I was once called “the daring crossing guard at the treacherous intersection of psychology and business.” Someday, I hope to walk on stage for a speech with a day-glow orange vest and STOP sign. No doubt, having a sense of humor reacquaints us with our humanity.

I wrote this poem in Aug 2019 a few months after our 31st MEA cohort, nicknamed Hearts of Gold, finished our magical week at Modern Elder Academy. Everything in this poem is true and actually occurred. If you haven't attended MEA, it will seem improbable.

In 1999, we feared a bug. Today, it’s a virus. Two decades ago, people worried about traveling over New Year’s due to Y2K. Today, people worry about traveling (assuming they’re even considering leaving home) over the Presidential Election due to WTF, as in What The F*** might happen on November 4, the day after the election?! Does the pandemic turn into pandemonium?

I’m not talking about someone distant from you dying (that would be “the death of AN acquaintance”). I’m talking about letting go of acquaintances that no longer serve your needs (for whatever reason), or those acquaintances that require more than their share of maintenance.

“Tilt the playing field.” That’s what my first boss, Larry, told me when I asked why some businesses and leaders are more successful than others. Larry explained how great companies changed the competitive landscape by stretching what people thought was possible.

On October 4th, in Covid-19 time, typical showers were falling in London but under atypical conditions, a handful of elite runners set off on the rescheduled 2020 London marathon. Between the constraints of social distancing and the new “rule of six,” the normal hordes of cheering crowds and amateur runners were absent on the cordoned off streets. Regardless, some 45,000 diehards across the UK were running in personal, virtual marathons.

Meaning is fuel. I learned that from Viktor Frankl the first time I read “Man’s Search for Meaning.” And, I cracked open that book twelve years ago in a St. Louis hospital after having gone flatline that day. I penned an Emotional Equation that night: Despair = Suffering - Meaning.

After what we’ve collectively been through in the past year, how do you prepare yourself for a completely different mindset for 2021? As evidenced in yesterday’s video, I had to dramatically shift my mindset to move from our 2020-21 workshop calendar and programming to our new Sabbatical Sessions.

When I joined Airbnb in early 2013, the two topics that CEO Brian Chesky was most curious about as he heard me converse about creating organizational culture as a strategic differentiator were: (a) mindset; and (b) moving from the transactional base of the hierarchy of needs pyramid to the transformational peak (which you can read about in my book PEAK). For the sake of this post, I’m just going to focus on mindset.

Many of us are impatient caterpillars who want to emerge from the chrysalis before the magic has arrived. We’re tired of the “messy middle” part of our transformation. Maybe this pandemic is our version of a societal cocoon.