Election Nightmare

Today, on Halloween, I'm reminded of the election nightmare I went through 8 years ago.  The year was 2003.  My son had become best friends with another kid at elementary school.  I became friends with that child's father.  The father decided to run for Cincinnati City Council and asked me to help him with his campaign.

It was exciting.  I was in charge of analyzing the regions of the city that the candidate should target.  I analyzed the districts that had delivered the votes that got similar candidates elected in previous elections.  I created color coded maps indicating the neighborhoods that we should target for yard signs and for attending parades, candidate debates, festivals and other events.

Later, I was given the role of working with the only paid person on the campaign, our political/media adviser, to agree on the themes and content of radio and television spots.  It was a blast working with this adviser, reviewing scripts, and coming up with sound bites.

The night of any City Council election, all the candidates and their supporters pack into Arnold's Bar and Grill downtown on eighth street, just a few short blocks from the Board of Elections, and breathlessly monitor the election results on the wide screen televisions.  We kept cheering as each update showed our candidate holding his own.  Once we were close enough to be certain of victory, we left Arnold's and triumphantly marched to the Board of Elections to celebrate and to have our candidate speak to the press.

The inauguration at City Hall was equally triumphant.  I took my oldest son and one of his friends out of school that day to go to the auditorium at City Hall for the ceremony.  The highlight was when the legendary Councilman, Jim Tarbell, surprised everyone by pulling out a harmonica and playing "Star Spangled Banner".

And then the nightmare began.  The candidate became the Councilman, and I could not even recognize him.  This was not the guy I knew before the election, the laid back dad at soccer games joking around and charming everyone around him.  Instead, he became the most confrontational, radical person in City Council.  I tried and failed to influence him, to get him moderate his rhetoric, but it never changed and we became distant.  To this day, as Election Day nears, my friends and coworkers give me a hard time for having persuaded them to vote for Christopher Smitherman.  He's running again this year, and now I know better than to vote for someone based on charisma and charm alone.  I've become a policy junkie who wants to know in detail what a candidate plans to DO once they are elected.

Relaxed Urgency

Does stress improve performance?  In combat, yes.  In competitive sports, yes.  But I’m not a soldier and I’m not an athlete.

I’m working to replace stress with “relaxed urgency”.  I want to be someone who surprises people with all the things I can accomplish at home, at work and in my community, who meets challenging deadlines, but who remains calm and relaxed most of the time.  Someone who hurries without looking hurried.  Someone who gets things done quickly but with a serene expression, a ready smile, and with arms, shoulders, and legs loose and limp like a rag doll.

I see a lot of people at work who seem very relaxed, but who lack urgency.  That’s  relatively easy to do, but it doesn’t lead to peak performance.  I see a few others, however, that seem to have mastered “relaxed urgency”.  Their output is prolific and they almost always seem poised and calm.

“Relaxed urgency” doesn’t come naturally to me.  This is why I’ve changed all my meditation practice to focus on relaxation, and why I’ll even take short relaxation meditation breaks at work.  If I want to master “relaxed urgency”, I have to consciously loosen my muscles at work and at home, many times a day.

Why replace stress-driven urgency with relaxed urgency?  First of all, stress is bad for health.   Stress is a response to any perceived threat.  It can be true physical danger, but it can also be something that can’t really hurt me, such as fear of criticism if I miss a deadline at work.  And as soon as the mind perceives a threat, the primitive part of the brain—the part we share with all animals—assumes control of the mind.  It focuses on the threat, raises heart rate, raises blood pressure, and releases adrenaline and cortisol hormones.  These physical changes are all very harmful.

In addition, stress won’t help me reach my goals.  Adrenaline and a fast heart rate will help me respond to a threat with fight or flight.  They help me in combat and in competitive sports.  But I can’t fight a deadline, and I can run away from it either.  Also, stress interferes with thinking and creativity.  I’ve read that the primitive part of the brain says to the neo-cortex—the thinking part of the brain—“We’re under attack, and I’ve got this.  You’re much too slow to deal with a threat.  We need the lightning fast reactions of the animal brain to deal with danger.”  So, when I’m under stress, I lose much of my ability to analyze information, develop options, and make rational choices.  I lose precisely the part of my brain I need most to address daily challenges.

