The View From The Balcony: Time to hit "Reset"
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April 28, 2009: When I made the final decision a few weeks ago to quit my talk radio show and retire the blog, I thought about how I'd explain it to my listeners and readers. It's not a difficult explanation, in fact I've been thinking about the need for change for awhile.
Two months ago, a listener named Val, who is also a faithful blog reader, called my talk radio show one afternoon and made a comment that began to echo in my ears until it became an unstoppable call for personal change.
"I want to go back to the days of being blissfully ignorant, when I was only concerned about music and clothes," Val said in sarcastic frustration after commenting that the fiascos from the Palin administration seemed never ending.
Instantly I liked what Val was suggesting.
Ahh, blissful ignorance...oh to be 18 again. Washing my car, working at a job I loved, washing my car again and Joan Jett. Who wouldn't want to go back to the days when your biggest worry was running out of Armor All or getting seen at a stoplight doing air guitar to Jett's "I Love Rock n' Roll"?
However, while Val's comment didn't provide a portal to allow me to return to 1982, it did provide the catalyst for real change. The idea that the past was more appealing than the present struck me as an admission that talking about the same problems, day after day, wasn't delivering much satisfaction.
A few years ago I had the opportunity to meet Marty Linsky, a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He shared an analogy for adopting a long view on government and public policy that I think is applicable to every day life.
Linsky used being on a dance floor as metaphor of how sometimes we get caught up in our own little area without being aware of what is really going on around us. When we're on the dance floor we see things from only one vantage point. Our understanding of the events taking place around us is skewed by our limited vision.
The prescription for obtaining a more accurate picture of your surroundings is putting yourself in a different vantage point.
In Linsky's metaphor, climbing the stairs to the balcony provides a full view of the room.
From the balcony you'll see things you couldn't see from the ground level while ensconced by the people dancing around you. From the balcony you might find that the dance floor isn't as crowded as you believed or maybe the band isn't playing as fast as you thought or just maybe the entire room is actually smaller than you realized.
Getting a more accurate picture of events and your surroundings gives you the ability to take the long view. As I get a better view of what I've done with this blog and my radio show, I've come to a few realizations.
After the 2006 gubernatorial campaign, I put my blog on hiatus with no desire to start it up again. It wasn't until April of 2007, when Governor Sarah Palin rolled out her natural gas pipeline plan (AGIA) that I felt I had something to contribute to the debate.
Over the course of the last two years, I've been blogging on a regular basis about the Palin administration and issues ranging from AGIA to Matanuska Maid to Troopergate.
And while I think we've provided a valuable, if not an entertaining source of information and opinion, at the end of the day the real challenges that Alaska faces are greater today than they were two years ago.
Meanwhile, how many times, in how many different blogs on a weekly basis can I write about the governor's incompetence and lack of leadership?
The same goes for my talk radio show. After nine months of fifteen hours a week of talk radio, frankly I'm sick of my own voice and what it's saying. Again, how many days can you rail against the lack of political common sense, the absence of vision for Alaska's future or the growing national debt?
In addition to the fact that three hours every afternoon has taken a tremendous amount of time from my business day, more days than not lately I've found myself leaving the studio, questioning if what I've done for the prior three hours has really contributed anything positive to the public discourse.
And while I've always been incredibly humbled when people stop me in public and say they enjoy my blog or the radio show, what I've contributed really hasn't accomplished anything other than to create a comfortable echo chamber while doing little to solve the same problems we talk about on a daily basis.
The view from the balcony shows me it's time to change my approach if it's positive change I truly want.
Experiencing a Reset
Today, my friend Marty Linsky is co-founder of Cambridge Leadership Associates, a global leadership development firms. His current focus is exploring the concept of the "Reset" and how it can make a positive change in family, business and life.
"Reset is about starting from scratch, questioning assumptions, and deep systemic change. Nothing easy about that because Reset is about risk and loss," Linsky informs me.
In order to truly experience a Reset, you must modify your self-identity, change who you are, and take a loss of something that was important to your sense of self.
While I've loved hosting the blog (25.6 million hits and 3.8 million page views in two years) as well as the radio show, it's time to step back, take a deep breath and experience a Reset.
With Alaska facing tremendous social and economic challenges in the next few years, it's time to Reset from a critic to a problem solver.
Marty Linsky's blog on leadership: http://www.cambridgeleadership.blogspot.com/
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