Inspired by friends, colleagues and people all over the world who are responding with courage and initiative to the crisis, this week we’re launching the Reset Club. The idea had been brewing for a while, but Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, gave it a name with his on-point tweet a couple weeks ago titled “Adaptation: Do a total reset professionally, economically, personally….” Taleb’s concept deserves a prototype – so we’ve invited friends and colleagues to start sharing their stories and dreams in an impromptu online club.
What’s a Reset? We think of it as an intense focus on who you want to be in the days and months ahead. Whether or not you’ve been forced to the brink of reinvention, major changes seem likely, logical. This is not a time to retreat to a bunker. How to get started on the right track? Explore your foundational habits – everything from your diet, to exercise, to who you connect with and what media you consume. Eliminate some of the bad ones, adopt more positive ones. Some of these good habits might be directly related to your Resets, or just as importantly, they may provide the mindset, energy and pathways to prepare you to achieve very specific goals.
Meaning and Purpose
Your professional and personal Reset (because, let’s face it, they are usually one and the same) is what you might say if someone asked point-blank: “How would you become your best self? Or your new self?” Here are a few possible responses:
- Standing up for what you believe in no matter the consequences.
- Launching an online community aligned around your passion.
- Pursuing a new degree at night because your corporate life is unfulfilling.
- Moving to a new country more in line with your values.
My personal Reset is about deepening and broadening my commitment to storytelling with human connections and place. These last few years I’ve discovered how much I love collaborative work – whether as an author, writer, professor, or leader of workshops. I’ve realized that the work – the ideas, the excitement of joint mastery and achievement – matters more than taking sole credit. The other element goes to what Susanna Camp and I call the value of Place in our new book, The Entrepreneur’s Faces.
America is burning, and now more than ever we’re going to need to be present and involved in our towns and cities. We must all confront this crisis head-on – from the pandemic to endemic American racism and the fundamental economic inequality that is threatening our democracy. That requires meeting and listening. Taking risks. Having empathy for others whose lives are nothing like ours. When I think of Place I think of the many talented people I want and need in my life. So for my Reset, I am thinking about where I want to be – not just online – and how I can meet (from a safe social distance) and share ideas with people and bring about meaningful change.
This week is our initial meeting of the Reset Club. We don’t claim to have any magic answers. With our first cohort, we’re eager to share thoughts, fears and dreams, to find inspiration in others’ professional and personal ambitions and goals. And while we think our newfound joint commitment will be a powerful step forward, maintaining that initiative will not be easy. That’s why we call it The Reset.
