Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up – by Jerry Colonna
Date read: 3/4/20. Recommendation: 9/10.

This one surprised me in all of the best ways. And it was a book that I just happened to read at the right time. Reboot focuses on self-inquiry and challenges us to consider the question: “What do I believe to be true about work, leadership, and how we may live our lives?” Colonna emphasizes that better humans make better leaders. But first, you must learn to lead yourself. That means looking at the reality of all that we are–not fixing blame to ourselves, but understanding with clarity what’s really happening in our lives. Colonna discusses his ideas on personal growth, stillness, purpose, self-worth and self-inquiry. The book also includes dozens of thought-provoking journaling invitations. Pick this one up when you feel like you’re at a point where you’re ready to have difficult conversations with yourself.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Focuses on the question: “What do I believe to be true about work, leadership, and how we live our lives?” Better humans make better leaders. 

Writing:
“Write the story that you were always afraid to tell. I swear to you that there is magic in it.” Dorothy Allison

“To speak of such things without being willing to reveal your own actualization, your own journey to adulthood, would be hollow and empty.” JC

“To live well is to see wisely and to see wisely is to tell stories.” Pádraig Ó Tuama

“I am living with aliveness when I write, regardless of whether my words are published.” JC

Self-inquiry:
“Slowing down the movie of our lives, seeing the frames and how they are constructed, reveals a different way to live, a way to break old patterns, to see experiences anew through radical self-inquiry.” JC

Trace forward to reframe these beliefs. But choosing a new path forward requires an awareness and knowing. 

“Listening opens that which pain has closed.” JC

“Listen and don’t fix.” JC

“To be free, each of us must come to understand the causes and conditions of our childhood. For these gave rise to the rules by which we, as adults, live.” JC
^Rules that kept you safe as a kid, like stay small, don’t stand out, careful now, don’t make mistakes.

Strong back, open heart:
“The back of the warrior is strengthened by knowledge of knowing the right thing to do. The soft, open heart is made resilient by remembering who you are, what you have come through, and how those things combine to make you unique as a leader.” JC

“Learning to lead yourself is hard because it requires us to look at the reality of all that we are—not to fix blame on ourselves but to understand with clarity what is really happening in our lives.” JC

“The call to lead well is a call to be brave and to say true things.” JC

Growth:
“Growth is painful; that’s why so few choose to do it.” JC

The goal is to buy low and sell high, not buy lowest and sell highest.

“We forge our truest identity by putting our heads into the mouths of the scariest demons, the realities of our lives.” JC

“When we fail to grow, we hold back others.” JC

Stillness:
“The forest knows / Where you are. You must let it find you.” David Wagoner

What are you not saying that needs to be said?

“Slow down. Stand still. Breathe. Let the first find you. Then you can begin to ask yourself the hardest questions: Who am I? What do I believe about the world? What do success and failure mean to me (and not to everyone else)?” JC

“When we stand still, we run the risk of remember who we are. When we stop the spinning, we run the risk of confronting the fears, the demos who have chased us all our lives.” JC

“You might as well show up, as you are.” 

Jerry came to this realization during a conversation with his son when his son noticed something was off. Son said, “Dad, you might as well tell me what’s going on, because if you don’t. I’m going to make shit up and it’s gonna be negative about me.”

What’s within your control?
“All beings own their own karma, their happiness or unhappiness depends on their actions, not my wishes for them.” Sharon Salzberg

The path towards purpose:
“The path to a purpose-grounded life is messy, muddy, rock-strewn, and slippery.” JC

Those in their 20s hold themselves to an unrealistic standard of a non-messy, straightforward unfolding of their lives. This is not how things play out. 

“Discovering your purpose, feeling your way into that aliveness, requires clambering up rocky cliff faces, leaping chasms, tucking oneself deep into clefts and deeper and deeper into the Earth. It demands the willingness to dip into the crack of the tree as well as the bravery to step out of it.” JC

“Aliveness comes from living a life of personal integrity in which our outer actions match our inner values, beliefs, wishes, and dreams.” JC
^Similar to Naval Ravikant’s, “Self-esteem is just the reputation that we have with ourselves.”

“I can’t think of a sadder way to die than with the knowledge that I never showed up in this world as who I really am. I can’t think of a more graced way to die than with the knowledge that I showed up here as my true self, the best I know how, able to engage life freely and lovingly because I had become fierce with reality.” Parker Palmer