Let’s start this post off with a little thought exercise.
Think back, if you can, to a problem you had in the past (or maybe currently experiencing) on your property. Bring it into your mind and make it as real as it needs to be for you to really grasp on to it. Think about the analyzing, the rumination, the real “chewing” of this issue. You come up with lots of possible answers, and maybe even settle on what you thought was a viable solution. But then, out of the blue, the real answer revealed itself and changed everything.
It doesn’t really matter the nature of the problem. It could have been agronomic, irrigation related, staff issues, or even problems with ownership or upper management. Bottom line is that you settled on a reason or an apparent solution that made sense to you as a superintendent, but then a pin dropped. It might have been through a conversation with a sister or brother in turf that showed you another angle. It
might have been via an agronomist or consultant. Or, it might have simply been a personal epiphany that revealed itself when you were engaged in something completely unrelated. However you ended up there, your entire perspective on the solution to this problem changed.
With knowledge we gain awareness and with awareness increased acceptance. Truly the journey is the pathway to increasing all three in our lives. And underpinning it all is the practice of self compassion and kindness to others.
Let’s take this thought experiment one step further. What if, during the course of evaluating this new revelation, it caused you to rethink everything you knew about this issue up until this point? This new perspective has shown you a completely different approach to not only this singular issue but has caused you to rethink many other philosophies that you held as sacrosanct in your career. You’ve not only solved this problem but also brought into question everything you thought you knew about a great many things.
Now you may think I am being a bit dramatic about this exercise, but I did so to make a point. Sometimes in one’s career and life, a seemingly harmless event can occur that makes you look back and question all that you thought was true. It can be a very uncomfortable feeling to have the rug pulled out from underneath you, but simultaneously there is also a comfort in the realization that all the puzzle
pieces just fit a little better now . . . instead of having to force them into place.
Within the sphere of my career, the biggest example of this type of titanic shift occurred when I learned the secret wisdom of maintaining bentgrass putting surfaces. Reading the STRI Disturbance Theory articles back in the early 2000s, speaking with the likes of Frank Rossi and Chris Tritabaugh (Hazeltine National) about their thoughts on the topic, learning about the practices down in Australia, it all came together to inform how I maintained greens moving forward. And I like to think it worked out for the best.
In my personal experience (and the impetus for this post to begin with) the most impactful example of this idea came with my more recent diagnosis of epilepsy. I wrote about this diagnosis a while back ( A Tipping Point) when I was just new to the idea. Since then, it’s been a slow and steady process of adjustment and shifting how I approach my daily life. But the biggest change for me internally has been how I look back at things.
Over the course of my life, the larger events and transitions have been difficult. Lots of stress, fatigue and simply pushing too hard in spite of it all. And to a tee, all of these moments have included some type of health issues. It involved many different diagnosis and medical opinions and over time I just accepted their ideas and moved on. But after my most recent episode and visiting a very well-respected neurologist who was finally able to shed more light on all of these events in my life, everything started to make much more sense to me. These stressful times precipitated the seizure activity and that’s what I was dealing with. I didn’t always have full blown seizures like you might think, but much of what I experienced were simply alternating gradients of activity and none of it enjoyable.
It doesn’t really matter the nature of the problem. It could have been agronomic, irrigation related, staff issues, or even problems with ownership or upper management. Bottom line is that you settled on a reason or an apparent solution that made sense to you as a superintendent, but then a pin dropped.
Now, as I learn to live with this new (but simultaneously) old diagnosis, every now and then a situation from my past will jump into my consciousness and I will suddenly realize why things turned out how they did. Having this new perspective and information has created a whole new paradigm from which I see things. It has shifted my entire internal view of my life and is allowing me to move forward with a new way of living. It’s not always a walk in the park, but overall knowing what I know now (at age 53) has been rather comforting versus the harmful lack of proper care that I incurred during my entire adult life due to medical professionals who failed to spot the real problem.
With knowledge we gain awareness and with awareness increased acceptance. Truly the journey is the pathway to increasing all three in our lives. And underpinning it all is the practice of self compassion and kindness to others.
So, if there has been something gnawing at you within the sphere of your job or in your personal life, experiment with opening yourself to alternative points of view. Seek out ideas that may push you out of your comfort zone and practice the ability to let go of long held assumptions. You never know exactly what you might find along the way.
Thanks so much for reading.
