Eating last and the oxygen mask

Imagine the scene: after a misspent youth of considerable privilege, you’ve made the dubious decision to set off on a treacherous trek to walk across Antarctica. You’ve done this because that’s what intrepid gentlemen like you (with too much money and not enough people telling them to maybe just go for a walk in the woods or play the piano or do something which might improve the world rather than just improve the stories you can regale people with at the gentlemen’s club in bustling London town) tend to do at this particular point in history.

Yes that’s right, it’s the start of the 20th century, and people are doing quite a lot of stuff like this, putting flags in places a very long way away from where they (or indeed the flags) are from.

And wouldn’t you know it: because you’ve ignored the very sensible advice (given to you by people who know more about this than you do) that you really shouldn’t go at this time of year, instead going with the arrogance of aristocracy and the impetuosity of youth, as it turns out you haven’t even got anywhere near where you’re meant to be going to start the trek… and you’re already stuck in the ice.

Oh, and it’s not just you, either. It’s you and a bloody big boat and a crew of around 80 men. Men who are all, like you, going to die here unless you do something about it.

The more historically aware of you will have gathered here that this is the start of one of the great stories of leadership, as it happens,

It’s a story I knew vaguely but got to know in more detail on the back of the teaching of the inimitable Nancy Koehn, a Harvard professor who I had my own privilege of learning from over a number of years of a leadership programme I was on; the story of Earnest Shackleton, and his ill-fated trip in the winter of 1912 which ultimately got him famous anyway, just not for any of the reasons he was thinking.

As you may have deduced from my slightly sarcastic and mocking tone, I have a sense that I would have found Mr Shackleton something of a “dick”, Over-indulged, overbearing and hugely over-confident in his own overwhelming brilliance.

Yet when the shit hit the proverbial fan [not sure which proverb if I’m honest, but you get the idea] I can’t deny he did step up. He and a small group of his closest crew made the decision to take a boat about the length of a full size snooker table and travel across one of the most treacherous straights of water in the world.

Of course, on a small boat they could only take a small amount of food, because they didn’t know how long it would take and anywhere there was next to nothing left for the others. So along the way, they almost starved.

And in this maelstrom, this crucible of leadership, the self-important, even self-obsessed Shackleton turned into the archetypal servant leader. To the extent that when they did eat, he waited till everyone else had eaten, and had a little bit of what was left over.

If you’ve ever heard the phrase “leaders eat last”, there’s a good chance that this is where that originally came from.

It’s since been taken up by “thought-leaders” and wrapped up into the concept of the ‘servant leader’, and championed in an effort to leave behind (at very long last) the old, outdated idea of leader who ate first, took most of what was available, and left the little people the scraps.

In my view, that’s a “good thing”. We’ve all worked for the old style of leader in our time: a leader who has believed their own hype and has somehow managed to get to a position where they are responsible for the working lives of a load of people… whilst not actually giving a single fuck about people. I’ve never quite understood how people like this get to positions of leadership, when for me leadership has always been less about the leading and more about understanding and inspiring the people whom you’re hoping will follow (in one sense or another).

I once had a boss who would say “don’t stay too late” as they swanned out of the office on time, every day, leaving me and my fellow menial workers looking down the barrel of another evening of emails and amends.

I once had a boss who started a big meeting with “I know we say that this is a people-first business… but we all know that the money really comes first, am I right?”

I once had a boss who would tell people how loyalty was their biggest weakness, but never hesitated to throw people under the proverbial bus [again, no actual proverb I’m aware of] to protect their reputation or cover up their crackpot ideas that hadn’t worked.

Perhaps I’ve inadvertently landed on something here… these were the “boss” rather than a leader. People didn’t follow them through any sense of shared values or direction. People worked for them because they were the boss.

Bosses eat first. Leaders eat last.

And yet…

I’m sitting on another plane as I write this bit. Another trip over from our little island to a much bigger expanse of land, which takes next to no time and yet takes me to a place where people speak a different language and use different money and drive on the wrong side of the road.

And just like every other time, right before we took off the flight attendant people stood in the middle of the aisle in their flight attendant costumes and did the little flight attendant synchronised routine with the exits [could be behind you, remember] and the lights on the floor bit and the life vest and that bit about the oxygen mask…

“Always put on your own oxygen mask before helping others.”

