Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself

Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself
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Becoming the best version of yourself

Episodes

  1. Aug 23

    Breakfast, Strategy, and a Culture of Humility

    I was recently asked to react to a series of common business platitudes. One of the firing-line expressions was “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” The expression is frequently attributed to famed management guru Peter Drucker, though a quick search indicates that the attribution is probably not true. However, I think the expression is meant to reflect much of the spirit of Drucker’s writing: a great strategy will amount to little if an organization has a poor or toxic culture. Personally, I’ve never cared for the line as I think it sets up an apples and oranges comparison. They are not opposing notions thought they are interdependent. My basic reaction to the line was that an organization needs strong versions of both. Culture gets to the why of an organization and the how of its operation – it’s essence. Strategy is about direction. Without strategy, even a great culture may end up down the wrong path. Without a strong culture, strategy is hollow as the center cannot hold. But what makes a great culture? At its most basic level, a great culture begins with clear meaning and purpose. The “why” of an organization is critical to unify those within it and help them understand where they fit in. This reason for being sets the tone for decisions, and strategy, giving the team a worldview from which to operate. From there, the “how” things get done becomes the next layer as it frames the operating manual of the day-to-day. The essence of the organization appears in how employees align with the core purpose and consistently behave in ways that reflect a set of shared values. It’s not just what we do, it’s how we do it. There is far too much to unpack around culture in a brief blog but a couple of employee posts this week have me thinking about it. A compelling part of culture can be the feel-good, camaraderie-building sentiments of projects completed, goals attained, and human encounters that move and motivate us. Various forms of success or a sense of progress are fantastic for the spirit of an organization and feed the desire to push-forward toward greater things. But the highlight reel is only a glimpse of the elemental movements necessary to create a strong, sustainable culture. There are thousands of individual choices and reactions that ultimately define a culture and project its essence into the world. What struck me about the two posts I saw was not any look-at-me highlights or back-slapping, self-congratulatory virtue signaling, or posturing. There was no sales pitch, hyperbole, or let-me-show-you-my-smarts fluff. Amid the celebratory tone of the two posts I reference above was an unexpected and rare signal: humility. Not the false humility of “I am so humbled by….” you name it recognition or award. No, I saw real self-deprecation and deference to something greater. To a meaning and purpose beyond self-interest. That’s no small thing. Look around. The world is full of answers. Our culture demands that we have them and seemingly promises to reward those possessing the answer, the solution, and the secret. I get a constant flow of pitches from strangers telling me how much they can help me be better, lead better, make better decisions, make more money, and build a better culture. My feeds are loaded with endless streams of folks promising answers, bugling success, and. criticizing all the ills of the system they find themselves in. Whatever the industry – the same pattern plays out. In an age of unbridled pride, vanity, and envy, humility is like a cup of water to one thirsting in the desert. In fact, it is a super-power. Humility says, “I don’t have all the answers.” Humility admits, “I can’t solve all the problems.” Humility recognizes, “You might know something I don’t know.” Humility sees the good in others, doesn’t need the headline, and can admit when its wrong. Can one foster a culture of humility? Not the false-humility that pretends to be less than it is in the name of virtue-signaling, but the kind that recognizes what it knows, why it exists, and aims for something beyond itself. The kind that can be strong in its knowledge, insights, capabilities, and compelling story, while admitting when it was wrong, where it needs more work, and what someone else did that was really good. That kind of humility creates room. Room for new ideas. Room for better solutions. Room for heart and spirit and unity. It also creates room for others to grow. Such humility makes space for things to grow in unexpected, organic, and inspiring ways. Unplanned, unmapped, and unimagined. Humility isn’t really something you can teach or produce or enforce. To be true, it must be real. It is the uneasy space of I don’t know and I’m not there yet, mingling with the conviction of yes we can and here is the way. It defers to the better idea while arguing for what it knows to be right…still allowing room for the answer to an unexpected blind spot. Deference to something greater than yourself. That is so very hard. But it is so liberating. It turns out that being the center of the universe is really quite exhausting. As is having to be right, knowing all the answers, and constantly correcting everyone else’s faults. It seems that we’re not inclined toward humility and living it takes persistent effort. Like many great movements within us, it is one we cannot fabricate – the more we try to grasp it, the more elusive it is. Maybe it begins with choosing the other over ourself. Maybe it grows by letting go of the need to be right, always getting what we want, or demanding all that we deserve. Perhaps a culture of humility does eat strategy for breakfast.

  2. Aug 16

    Are They Really A Series of Unfortunate Events?