Finally, stress interferes with social skills.  It causes me to hyper-focus on deadlines, on problems, and to react emotionally without thinking.  Relaxation, on the other hand, allows me listen better, to think of possible consequences before I speak or act.  Whether I’m at work or home with my family, a relaxed state is far better for all my social interactions.

Deliberate relaxation of my muscles, by itself, will not lead to my vision of relaxed urgency.  It is also vital to carefully manage my commitments, my priorities, my daily goals, and to ensure I’m living in harmony with my values.  But even if I do a perfect job of setting goals and making plans, I can still stress out unless I frequently close my eyes, scan my body for tension, and breathe. 

Puppy Meditation

Sometimes I meditate with my dog Oliver.  He's not actually a puppy.  He's 3 years old, but he's a "teacup" schnauzer.  Just 8 pounds, and he loves to cuddle.  He's not just a lap dog.  He can be an eye pillow.

As I lay back in the lounge chair, he settles on my chest.  I can feel him breathing.  A very rapid breath.  I tune into how he shifts from panting to machine gun efforts to catch a scent.  I feel his heartbeat.  I feel his weight on me and watch his nostrils quiver when he catches a new scent.  I notice how much slower I'm breathing as we lay chest to chest.  I've completely forgotten my obligations at work and at home and for this reason I think this is as genuine a meditative practice as any other.

Relax, there's an app for that!

For the last few months, I've really needed to relax more.  Intense new project, business travel for 5 of the last 6 weeks.  I feel as if I've had no choice but to relax more often and more deeply than normal, many times a day.  Fortunately, there's an app for that.

Actually, there are hundreds of apps for that.  I'm always tethered to my Apple hardware--my iPhone and my iPad.  Steve Jobs--may he rest in peace--has given me tools that help me stay loose in the midst of this intensity.  For the last few months, I've replaced my normal practice of meditating to music with a new habit of  closing my eyes while listening to guided relaxation meditations on my iPhone or iPad.

Shhh.  Don't tell anyone, but I do this at work, too.  I'll go off to a "huddle room" with my iPad and with my back to the door and window.  I'm sure people assume I'm on a conference call.  I'll slip in ear-buds and listen to a 10 minute relaxation app and come out refreshed, more creative, and better able to concentrate.  Not exactly a crime, but something that I don't want to draw attention to.

Here are a few of my favorite relaxation/meditation related apps (prices ranging from free to $4):

• "Take a Break", "Relax & Rest", and "Simply Being" by Meditation Oasis.  These are the apps I most like to listen to at work.  They make me feel like it's OK to take this break at work, OK to let go of my obligations for a little while, and OK to relax.  They make me believe that I don't need to be "worked up" to work well.  On the contrary.  If I'm totally relaxed, I'll always be much more effective than if I'm hurrying and wired.
• "Relax Free", "Stress Free", "Energy Boost", and "Success" moderated by Andrew Johnson.  These are too long for work breaks (20-30 minutes), but I could listen that that soothing Scottish accent for hours.  They all start with a guided, total body relaxation.  And then, once I feel that my body is so heavy it's going to sink right through the mattress, Andrew starts planting positive suggestions in my mind about future success, confidence, energy level, fitness, or whatever the theme of that app happens to be. These apps rely on hypnosis, and I think they work for me.  I notice positive effects that last long after each meditation.
• "Relax Completely" with Darren Marks; "Relax and Sleep Well" with Glenn Harrold; "Relax Now" with David Ridgeway.  All hypnosis apps.
• "My Meditation".  Unique app I use when I don't want guided meditation, when I simply want to be reminded--without words--to focus on my breathing.  The app can be configured for a breathing rhythm that feels comfortable for the individual.  I like a 5 second inhale, 1 second hold, and 8 second exhale, 1 second hold.  Just figured this out by trial and error.  A sound like a wave leaving the beach represents inhalation.  A sound like the wind represents exhalation.  Normally, when I don't use an app and just meditate on my breath, my mind wanders.  But I find that the wordless cues from this app reminds me keep my attention on my breath.

Chris Seelbach for City Council

I had a chance to spend over an hour today, mostly one on one, talking with Chris Seelbach.  Chris is running for Cincinnati City Council.  I'm convinced that he has the right ideas about what City Council should be doing.

I asked him about the budget crisis.  I was glad to hear him say that we can't have a budget that contains little more than police and fire.  We have to pay for other services, for urban planning, for quality of life.  And we currently can't do this.  No great city invests solely in police and fire.

