Light • Friction • Center
A three-part mantra to center at work
Towards the end of my time at Google I wandered my way into having a three-part mantra that helped me day-to-day. Whenever there were waves of uncertainty, I would ground myself in these phrases to lead my team from a more positive and centered state. While I like to think the impact on the team was positive, I am certain it helped me ground myself.
I’ve shared the phrases with a few others that found it valuable, so I thought I’d write it down for others. They’re pretty simple.
The three mantras are:
Be the light
Expect friction
Center to activate
Let’s talk through them…
Be the light
On any given day, you can choose to be the light in the world around you. You can bring positivity, humanity, agency, enthusiasm and vision. This is a choice you can make.
In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, the protagonists wander through a post-apocalyptic world as a last bastion of humanity amid desolation. Whenever the father-son duo encounter something inhuman, the father always reminds the son to “carry the fire.” This concept has stayed with me for decades as a guiding moral north star - in the face of uncertainty and darkness, you can still be fully human. Here are the father-son talking at the end of The Road as the father tells the son to go on:
“You have to carry the fire."
“I don't know how to."
“Yes, you do."
“Is the fire real? The fire?"
“Yes it is."
“Where is it? I don't know where it is."
“Yes you do. It's inside you. It always was there. I can see it.”
In every meeting and every interaction you have a choice to either be positive or play the victim. Choosing to be the victim is really easy to do. It’s comforting to fall into a stance of blame and throw up your hands in helplessness. But don’t do it! Don’t be the victim! Choose to be the light.
Expect friction
We spend so much time making and crafting our plans that it’s easy to be crestfallen when they don’t go smoothly. And yet, this is just the nature of living and acting in the world. Plans never go as planned since they involve autonomous and willful human beings operating in a complex and unpredictable environment. In other words, plans take place in a world of friction.
“Friction” is a technical term Von Clausewitz used to think about military strategy. The main idea is that while plans might look fine in theory, the reality of the world always interferes and throws plans off course. From Von Clausewitz On War:
“The military machine, the army and all that goes along with it, is basically very simple and therefore looks easy to manage. Consider, however, no part consists of just one element, that all of it is made up of individuals, that every element produces friction of its own at every turn. Everything sounds fine in theory [but in reality, things do not happen as planned], for war instantly exposes the exaggerations and half truths of the plan. The battalion is still made up of individual men, any one of whom, if chance dictates it, is in a position to impose a delay or make things go awry. [...] This appalling friction, which unlike mechanical friction is not concentrated at just a limited number of points, is everywhere in contact with chance, and produces unpredictable effects precisely because they are in the main the product of chance.”
Our natural tendency after we make a plan is to expect it to work - but expecting this is naive. The world doesn’t operate this way and we shouldn’t get defeated when difficulties arise. Instead, whenever we encounter a roadblock we should recognize that it’s just friction, and friction is the nature of the universe. Our job is to overcome it.
Center to activate
Very simply, if you’re not centered you can’t activate positively. If you’re un-centered, instead of grounding those around you and leading steadily, you instead risk making them more worried, anxious and frenetic.
I remember someone once saying that a manager can either amplify uncertainty, doubt and stress or they can help reduce it. Everyone prefers a manager and teammate that increases clarity and steadiness. Nobody wants the opposite.
Therefore, you have to ensure you take time to center: meditate, take breaks, sleep, eat well. These things are not just nice-to-haves but rather they’re an essential prerequisite to having a positive impact on the world. Centering is what enables you to be the light and overcome friction. And as they say, if you don’t think you have time to center, then you need to center the most. (For more on this see, “How to Re-center”)
Just three phrases. Every morning I jot them down in my notebook and throughout the day, I glance at them to remind myself to be the light when feeling down, to expect friction when I face a challenge, and to make sure to center when ungrounded.
For me these three small mantras make a world of difference. I hope they’re helpful to you on your journey. 🙏🏼
