Question
How might deep work help us foster greater resilience?
Participants
Lisa
Ben
Thompson
Introduction
This question emerged from our earlier dialogue, Elevating Voice. In that dialogue Lisa introduced the idea of Deep Work, one that we expanded to a trivium that we are calling The Deep Blue that includes both deep listening and deep learning. We sensed that this issue of walking into the deep blue was important for fostering resilience and strengthening creative courage. The challenge, however, is living into this understanding.
Lisa
Our work in the education field is people-centered and often task-oriented. It can be very exhausting and often leaves little time for personal attending.
It takes intentional commitment to provide space in the day, or week, to allow for personal reflection and deep work. Often this time is extremely challenging to find. However, it has become evident that setting time aside to think, read, and reflect nurtures a part of the soul that is longing for attention. It is this effort that allows you to get through the hard stuff, the mundane stuff, and the emotional stuff. It fosters and builds individual resiliency.
Thompson
I am reminded of the 7th Habit 
of Stephen Covey's _7 Habits of Highly Effective People_: Sharpening the Saw.
>"We must never become too busy sawing to take time to sharpen the saw."
The importance of this habit was told by this story: >“What are you doing?” you ask. “I’m sawing down a tree,” he says. > “How long have you been at it?” You ask. > “Two or three hours so far,” he says, sweat dripping from his chin. > “Your saw looks dull,” you say. “Why don’t you take a break and sharpen it?” > “I can’t. I’m too busy sawing,” is his reply.
Finding time for the deep blue – where there is deep work that allows for deep listening and deep learning, is life giving. Learning emerges from that space that makes us smarter, wiser, allowing us to not only be more effective but more creatively empowered in how we show up each day for ourselves and others.
We want this for our children. We want this for our students. So we must have the courage to model it for them in ourselves, for if we do, the waves will ripple far beyond us.
Ben
I have been thinking about leaders and leadership that seems significantly different from the way Lisa leads and the way I am trying to lead. Allowing ourselves to just keeping sawing is a way of maintaining the status quo, I think. To extend the metaphor, without pausing to sharpen the saw we don't take the time to ask, "Is this the right tree to be cutting down? Should we even be cutting down trees? How does this align or not with our aspirations?"
When we just keep sawing, we keep getting what we've been getting. If we can pause to sharpen, we might get something else.
Sometimes I see leaders who are trying to get really good at sawing. I think I want to get really good at sharpening.
This may be another way of describing the difference between technical leadership and adaptive leadership.
Thompson
Deep work, deep listening, deep learning. We sit quietly with that which touches deep meaning with us. Deep meaning that reaches down into a space we sense but are not capable of fully understanding – that unknown of ourselves within ourselves.
We are calling this space the deep blue – a mysterious ocean within. But we sense that the deeper we go, the higher we can reach into the blue of the sky above – toward the deep blue above where we are able to creatively imagine in new ways. That which we have come to know as the Blue Plane.
Perhaps the story we seek to live into is not only about increasing our resilience. Perhaps it is also how might we better unleash our creative imagination and the creative imagination of those around us – allowing us to creatively co-create in new ways.
A resilience, then, that not only increases our capacity for surviving but also for creatively thriving.
Lisa
I attended the COSA Equity conference last week and one of the speakers, Shelly Reggiana, talked about deep listening and how it leads to the healing of self and others. RESILIENCE. It was very affirming to the conversation we are engaged in. Deep listening has the potential to impact our lives, or work, our relationships, and our way of being in profound ways. I wonder how do we build this important skill into the rushed and hurried lives? And how do we teach this skill to our teachers and students? The more I learn the more I think it is critical to leave space in our worlds to engaging in The Deep Blue. Not just for our own resilience, but to cultivate that kind of resilience in others.
Engaging in deep listening, deep thinking, and deep learning - doing deep work, walking into the Deep Blue - seems to be almost essential to survive in our current world. These skills seem crucial to share with our students in order to prepare them for their future and how to maintain healthy, creative, and fulfilling lives.