Let Go
"For the next two days, this is what I want you to keep top of mind …"
Nic Peterson is standing at the front of the room, whiteboard behind him. It's March 1st 2024. The Guardian Academy Event.
He's pointing to three words behind him.
"Engage the Field."
That was the opening of a door we had no idea we were going to walk through.
And walking through it has revealed insight, understanding, and reality I didn't know existed until I had walked through it.
It's been the seed that's grown and fed every article and move we've made in The Guardian Academy since then. Every step we take revealing new understanding of what this really means to us and the people who take value from the work we are doing here.
It's why we launched The Arena.
When I saw those words it was like a catalyst, and since then I've circled away and back to it over and over.
Today I want to give YOU something to keep top of mind.
Two words.
"Let Go."
Again I find myself circling around deeper understanding, in all of my writing, in life, with my kids, with my parents, with the world that is happening around me.
And this keeps showing up.
Let Go.
Letting Go - The Story of Our Greatest Fault?
This is such a universal human challenge that so many of our great stories have the concept woven through it.
Captain Ahab's inability to forgive and let go of his desire for vengeance. Gatsby's fixation and idealized vision he held onto of Daisy. Frankenstein's insistent hold on his ambition. Macbeth's obsession and lust for power. Dorian Gray's hold on his desire for youth. Skywalker's grip the reality he thinks he understands. Every single story ever told of someone who held onto the memory of the past and couldn't move forward with the life that was now happening in the present.
These all make fantastic stories for two reasons.
One, the inability of the character to let go of something that, from the reader's perspective is obviously BAD, creates an interesting tension and thread for dramatic storytelling in general.
But, Two, it also connects deeply with our own humanity.
Because each of us almost certainly has something in our life that we have a hold on and can't let go of. A vision of what we think our life is or want it to be. The idea of something that we wish to have or to hold, to cherish, to remember, to not "lose" even if we have objectively long lost it.
And sometimes, we frame this grasp on desire as something that is motivational and powerful.
Especially when it's something we greatly desire to have or be.
After all, our story is not written yet, and maybe the key is to just keep hold of our dreams and always strive toward them!
Perhaps the reason we do this is because the whole time, we are afraid if we let go of that desire, that interest, that vision ... we are afraid we won't ever get it back.
We are so afraid that we won't get what we want in life if we Let Go, and we are afraid of being afraid, that we have gone to GREAT lengths to reframe the perspective of holding onto vision and belief in ourselves as signs of strength and character.
But ...
Is it not a greater strength to let go of your desire in the trust that you will find it again within yourself when it's necessary?
This is The Way
I want to share my personal perspective on the power of Letting Go,
What it feels like to write this very article and why I need to Let Go to do it.
I have a job - or perhaps more accurately a responsibility - here in The Guardian Academy to bring to you engaging and useful insight and understanding of TGA Philosophy and Principles on a weekly basis. Sometimes that's application of those to Strategy like business, fitness, health, family, relationships, etc.
Sometimes it's a different thread in the Philosophies and Principles themselves.
We say in TGA, wisdom comes from multiple perspectives, because we know that as we grow and learn and apply, when we revisit an idea, a concept, a principle, it can take on new meaning, you can gain new understanding each time you grow and revisit.
We know that sometimes, the 100th time you see something, said slightly different, said from a different voice, it finally clicks.
And I have this job, this responsibility, to catalyze that for you. Each week. Week in week out without fail.
While through this work I've figured out how to uncork the dread that is writers block, to find a process where I can write always whenever I sit down without fail, where I still have Resistance, but instead of beating Resistance or running away from it, I just learned to Tango ...
I still face the Demon of Fear.
Fear that my writing won't be useful to you.
Fear that what I put up here isn't as insightful as I think it is.
Fear that you'll read what I write and say "What the fuck is this?"
It's all just a different mask on the Demon of Resistance. As a writer, fear that my ideas are going to be rejected is probably the most common form that Resistance takes. I've learned to Tango with him, and he Tangos back, whispering in my ear the whole time.
