Rules Of Engagement

Good morning, Cadre. Good morning. It is February 10, 2026. I would remiss, or be remiss not to note that today is my father's 90th birthday. We're doing a little party this weekend, but today is the actual day. And I'm very excited for him, and he's excited. His goal, a really great goal, is to live to be 100. So at least 100. So happy birthday, Morrison Hodges, I guess, is what I'm saying. And, you know, we. Hang on, I gotta check one thing here. There's a theme of showing up as we are. Showing up fully as we are is something I was invited to think about for today.

And a lot of my rules of engagement are about that. Because it's really hard to fully engage and fully engage well with life if you are trying to do it as inauthentically as someone who is not you. Which is why, I mean, my number one rule of engagement that's not gonna change is love what you love. You know, love what you love. Because for me, so much of my life springs from that. The work I've chosen, the play I've chosen, the people I've chosen. You know, love what you love. Be really open and honest with myself and other people about it.

Number two also has to do with that. Start from where you are, not from where you wish you were, not from where you think you should be. And we've talked a lot about that, sort of, how do you authentically be present in that rule right now of engagement? Number 13? So interesting to me, because when I first saw it, I thought, does this have to do with showing up as you are? And then I realized, yes, because there's a bit of information about yourself embedded in this rule. It's rule number 13. Do not accept criticism from someone whose advice you would not seek.

If you would not seek that person out to get advice about the topic, you do not have to accept their criticism about the topic. What does that mean? You have to know. You have to have some judgment about whether or not you're going to ask for that person's advice. We are very prone, I think, most of us, to accepting criticism from anybody who doles it out and not seeking advice at all, let alone deciding who we would seek advice from. And in my employment situation right now, I'm having to ask for a fair amount of advice about how to proceed.

And there's only so much AI advice I can. You know, I need a human being to give me some advice about some of these things. But Also, given how heavy the world seems and how, you know, a lot of people, when the world is heavy, they just go after each other. That is the sort of early response that they haven't grown out of. Right. We learn these responses as young people. People. So there's a lot of it going on in the world right now, in general, but then in specific, given that tensions are heightening between the federal government and America's states and cities.

So don't accept advice from people. Don't accept criticism from people whose advice you would not seek. Right. So if there's. And that can be just not even criticism of you. It could also just be like they're offering a critique of the world. And if you wouldn't also seek their advice, you're not required to take their critique. Now, there's something to keeping an open mind, you know, and there are broken clocks that are right twice a day, but are they really right? They're still broken. They're just.

They just accidentally correspond to reality. So if there are people who are accidentally corresponding to reality, great. But I don't know where I'm taking that. But just think about it. Number 27. I was looking at my notes. There are a thousand ways to get it right. That is my rule of engagement number 27. There are a thousand ways to get it right. That includes your life. There are a thousand ways to get your life right. And you can pick whatever number you want as long as it's above, like, 100.

Right. There's a million ways to get it right. Really? How many people are on the planet? There's 8 billion and counting ways of getting it right. Why is that a rule of engagement for me? Because, you know, there are many roads. To what? There's some saying, you know, all roads lead to Rome, but there are many paths to where you want to go, and one of them may be right for you in a way that it's not right for others. C. Don't accept criticism from someone whose advice you would not seek above. There are business influencers who.

I just don't take their advice because I don't want. I would not seek their advice. So I'm not gonna take their advice. Right? Because, you know, there's a thousand ways to get it right. And I have to keep account of my own nervous system, my own difficulties, and my own strengths. What do I bring to the project? In all senses, I bring some challenges, like, I just can't do, I don't know, 18 hour work days, 20 hour work days. The way that I could when I was in office. I just can't do it. Certainly not seven days a week.

I occasionally, you know, if I'm at a conference or something and I really need to, but not as a way of life. That ship has sailed. So I have to have my success within the boundaries of my own healing and recovery and growth. So there are a thousand ways to get it right. Mine is one of them. And then number 34 I got from a podcast. I forget the woman's name. My apologies. But I heard her interviewed on a podcast and she's a therapist. And what she said was, trust your future self to handle future problems.

Trust your future self to handle future problems. If I'm going to show up as I am, I have to show up as sufficient to this moment. I do not have to show up as sufficient to every possible future moment that I'm scared of. I'll say that again. I have to show up knowing I'm sufficient to this moment. And I do believe that I am. But I do not have to show up sufficient to every future moment I'm scared of. You know, one of my guidelines is go get that problem. I got that from John Acuff, whom I am a big fan of, as many of you have probably figured out by now.

But go get that problem right. You know, I'm starting to have a more regular cadence with my posting online. And, you know, oh, no, what if, you know, what if I get more followers or what if this or that, or what if somebody reaches out to me about doing some work together? What do I do then? How would that work? Go get that problem and trust my future self to handle that future problem. When the, when the situation arises, I will know either how to handle it or how to the get the help I need to handle it.

Do I trust that about myself? Do I have that confidence in myself? That's a great question. If you don't. If the answer to your question is I don't trust my future self to handle future problems, the only way that can really be true is either we're over catastrophizing future problems for no good reason, or we don't trust ourselves to handle our current problems, let alone future self to try to handle future problems. I don't trust my current self to handle current problems. And am I handling my current problems?

