When I worked in market research, we rebranded our company with the tagline, Knowing is Better. We were selling certainty -- at least we were trying to. People like certainty. It feels like something you can take to the bank. We gravitate to either/or thinking because it’s often simple and fast. However, life’s real growth opportunities rarely fit into a neat and tidy box and either/or thinking doesn’t always cut it.

A deep dive into life and work requires us to loosen our grip on either/or thinking and open our minds to the wonder of paradox and the power of ’and’.

When we replace either/or with ‘and’ we can be both optimistic and objective simultaneously. Life can be good and hard concurrently. We can be fearful and courageous at the same time. We can be introspective and outward facing consistently. We can be generous and frugal, confident and humble, respectful and humorous. We can love data and still rely on intuition. We can feel happy and sad on the same day, in the same hour, and even at the same exact time (a freeing realization).

When we develop a comfort level with holding seemingly contradictory, opposite thoughts in tension we expand insights, possibilities, outcomes and conclusions. We embrace things like:

• We are in control of everything and nothing at the same time.
• Commitment and freedom are yings to each other’s yang.
• Collective vision and personal goals can coexist.
• We can extend compassion and still hold someone accountable.
• We can fall ‘up’.*

Our challenge in leading ourselves and others well, is to find our sweet spot within these contradictions- that place of dynamic tension where we allow the power of ’and’ to open our minds and see something (or someone) in a new light with expanded fullness.

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~ Pete

* Richard Rohr

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