Author / Nathan Coumbe

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Posts by Nathan Coumbe

My mission is to learn, inform, inspire, and improve. I am a passionate teacher, an avid writer, a leader of people, and a strategic thinker. Wherever I am, whatever the work I am called to do, my goal is the same: make my little corner of the world better for everyone in it. To do this, I ask better questions and solve more interesting problems for those I serve. Think deeply. Think often. Keep exploring. Always be curious.
by Nathan Coumbe

Why Do We Say “You’re Welcome”?

When you think about it for any length of time at all, it’s utter nonsense.

“Thank you,” says your customer.

“You’re welcome,” you reply.

You’re welcome….to what? You’re welcome to ask for help again in the future? You’re welcome to more of the same?

Why aren’t people shouting, “What am I welcome to?!”

There are so many options available to us other than an automatic “You’re welcome.” The phrase is automatic and useless. I’ve always wondered why we use it.

We can say, “It was my pleasure,” implying that you genuinely enjoyed helping them. Chick-fil-A’s employees are getting it right. (And yes, I realize it’s engrained in them and automatic, much like “You’re welcome.” It may not actually be their pleasure to help me. That’s a subject for a different post.)

Or my favorite: “I’m happy to help.” When I say it, I genuinely mean it. And by saying it, I actually feel happy that I helped that person.

It’s time to do away with this nonsensical phrase and replace it with something genuine and meaningful.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

“What do I want to do when I grow up?”

We have all asked, or been asked, this question.

But it’s the the wrong one—it has multiple answers that change much too often.

Instead, ask yourself : “who do I want to be?”

How do I want to contribute?

What legacy do I want to leave when I am gone?

It might be part of what you do for a living, but it might not.

More likely, you will approach everything you do in life—your job and your personal relationships—with a new sense of wholeness and possibility.

If we start by asking the wrong question, we will never get the right answer.

But if you ask the right question, you’ll at least be on the path to the right answer.

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by Nathan Coumbe

We Are at War! (A Content War, That Is)

There is a war going on, a content war—one of which we are all a part. If you are on social media or have a smartphone, you now have a voice.

We have two choices:

We can sit on the sides and watch passively, soaking up everyone else’s content and letting it sway us one way or another.

Or we can choose to create, contribute, and add our voice to the mix and try to be heard. To change someone for the better. To make a difference however small. 

It’s true you may never be noticed. You might be drowned out by all the other voices. But doing the work is still worth it—in fact, it’s all that matters.

If we do not speak up, there is no chance that we can improve anything. And those that seek to make things worse will overtake those who want to make things better. 

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by Nathan Coumbe

Which emotions are you feeding?

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

—Jack Layton

Feelings becomes actions.

We cannot always control our emotions, but we can control our actions by choosing which feelings and emotions we feed.

We always have a choice.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Artists Pay Attention. Are You an Artist?

What does an artist do? What makes her an artist? It’s simple: she pays attention.

I think I’ve been overwhelming myself with ideas, people, information, podcasts, audiobooks— too many different inputs to count. If we want to be creative, we have to shut out the noise, turn off the devices, and start paying attention to the world around us.

Paying attention might be something as simple as going for a walk outside. Head to the park, and be fully present in the moment. 

Paying attention means smiling at the people that walk past you and watching their entire demeanor change. They walk a little taller; they smile back; they pick up their pace. A smile generates energy.

Pay attention when you walk past two women speaking to each other in Spanish. What happens when you say in their native tongue, “Hello! How are you?” They chuckle, both pleased with your willingness to try and humored by your pained accent. 

Paying attention is noticing the difference in sound a few dozen yards can make. One side of a park is dead quiet, while the other—less than a football field’s length away and located close to a busy road—is roaring with the cacophony of motorcycles and sports cars. 

When you pay attention over a few weeks’ time, you notice the subtle change in attire worn by those walking around you as social and health issues become more prevalent. 

Perhaps you’ll notice two small children, obviously strangers and of wildly different cultures, run towards each other on the playground to touch hands, embrace, and play together as if they weren’t the least bit different. Afterwards, you might realize that it’s all invented, the differences we’ve created that cause such terrible strife in our world. 

If you listen closely, you’ll notice the gurgling, deep-throated rumbling of a large vehicle puttering past behind you. You’ll hear the sounds of leaves underfoot and voices across the fence. 

So this is what it’s like to pay attention. This is what we miss with our headphones in and our phones out, heads down and eyes fixed, always distracted and never present. 

We miss the face of a Star Wars alien created by a fortuitous arrangement of knots on a pine tree. 

We miss the sheer exuberance of a child as she first lays eyes on the playground and sprints past. We miss her zigging and zagging and the father’s apology for her child’s excitement. Why does Dad feels guilty? Why should he apologize for his child doing exactly what a child should do?

This is what we miss when we fail to pay attention.

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by Nathan Coumbe

What Happens When We Don’t Think Win-Win?

Until we can believe that there is enough to go around, that each of us has the possibility to win alongside others, we cannot live effectively in an interdependent world.

