Maybe We’re All a Little Delusional
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in Scotland with my son, Ryan. He recently finished grad school, so this is our last big hurrah before he starts his “real world” corporate job. Think: Whisky. Distilleries. Ridiculous scenery. Cooler weather. Lots of time together.
And for all 14 days, my phone has been on airplane mode.
Before I sound overly enlightened, let me clarify: I still have Wi-Fi. I can check email at the hotel, and I can post something if I want to. I haven’t gone completely off the grid. But when I walk out the door, the Internet stays behind. No mindless checking. No doomscrolling because I have 90 seconds to kill.
And it changed something.
I started noticing how often I reached for my phone when absolutely nothing was happening. Waiting for Ryan. Standing in line. Walking down the street. Those little gaps used to just be part of the day that was filled with endorphin hits from doomscrolling. What did I miss?
In reality those quick email or social media checks, we actually miss everything. After 14 days of a semi-detox of always being connected (and connected for no reason at all), I’ve discovered something.
I’m still noodling on how to express it, but I know there’s a blog coming. Lol.
Maybe = Hope
I’ve also been thinking about the word maybe. We tend to treat uncertainty like a problem to be solved. Will the business idea work? Will the relationship work? Will the book sell? Will the opportunity happen? Will the Cowboys finally win?
Okay. Bad example. It’s been 30 years since the Dallas Cowboys were relevant.
On a serious side though, I’ve spent much of my life trying to turn maybe into a yes or a no as quickly as possible, and I’m starting to see it differently. Maybe isn’t uncertainty. Maybe is possibility, and possibility leaves room for hope.
I wrote more about that here:
Which brings me to perhaps the most delusional form of hope I know…
THIS IS OUR YEAR™!
Yes, I wrote another book. And no, this one isn’t about leadership, credibility, visibility or business strategy.
My friend William Roberts and I wrote THIS IS OUR YEAR™! The Delusional Life of Being a Dallas Cowboys Fan, and it dropped last week! It’s written by Cowboys fans for the homers AND the haters—the people who spend every September convincing themselves this is finally our year, and the people who can’t wait to remind us that it isn’t.
After three decades without a Super Bowl appearance, being a Cowboys fan requires a very particular relationship with reality. Every offseason feels different. Every draft pick is the missing piece. Every September begins with hope. And every January…
Well. That’s why we wrote the book.
We also launched @500Coaches on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, where William and I are turning Cowboys memes into a form of group therapy. It’s considerably cheaper than actual therapy. Effectiveness TBD. Come laugh at us, or with us.
Somewhere Along the Way, I Got Off My North Star
For most of my career, my best opportunities haven’t come from funnels, campaigns or perfectly optimized outreach. They’ve come from people. That is, relationships have always been my North Star.
Then, as I started worrying about quarterly targets and my sales pipeline, I caught myself drifting. I was becoming more transactional, asking questions like What can this lead to? Is this worth my time? Can this person help me? That’s not how I built my career, and it’s not how I want to build the next chapter of it.
A recent experience with my friend Anh pulled me back on course, and it forced me to ask myself a question I wasn’t expecting: Can I allow somebody else to be useful to me?
Being genuinely connected has very little to do with how many people we can reach. It has a lot to do with who we’re willing to let in.
[Read: Nathan Was a Terrible Prospect →]
A Conversation About Reinvention, Burnout & Being Seen
I also joined Dr. Deanna Rose on The Wellthy Life podcast. Deanna approaches performance from an angle I rarely discuss: the nervous system. Her premise is simple. You can’t sustain high performance if your nervous system is stuck in overdrive.
That took us to some interesting places: getting laid off, reinvention, winning an Emmy for nothing I saw myself ever doing, writing my first book – Validated, and why so much of what we call social media has become broadcasting instead of connection.
It went somewhere different than the typical marketing or leadership interview.
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch…
There is still serious work happening. I’m starting a series of conversations with CHROs and other senior executives around something I call Executive Invisibility Risk™.
Here’s the basic question: What happens when someone Googles one of your senior leaders and finds almost nothing that demonstrates what that person actually knows?
For years, we’ve treated executive visibility as mostly a marketing issue.
I’m increasingly convinced we’ve been measuring the wrong risk.
Read: The Hidden Revenue Leak Nobody Is Measuring →
Maybe it’s the next book. There’s that word again. Maybe
One Last Thought From Scotland
Maybe that’s what September has been about for me. Attention. Where I put it, who I give it to, and what I allow to take it from me.
Fourteen days with my phone mostly disconnected reminded me that being connected and being online aren’t remotely the same thing. Relationships reminded me that not everything needs to become a transaction. Deanna reminded me that constantly pushing forward has a cost. And maybe reminded me that I don’t have to know exactly how everything turns out.
Sometimes there’s value in leaving room for the pauses: for boredom, for conversation, for relationships, for possibility, for hope.
And, apparently, for convincing myself one more damn time that…
THIS IS OUR YEAR™!
And as always —
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Knox Keith is a strategic advisor, Emmy-winning storyteller, and the creator of the Digital Validation™ framework. He helps executives and organizations build credibility that earns trust and creates real opportunity.
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