[#43] Who Else Feels Like You’re in a Holding Pattern From Hell?

Last fall on the way home from St. Thomas, my flight went into a holding pattern because of inclement weather.

One of my favorite things to do on a flight is to play with the interactive map. When I opened the map during that flight, I saw pure hell:

Holding patterns suck but they’re ultimately for our own good. Better than trying to land in bad weather or while there’s traffic on the tarmac.

Right now, I’m in a holding pattern. Based on responses and texts from last week’s issue, a lot of others are feeling the same way.

So, a few things I’m clinging to in this season:

1. A holding pattern rarely changes your final destination. You might take a detour or suffer through a longer wait, but you’re still going where you were going. That flight landed at a different airport and I had to get a more expensive Uber, but I still got home.
2. If it’s a longer wait, you might as well be productive with the time. I hate delays as much as the next person but no flight has ever arrived faster because I whined about it. Might as well use the time to sleep, read, journal (there’s something about journaling at 30,000 feet) or just play with the map thing more.
3. If you really want to change your final destination, you still need a different vehicle to get there. You can’t force a plane that was supposed to fly from St. Thomas to New York and then just go to Tokyo instead. That plane and crew was not built for that kind of trip.

In all three cases, it’s going to take longer than you think. Might as well make the most of it.

In my experience, pushing and striving for clarity rarely works. So, instead of trying to strong-arm God into telling me exactly what to do next, I’m channeling all my crazy energy into learning things that will help me no matter what unfolds.

I’ll share more of these over the next few weeks. I think you’ll genuinely find them useful. Today I want to start with one simple exercise tied to the points above, your final destination.

I asked my mastermind group to do this little exercise before one of our sessions a few weeks ago.

List out three of your best days. The first ones that come to mind. Don’t overthink it.

Defaults can be good or bad. I dare say most of us default to work, work, work.

Instead, I propose we default to more of those three best days, then make our businesses or careers be the engine that drives us to them.

Is all that working really getting you closer to your final destination? Or are you in “The Entrepreneurs’ Version of a Holding Pattern: The High-Functioning Hamster Wheel?”

I come back to this Three Best Days exercise every few years. It’s not really possible to be successful without being a little crazy, hyper-focused, and even self-absorbed at times. Business is hard. Accomplishing big things is hard. There’s a price to pay and it’s high.

That said, overwork is a mask too. An admirable mask, at least in our Western culture, but a mask all the same. Wear the mask too long and it’s easy to forget who you are and what you really want.

I usually push people to write down three days because inevitably, people pick big one-day occasions instead of repeatable days. Everyone has big days: a win at work, a child being born, a graduation. Those matter, but they don’t come around often and aren’t feasible as a day-to-day lifestyle.

What we’re after is the repeatable kind of day. If you aim for three, you’ll often find one “normal but great” day that fits the exercise. Let’s point our lives towards more of those days.

If you enjoyed this message (or last week’s) it would mean a lot to hear from you. I will read all the responses.

Random last note: last Friday I cut work in the afternoon to watch Christopher Nolan’s new flick, The Odyssey. I liked it! Nolan is such a unique storyteller that I’ll watch any movie he directs.

There was some culture war banter back and forth about the casting but it was no big deal. I was immersed in the movie for the most part. I saw it in a regular theater (70mm) but I’m going to run it back at the real IMAX 70mm theater in New York City, the one where the screen is 30,000 feet (I jest).

I read an article recently where Nolan says he believes film is heading towards a great, non-AI place.

"I’ve never seen a more rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology in my lifetime. So much energy has been expended on bringing in AI, but if you look at that generation’s reaction, they’re utterly rejecting it."

I’m good with AI when it comes to productivity and grunt work. Art, writing, and storytelling – gimme the real thing, I say!

Also, cutting work on a Friday afternoon to watch a great filmmaker at the peak of his craft was a day worth repeating.

Have a great week, and hope to hear from you re: your thoughts on this little exercise.

Mike Kim