Adding spice, removing filters

Life hides its secrets in plain sight.?

In fact, this is so common that my friend Simon and his coauthor Jay have?written this secret into the cannon?(among many other great minds who have discovered this across the millennia).

Being hidden in plain sight also means it’s?hidden to plain sight.?

As the 1991 hit?City Slickers?put it:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is??

[points index finger skyward] This.?

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.?

Mitch: But, what is the “one thing?”

Curly: [smiles and points his finger at Mitch] That’s what you have to find out.

I remember the first time I watched City Slickers. I was 9.

It was both of my personalities, on the silver screen. The Sierra-Nevada-high-desert-far-west-raised-Oregon-Trail-roots cowgirl and the wannabe urbanite.?

I revisited it on the eve of my 40th birthday. Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, was on the eve of his 40th year. Mitch and I have everything in common—and yet, nothing in common—all at once.

I am not the only one turning to this classic in a time where nostalgia is at a premium—arguably, because it “is an emotional experience that unifies” in the?words of Dr. Krystine Batcho.

I arrived here, with this movie, because I am looking back at my first 40 years with so much joy and gratitude and liberation—and I cannot wait to keep going. And be a lighthouse for those in need of light; a greenhouse for those in need of nutrients; a turtle shell for those in need of protection; and radical kindness for those in need of salvation.

So, back to a universal City Slicker nostalgia. As one [unfortunately named]?publication captured it?30 years since it first aired (circa September 2021):

When Billy Crystal turned 40, he wasn’t happy about it. “I was gripped by a very cloudy mood,” he wrote in his 2013 memoir,?Still Foolin’ ’Em. So he did what comedians do when faced with anxiety: He set out to find the humor beneath the heartache.

First would come his hilarious star turn as what the?Los Angeles Timescalled “a reluctantly romantic leading man” in 1989’s?When Harry Met Sally. Then he hit on a winning idea for what would become another iconic role.

“City Slickers,” he scribbled. “Three friends go on a fantasy cattle drive” — a metaphor for what was missing in their lives. “My character, like me, in his 40s ... midlife crisis.”?

Gonna be honest, Billy: I can relate and don’t relate, in equal parts.

I?don’t?relate because:

• I am not in any way, shape, or form in a ‘midlife crisis’. I am in a midlife Genesis, if anything.

I?don't?relate because:

• This movie made me curious about what was wrong with people from cities, because my parents were the same age as Billy (!!) when City Slickers was released—and they were at the cusp of moving to Oregon from Lake Tahoe to continue to build their dreams in the Far West. Twenty-nine years after we broke ground and 34 years after they put the first $ in, we now are the dream @?Bradshaw Vineyards. (Maybe this was their midlife Genesis??)

I?don’t?relate because:

• I figured out a long time ago what I wanted to be when I grew up. It’s been building this whole time. I don’t currently have a miserable job or toxic boss or a morally exhausting environment or taker colleagues from whom I would need a break. I am off the grid while I am on it; I know where to find the oxygen, breaks, and renewable energy. I am blessed. I am grateful. I also put up with a lot, navigated a lot, and failed miserably at getting this right a lot, too.

I?do?relate to Billy because:

• I just got back from a hiking / writing / yoga’ing retreat in Peru. This could absolutely be considered my cattle drive with friends.?
• At times, especially when things were hardest in my 20s, I got lost in the sauce. I saw those playing the finite game of hoarding wealth, objects, status—and like a kid breathing on cold glass as she peers at something too rich for her blood—I couldn’t help but want those things, too. I bought a lot of second hand luxe pieces from Chanel, YSL, Gucci, Prada. After some big wins, I even bought a few firsthand pieces, too. I blend in better. But I prefer to stand out.
• For the past 10+ years, I have had the honor of coaching 100+ executives and leaders on the come up. Getting lost in the sauce is #1 thing I find myself treating.

So many of these leaders are struggling to find ‘the one thing’ and looking in all. the. wrong. places.

• I have lived in Manhattan since 2014 (SoHo and Alphabet City); Miami before that (2013-2014); LA / DC before that (2005-2012); and Chicago before that (2001-2004). In each of these cities, there are so many souls who think that if they pray to the altar of TED-celeb sightings and The Hamptons and Tesla, they’ll find redemption. I wish them well with these reliquaries of the bourgeoisie.?

Prompts for Thought

• What is the right ‘one thing’? what’s the wrong one? which are you chasing? which gets your best time?
• Are you playing a finite game? or an infinite one?

Discernments for Thought

• Whose game are you playing—are you winning? are you losing? what are you trading off? [See TRTL Archive: The Score]
• To whom are you listening? do they have your best interests in mind? or theirs? can they ever be the same? [See TRTL Archive:?The Chosen]
• Are you inadvertently discouraging someone else’s journey by giving all the answers? what would trading answers with questions look like? [See TRTL Archive:?False Prophets]

As for me, I've been holding back a bit unnecessarily on the stage of business in my first 20 years in the workplace. In the next decade, I am going to experiment with sharing more realness.

I am on this journey with and beside you. And for some of you, I am following in your modeled rolling.?

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