We humans tend to overcomplicate things, especially our personal challenges. We spend countless hours and dollars searching for the answers. We listen to all the podcasts and read all of the books. We write in our journals, meditate and ask for advice - ever hopeful that if we just keep thinking about it, we’ll eventually find a clear, and ideally painless, path toward what we’re seeking. 

It is time to start planting our garden here in Maine, and the process of doing so has me thinking a lot about, what else, leadership! Stay with me, because I think this metaphor really works.  Leadership is a lot like tending a garden. You must nurture the soil that feeds everything while also caring for each individual plant that struggles to thrive. Ignore the soil, and even the hardiest plants will wither. Focus only on one struggling seedling, and the entire garden suffers neglect. Success lies in the art of doing both, simultaneously and thoughtfully.

Our friends in the Navy SEALs have a saying: "The only easy day was yesterday." It sounds pessimistic, but there's a profound truth there. The path forward is rarely as smooth as we imagine when we first set out. Whether you're launching a business, building a community, or working to strengthen your marriage, the journey will almost certainly be longer, harder, and more complex than you anticipated.

The long march of human progress resembles a trek through the range of mountains, with each summit representing a distinct economic era. At each of these local peaks along the way, we felt initially satisfied with our accomplishments, but later realized that this was not our ultimate destination and there is still higher ground up ahead. And while we are right to value how far we’ve come, we must equally appreciate how far we have to go. Each leg of the journey has strengthened us in some ways and taken a serious toll on us in others. Today, we believe we are traversing our most precarious ridgeline yet, but if we navigate it successfully, we can ascend to our highest and most significant summit – the wisdom economy.

One of the most dangerous misunderstandings of empowerment is that it requires leaders to be less engaged with their teams. This is simply not the case. Let me be clear: People are not empowered by your absence. People are empowered by your presence. 

Our family moved to Maine a couple of years ago, and though it has taken some time to settle in, we’ve really started to enjoy life here. I’m not sure if it’s the pace of life, the long winters, or the friendly people, but I have definitely felt something within me shift. And I've found myself wrestling with a question that feels both simple and profound: What does it mean to be good?

We are thrilled to report that Applied Leadership Partners is beginning our sixth year, and we are doing it with more momentum, optimism, and enthusiasm than ever before. That is largely, if not completely, thanks to all of you! Your trust, partnership, and encouragement are what our company is built upon and we simply could not do any of this without you - so we need to begin this letter by expressing our deepest and most sincere gratitude. We are incredibly blessed to do this for a living and we will never take that for granted. THANK YOU!

Ultimately, the False Dichotomy is a trap. It emerges from black-and-white thinking, the belief that any given matter is “either” one “or” the other. Most things in life are neither. And so are most leadership decisions. At work, false dichotomies come up in all sorts of situations.