Listen to Yoda
Most everyone knows Yoda, the legendary Jedi Master from Star Wars.
Always strong with “the Force” and dropping knowledge, he is.
One of my favorite quotes seems especially appropriate for the world today: “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”
And if he was around today, he’d also tell you that unchecked, it’s the end of a company or a career. It turns out that fear, fear of some kind of discomfort: pain, anxiousness, embarrassment, is the biggest inhibitor of growth. And it makes sense doesn’t it? If something appears dangerous, we naturally just move away from it, shun it, or just avoid it. Whether it’s actually dangerous or not.
In Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace, Yoda utters the quote as part of a Jedi council meeting to a young Anakin Skywalker who is fearful and missing his mother. He doesn’t admit his fear, yet the Jedi’s can “see through” his words to how he really feels. If you’re a Star Wars mega-fan, I may have botched some of the details here, so you’re welcome to send me hate mail.
The world is changing so quickly today it’s hard to keep up. Of course we have the constant COVID regulation changes, but we’re also dealing with technology exploding, misinformation is rampant, civil unrest around every turn, and on top of that we don’t even get a break! Competition is harder than ever and there are more and more demands from our co-workers, communities and families.
The future, as much as we might like to plan for it, is still a wildcard. Even if we have everything together at a superficial level, subconsciously it’s massively taxing to have all this uncertainty around us. No matter how many spreadsheets we have, trends we’re following, or newsletters we’re keeping up with, it’s still there.
Yoda’s point, if I might take some liberty to read into it a bit, is that fear can be massively debilitating. It’s a primal emotion that takes hold in response to all the uncertainty in the world, leaving us feeling vulnerable and at risk, not only in our work, but at a much deeper level, personally. And few enjoy the feeling of being uncontrollably vulnerable… so to take back the power over uncertainty, we unconsciously and automatically turn to anger. And worse, start to despise the cause of the fear and uncertainty to begin with…hate.
Evolutionarily, feeling fear and reacting with anger and avoidance to the unknown kept us alive. Most are fortunate enough to not have to be fearing for their lives on a regular basis. Today, that feeling of fear and the unknown can serve, and be used as, a beaming beacon to discover where the next breakthrough is if you embrace it, turn towards it and open yourself and your company to it. After all, every breakthrough takes stepping past what everyone already knows into the depths of unknown possibilities (thank you to the Wright brothers, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and many others).
You can join me in the #NoMatterWhat community as we’re sharing about fears, the unknown and what’s possible from them. Dealing with these things as a community really does help. And this is a community designed specially around supporting those as they deal with the uncertainty of breakthrough results.
I’m not a rocket scientist, but it seems clear the effects of increased uncertainty and unpredictability in the world have manifested in fear, anger and even hate. Not only on a global scale; I’m also seeing shorter tempers inside of work groups, companies, communities, families and friendships.
I invite you to turn away from the dark side of fear and embrace the unknown, embrace discomfort, and be courageous enough to embrace everything that comes with it. Yoda, once again says it best, “In the end, cowards are those who follow the Dark Side.”
Maybe it’s time to listen to Yoda.