Yes. Am I gathering information about some things that might come down the pike that are scary to me also? Yes. Is it a use, a good use of my imagination to worry? No. Another guideline worry is A bad use of imagination. Trust my future self to handle future problems, right? That can help keep me grounded and present in today. And it's easier to show up as exactly who I am if I show up in the present and not living in the wreckage of the future, as well as not living in the wreckage of the past.

That's a recovery thing, right? We clear away the wreckage of our past. That's part of what we do in the 12 steps. Clear away the wreckage of our past. But eventually, I have come to realize that my anxiety is just me living in the wreckage of my future, even if it's a short future, even if I'm dreading what I'm doing later this afternoon or whatever it is, which is part of my anxiety pattern. That's just living in the wreckage of the future, and that's robbing today to go, you know, zoom myself forward in time to have a bad time instead of, you know, figuring out how to be present and have a good time.

Right? So another guideline that I think is relevant to showing up as I am is that I heard this from Kathy Heller on her podcast one time. She said, apple is not embarrassed that the iPhone 14 is better than the iPhone 4. And what are we on now, 18? Apple is not embarrassed that the iPhone 18 is better than the iPhone 3 because they were the cutting edge of who they were technologically in the iPhone3. And they are at 18. And they're probably proud of all the progress, right? They're probably proud, like, oh, my God, I used to be an iPhone3, and now we can put out this amazing iPhone18, you know, with all these AI improvements or whatever?

They're not embarrassed. They're like, hey, good for us. We did a good job. So why am I embarrassed to have grown and to show evidence of having grown and changed? Why is that embarrassing to me? Right? And if I'm at my iPhone 4 stage and I know that the iPhone 18 is possible for me, but I'm only at my iPhone 4 right now, why am I embarrassed? It's just going to get better and better and better every iteration. Let's take pride in who we are right now and then grow and then take pride in the growth?

You know, I am aiming toward a financial goal, an income goal. Why would I be embarrassed that right now I'm at a lesser income goal that is on the path to my future income? So this idea of showing up as we are can be trickier than people think it is. It can sometimes seem either impossible or like a slam Dunk. Right. There are people who don't even understand what it means not to show up as who they are. And we find those people often. Often we find those people very appealing. If who they are is appealing.

I would say there are some people on the national leadership scene right now who are absolutely showing up as exactly who they are. And I don't find them appealing. But people do like that authenticity, and they can sense a gap between what you're showing and what you're holding back. And we all have things we're holding back. But if that gap gets really big, what I've learned is, for men, we often fill that with leadership qualities, and for women, we fill that with mistrust if you're a leader.

But be that as it may, people can sense that gap. And showing up entirely as who we are doesn't mean showing everything to everybody all the time. Right. You know, there were years and years where the fact that I was a survivor was not relevant to the conversation. It didn't mean I wasn't showing up as who I was until it did. Until it did. There came a moment. I think I've talked about it here. There came a moment at the end of 2016, as we were heading into 2017, that I realized that the gap between me and the people I was asking to support me in office was bigger than it needed to be because I was very busy protecting someone else's secret.

I was worried when I got on stage that somehow somebody would find out that I had this history. It's not that I kept it secret, like the people in my life knew about it, but I hadn't talked about it on a public stage. And so there was just this dissonance inside of me. And so I made the decision, I'm going to let people know. But I didn't make that decision lightly. And I took my time to rule it out, but I don't feel like I was being inauthentic in any of those moments in between. And I knew that I was doing it for myself.

I knew that I was sharing myself for reasons that mattered to me and my capacity to be present and connect with people. While public speaking changed overnight, I knew it would, and it did. And so you don't have to show everything, but it helps to know everything, and it helps to be able to choose what you're showing and not showing so that stuff isn't coming out sideways that you think you're hiding, but also that you're not. That you're sharing from your wound. And not from your scar. That's another guideline of mine.

Or maybe it's actually a rule of engagement. Share from the scar, not from the wound. Unless I'm with a therapist or someone who's agreed to play that role for me. Share what I've learned. I can show my pain without expecting you to be my counselor. That's what I mean when I say share from the scar, not from the wound. If I'm sharing from the wound, it means I am asking you to be the person who helps me through it. And that is not the relationship I want to have with people in public. And you can see it online a lot.

People who are sharing from the wound and they want and when they're honest about it, that's one thing. When they don't understand, that's the dynamic, that's hard. Anyway, show up as you are. It's tricky because either we can do it very easily or we feel like we can't do it at all. If people knew who I was, if I showed up as I was, people would not be interested, people would not want me. Leads to a lot of tricky dynamics and friendships and relationships. If it's just a one way street and you're not showing yourself, but you're trying to fill other people's needs so that they will like you, that's a very old dynamic.

I'm talking about a friend here. I've never been in that dynamic before, so. But I do do my best to show up as I am and I find as I get older I have less and less patience and tolerance for showing up as anybody else. It's one of the benefits of growing older. People say that for women and it's absolutely true. Being in my 50s, I just, I was. I came in more into myself in my 40s, but in my 50s I just have less capacity to try and BS my way through social interactions. So have a great week, Cadre.

I hope things are easing up for people. I don't think they are, but I hope they are at least in specific for you. I hope things are easing up, if not in general, for the community and. And we will talk again. I think I'm on a plane next week, but the week after. Have a great week.