    A young family in our neighborhood recently had to vacate their house due to a mold problem. The mold had settled in their HVAC system and for many months had been pumped into all corners of their house, contaminating virtually everything. Watching over the course of a week as workers from the remediation company gutted their home was heart-breaking. Curiously, a couple of our own family members are dealing with smaller versions of the issue as condensation from HVAC ductwork has caused staining, sagging, and even some areas of mold and mildew to appear on ceiling drywall and near vents. The slow, extended nature of such issues makes them particularly tricky to recognize until damage has been done; fixing the issue is just the beginning as clean-up and repairs can be extensive and expensive. In the 2004 movie, A Series of Unfortunate Events, the three young Baudelaire children are found on a beach and notified by stranger of a “most unfortunate event” which he goes on to say is the death of their parents in a fire. Of course, the gross understatement is itself a key element of this dark but entertaining tale that pits the three orphans against a scheming relative (played brilliantly by Jim Carrey) who is after the fortune of their parents. The story centers on a series of increasingly outlandish efforts by Carrey’s character, Count Olaf, to secure guardianship of and then manufacturer various “accidents” to eliminate the children and give him their inheritance. The movie follows the children’s uncanny ability to outsmart and outmaneuver the Count despite the inability of the various adult guardians, neighbors, and relatives, to see his nefarious motives. To get close to the children, the Count uses a host of disguises, fooling the adults in the story, but never fooling the children, who struggle to get anyone to believe the crazy stories they’re telling. Watching this movie with my own grandchildren last night night, I caught a glimpse of myself in those adults around the Baudelaire children. Now 48 hours into full-time hosting five of our very young grandchildren while their parents are away, my eyes have been opened, or should I say re-opened, to the many blindspots of my adulthood. Here are just a few of them: Children see, hear, and remember, way more than you realize. When it comes to children, know that every comment, story, joke, side-glance, promise, and negotiation, has been written down, recorded, archived, and backed-up in those little machine minds. No AI needed here, they have an immense capacity to consume everything, possibly even those things you are only thinking, and then repeat it back to you when you least expect it. Energy is only a scare resource for adults. I am pretty sure that the Energizer Bunny concept came from a parent or grandparent who was given the clarity of reality in a moment of vision. Watching these children for a full 24 hour cycle made one thing clear: there are only two modes, on and off. From the waking moment, it is game-on and their minds and bodies do not stop until the gas tank is empty…about 18 hours later. Thinking I might grab an afternoon nap – I carried our three-year-old granddaughter up the stairs after she fell asleep during a walk, however, I was quickly corrected as requests for a mint and Scooby Doo began as soon as I had shut my eyes. There truly are guardian angels. Without unduly frightening our adult children who still trust us to watch their children, let me just say that there is no question in my mind that each of these children has a full-time angel watching over them. Everything is an adventure. When did I lose my imagination? I once thought of myself as creative, but I now realize that my sense of the imaginative is a speck of dust compared to the mountainous imaginations of my grandchildren. Every stick is a sword, every balloon on the end of stick is a magic wand, every piece of paper a canvas, every mundane living room a wrestling ring, and every dollhouse a world of life and wonder. Even my boringness as an adult male is turned to wonder in my ability to serve as a horse, a target, or a jungle-gym. Though these few glimpses seem obvious in the writing, I realize how quickly and easily my eyes grow scales to the wonder that lies before the eyes of children. I hear the door open to the stairs to my study and can only imagine the words that will follow as whichever child comes to greet me. Pitter patter on the steps and then the hesitation at my door – someone is sneaking up on me…and I am reminded that there is no joy like the joy of surprise. Why do I forget these things? In the closing scene of A Series of Unfortunate Events, the eldest Baudelaire child, Violet, opens a letter postmarked before the death of their parents. It turns out that the letter was sent by their parents as they were traveling abroad. Amid the inspiration and the love, there is an insight that seems like it might require the eyes of a child to see: “At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may, in fact, be the first steps of a journey.“ Returning to the sorrow of the young family being forced from their mold-contaminated home, I suddenly see the consolation they must feel having identified the answer to the mysterious illness which had been plaguing their young children for more than 12 months. For them, the unfortunate event of the mold discovery has opened the door to hope in complete health for their children. A new, and exciting, journey indeed. As for the first words of my pitter-pattering grandchild coming through my study door this morning? “Good morning, Poppy. I’m not going to have a mint right now because Nanny says I should have a waffle for breakfast.” Good morning, my love. That is a great idea, we can have a mint later. Another day and the adventure continues.

  3. Aug 2

    First Mover or Fast Follower? There are Always New Edges to Explore.

    This week-end, my five-year-old grandson, Fulton, decided he was ready to ride a bike. I can’t really speak to his decision process. From my vantage point, there was very little forethought, discussion, preparation, practice, or arm-wrestling with doubt. He literally got on a bike and started riding it. There was some faltering uneasiness and the necessary cycles of finding his balance, but in very short order and with zero fanfare, he was riding circles around our cul-de-sac. Of course, this spontaneous feat was not really spontaneous – he had been working on it for a long time in how he played, practiced balancing, and developed his own confidence in things unknown. Ultimately, he just decided he could, so he did. How did he get to that decision? Long before he had come to the decision, and confidence, that he could ride that bike, he had seen his older siblings doing it. From early-on, he knew it was possible. Following this thread a bit further, one can easily argue that much of the daring, confidence, and apparent fearlessness, that has marked his young life stems from his birth order and the efforts he has made over his five years to keep up with his two older siblings. As number three, he has been given the great freedom of knowing with absolute surety the many things that are possible. In 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, Naval Aviator Pete Mitchell is tasked with preparing a team of “Top Gun” pilots to complete what looks to be an impossible mission: destroying a heavily protected nuclear site, deep in enemy territory located in a mountainous crater, and guarded by missile batteries and “fifth-generation” fighters. None of the pilots is able to complete the test mission within the time and terrain parameters until Mitchell shows them it is possible. Since the beginning, human trailblazers have tested the limits of the possible in all spheres of human endeavor. From crossing the Atlantic, to running a four minute mile, to breaking the sound barrier, to acing the SAT, and on to putting a man on the moon, human progress has been marked by the firsts necessary to show the rest of us the way. However, none of it was spontaneous and the paths to all firsts are marked by failure and the learning necessary to make the leaps. But, once we see it can be done, the universe opens in new and often surprising ways. There is an incredible freedom that comes with the breaking of what previously looked like a barrier. The mind suddenly stops asking if a feat is impossible and shifts to wondering what else is possible. It’s no longer about the crazy idea of sitting on a little seat wondering if one can balance between two wheels while pedaling. In the knowing we can, we begin to think about where we might go and how fast we might get there. We are liberated to imagine to the next barrier…and beyond. The curious thing about progress and innovation is that it is never in a flash of individual brilliance or a vacuum of independence. Forward motion is cumulative. Sure, there are moments of insight and discovery, but they always begin where some other insight or discovery led. There was always a first barrier broken before we were led to the next one to be conquered. There is great freedom, and comfort, in recognizing the cycle of human progress. Those limits we see might not be as far off, or as scary, as we first think. Those changes on the horizon might not be as radical or the demands of change as painful as we may fear. It’s unlikely you can remember a time when you didn’t know how to ride a bike. Or when you couldn’t talk. Or when you couldn’t walk. Those leaps of development that we now accept as part of growing-up were once unimaginable. At least until we heard or saw someone else doing it. This week, take a look at those places you fear to tread, those thoughts you hesitate to think, or those dreams you resist dreaming. Sometimes the truly crazy thing is closing our eyes to the possibilities for which we were made.