We’ve all heard it so many times that it almost ceases to have true meaning and just becomes a phrase that we hear but done engage with, like “always read the label” or “see terms and conditions for details”. Yet at the same time we all understand the sense of it. If you don’t put your oxygen mask on, you might not have the oxygen you need to breathe, and then you won’t be helping anyone at all. Including yourself.

So how do we pull these obviously disparate, seemingly credible, yet mutually exclusive ideas together? Where do you find the happy medium between eating last and the oxygen mask?

Perhaps it’s to do with understanding the difference between food and oxygen, in these two metaphorical instances.

Without oxygen, you won’t make it to mealtime. It doesn’t matter who’s eating what if haven’t put in the basic step of “breathing” in place in order to be in a position to manage the fact that there might be a food shortage.

So whilst the ‘eating last’ is about others, the ‘oxygen mask’ is about your relationship with yourself, or indeed your ‘self’ [see what I did there?].

I’ve not always been good at my own oxygen. On occasion I’ve been too busy thinking about other people’s oxygen, or food, or whatever, to breathe or eat myself. It’s left me burnt out and shattered more than once. I’ve had to work really hard to learn about where my oxygen comes from, and I’ve had to be really disciplined to make sure I get enough of it. Because I know that it’s all very well making sure people are fed and watered but I’m not going to be any use to anyone if I’m lying on the floor with my lips turning blue.

I get oxygen from spending time with my wife, making each other laugh or just catching each other’s gaze at the right moment. I get oxygen from hanging out with one or other of my sons, sharing ideas and jokes and stories as they grow bigger and brighter every day.

I get oxygen from seeing live music, from walking in the woods with my dog, from going to my yoga therapy or to the gym, from laughing foolishly with my friends. I get oxygen from playing the piano (badly) and even from writing this blog every now and then.

And I know now that I have to get enough of these things, in whatever combination they may come up, before I go off into the world to be the leader who eats last.

So let me ask you this:

Do you know what your oxygen is?

Do you know the things that feed your soul, and give you the emotional and psychological energy to face whatever needs facing?

I think you probably do, if you think about it. I think you could probably put together a list that covers a bunch of them without much thought, actually.

Maybe it’s gardening, or building things. Maybe it’s making marmalade. Maybe it’s walking quietly by a body of water.

I’ll tell you what it isn’t though: it’s not scrolling through social media, or watching mindless TV programmes. As much as you may like it, it’s not even binge-watching the latest mini-series. These are the defaults, and whilst they might be low-energy-enjoyable, the things that really fill your soul aren’t the default things in life. They’re the things you know you get a lot from but perhaps don’t do as much as you could because you’re in default mode, going day to day with a million things to think about and a million other things waiting in the wings.

And here I find myself in the position where I’m a little conflicted. Because as much as I feel genuinely honoured by the fact that anyone reads this stuff [let alone someone as amazing as you] I also know that this isn’t really your oxygen, either.

So do me a favour. When you get to the end of this bit, close this link. Put down your phone or tablet or computer or whatever you’re reading this on, and take a moment to think about your oxygen, and what one thing you’re going to do tomorrow to get the big, deep, satisfying breath that you didn’t know you needed until you’ve done it.

I’ll do the same, actually. We can compare notes next time we talk.

All together now…

B R E A T H E

[p.s. First off, I thought I just suggested you should go off for oxygen, not stick around here to read a pointless post-script? But hey, if you’re ignoring that advise until you’re goddam good and ready (and I celebrate that stubborn refusal to do as you’re told, you little rebel you), let me bring you into a little secret.
When writing these pieces I usually add the title last, as often I’m not really 100% sure exactly what I’m going to write about until it comes out of my brain box, down some internal wiring and into my fingers, onto the keyboard and then through some more wires onto the screen, and then (and I think I’m right here) into some magic and then a cloud and then onto your screen, into your eyes and right up to your brain box. I get the sense that this isn’t exactly shocking to any of my regular readers as, let’s be honest, it always comes across as less of a planned piece of journalism and more like a stream of consciousness from someone with ADHD. Which, of course, it is.
But anyway, writing the title to this little piece, I was really quite pleased with the not-quite-rhyme of it, and I’m thinking that if I ever get round to releasing an album of music so original, so genre-defying, that it completely changes the whole trajectory of music as we know it, I might use this as the title of that debut album. You heard it here first. Please don’t let anyone else know if they will definitely nick the idea and I’ll know it was you. Don’t worry, i promise I’ll let you know when you can pre-order.
Right, now I mean it – off you go. Oxygen time.]