My elder daughter is down with Hand Foot Mouth Disease (HFMD). It’s difficult for us to see her in pain.
Last Friday night, I was on one of my long night drives back into KL. I listened to Shane Parrish’s podcast with Jennifer Garvey Berger. Developmental coach and author Jennifer talked on the theory of adult development. Particularly, about the development and makings of effective leaders.
Initially, young adults have “a self-sovereign mind” where your own thoughts take precedence. Other people’s perspectives are hard to grasp (Sounds like all young adults a.k.a. teenagers I know).
As you develop, you then move through three phases. The first is a socialised mindset, where you live by other people’s perspectives. Then, you move on to a self-authoring mindset, where you develop your own thoughts and systems. Finally, the third phase is a “self-transforming” mindset. Your own systems and other people’s beliefs coexist together.
According to Jennifer, leaders tend to go through the cycle earlier and faster. This is because leading involves understanding other people’s perspectives.
I found that my experience fits what she described. In the early days of trying to build a company, I devoured biographies of leaders and tried to copy them. Needless to say, it didn’t work. I’m now trying to build values and beliefs that work for us. That looks like Phase 2.
Over on the parenting side, I spot similiarities to this adult development thingy. In the beginning, we had our own idea of what kind of parents we wanted to be. We weren’t interested to listen to others.
Soon, we realised that was quite stupid. We then listened to what our own parents, other parents, and society told us. And after that, we started having discussions about the values and beliefs we want to impart to our kids. This is where we are now, and it’s heck of a difficult discussion. As if the regular parenting chores and pressures aren’t enough. I often find myself wondering, gosh, this is really difficult. I didn’t sign up for this!
But of course it’s not all bad. Seeing an infant grow and develop under your care and love is quite an amazing experience. Knowing that you are moulding a piece of wet clay into an exquisite thing is really something.
Anyway, I hope her HFMD goes away fast.