5 Questions to Ask When Things Go Wrong
What two weeks of travel chaos and a Buddhist meditation center taught me about reframing problems into opportunities
I just got home from two weeks of travel.
Multiple cities and time zones on the same trip. Generations of friends and relatives. Sifting through boxes of grade school material in my childhood home. Mixed working remotely and “vacation” time. Flight delays and rebookings.
And all of this with young kids in tow.
If you’ve been there, you know it can scramble your mind like eggs for breakfast.
As I reflect on this whirlwind, one highlight of calm was attending the 40th birthday celebration for a dear old friend.
He asked guests to join for different activities representing “a day in his life.” The activity Nimmi and I joined was the lecture and guided meditation at the Kadampa Meditation Center in NYC.
As the speaker pointed out, Buddhism is more philosophy than religion, and many people practice Buddhism without being Buddhist.
In her lecture entitled “Happiness is Always Possible”, she used pet peeves as an example of unnecessary suffering we create for ourselves. To overcome suffering in these and more extreme circumstances, she offered five Buddhist questions:
Will this matter at the end of my life?
Is it realistic to expect that this situation would go my way?
Is it helpful to get upset about this?
Is there another way to interpret this?
What can I learn here?
I appreciated the power of these questions to quickly reshape mindset.
Whatever your religious beliefs or background, and whatever the source of pain, I hope these five questions can help you transform obstacles into growth for yourself and those you lead.
Aside from this experience, most of the trip was spent visiting with my parents and in-laws. They live far away and with the recent passing of my wife’s uncle it was especially top-of-mind to make the most of the time with these close family members. Our kids also enjoyed playing with toys that their grandparents had dutifully saved for them, from Nimmi’s Barbies to my PlayMobil 4001 train. Some are truly timeless!
I’m glad to be home but also wish I had more time, especially in NY. Hopefully I can get back there soon and if that’s where you are, maybe see you too!
Do you have travel plans this summer? Distant friends or family you’ve reconnected with or plan to see soon? How do you integrate these important passages with your rituals and routines at home and work?
Let me know,
-Joe
PS. A few Timeless Leadership updates:
I’m working on wrapping up Season 2 of this newsletter in August. We started this journey to explore Saving Time / Leading Self last September and while that theme will continue, we will shift focus to Making Time / Leading Orgs this fall to make more headway addressing the second pillar of Timeless Leadership.
Tomorrow the Email Mastery Mini-Series continues in the Business Growth section of the newsletter. This is a bit of a teaser of how the Making Time season might look from a tactical perspective, but it’s also just me nerding out on a topic I’ve spent a lot of time on over the last two years.
Our August Basecamp will take place next Thursday, August 7th! The theme is Summer Time. If you’d like to meet other Timeless Leaders and develop your practice, upgrade your subscription and you’ll gain access to a year’s worth of monthly calls.
Finally, my Chief of Staff / Transformation services continue to evolve. If you’re a CEO looking to build a bridge from where you are today to where you need to be (in a day or a decade), let’s chat. We can upgrade your systems and extended team, with partnership possibilities ranging from light advisory to me coming in-house.