  4. Jul 26

    Laughing at the Edge. The Energy is in the Motion.

    Living Water The clear, cool water rushed downstream. Following the narrow canyon, the stream moved over rocks, through small falls, into the nooks of boulders, and then eddied back into the fast moving flow. The steep stone wall of Mt. Zion rose before us, and the colors of moving shirts could be seen above as people hiked through the wooden flume that used to carry water down the mountain to Golden and its inhabitants below. The day was clear and the sun cast warmth across stone and path and person along the trails and waterways of this mountain ecosystem. Sitting on a boulder in the sunshine, bare feet resting within the stream, we took it all in. The pines of the mountain before us, gave way to the scrub of Gambel Oak and Mountain Mahogany on opposing, sun drenched slopes, as hawks and swifts and hummingbirds floated overhead, their calls lost in the rumble of the rushing water. “Ahhh, the living water,” Sally remarked, reminding me that the moving water of the stream holds more oxygen than still water; a factor fostering high-energy marine life like salmon and trout, and creating a self-cleaning, pollution preventing environment, conducive to all forms of other animal and plant life. Living water. As human beings began to show up, lining the rocky creek shore in chairs and towels, then moving along and within it just like a day at the beach, I thought of the powerful draw of such living water. Cool, clear, and life-giving, we are instinctively pulled toward it in a primordial sense of survival, a necessity that has given way to recreation and joyful thriving in our land of plenty. Listening to the laughter of children playing in the water, and the squeals of delight from those tubing further down the stream, I felt the rhythm of something deeply elemental in this simple excursion to cliff and canyon. Were They Laughing? Walking down the canyon path a little later, we met a parade of children on bikes racing downhill at break-neck speed. At the front was a boy, probably eight years old, followed closely by a younger brother and sister, then two even younger boys on balance-bikes, looking tiny and far too small to be traveling so fast on such an incline. Not far behind came two young mothers, one pushing a stroller and one with an infant strapped to her in a carrier. They chatted with each other nonchalantly as their children disappeared around a bend downhill – clearly this was not a first-time adventure. Shortly thereafter, we turned another bend heading down toward the base of the trail, when we heard more squeals of delight behind us, this time the crew was led by one of the smaller boys on a balance-bike tearing downhill, his face a mixture of terror, joy, terror, delight, and his voice laugh-screaming as he held the little bike at the edge of control – his little Crocs scraping the path to slow and help steer. Somehow he avoided major mangling waiting just beyond that control, and the other children barreled along right behind, making all kinds of noise as they raced down the hill. This time, both mom’s appeared, moving a bit faster, as we all caught up to the kids simultaneously, finding them safely pulled to the side of the path. Looking at us with a grin, one of the mom’s apologized in her British accent, “I’m sorry if they ran you off the path.” Returning her smile, Sally laughed a reply about the wildly impressive breakneck speed sustained at the edge of control. The mom didn’t miss a beat, responding with a broadening smile: “Were they laughing?” Yes. Yes, of course they were. They were fully alive at that edge. Later in the day, we chased a bit of that edge on a pair of e-bikes, racing down the same hill. I’m not sure if the kiddos hit 25 mph or not, but it sure brought a smile to my face. The Front Range Moving into the evening, we found ourselves reclined in a pair of Adirondack chairs, watching the sun set behind Mt. Zion and listening to the bluesy tunes of a musician named Luke. Shadows danced across the mountainsides while the clouds gathered and dispersed in a white-gray eddy, giving the scene a surreal texture. We were tired but it was a good tired. The living water that had replenished foot and muscle earlier, rushed across our minds as we spoke of the marvels of the day and the pressing sense of tomorrow. The day before, we watched as a young couple exchanged wedding vows against the backdrop of a fairway extending toward jutting rocks aimed at an unseen future. The joy and celebration of such beginnings mask the beautiful struggles ahead, and the uncertainties remain blissfully lost amid the laughter, toasts, and music. Rightfully so. Such moments are sacred, to be held close for the moment they’re given, and remembered in the times when the laughter has gone quiet. I think of that young couple and the threshold of their future. How fitting to begin the path here, a mile high at the base of the Front Range marking the westward entrance into the Rocky Mountains. Peaks to be faced, climbed, conquered; only to reveal the higher peaks beyond. It’s hard not to be swept-up into the sensation of that edge: the epic sky over seemingly endless mountains, and the countless possibilities lying within and beyond. There is an immensity in the moment and the metaphor – a call to adventure and adversity. Were they laughing? Yes. Yes, of course they were. This is the awe and wonder of the front range, the great edge of life where we find ourselves most fully alive, racing down the mountainside, trying to keep a handle on the control that’s never completely ours. Living in the thrill of the unknown and the uneasy laughter of fear as we are plunged into the living water, energized by oxygenation that can only happen in the churning and rushing of its own movement. Forward. That is the only direction we are given. The water, the path, the ups and downs of the mountainsides – they all lie forward. Ahead, beckoning. The energy is in the motion. The oxygenation comes in the froth and churn. The life is given in the living. Wherever we find ourselves, may we all see our front range today, and the invitation it offers. The living water beckons, and though it does not promise calm smoothness, it does promise life. And life abundantly.