I keep going on.
But I have had that fear.
Until recently, I learned something new about it.
That I have held onto the idea that it's my responsibility for you to get "value" or understanding from my writing.
And the Demon uses my grip on that.
Even as I write this, the truth is obvious. That ultimately it's beyond my responsibility for you to get value. That the "value" the "insight" the "understanding" is beyond anyone's responsibility.
The responsibility YOU have is to yourself, to do what you must do to learn and grow.
To act in alignment with your words.
I believe no matter what it's everyone's responsibility to grow with intent and with presence.
Because like it as not, you ARE growing. Biologically. If you don't intentionally grow along with your biology, you will end up as a child in an adult's body.
So it is your responsibility to yourself to learn and grow.
And what is learning and growth, class?
Same situation, different behavior.
Learning (and growing) is finding yourself in the same situation again and having different behavior than you did before. It's putting your hand on the burner, getting burned, and then not putting your hand on the burner again. It's getting slapped, and then next time dodging the slap.
It's reading a book and getting some insight, and then later on reading the book again and going "how the hell didn't I see it that way before?"
Because you grew.
MY RESPONSIBILITY ...
As your writer.
(I now see)
Isn't to help you grow or get new insight.
Is to show up, and as fully and completely, and clearly as I can, share my insight on all of this.
Because it's merely in the showing up, as clearly and fully as I can, that opens the door of opportunity for something new.
The rest is up to time, life, randomness, human behavior.
And really, even if you read this and think “that’s cool” but then don’t apply it (don’t Engage the Field), it’s really just entertainment for you.
(Entertainment isn’t bad, just be real with yourself about what you’re doing here)
But here's what really set me past the fear - what neutralized all that whispering the Demon of Resistance does when we're in the Tango.
After writing and publishing something like my 50th article on TGA, I read someone's reaction. They had read the article and discovered something new about themselves.
And it was NOT what I was imagining when I wrote the article, but it was very real and very powerful.
That was me thinking I was going to make a specific impact.
That I was going to create a specific understanding.
That I was crafting these pieces thinking "Here's this awesome new perspective on XYZ that people can take and apply to help them in these situations."
Not necessarily untrue.
But the way I see it now,
My real value is not in making something happen, it's in opening the door - and letting go of all that may or may not happen or be true after that point.
The real value is the possibility of tipping that domino of growth. That experience you have when you revisit an idea for the 100th time and something tiny clicks, and all the whole world makes sense anew to you.
New understanding.
I can't control that even for myself as a reader, let alone the writer.
That happens because of all the things I did before I got to the writing to begin with.
If I just Let Go, and accept that the value of my contribution is enough all in itself, knowing that for the right person at the right time, when they sit in the space of my work it might just make that tiny piece click ...
And THAT is enough.
This is why Dr. Jeff Spencer tells us to never devalue our personal contribution.
We don't know what impact we as individuals are going to have on others, and what seems like something small and insignificant to ourselves can be*the one thing that someone else needs to hear.
The way forward, to lean into this, is to allow it to be.
It's to not hold onto the idea that what I write and publish will get any kind of reaction or outcome I only have to acknowledge that showing up is enough, and it's up to anyone else for there to be goodness in it.
Holding On
But,
Let us not vilify holding on.
Because we can't actually Let Go if we aren't holding onto something to begin with. The holding on isn't bad. And in fact, when we can recognizing in ourselves when we are holding onto something, that is giving ourselves the gift of being able to Let Go.
Letting Go is not a loss.
Letting Go is a gifting act to yourself that balances out Holding On, and reveals the center of who you really are between the two.
Between Holding Onto the idea that I can make some significantly impactful writing, and Letting Go of that need to have any specific impact with my writing ...is the writing itself. It's the clear unencumbered work of expressing what I believe needs and wants to be expressed about the idea before me.
I can't actually see that if I don't both Hold On and then Let Go.
So,
Now that I've illustrated the power that Letting Go has had for me
Let's talk about how YOU can use "letting go" to help you get what you want in life.
The Power of The Sword
