The Cadent Life
Habituating Soul Leadership
By Emily Sanders
Gavin Turk, Time and Space (for Joseph Kosuth), 2015
Galerie Krinzinger
When the horn blared to kick off the race, I felt confident. I was reasonably active, dabbling in a variety of athletics, and I knew the most important muscle is the mind; whatever physical muscles I lacked I could overcome through determination. I didn’t doubt I’d hit the finish line among my group of friends.
As I sucked wind not even halfway through the race, though I attempted to feign vigor to maintain an image of fitness, I had to face the grim truth that walking was my best option, at least for a solid stretch. I had to hang back. I finished, but with a sobering smack of reality. I had not done well. I should have trained.
This happens in our leadership lives, doesn’t it?
Not every day is race day. We have to attend to urgent matters, taking them as they come. We sail forward on the belief that when a big moment arises that calls for a higher level of leadership, we’ll rise to the occasion with mettle and grit; we’ll figure it out amidst the storm.
And yet, what could be our finest moment will actually find us sucking wind, without the resources to match our resolve. We’ll be unfit. Unready. Unless we habituate a plan—daily—to prepare for both our most trying moments and greatest opportunities.
There are few things less sexy than discipline. File it under “boring truths,” but the path to most achievements in life is the compound effect of consistent effort.
Karl Martin’s new book, The Cave, The Road, The Table and the Fire, is based in how these spaces—lived into daily—prepare us, over time, for a deeper kind of leadership:
In the morning, we take time in the Cave; this is when we anchor ourselves in what’s True—of ourselves and the world around us
Throughout the day, as we’re on the Road, we must Bravely focus ourselves on our purpose
At mealtime, we gather with others around a Table, and when we do so with loving intention, we grow in Kindness
Before the day is out, we cast out our Curious reflections alongside the Fire, to head into the next day a bit better
These actions are quite meaningless if done once in a while. They’re massively transformative if done daily.
We will not be True unless we practice being the truest version of ourselves, daily.
We will not be Brave in our most critical moments if we’re not versed in daily bravery.
We will not instinctively choose Kindness when our heart rate rises and frustration sets in, unless we’ve trained ourselves toward a gentle and gracious spirit in everyday moments.
We will forever be stuck in our tired paradigms unless we’ve created grooves of voracious Curiosity over time.
To be a Soul Leader—living out True, Brave, Kind and Curious—we must be, in Karl’s words—fractal. A fractal is something consistent no matter where you cut it; a never-ending pattern where “the micro mirrors the macro.” The mini veins in a leaf repeat the big veins; a broccoli floret is made up of smaller broccoli florets. No matter how you encounter it, the same elements are present.
As leaders, we too should be so True, so consistent, that no matter when or where people encounter us, there’s a measured, reliable nature that brings stability to a whole environment. Many in the leadership world call this high executive function, marked by control over emotions. At Arable, we call this the outcome of a cadent life, in which we’ve routinized paths to wisdom and submitted to the rhythms that actually help regulate mood and how we act.
Most of our lives are far from that of monks, although some of their rhythms are worth considering. At a monastery, there is a dramatic subservience to bells. A breakfast bell. A work bell. A prayer bell. When the bell rings, they’re to stop whatever they’re doing to attend to the purpose of the bell; if they’re cutting potatoes, they stop mid-cut, if they’re writing, they stop short of crossing the “t” in an act of holy obedience. The bell has tolled. It’s time for the next discipline to commence, whether they feel like it or not.
And perhaps that’s the point.
It’s a rebellion. A counter-resistance to the in-the-moment desires of the short-game and an investment in the long-game. A surrender in support of their soul.
In his book, The War of Art, Steven Pressfield describes Resistance as the invisible force that gets in the way of doing what you are meant to do. It’s universal, or as Pressfield says, ″If you’ve got a head, you’ve got a voice of Resistance inside it.” This is the voice of avoidance, of annoyance, of “I’d-just-rather-not” lethargy (it can also be the voice of fear).
When monks hear the bell and change gears on a dime, they are bucking the Resistance.
Similarly, every time we follow through on disciplines we’ve committed to, especially when we’d just rather not, we’re winning a battle against Resistance.
“Procrastination,” Pressfield asserts, “is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize. We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.’” Over and over. We have a proclivity for letting ourselves off the hook. Of getting into passive rather than active grooves.