  5. Jul 19

    Hidden Threads of the Good Life

    Threads. The many colored elements of life which seem to appear randomly, then reappear curiously, until finally revealing some aspect of a greater tapestry that can only be seen with time, distance, and perhaps the flash of insight. Interestingly, the “thread” element has recurred for me in multiple places this week, prompting some reflection on the nature of these strands that often link the seemingly unrelated signals of our lives. Reading a book in a hotel room a few weeks ago, I found myself struggling to get into it. I was interested in the topic, the table of contents revealed focus and order that appealed to me, and the author’s general worldview seemed to align with my own. I literally put the book down and asked myself, what’s the problem? My conclusion was style. The word choices, the sentence structure, and the flow just weren’t working for me. Talking through it with Sally later, she suggested that perhaps his was more of a speaking style that, when converted to the written word, didn’t resonate as well with me. May we all have such generous voices to sometimes counter-balance our lesser tendencies. I put the book down and moved on. Introducing a speaker at an event last week, I shared some anecdotal observations on my own experience with her as a student in one of her classes. “One of the key things Dr. Ordway taught me was to approach any written work with intellectual humility so that the author’s insights might be understood clearly and received without our own bias.” Intellectual humility. Hmm. That lesson from her class had been filed away, like so many learnings, as one more part of my mental library, appreciated, collected, and put on a shelf. Reflecting on that thread of learning shelved so many months ago, I thought about the book I had put down. Was it quality of writing that barred my way or my own biases? My mind wandered to another classroom in another era. The year was 1985 and I was a new student at the very large John Marshall high school in San Antonio, Texas. I was in an English class full of “honors” students who all seemed to me to be so worldly, knowledgable, and confident. I was in 11th grade and didn’t know what to expect of an honors class but one sense of it was provided by Mrs. Clanton in an early admonition to her students: beware of your own intellectual arrogance. Returning to July 2026, John Adams came to mind. An intellectual and articulate giant of the American Revolution, his great convictions were often burdened with the weight of his own pride and vanity, which frequently needed buffering by his wife, Abigail. A line from Abigail in the HBO series John Adams, sums it up: “John, you must be patient with those you find less intelligent than yourself.” Laura Linney deftly delivers a message that is at once sincere, tongue-in-cheek, and profound. You are smart but it is not about being right and your pride hampers your effectiveness. More threads. Returning to the lessons of Dr. Ordway, I remembered what followed in the “why” behind the need for intellectual humility. We must receive, understand, and see the reality of what is being shared, before we can properly judge it. If we don’t approach with humility, our own preconceived notions, conclusions, and biases may block us from a deeper, unseen truth. It may or may not be there, but we will never know if we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to discover it by suspending judgment until we’ve received its reality. We all have a great need to be right. This fundamental disposition is the most basic element of pride and a great barrier to peace, joy, and enlightenment in our world. C.S. Lewis wrote of the “heart” as the human organ of discernment, the ability to judge rightly. A well-formed chest is able to recognize truth and act virtuously in response to it. Approaching a text, an idea, or an argument, with intellectual humility is pre-empting the prideful comparison of my rightness and your wrongness in order that we might see reality before making judgment. It is an act of virtue and requires great self-discipline. It is also very difficult. Author and academic, Jordan Peterson offers us a guiding principle in Rule 9 of his 12 Rules for Life: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t. Another great thread in the weaving of a Good Life.