So far so good.  These have been my thoughts exactly.  So I asked him how he would balance the budget.  We have about 1100 police.  A few years ago, City Council voted to add 100 police officers.  The Police Chief said they were not necessary and would not make the city safer.  So Chris didn't say how he'd make the transition, but reducing the staffing by 100 or so over time by attrition or other means would provide huge savings.  According to Chris, it would be enough to get us in the black so that we wouldn't be constantly closing community swimming pools and Recreation Centers, canceling recycling programs, and failing to invest in improving the quality of life.

Again, I agree.  I've read about the Police Chief's comments.  He really DID say that he did not want the extra 100 police officers.  For City Council to provide staffing that the Chief of Police did not want seems to me to be a criminal waste of taxpayer dollars.  They did it to get re-elected, and what did I get?  Yard waste that I have to drive to the dump.

I asked Chris about development in Over-the-Rhine and other lower income communities.  I asked him what he thought about the tradeoffs between progress and displacement of the poor.  Chris lives in Over-the-Rhine.  He said that the development there has not been perfect, but it beats the alternative of out-of-control crime in dilapidated housing, the alternative of historic Germanic architecture crumbling into ruins.  He said that the development has been done with careful planning to provide a mix of housing prices so that the community has room for both the working poor and for the professionals who are moving into the area.

Again, I agree.  I've lived in Cincinnati for decades and have welcomed the development in Over-the-Rhine.  I believe that we need to have neighborhoods with mixed income levels so that the wealthier citizens are more likely to empathize with and support their less fortunate neighbors.

Finally, I asked how Chris felt about proposals to have Hamilton County take over policing in Cincinnati to save money.  Chris felt this would just be a tactic to lower police salaries because Hamilton County is non-union.  He was also concerned, as am I, that the Hamilton County Police Department would not be subject to the "Collaborative Agreement".  This is the agreement that was hammered out after the Cincinnati riots over 10 years ago to improve police-community relationships.  It's been widely successful, and I would not want to go back to the tension that permeated the city during the riots.

Control what you can control

My last 2 posts have been about those outcomes that lie completely or almost completely within my control.   Yesterday I was listening to the audiobook "Open-An Autobiography", by tennis great Andre Agassi.

Aggasi said it best.  Before each match, he reminds himself over and over again.  "Control what you can control."

Aggasi writes, "Given all the things that lie beyond my control, I obsess about the few things I can control."  The tension in the strings of his racquets.  The liquids he mixes to keep himself hydrated.  The precise way he packs his tennis bag.  The 22 minute shower he uses to visualize success in the match.  And the effort he puts into each point, as if each point were the last.

The weather, the court conditions, the close line calls, and above all his opponent were beyond his control.  But Aggasi succeeded by focusing on what he could control.

Within Reach

In my last post, I talked about how most of the goals that matter in my life are completely within my control.  My diet, what I pay attention to, whether I exercise, whether I attend to my spirit, whether I'm kind, whether I give my best effort.  I'm completely responsible for these goals, and nobody can stop me.

What about the goals that are not completely in my control? Many of these are MOSTLY up to me.  I can realize these goals if I exert myself and I persist despite temporary setbacks.

Twenty years ago, I got a lesson in this type of persistence from a brilliant engineer named Al Sawdai.  Al and I were in a team attempting to fix a baffling problem that was threatening the launch of a new product.  The team was getting very frustrated.  The problem seemed to defy reason.  It felt as if we could never solve it.  But Al kept repeating, calmly and slowly, with a very thick accent, "Never forget that this problem must obey physics.  It must fit with scientific principles.  If we don't see that yet, we must keep looking, and then we will solve the problem."  No matter how many setbacks we encountered, he remained absolutely confident that we would prevail.  And we eventually did.

In the two decades that have passed in my engineering career since I worked with Al, I remember his attitude and his confidence every time I'm faced with troubleshooting a new problem.  These memories help me realize that, when faced with problems, I may not have COMPLETE control, as I do about daily decisions regarding diet and exercise.  But if I stretch myself and if I persist, I can probably solve the problem.

And it's not just technical problem solving.  There are countless goals in life that are not totally in my control, that are affected by outside forces, but that--with the right effort and persistence--I can almost certainly reach the goal.