Resistance is a force that keeps us from getting going. Delayed results keep us from keeping going.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear writes, "Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound and turn into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years." Yes, years. Multiple trips around the sun requires patience of another sort.
We may try taking time in the Cave each morning for most of January. And when we just don’t feel that different, that snooze button looks all the more attractive.
And so, we need to trust the process.
This now-pop-culture phrase first took shape as the iconic mantra of the Philadelphia 76ers in 2015 under the leadership of general manager, Sam Hinkie. He was willing to welcome short-term losses in order to get to long-term victories won through methodical process improvements, a strategy fans hated…until they couldn’t help but love it. They rose up the ranks, taking the top spot in the Eastern Conference in 2021, years after the process-trusting began.
Pablo Torre, headlining ESPN sportscaster at the time, became an ardent advocate of the “Trust the Process” rally cry (TTP, for the most hardcore fans). Remarking how it took off, he said:
"First, it represents a big idea, and there is no grander tension in sports—no, life—than the one between process and results. Second, it's both desperate and defiant, a phrase you might repeat to yourself while hiding inside a tank taking heavy artillery fire. Third, and most important, it is super chant-able."
We might be apt to chant it, we might even be apt to believe it, but do we do it?
Are we trusting the process by living the process?
Recently, I had a new race on the books—and a new strategy. Success couldn’t be a matter of the mind this time around. I needed a training plan, something turn-key that told me exactly what to do and when (no surprise, there’s an app for that). Three times a week, mixing intervals with long and short runs, I followed the plan to a tee for 10 weeks, regardless of if I felt like it (I rarely did).
This time, as the starting horn sounded, my confidence came from some foundation of reality. I was ready, and as the miles stacked atop one another, without fatigue or labored breathing, feeling strong, my lesson was learned: we are fools to ever think we can race well without putting in the pre-work; we will be unwise in our most important leadership moments unless we cultivate disciplines that methodically grow our leadership toward wisdom.
Trust the process.
Be patient.
Quite often, when people desire change or growth, they make big, dramatic swings to enact it. Instead of running for one hour, they run for two. Instead of cutting back daily calories slightly, they cut them in half. And while this swell of effort does produce satisfying results at first, science tells us it's hard to sustain. We’re much better off adopting small daily habits that are doable, and simply sticking with them.
This image from Darren Hardy’s Compound Effect is emblazoned in my mind.
Looking at this chart reminds me of these words from C.S. Lewis: “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when we look back everything is different.”
While there isn’t any magic to 27 months exactly (2.25 years), it’s a fair timeframe for how long transformational change will take. And with matters of the soul, we can expect it to take longer.
The time is going to pass anyway. What are you doing today (and the day after and the day after that) to ensure 2.25 years from now you’re a better leader? What are you doing now to be equipped with reflexive wisdom for the storm you’ll inevitably need to lead through?
[Worth noting: for quite a long time, the idea that it takes 21 days to form a habit was passed around as “proven.” More recent research has dismantled this number and presented a squishier timeframe: it really just depends on what the habit is. It might take a month, six months, or a year. In any case, expect it will take a long time, so when you’re six weeks in, feeling lots of resistance and lacking results, you’ll know it’s normal. And trust that the resistance you feel will dissipate; the grooves formed through neuroplasticity will reward you through your habits becoming more automatic, especially if they’re small and not big swings.]
So, where to begin?
The four spaces–the Cave, the Road, the Table, and the Fire–can help you be fractal. These are the rhythms to help you rise to your fullest potential.
In the words of Karl Martin:
“If you want to grow in knowledge you might go to a university or a library; physical fitness might be honed in a gym.
If you want to learn to lead yourself; to fix your character and the character of your time; if you want to learn to lead from a deeper place – from your soul – there are places to work on that too. These are places many of us go to anyway each day. You may have a ‘cave’. You set out on a road every day. You sit at your table and reflect at a fire.
But if you rush through these places, distracted, or stumble aimlessly, will you become who you want to be?”
If you aim—methodically, with discipline and the weight of your full presence—toward who you most want to be, this new year could well be a defining year for your leadership.
Try:
10 minutes in the Cave each morning, anchoring yourself in how you need to show up that day
A mid-day alarm along the Road to call your brain back to purpose
One connecting question every day around the Table
10 minutes of time by the Fire to reflect on what you want to take into tomorrow and what you want to leave in today
Pick your plan. Train. Become fractal. Buck resistance. Be patience. Trust the process. (Chant it, if you must.) Cadence is the way of Soul Leadership.
