on joy, trust, and...the magic of mushrooms

Suddenly mushrooms are everywhere.?

They’re in my favorite new coffee drink, the “chaggacino” – cold coffee with mushroom infusion. It is earthy and mildly sweet and utterly irresistible.?

They’re one of the stars in one of my recent reads -- adrienne maree brown ’s book Emergent Strategy?--?where she describes their underground strength and ability to cleanse soil of toxins as a metaphor for community organizing.

They show up in this quote by Adaku Utah about the impossibility of the mycelium network existing without trust.

They appeared again just last night (well, it was last night when I wrote this) as I listened to Ross Gay read from his new book book, The Book of (More) Delights at a local bookstore here in Milwaukee. Ross described delights as daily, quotidian things – the mushrooms we see sproinging up through the soil – when the root of the delight is actually the daily stuff – the deep underground network holding it all together – the mycelium, which he calls joy. I did not expect mushrooms to appear everywhere recently and I certainly did not expect them to prompt me to wax philosophical but here we are: Mycelium as joy and trust, thriving under our feet, out of eyesight, but right here where we can, as Ross Gay says, grab a spoonful of “fungal duff” and partake in a bit of it ourselves.

???? ? ???? ???? ????

Joy. Connectivity. Trust.?

If you’ve spent any time with me you know how much I value trust as part of a leader’s toolkit. (So much so that “Building Trusting Relationships” is the first module in The Leadership Community.)

The first metaphor I heard to describe trust at work was – no surprise – a money metaphor: Trust is like a bank account. To build trust you have to make lots of small deposits over time; if you make any withdrawals the damage is to your working capital, which you have to rebuild while also finding a way to replace your lost interest while your balance was low.?

Trust in the world of mushrooms-as-metaphor looks…well, yes, more organic – but also less transactional. It looks more intrinsic and essential. It looks more life-affirming. It looks less like a thing you need to build and store away against some future catastrophe and more like connective tissue holding us all together. Breaches of trust don’t simply damage your personal capital, they damage the collective.?

???? ? ???? ???? ????

Yesterday I interviewed a linguistic anthropologist for an upcoming episode of my podcast, the uplift. Her work is on storytelling and we were talking about how when we tell our stories we connect with each other through emotions and empathy.?

So today I’m picturing communities of storytellers weaving together fibers of joy, building connections and trust that sustain and nurture each other.?

I find that so much more beautiful and optimistic than trust as a metaphorical cash transaction.?

So I’m wondering – where do trust, joy, and connectivity show up in your life? Will you share with us a story about when you experienced them? It doesn’t need to be about work or leadership. Your story can come from anywhere. I’m just longing for the connections that come when we tell each other stories about joy and connection.

I'd love to read yours.

I might even read it while sipping a chaggucino.

--c. ??

ps: newsletters come out more frequently over at my site. don't want to miss a missive? sign up here.