You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.
Robin Williams
As flammable compounds go natural gas is relatively safe and easy to manage. The fuel-to-air ratio must be held in a tight 5-15% range for combustion, which makes it an ideal heating/cooking fuel. Keep the gas pure in the pipes and you’ve rendered it harmless through the home, …. unless there is leak.
A 2010 natural gas explosion in San Bruno, California, just south of San Francisco, registered as a magnitude 1.1 earthquake and killed 8 people. The violent explosion left a crater 167 feet across and 40 feet deep. Thirty-eight homes were completely destroyed, a neighborhood in ruins. Safe until it’s not.
The biggest challenge with natural gas leaks is the smell; there isn’t one, so mercaptan is added for detection. A whiff of that rotten egg aroma demands a call-to-action response of 3 possibilities:
1. You find the leak and fix the problem.
2. You think about fixing the problem.
3. You pretend you don’t smell the problem.
How do you respond?
Some Act, Some Dream, Some Ignore
Big dreams and grand aspirations swirl around us like gas fumes in a kitchen. Do you smell them? Detection is a good Step 1, but acknowledgement requires action and that may destabilize the natural order of things. What we do, where we live, and whom we love. We work hard to create stability around the big tent poles in our lives. Why shake things up with the pursuit of audacious ambitions?
Most all of us enjoy imperfect life situations. We imagine tweaking this or that, or perhaps even undertaking a total reboot on the whats, wheres, and with whoms. It’s easy to ignore these nags when distracted by the daily noise and minutia, but in calmer moments those unsettling fumes of discomfort and uncertainty can envelop us like gas leaking from a stove-top pilot light.
A whiff of that uncertainty demands a call-to-action of 3 possibilities:
1. You set a plan and fix the discomfort.
2. You sit around and dream about fixing the discomfort.
3. You pretend that there is no discomfort.
Inaction is an option, but left unattended a San Bruno-scale explosion in your life is inevitable with one good spark, and with each passing day, month, or year the magnitude of that release swells. It’s best, then, to at least acknowledge our discomforts with how things are and (1) put a plan in place to resolve them, or (2) accept that there is no resolution and soldier on. I have come across precious few challenges that can’t be solved with honesty, respect, and grit.
Some Leap
With the incredibly inventive Professor Adrian Johnson I led an INSEAD workshop with CERN last week. (My first travel in 18 months; it felt great.) We were looking for ways to create commercial value for some of the many, many innovations that are generated by the world’s largest particle accelerator in the course of doing their astounding work in fundamental physics. (The internet was invented at CERN many moons ago; the Higgs Boson discovered there more recently; taking on the really big questions about the universe and the quantum-verse are what they do best.) INSEAD Executive MBAs took on the challenge of building business models for creating startups or transferring CERN knowledge to existing organizations. It was great fun.
The workshop lit sparks in more than a few of the INSEAD participants. Most are enjoying solid, high-paying careers in consulting, banking, or other hard sought-after positions around the world. Abandoning that for the uncertainty (failure, most likely) of launching a startup is a major life consideration, especially with a family. What you do, where you live, and whom you love. Career pivots like this can put all of that into play. Very risky. Yet sparks were lit and there we were, discussing next steps.
Some people smell the gas of disquietude and take a daring leap. There was a lot of volatile gas floating around INSEAD that week. I love setting that ablaze.
One midlife advantage is that major pivots become less risky. Our core careers are winding down, the kids are moving out, and we start to be restless for a shakeup and grand adventure. At midlife we have the resources, network, wisdom, and liberty to pursue those audacious dreams that get us all sparkly; to risk failure, but learn so much about ourselves through the journey.
Through my Interprize Group we offer Life Leap Workshops that help you think through the next grand ambition in your life, and how to organize and pursue it. The workshop has been completely redesigned over the Covid recess and a test of the new-and-improved model will be offered in Provence in October, … at no charge! If I’ve lit a spark email me for more info at bill@interprizegroup.com. Hope to see you then.