1,021 words of content, including 7 Leadership and Life Lessons, plus a couple things to make you smile and reconnect. Approximate content reading time: 4.08 minutes. And isn't your Happiness worth it?

This newsletter speaks to Leadership, Happiness, and Coaching in your life and work.

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1. You need the right tools to get the work done. We began from a belief we had what we needed. We are four smart people with rakes and shovels, right? Not so much. Within a week we owned two, meter-wide muck rakes and a deadly weed-hacking tool called a Pond Razor. Scary.
   Leadership Lesson: You don’t know what you don’t know, and what you don’t know is a lot. If what you are doing now is not working, consider you may need a different approach, new tools, and insight from people more expert than you.
2. One person’s weeds are another person’s flowers. We discovered one of our neighbors has a huge bed of curated irises that 60 meters away in our pond are an invasive weed. There’s no right or wrong, here – it’s all about location and context.
   Leadership Lesson: Seek to understand, then be understood. Covey’s Fifth Habit (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) is as powerful today as in 1980: before you judge, learn how others view the world, and don’t assume your way of seeing things is the Truth or the only valid point of view.
3. First, you’ve got to clear the bramble. My arms sport many bloody scratches from tearing out decades of thorny brush. To clear a path and reveal the beauty of the space we had to remove what got in the way.
   Leadership Lesson: Declare and hold a clear focus. Adaptability is critical to success, but there’s a thin line between flexible and frantic. Ask around: do you have a reputation for being a “crisis of the month” manager? Stop getting in your own way. Consider how you might more clearly communicate the central, unchanging values/vision that underly your actions.
4. When you’re stuck in the muck, stop to breathe. When I’m in the water in my waders I never know how deep I’ll sink with the next step. The first few times I got trapped in mid-thigh muck, I panicked. I learned to pause and breathe, relaxing into slow and deliberate movement, for that is the only way to release the suction.
5. Leadership Lesson: Practice self-awareness and emotional self-management. You WILL get sucked into emotional sink holes and crises occasionally, but you can’t help anyone if you wallow in the muck of despair with the others. Nurture a breath or mindfulness practice that will equip you to slow down and reconnect with your grounded, confident self.
6. Pain is a sign of progress, not a signal to stop. Mucking engages muscles in every part of the body to hack, saw, rake, lift, load, and transport the stuff. Even though my body is generally strong and flexible in the gym, there were days when I literally could not move after a mucking shift. Funny thing: every weekend I get more done and recover faster as my body adapts, a great reminder that pain is a sign of muscles breaking down and rebuilding.
   Leadership Lesson: Continually stretch into discomfort. The best and deepest learning occurs when you try something new and make mistakes. Trust that no matter how much it hurts or is uncomfortable, you will recover and be stronger and better at it. That’s called Wisdom and Experience (from the Latin, expireri, to try, test, the same root as Experiment).
7. It’s a never-ending project. No matter how much muck we remove, there will be new muck. Oh, sure, we can convince ourselves that we will be “done” by the end of this summer, but we cannot stop the cycle of birth, death, and decay that accumulates in our pond.
   Leadership and Life Lesson: YOU are a never-ending project. No matter how skilled or experienced you become -- or how happy or trapped or stable or stuck you feel – you will always be evolving, shedding some “muck” from your present that no longer serves you in the future. You don’t think this is true, but it is. It’s called the End of History Illusion (Wiki entry here, 4 minute TED talk here)

That’s why leadership and personal development are considered processes vs specific places.

It’s why the Pursuit of Happiness is a way to travel, not a destination.

And it’s why true Masters, in any domain, never stop learning new habits and dropping old ones.

Remember: Leadership is not about a title. Anyone can be a leader who has the courage and the skill to jump in and clear the muck – interpersonal and cultural – in service of clarity and a healthier environment. Which is… everyone!

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