Lee Anderson @champagnekeef - Twitter Profile

I have a confession to make: I used to hate public speaking. My palms got sweaty, my voice choked up and I always thought about that time in college when I had to give a presentation, got up at the front of the room and literally blanked. The whole class stared at me. I was up there for 3 minutes, but it felt like 3 years. That experience was brutal. A top 2 embarrassing life moment for me. But what I’m most gracious for is instead of letting me fail and not take anything away from the experience, my professor pulled me aside after class and shared a phrase with me that I keep on my desk to this day: “When the going gets rough, you want to be in the Eye of the Storm.” At first, I’ll be honest - it made no sense to me. Think about it. A storm creates havoc. When we did hurricane drills in school growing up we were told to get as far away from the storm as possible: Move away from the windows, hide underneath the desk, sit in an isolated underground location. Why would I want to be in the eye of the storm? Isn’t that the most dangerous place to be in? Hurricanes, he explained, are made up of 3 parts: - Rain bands: curved clouds and thunderstorms that spiral away from the center - Eyewall: a ring of clouds where the strongest winds form - Eye: the hurricane’s center. The eye is surrounded by the eyewall; in the eye you are insulated from the winds; the eyewall protects you and from it you can see the sun. Interestingly, the eye of the storm is the calmest place to be. And therein lied his point. The eye of the storm is a zone of inner peace - you see the chaos around you, you’re thick in the middle of it, but you can also see the pathway to the sun. Getting to the sun isn’t necessarily easy, but you know that you can get there. The route to the eye of the storm is formed only through experience. There are no shortcuts or hacks. You have to live through moments of discomfort, pain and adversity (the rainbands and the eyewall). This is critically important because it’s in this journey of highs and lows that you learn the most about yourself. Professional athletes have this phrase that I love when they describe progression: “The game gets slower.” Lived experience translates into the speed of the game becoming more palatable - you can see all the components of the game, you understand how those components interact and you can think through the second and third order effects of moves that you make. The Eye of the Storm framework can be applied to anything in life. It has been most constructive for me when I have internally reflected and applied it to areas where I am most uncomfortable. Early in my career this was public speaking, working through conflict, and being assertive. Life is filled with uncomfortable situations. You can run away from them or you can face them head on. In my experience, the best way to progress is not to shy away from difficulty; it’s to embrace it. And for that, you need to be in the eye of the storm.