled, questioned, reconsidered, and reimagined many times before they reveal their full beauty.

Just for a moment be here — fully, completely, entirely here — and nowhere else. Here on this planet Earth, our blue ocean home, revolving around the Sun at the edge of the Milky Way and alive at a time of incredible acts of kindness, beauty, and meaning. It is a miracle and wonder.

The surest sign that you’re pushing too hard and expecting too much is when your team starts turning on each other. A team that’s fighting amongst itself is a team who’s leader is failing them.

It’s possible, likely even, that you’ll make more progress sitting alone for a few hours and thinking deeply about a systemic, coherent solution, than you will throwing yourself into an unstructured meetings with others.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking you really understand what’s going on in the heart or mind of another human being. The unfortunate but obvious reality is that we’re all trapped inside our own skull-size kingdoms and all we can hope to do is respect each other’s unique but unknowable sovereignty.

Maybe you don’t have to go quite this hard every day. Maybe you can cut yourself some slack and slow down for a time. And perhaps, in so doing you will regain your balance, rediscover your passion, and rejuvenate your soul.

Do you know when to call it quits? Have you established the conditions under which you will know you’ve accomplished what you set out to do? Or conversely, that your hopes and expectations will never be realized? If not, then you’re leaving the decision to mood, moment, and whim.

Nobody ever said any of this was going to be easy. Having a job, building a career, growing a family, being in a relationship, thriving as a human in this life — all of it is hard. Really hard. And the only way to make it easier is to stop wanting it to be any other way.

Rare is the collaborator with whom you can build on each other’s ideas. If by chance you have found one, and you feel in your heart that both of your ideas are refined and improved by the relationship, never let them go. Ever.

When things are difficult, challenging, dark; try to remember that transformational change is possible at any moment. Even one year — just 12 short months — can be enough to completely turn fortunes around.

Until you give it concrete form, it’s impossible for others to see your vision, to understand what’s come to life in your imagination, or to even vaguely comprehend what you’re thinking. Stop it with the talking and the waving of hands, and begin instead to draw, to write, and to sculpt.

Working on large-scale, hyper-collaborative projects, necessarily involves a lot of compromise and negotiation. A reality that often renders them vaguely unsatisfying to those whose hearts are fully engaged and whose passions are completely committed.

Many people seek to gain power and status by occupying a role, a position, a title. In such cases however, the true power resides in the office itself and not in them as a person. A reality that becomes painfully clear when the office is no longer theirs.

There will be times when you will be overwhelmed by the beauty and majesty of a symphony, a painting, or perhaps a film. Revel in those moments, celebrating not only the artist’s ability to create but also your ability to appreciate. For it is that exchange that is the true miracle and gift.

Over the course of a long life there will be multiple times when it’s clear that a new phase has begun and a previous one has ended. Don’t fight those moments or attempt to hold them at bay. Instead, lean into them and seize the opportunity to reinvent yourself and your life.

The first few hours of reuniting with a spouse or partner or team is often uneasy, awkward, and perhaps frustrating. Like coming together on a long run or a bike ride, it takes a few moments to match stride and begin to move in unison again.

Returning to places from earlier times in your life — your childhood home, school campuses, or a former city where you lived — is a form of time travel that allows who you are today to be with who you were in years gone by, communing for a moment with a different version of yourself.

I know of nothing more gratifying than helping other people. We phrase it as charity or selflessness, but it’s actually the opposite. For helping others is the best way to help ourselves, in that it gives our lives meaning and value.

It could be fun to watch other people present and talk about something you’ve created. Often however, it’s also disappointing because they failed to capture the larger vision and meaning you had in your head. In such moments, is that their failing or yours?

If you’re lucky enough to be given the opportunity to represent the work of your team in an important forum, you have an obligation and a solemn duty to do so as effectively and passionately as you can. Lean into that pressure and do everything in your power to deliver.

As long as you feel valued, appreciated, and respected, you can tolerate a lot of chaos and uncertainty. Try to keep that in mind regardless of the role you’re playing — employee, manager, friend, family member, or random strangers — making sure you treat others accordingly.

Don’t be so naïve as to think your departure from a company is going to leave some sort of a hole. Work is like water, it will rush to fill any any empty space, consume any gap, wash over any obstacle. You are replaceable and will be replaced. Just like everyone else.

Once the trust is broken it’s unlikely to ever fully return. Perhaps the wound will heal but the scar will always remain…along with the doubt and the worry and the uncertainty. Although there are some exceptions, it’s hard to imagine what would make such a compromise worth it.

There will be times when someone on the team just doesn’t fit. For whatever reason, their ideas, attitudes, or expectations simply don’t harmonize with the group. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong or the team is wrong. It just means that the chemistry isn’t working.

Anyone who in their heart is a maker, knows it. They may not have yet recognized it, prioritized it, or found their medium, but still they know they are here to create. And by the way, we’re all here to create.