Learning to Listen

One of the main things I hope for my kids is that they'll march to the beat of their own drummer. It's amazing how hard that is. I'm old enough now that when I look back over the decades I can see that the best decisions I've made in life were the ones where I went against the grain and followed my own drum beat. There's only a handful of these big non-consensus decisions a decade, and you don't always realize their importance in the moment. It's only in hindsight that you see how seminal they were to the years that followed.

There are many more times that I've drifted toward the consensus. There's an admixture of social learning, fear, and uncertainty that drowns out our internal compass. Following your own beat requires conviction and courage and taking risk. It's scary. And when things get scary it's natural to look around and see what other people are doing and regress to the mean. It's a personalized version of the institutional imperative.

Especially as we get older (and responsibilities compound) we need to learn how to listen to our internal drum beat. Shaping your personal vision (and values) is important. If you write it out—really give it shape—the vision becomes clearer. It becomes something more than an abstract hum. And when a vision takes shape it's easier to be committed to it and to filter out the range of interesting but distracting opportunities that come along.

My kids are young. For now I'm focused on exposing them to a lot of stuff. My role is to introduce them to many different "trailheads". It'll be up to them to decide which ones they want to spend their life exploring. I hope I can help instill in them the confidence to find their path and march to the beat of their own drummer.