  6. Jul 12

    Love Foolishly

    In 1989, Stephen R. Covey published his classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The book was a staple of management and personal effectiveness thinking for those coming of age in their careers in the 1990s, and has remained an influence for generations of leaders, with Covey’s timelessly catchy metaphors and pithy expressions of key habits like “sharpen the saw,” “begin with the end in mind,” and “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” One key metaphor introduced in Covey’s book was the “emotional bank account.” Covey used this image has a way to frame our thinking around relationships. He posited that the strength of our relationships with others is reflected in balances of emotional connection and trust that increase or decrease based on our everyday interactions with each other. Actions like kindness, active listening, and appreciation, act as deposits, thereby increasing our balance while actions like criticisms, broken promises, and ignoring efforts to connect, act as withdrawals. A healthy positive balance enables us to endure the inevitable slights that occur in any relationship. The emotional bank account metaphor is highly rational and easily understood. It is an effort to quantify and structure something that is wildly variable and resists measurement. A quick search reveals the psychological science behind it with expressions like “keep it in the black” by maintaining “the magic ratio,” which appears to be five positive deposits to every one withdrawal. However, one must be careful as some frameworks suggest as many as 20 positive deposits to every one withdrawal in order to keep that balance high. There are many dangers in trying to quantify goodwill or trust. Positive or negative actions may be valued differently based on the individual and the impacts of withdrawals from our emotional bank accounts often dramatically outweigh deposits – it seems that the weight of hurt and slight is always heavier than the lighter currency of kindness. Trust once lost may sometimes never be recovered, and years of goodwill can be spent quickly in even the smallest acts of selfishness. For a young man, recently graduated from college and newly married, the emotional bank account metaphor offered a graspable vision of rationality to the highly fluid reality of relationship: at home and in the office. Of course, 1992’s Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus helped novices like me realize that human beings must agree on a standard of currency before any assessments of value can be made. Now more than three decades later, I find the emotional bank account metaphor woefully inadequate, if not dangerously deceptive. Simplistically suggesting that you do more kind things than unkind things on a daily basis not only glosses over the immense complexity of the human dynamic, it implies a transactional, utilitarian foundation for the most intimate aspect of our existence, communion with other human beings. I’m not criticizing the desire or effort to more deeply understand human relations, but we attempt to quantify them at our own risk. This brings me to the Catholic Church’s Liturgical calendar and today’s Gospel, the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13. In it, Jesus shares the story of the sower indiscriminately scattering seed on various types of soil: the walking path where it is stolen by birds, among rocks where it withers, among thorny ground where it is choked, and finally upon rich soil where it yields fruits, a hundred, sixty, or thirtyfold. What is the seed that is being sown? It is “the word of the kingdom.” Jesus is referring to himself, the Word, the Divine Logos, offered to all. But what is he really offering and what grows from that? The extravagant casting of seeds upon all types of soil is an invitation to relationship, an invitation into God’s divine life. In Galatians 5, St. Paul describes the fruit born of the seed of the Word through that invitation to relationship: love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Years after 7 Habits and Men Are From Mars, I heard a speaker debunk a common platitude of marital relationships, saying, “People often describe a marriage as a 50/50 partnership. That is a misconception, it needs to be 100/100. Each person must give 100% for it to be all it can be.” Marriage is clearly unique in the world of relationships but there is profound insight in the message: you get what you give. A recent speaker’s challenge to “love foolishly” gets us closer to the Christian ideal and further away from the quantification of relationship deposits and withdrawals. We are made for relationship, for communion with others. Human relationship is not a bank account with balances and transactions. Intimacy and impact are not measured in debits and credits. The Divine Sower gives us an example of what extravagant love looks like and what communion promises. Not all relationships are equal and communion with others doesn’t always mean soul-baring intimacy. However, the fruit born from our own seeds sown will reflect the abundance of our love…not in the balance on an emotional spreadsheet, but in the joy of having loved foolishly.

  7. Jul 5

    Time, Flowing Like a River

    Time, flowing like a riverTime, beckoning meWho knows whenWe shall meet again, if everBut time keeps flowingLike a river to the sea From Time by Alan parson Jumping into the warm pool yesterday, I felt like I had stepped into a stream which had stopped. This was the grip of a moment…a moment I knew would slip through my fingers as all do, but sat freeze-framed for the split second of the day. Two hundred and fifty years of American history conduced to July 4, 2026, then moved on in time’s rushing waters. It is a rare event to have all of my siblings in one place and rarer still to have their loves and their children there alongside our own children and grandchildren. But time struck like lightning to produce such a confluence on Independence Day 2026 and it felt magical. In a flawless day of warm sunshine, food, and family, we had a chance to revisit history and future simultaneously, embracing new marriage, new engagements, new babies, and old memories. My day was marked by “do it again, Poppy!” and the wrinkled fingers and toes that come with hours of pool time. What is it about throwing small children into the water that is so life-giving? My parents glowed as they hosted all of their children and nearly all of their grandchildren – four generations together in the smallest possible area able to contain so much life. Glancing at our two Godsons, now men, I thought of the time and the moment, wondered briefly about their future, then surrendered it to the invisible flow that would carry it on. Yesterday held itself in its own moment, remaining ambivalent about such musings, and demanding the presence that concentrates all faculties on that which was sitting, or swimming, directly before me. For a moment, we could just be in the moment. Looking at the picture above, already an instant family classic, the moment looms large above that river of time. The horizon stops at pool’s edge and anything beyond is left to itself, unencumbered by uncertainty or wonder. The collective vision seems to say, “Tomorrow will be what it will be. For the moment, we’ll be here, fully now.” And now, the demands of the day return. The clock has started ticking again and on we must go. Always on. And that’s ok. The moment is made precious in its passing. It cannot be stored, saved, reloaded, or relived. Only our memory holds it now, forever accruing the benefit of its existence as a warm place in our soul. What a gift.

  8. Jul 4

    America at 250. Still Something Worth Dying For?

