639: The Owner’s Secret Weapon: Solitude

We assume, because of our modern loneliness epidemic, that being alone is bad, not realizing that there are healthy forms of loneliness and unhealthy forms.   The legendary John Prine wrote a powerful song entitled The Speed of The Sound of Loneliness.  His lyric lends insight into a common reality for leaders, “you’ve broken the speed of the sound of loneliness, you’re out there runnin’ just to be on the run.”    After launching, incubating, or purchasing a business, the owner or founder begins running at a speed that very few can or will match in the remaining days, years, and decades of the business.  For many, it is a hyper-speed, superhuman pace, unsustainable over time.   There is a sound to loneliness, a narrative, a rhythm that can be of great value to the leader, but for most, they ignore and blast right through the speed of the sound of loneliness and they continue running at a superhuman pace because it is the only way to give momentary satisfaction for our obsession of productivity. We make excuses and say that we really do care about “quality” or “customer service”, when in reality what we really care about is that this “perfect” business we grew has no spot or blemish when placed into the care of others. Loneliness forces us to see the warts, the blemishes, the imperfections.   Loneliness forces us to reckon with our own humanity… our limitations.   Loneliness offers an opportunity to find joy in the imperfections, or to deny that imperfections can exist and pick up the speed of our running so that we can “feel like we’re doing something”. A dear mentor of mine told me in November of 2015, “My favorite thing about you is not your productivity”. It stung.   I am well known and regarded precisely for my productivity and affinity for systems and processes, and my friend to a surgeon's scalpel to the thing that I embraced the most.  His encouragement felt like rebuke, and it was needed. It would have never been heard without time and space for relationship…an ironic twist on solitude.   There is healthy loneliness and unhealthy loneliness. There are healthy relationships and unhealthy relationships. If you are to be an executive leader of impact, then you will make time for solitude. Recalling the story of how Nike wooed Michael Jordan as its game-changing endorsement personality Sonny Vacarro was shocked when Nike founder Phil Knight decided to change his mind and commit the entirety of the Nike basketball endorsement money to one player.  Originally against the unprecedented idea, Vacarro asked Knight, “What changed?”   Knight’s response?  “I went for a run.”  The story may not be true… but the principle is.   A portion of that solitude will be committed to a few, meaningful, sincere, and intentional relationships.   Relationships with people in person, and with people in publication. Nearly one out of every two adults has not read a book in the last 12 months.  That is not an option for an Executive Leader.   If Executive Leadership is creating proximity to motivate a team to pursue the named future you see, then part of the proximity you create are towards relationships that can provide mutual sourcing for motivation and vision. Rarely does a person develop a vision from nothing.  We all generate vision from a body of source material, experiences, and inputs.   Leaders need curated input, but too often we crank up the volume of the masses in the search for a non-caloric “silver bullet” instead of eagerly pursuing the small, subtle voice of wisdom that is dripping with sustenance.   How do we know if our time is being devoted to wise solitude, whether alone or with someone, or to noisy isolation as we infinite-scroll the doomsday logs at the ready in our feeds?  The Solitude Matrix helps us to understand where we can make time for solitude; both alone and with others.      Imagine a quadrant where your horizontal axis on the top is devoted to substance and on the left and surface on the right.  The vertical axis on the left side is devoted to solitary at the top and social at the bottom. When a leader devotes themselves to surface-level conversation in a solitary surrounding (top right) it leads to the hopelessness of unchecked voices in our minds, a belief that what you see is always because perspective has no access, and solutions are fabricated many times to problems that don’t exist (or at least are not significant). When a leader devotes themselves to surface-level conversation in a social surrounding (bottom right) it leads to an interaction that feels fake.  Not a relationship, but instead an obligation.  In these fake interactions, we find ourselves obsessed with “who’s got it more together”, and wanting to become the highest “spender” so we can steal the show.  Fake conversations leave us empty as we leave hoping that our social standing improved during the interaction. When a leader devotes themselves to substance-level conversation in a social surrounding (bottom left) they are actively building relationships.  There is a focus on connecting with a healthy mix of emotion and empathy.  A relationship interaction from a leader is comfortable with awkward silence because simple presence is valued, and there is a shared decor (SWAG, music, food, or event) that is meaningful.   When a leader devotes themselves to substance-level conversation in a solitary surrounding (top left) they achieve the hallmark of leadership; wisdom and vision.  Healthy solitude allows for active listening by reading or thinking, writing to capture what they hear, thoughtful planning to map out clarity, and intentional reflection to celebrate wins and mourn losses.  Sherry Turkle defines healthy solitude as “the time you become familiar and comfortable with yourself...Without solitude, we cannot construct a stable sense of self.” (Turkle pg.. 61). Solitude with distraction robs us of that, leaving us confused and setting us up to hurt other people.  This leads to the myth of the modern brainstorming sessions to be our primary mode of breeding helpful bouts of creativity.  Turkle (pg. 62) goes on to say that “Our brains are most productive when there is no demand that they be reactive...new ideas are more likely to emerge from people thinking on their own.  Solitude is where we can learn to trust our imagination.” Solitude is the healthy version of being alone On the other hand, the philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich says, “Language...has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone.  And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.”  Loneliness is painful because it allows the space for shame to be revealed.  Shame in our past, shame in our present.  When we medicate with the substance of busy-ness then we ensure that shame remains safely swept under the rug.   Loneliness is not the same as solitude. Picasso said, “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible”.  The human spirit NEEDS healthy alone time.