Question to unlock your true potential:

Do you need to empty your cup before you can grow?

There's an old Zen parable that I love:

A professor came to visit an old Zen master to seek advice.

"I have come to ask you to teach me about Zen," the professor said.

As the master began to teach, the professor repeatedly interrupted him to share his own opinions, knowledge, and stories.

The master suggested that the two should take a break to have tea.

The master poured the professor a cup. Once it was filled, he kept pouring, until the cup was overflowing hot tea all over the table, onto the floor, and onto the professor's robes.

"Stop!" cried the professor, "Can't you see the cup is already full?"

"Precisely," the Zen master replied, "You are like this cup, so full of ideas that nothing more will fit in. Come back to me with an empty cup."

The parable is a reminder that we cannot hope to embrace new information or insights if our "cup" is too full of preconceived notions, assumptions, and beliefs.

Is your cup too full to embrace new information that the world is giving you?

Do you need to empty your cup before you can grow?

Quote on the importance of action:

"The shortest answer is doing the thing." - Ernest Hemingway

Stop talking about the thing. Stop asking about the thing. Stop gathering more information about the thing.

Just do the thing.

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Framework to embrace the bad news:

Persian Messenger Syndrome

In the Ancient Persian Empire, it was a fairly common practice to kill a messenger who brought bad news.

Knowing this, messengers would go to extreme lengths to avoid delivering bad news, even running away into self-imposed exile.

This led to critical information asymmetries that contributed to the downfall of the empire.

Persian Messenger Syndrome is the name given to the tendency to punish the bearer of bad news. It appears in a variety of modern contexts, most notably, it is an all-too-common phenomenon in corporate settings.

I'm willing to bet you've seen this in action:

• How many of you have had a boss or manager who never wanted to hear the bad news or critical feedback?
• How often did that unwillingness to embrace all information lead to bad decisions and bad outcomes?

Perhaps even more importantly, if you are a leader, you need to avoid falling victim to Persian Messenger Syndrome.

As you become more senior and important, there will be fewer people who are willing to tell you the truth. It becomes easy to surround yourself with "Yes People" who will just agree with your decisions and never push back for fear of retribution.

You need to make sure you create an environment where people are encouraged to tell you the truth, to speak openly about their evidence-backed concerns, and to share their perspectives.

This rule is as true for your personal life as it is for your business life.

One person who is willing to tell you the truth is worth more than thousands of people who will smile, pat you on the back, and tell you that you're great.

Find your truth tellers—in business and in life—and avoid seeing your empire crumble from within.

"Always tell us the bad news promptly. It is only the good news that can wait." - Charlie Munger

Poem to endure life's seasons:

I love the last line of this poem:

"And this is all their wisdom and their art—to grow, stretch, crack, and not yet come apart."

It offers a beautiful visual for our own path to wisdom and rebirth. We must endure the pains of growth in order to reap the rewards on the other side.

A fun story for your weekend:

I shared this story on Twitter, where it has collected over 15 million views at the time of this writing.

Last Saturday, I was playing in the backyard with my son, when I noticed some bees flying around a tree. I took my son inside and got closer to investigate.

Here's what I saw (and what I learned):

Let me preface this by saying two things:

1. I hate bees. Got stung by too many wasps and hornets while playing barefoot as a kid.
2. I know nothing about the different types of bees.

I was worried about my kid getting stung, so I started looking for exterminators.

Apparently, it's really hard to find an exterminator willing to come out on a Saturday to deal with a bunch of bees. Go figure. I got one on the phone who was willing to do it. He asked for a picture, so I send him one. He replied:

Ok, now I was interested. Honeybees are very different from the things that terrorized me as a kid. They're generally not dangerous and important for the environment. Still not sure I can tell the difference while they fly around, but the different nest/hive is abundantly clear.

I started googling Honeybee Farmers (is that the right word?) and came across this listing on Google. Looked promising! Larry told he could be there in a few hours, asked for some specifics around height of the hive, etc.

A few hours later, Larry and his friend arrived. They've got a cool specialized bee vacuum, a ladder, and a bee hat/shirt. Larry is awesome. Very knowledgeable. Makes his own small batch raw honey in his backyard.

They collected 20,000 bees from the tree for Larry to add to his local farm.

No one got stung, the bees found a new home, and Larry is going to be making even more of his delicious raw honey. I am no longer quite as scared of bees. Larry said you could walk calmly through a cloud of honeybees and not get stung. (I won't be trying that).

The coolest part of this entire learning experience was getting to do it alongside my son. He’s a bit young to fully understand, but it was fun trying to explain to him what I was doing, what we were learning, etc. Plus, he had the raw honey with Greek yogurt for his dessert!

P.S. I told my wife I was basically Assistant Regional Beekeeper. She replied: “Assistant TO the Regional Beekeeper, big difference.”

This is why we’re happily married...