    Earlier this week, market strategist and geo-political commentator, John Singer, released an essay entitled Losing the Plot. He opens the piece with a story about a young woman posing in sultry fashion for a photo while sitting on the train tracks that run directly into Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where over a million people were murdered during World War II. “The woman is lying on the throat that fed the largest grave on earth, and she is catching some sun,” he writes. Singer’s essay goes on to share anecdotes about General Pershing reminding Americans what they were fighting for in WWI and one about Singer’s own father, who survived Auschwitz and went on to serve in the American army that liberated him. The essay is a sobering journey through a society that has lost a sense of reverence for the great sacrifices of the past and seems to have little awareness of the dangers before it as its very fabric shifts rapidly. In 2000’s The Patriot, director Roland Emmerich takes us through the American Revolution through the lens of one man and his family in 1776 South Carolina. The fictionalized account begins on the eve of the Declaration of Independence, giving us a glimpse of the complexities of fervor for freedom from British rule and some of the practical human realities of family, community, and fear surrounding the epic decision to fight for it. The protagonist, widower Benjamin Martin (played by Mel Gibson) is a reluctant revolutionist, having a sense for the horrible realities of war and fearing for his numerous children. The movie opens with a town hall meeting to vote on joining the northern colonies in their revolt. Martin, a respected war hero and local leader, listens to the various arguments for going to war with Britain before standing up and saying, “Why should I trade one tyrant 3000 miles away, for 3000 tyrants one mile away?” The pithy line evokes a sense of just how uncertain were the prospects of an independent America past the passionate rhetoric surrounding the notion of freedom. He follows it up with the following flourish: “But mark my words. This war will not be fought on the frontier or some distant battlefield, but amongst us — among our homes. Our children will learn of it with their own eyes. And the innocent will die with the rest of us.” Of course, the war does happen, death appears on the doorstep of their homes, and Martin is drawn into the conflict, becoming a lightning rod for the revolution in South Carolina and the hero of this story. Great loss is visited upon him and his family, but it is the heroic fervor of his oldest son, including his willingness to die for the cause of freedom uniting these thirteen colonies, that eventually moves Martin beyond father and farmer to true patriot. He eventually comes to see himself as part of something greater than self and the fears and desires motivating him. A few lines from a letter written by his son, Gabriel Martin, sums it up: “Despite all this, I feel fortunate to serve the cause of liberty, and I would gladly give my life for it if necessary. Pray for me, Thomas. But more importantly, pray for our cause.” Cause. Liberty. Pray. This is a very interesting combination of words. What is the cause? Thomas Jefferson gave us the words and they were memorialized in The Declaration of Independence. This snippet sums it up: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” A cause simple enough to be captured in a few words which unified about 2 million people spread across a landmass about 8 times the size of England. Our country has been debating the notions of equality and rights, not to mention the place of the Creator in our country, ever since. Who are all men and what is equality? What are those unalienable rights? What is life and when does it begin? What is liberty and where does your freedom end and mine begin? What is happiness and what does it mean to pursue it? The broad eloquence of Jefferson’s words masked the brutal journey ahead for a nation that would bleed profusely in its struggle to define them. Much has been written and spoken on those words. We’ve debated them on Civil War battlefields, Presidential and Congressional elections, in our courts, in protests and marches, in newspapers and social media, not to mention within our own families, churches, and communities. Part of the Singer essay’s lament is the sense that we’ve forgotten many of the debates and the cost of our efforts to define and refine the meanings of these words. For most of us, the battles occur on distant frontiers, are fought by others, and are bereft of the costly context of tyranny and repression expressed in the forms of physical threat. In many ways, a sense of our collective history has been lost. One might argue that 250 years of immigration has produced a 340+ million person melting pot of identity attached to myriad histories. Singer contends that politics in America’s big cities are shifting as the Democratic party looks more and more socialist. Perhaps he’s right. But American politics feeds on trends and movements, power follows money and we’ve created a vote-buying system built on great collective wealth and the sometimes less-than-subtle redistribution of it in the name of the common good. But there is an elegant and practical beauty to our system of checks and balances, a process which has imperfectly held our nation together from the beginning. In 1987, Pope John Paul II addressed President Ronald Reagan and the United States in a speech honoring the Bicentennial of the Constitution. The Pope celebrated all that the United States had done for the world in the first two centuries of its existence : “I thank America and all Americans – those of past generations and those of the present – for their generosity to millions of their fellow human beings in need throughout the world.” He also called on America to remember its founding principles and see them in light of a responsibility to the world. “To celebrate the origin of the United States is to stress those moral and spiritual principles, those ethical concerns that influenced your Founding Fathers and have been incorporated into the experience of America.” “From the beginning of America, freedom was directed to forming a well-ordered society and to promoting its peaceful life. Freedom was channelled to the fullness of human life, to the preservation of human dignity and to the safeguarding of all human rights. An experience in ordered freedom is truly a cherished part of the history of this land.” Then, the Pope described America’s mission as he saw it, and offered his own definition of freedom: “This is the freedom that America is called to live and guard and to transmit. She is called to exercise it in such a way that it will also benefit the cause of freedom in other nations and among other peoples. The only true freedom, the only freedom that can truly satisfy, is the freedom to do what we ought as human beings created by God according to his plan.” St. Thomas Aquinas described free-will as a gift from God, born of reason, and ordered to choosing good. We’re given freedom to do what we ought. How do we know what we ought? Aristotle would answer that doing what we ought isn’t about rigid rules but about cultivating virtuous character though repeated action. These thinkers argued that we were given freedom so that we might live virtuously, and in so doing, be happy. The ultimate point of Singer’s essay is that we have lost our center, our sense of mission or place in the world. The great melting pot of America has become a diffusion of myriad selves vying for their own interests with no common, unifying ground or vision. Of course, the reality is that even revolution is born of self-motivated interests. The mission that unified our Founding Fathers and the colonies gave way to a thousand individual missions of varying degrees of self-interest. Facing the Civil War, self-interest unified on two fronts and the great experiment begun nearly 100 years earlier was put to its greatest test. The unified visions that came to be in WWI and WWII were also hard-fought as American self-interest aligned to a purpose greater than itself. Survival is a great necessity and there is nothing like war and the threat of destruction to unify those threatened. One of the great challenges of success, at any level, is the tendency toward comfort and complacency. We naturally wish to avoid conflict and gravitate to an equilibrium that pulls us from tension. Our history has been marked by the ebb and flow of tension and equilibrium – power and politics have followed this pattern. In the absence of the obvious threat of destruction, self-interest pulls at the center of purpose and unity. With the final battle of the American Revolution won, we see Benjamin Martin bidding farewell to French military officer Jean Villeneuve who was present throughout the war fighting alongside the colonials while promising great French assistance – which was ultimately necessary to end the war. As Martin rides away to begin again, we see Villeneuve (who had lost his entire family in a British attack years earlier) looking unsettled as-if wondering what’s next in his life. Most likely, his character will return to a France that will soon undergo its own, bloodier and uglier, version of the American Revolution. Centered in a cause that saw its ideals trampled by human passions. Have we lost the plot? Is the great story of our founding buried in the myriad self-interests driving faction, power, and division? Singer’s final challenge is to suggest that there is still time and the right choices can be

  9. Jun 28

    We’re All the Difficult Kind. Love Us Anyway.

