Shawn Ellis argues that clarity and flexibility work together when navigating change. He moved to Nashville at 17 with a clear plan, but that vision became foggy over time. A futurist once said the future will reward clarity but punish certainty, a distinction Ellis uses to show why rigid plans fail.
Chapters
It's okay to have these desires. It's okay to say, hey, this isn't right, something needs to change. But how do I, how do I do that? I've been trying to make this change. I started the year focused, like I knew exactly what I was doing and it didn't work. And that's where I realized flexibility was the word. Flexibility was what it was going to take to find a way to navigate this year. Because see, clarity, what I realized is clarity is not the same as control. Like, we can have, we can have clarity over what we want to do, who we want to become, where we want to go, but that doesn't mean we get to control all the circumstances. That doesn't mean that it's all going to unfold exactly according to plan. Like, I had, I had clarity when I moved to Nashville. I knew exactly what I was doing when I was 17 years old, but within a couple years I realized that was, that, that clarity was pretty foggy at that point. So I had to find a new way, and isn't this the way it is in life? If we went around the room, how many of you are doing exactly what you thought you would be doing when you were, let's say, 17 years old? Raise your hand if you're doing exactly what you thought you'd be doing. There's a couple hands, 3, 4 hands. The majority of us aren't though, right? Those of you who are, that's amazing. But flexibility, clarity and flexibility are like two sides of the same coin. Because what I realize, that flexibility, if you've just got flexibility, then you're just set up to wander and just roam and who knows where you'll end up. So flexibility by itself isn't enough. Clarity by itself isn't enough. Actually, just before the pandemic, I was at an event in and it was actually at the event, I was in Los Angeles, the one where I'd walked to the beach with my son. I was out there for this event, and it was an event about the future of work, and a lot of really smart people in the room, so I was taking a lot of notes. And this one futurist, when he spoke, he said, "The future will reward clarity, but will punish certainty." And what he was saying is we gotta be clear on where we're going, but we have to be flexible in how we get there.