    Can you remember a time when you walked on this earth unencumbered with self-consciousness? A moment when you dressed, spoke, played, danced, laughed, or raged without concern for appearance, judgment, or consequence? For most reading this, the answer is “no, I cannot,” because you were probably 3 or 4 years old. The three-year-old is absolutely consumed with self: it’s all about what he or she wants, when he or she wants it, and the overwhelming feelings of injustice that accompany any occurrence that impedes those desires. It is pure. It is innocent. It is a hurricane of uncontrolled emotion. We may not remember feeling unencumbered by any self-conscience hesitation about the chaotic emotions that accompany frustration or disappointment, but, no matter our age, we still recognize the feeling. Moving from three to adulthood, we are trained and molded to control the outbursts that accompany moments when we don’t get our way. However, the raw emotions are still there, churning just below the surface. The beautiful thing about the three-year-old is that there is no mask, no attempt to hide exactly what he or she is feeling. Living with several of my grandchildren within this age range over the last week, I was able to watch this dynamic is numerous situations. Conflicts arose over the smallest of things – like someone wants what someone else has; as well as bigger things – like so and so hit me. Of course, each one of us has our own personality, so reactions differ somewhat, but from 2-4 years old, the tantrum is pretty standard. The interesting thing about a tantrum is that it really reflects the worst of the one throwing it. It is the elemental throw-down of anger, frustration, stubbornness, and inconsolability that accompanies any hindering what the tantrum-thrower desires. From the outside, the tantrum is the display that those watching least want to see. Of course, we tolerate it in children because, well, they are children and we expect them to get upset and throw a tantrum from time to time. Learning to manage through disappointment and frustration is simply part of growing up. But feelings of frustration and disappointment don’t go away. The passions that drive us remain throughout our lives, as do the realties of the world, particularly other people, that impede them. Alas, the tantrums also remain. Sure, we get better (mostly) at masking them, but the chaos that is a will frustrated appears regularly throughout our adult lives. It does not always manifest in a direct outburst, but we see it in business, at home, on the beach, in the store, and pretty much anywhere people gather together. Sheryl Crowe reminded me of this in her song, Difficult Kind: I think I was wrong, I think you were rightAll my angry words will keep me up at nightThrough the old screen door, I still can hear you say“Oh, honey, won’t you stop treatin’ me that way?” The songwriter reflects on angry words and the emotional outbursts that accompany disappointment, frustration, and hurt. She goes on to lament them. Isn’t that the way of tantrums or angry outbursts? We feel ourselves tipping into a reaction and it’s like flood carrying us away. The three year old has no paddle, isn’t really even aware that he needs one. But we, as adults, know that it’s not a good look. We often know it while we’re caught up in and cringe inside as we watch it play out. Crowe gives us an insight into that sensation and a hint at what is needed: Tell it to me slow, tell me with your eyes‘Cause if anyone should know how to let it slideI swear I can see you coming up the driveAnd there ain’t nothing like regret to remind you you’re alive Regret is a high impact word. Six letters that land like a ton of bricks. But the first two lines provide the answer: please, love me anyway. Sitting at dinner the other night, I watched as my granddaughter slipped into three-year-old defiance. She became a bundle of “no,” “I don’t want to,” and then pouty-lipped stubbornness. My default response is a justice-oriented authoritarianism that creates a battle of wills, a battle that offers two possible results: the breaking of her will or the retreat of mine. Feeling the irritation welling up within me, I paused for a moment and received a glimpse of something different. I had new eyes to see that it wasn’t about me and what I wanted or expected, but was suddenly about what she needed. Tell it to me slow, tell me with your eyes‘Cause if anyone should know how to let it slide Love me anyway. Even when I’m not my best. Love me out of this fit. I leaned over to her, smilled and whispered, “Do you want to go out and look at the restaurant’s aquarium?” Her disposition changed instantly. Not because I had given her what she asked for. Not because I accommodated a tantrum or rolled over to stubbornness. There was no mind game. There was no smoke and mirrors. I just picked her up, held her close, and took her on a solo trip to see the exotic fish. Just her and me. My behavior said: I love you, even when you’re not your best. Tuned-in to this dynamic, I saw it play out throughout the week. Answering the pettiness of a tantrum or stubbornness with the magnanimity of loving them through it was far more effective than any amount of authoritarianism I could muster. Sincerely and actively Loving them through their worst brought them back to their best. None of us ever really outgrow the tantrums of our childhood, they just manifest in new ways. It is simply part of being human and as much as we try, the anger, frustration, and disappointment will come upon us. The truth is, we’re all the difficult kind in one way or another. I think this is where Christ was calling us in Matthew 5:38-39: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I say to you, do not show opposition against an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other toward him also.” Loving someone at the point when they least deserve it is the call. It is difficult and counter-intuitive. Our sense of justice suggests that your “evil” behavior deserves punishment. Perhaps that’s true. But we bring degrees of “evil” upon others in our lives in so many ways and rarely does their punishing us change anything. When we take on the role of judge and executioner, we harden hearts and more distance in the relationship. If you could only seeWhat love has made of meThen I’d no longer be in your mindThe difficult kind‘Cause babe, I’ve changed Crowe claims that she’s changed but that’s really not true…or the point. What she’s really saying is: can you see me at my worst and love me anyway? Sometimes that is a bridge too far and we just can’t get there. But the reality is that we are all the difficult kind and there is great power in loving someone through their worst. Sure, it’s a lot easier to look at my three-year-old granddaughter and love her through her tantrum. But we come across many difficult kinds in our lives and its worth asking: how effective has an eye for an eye been in dealing with them? St. Thomas Aquinas defined love as “willing the good of the other, as other.” But willing the good of the other is not a passive activity. Actively loving a person at their worst and through their worst has the power to change their heart. It is a radically disarming form of turning the other cheek and inviting the other into a unifying encounter. To do it requires heroic virtue. Sound like too much? Start with the three-year-old. Then try it with the teenager. Then, bring it to bear on the adult. Look for what each needs in that moment when they are behaving their worst. Not in coddling, acquiescence of bad behavior, but in a bold, active affirmation of all that is good in the person beyond the moment. Show them you love them, even when they don’t deserve it, and watch their heart soften. More importantly, watch your’s soften along the way.

  10. Jun 21

    Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, Turn and Face the Strange

    During a long drive about two weeks ago, the song Changes, by David Bowie, came on the radio. Bowie and his music have been on my mind ever-since. It’s kind of odd, I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a fan. Released in 1972, neither the song nor Bowie were a household music staple in my youth. His 1983 album, Let’s Dance burst into my musical world through his iconic MTV debut video for the title track, which went to number one on the charts. But it was his 15th studio album and the only one of his 26 that I purchased. But Changes appeared like an old friend as the following lyric jumped-out to me: And these children that you spit onAs they try to change their worldsAre immune to your consultationsThey’re quite aware of what they’re going through This lyric is quoted in the opening title screen of 1985’s The Breakfast Club, a classic John Hughes coming-of-age movie, set in a Saturday detention session at a Chicago high school. It beautifully captures the spirit of that movie, setting up the tension between a group of teens moving through their growing pains and the authoritarian Vice Principal who assigns them an essay with the prompt: “Describe to me who you think you are.” Who do you think you are? The classic challenge to the youth who has overstepped, defied, or challenged authority. It drips with the high-handed voice of experience that has forgotten its own journey of defiance and error, as it intones: how dare you. How dare you challenge me. How dare you pursue your selfish aims. How dare you screw up. Looking back on my 34 years as a father, I’m sure I’ve used it a few times. Perhaps my sense of these changes was made more acute this week as traded-in our Yukon XL. The family truckster that has been a staple of our family life over the last ten years, overseeing our final transition from kids at home to empty-nesters, to grandparents, to that stage of life in which one moves from the blur of child-rearing to, hopefully, a deeper, more reflective, and perhaps more intentional engagement with a world that looks unlike anything one could have imagined. Still don’t know what I was waiting forAnd my time was running wild, a million dead-end streetsAnd every time I thought I’d got it madeIt seemed the taste was not so sweet Bowie evokes his own sense of rebellion while recognizing that many of those things we chase, young or old, are ultimately unsatisfying. Walking through changes, we begin to see some of our own dead-ends and the hard lessons learned. And then, re-learned. Do we ever learn? Parenthood pushes and pulls us through the many places where our becoming moves from labor pains to growing pains to the acute pruning of the many accretions we gathered along the way. We experience it on the front line of a life that is often changing wildly while wildly changing us. Reading a recent LinkedIn post entitled The Visible Signs of Our Lives, from my friend, Anthony Manno, the pressing sense of change hit me in a different way. In his post, Manno, the third generation owner of a clothing and tailoring business, shares a beautiful reflection on his business, his catholicism, and expressing belief in a visible manifestation of things that necessarily remain invisible. He connects the threads wonderfully but my reflections sit up one layer. I’ve watched this young man move from college student athlete to husband, to father, to business owner, and now to someone with profound insights on life, purpose, and his place in it. Like my own children, this young man is suddenly “grown up.” But of course, none of it is suddenly. These are all long, difficult becomings. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strangeCh-ch-changes, don’t want to be a richer manCh-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strangeCh-ch-changes, just gonna have to be a different manTime may change me, but I can’t trace time And beautiful ones. I reflect today as these changes continue. Occasionally, we can tune-in to the tectonic shifts in our lives, and see them with new eyes. See them in the context of the great sweep of existence that gives them an epic, epochal, flavor. Our small place in some great and grand story. Today, I celebrate my 34th year of fatherhood and my 9th year of grandfatherhood, with almost all of my children, all of my grandchildren, and my own father, who ironically was born in the same year as David Bowie and shares a love of the album Let’s Dance, and particularly the song, China Girl, with me. I get to look upon these visible signs of my life, which reveal all that is most important to me while reflecting those invisible things that give it all meaning…the hidden that makes it all transcendent. Change is truly a beautiful, magical, challenging, and strange thing. I’m still trying to figure out how best to turn and face it but I suppose that too is part of its compelling power. The deep wrestling that demands something from us, costs us, and ultimately moves us to the next version of ourselves, is its own necessity. We may try to run from it, but it finds us nonetheless. That’s ok. We’re quite aware of what we’re going through.

  • 10 Episodes

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5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Becoming the best version of yourself

Information

  • Creator
    Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    10
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Phillip Berry
  • Show Website
    Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself

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