Instead, we will see the world through the paradigm of scarcity. Everything becomes a competition rather than a chance for cooperation and mutual benefit.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Running Out of Ideas Isn’t the Problem

Why do we worry about running out of ideas?

Our minds are idea-making machines; we couldn’t stop them from ideation if we tried. 

So why aren’t we creating something new and publishing it every day? Why do we fail to write a blog post? Or take a photo and post it?

We do not suffer from a lack of ideas: we worry the ideas we do have aren’t good enough to show anyone else. 

Here’s the secret: they probably aren’t. Most of the ideas you think up aren’t great. They might not change the lives of thousands of people. 

But there’s a chance one might change one person. And that small chance is reason enough to put your ideas out into the world. 

by Nathan Coumbe

When Did You Last Do Only One Thing at a Time?

I have been suffering from a lot of anxiety and feelings of overwhelm for the last few days after a rather long period of lightness and contentment.

Today, while writing my morning pages, I asked myself, “What’s changed?” The answer came to me quite easily:

Noise.

I’ve been receiving too much input from too many sources this week, something I severely limited over the past month or so. The difference has been astounding.

Too much reading of too many different books; too many audiobooks and podcasts filling my ears. It has truly been information overload. 

Then I started thinking back to a simpler time, long ago before Apple Music, the Podcast app, even before we had record players or phonographs.

How It Used to Be

For most of human history, music was a live occurrence. If you wanted to listen to something, you had to physically go somewhere––a salon, an opera house, a concert on the River Thames. And when you engaged with this music, it was the only thing you did (okay, maybe you shared the latest gossip with your friends in the opera box, but you get my point).

There was no music playing in your ears while you ate dinner––unless you were wealthy enough to afford a string quartet in your dining room. You simply ate dinner—one thing at a time. About the only time you can experience that sort of focused attention in the modern world is at a movie theater, and even then, a few people will still blind everyone with their cell phones. 

For most of human history, we’ve only ever done one thing at a time because that’s all we had the technological capability to do. There was nothing in your ears filling your mind with noise. 

Now with AirPods, Beats+, and the like, we can (and usually do) fill our heads with noise 10, 12, even 14 hours a day! With the podcast app, we have dozens of voices lecturing us each day on different subjects for hours on end, rather than a few people a week at the most as it was in college. 

Social Media as News

We are bombarded with breaking news on every single website we visit, Social Media being the greatest perpetrator. No longer are Facebook or Twitter places to connect and communicate with friends: they are places you go to be inundated and overwhelmed with information, most of it trivial and irrelevant to your life.

A headline reads “Couple dies in plane crash,” and as you read, you discover it happened 2,000 miles away. While tragic for that couple and those close to them, it is irrelevant to you and serves no purpose other than to capture your click and your attention.

At the same time, it makes you feel (perhaps only subconsciously) like planes and the world at large are becoming more dangerous, when in reality, all the data shows our world is becoming safer and more peaceful every year––with the notable exception of our lovely virus and the very justified civil unrest we are experiencing today. 

It’s no wonder we feel stressed out, anxious, and overwhelmed: we cannot possibly use or act on all the knowledge and information we are accumulating. 

Do Only One Thing

Yesterday evening, while continuing to overwhelm myself with information, I came across an article by Leo Babauta entitled “Let Each Task Fill Up Your World”. My takeaway from this article is simple: if we do one thing at a time, it may seem like we are getting less done, but in reality we are doing much more than we could while otherwise distracted by multiple tasks.

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of feeling anxious and stressed out, and allowing myself to do only one thing at a time seems a pretty easy solution.

If you are listening to music, just listen to music. 

If you are reading a book, just read the book and only that book. (I might be telling myself that more than you.)

If you are eating a meal, only eat your meal! Don’t stream television, listen to a podcast, or blast music. Savor your food, and if you are with people, savor their company as well (after you finish your mouthful of food, of course). 

When was the last time you only did one thing at a time? Try it today.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Don’t Let Them Repay You

“You have not lived a perfect day, even though you have earned your money, unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

—Ruth Smeltzer

Help someone today in whatever small or grand way you can.

Don’t do it as part of your job—do it because it (and you) are good and decent.

Give the gift of service—true service—where reciprocation is not possible.

A little old lady can never put a price on being helped across the street.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Holding Others Accountable Is an Act of Respect

I am in the second week of a leadership course created by FranklinCovey based on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.*

This week’s topic is Habit 1: Be Proactive. For those of you unfamiliar with the 7 Habits, the first habit is about personal responsibility. It posits that we are the creative force in our own lives. We can choose how we respond to stimuli in the world, and these choices drastically alter our results.

One statement this morning stood out more than others:

“Holding people to the responsible course is not demeaning; it is affirming.”

—Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

We show respect when we refuse to let others blame circumstances for their situations. Holding others responsible tells them “you are where you are because of the choices you’ve made.” 

At the same time, we are communicating another message:

“You can make choices now that can lead you to a better situation.”

Of course, our environmental factors must be taken into account. Outside, uncontrollable forces definitely influence our lives. Our upbringing, sex, gender, or socioeconomic status can make things easier or harder. But they do not determine our lives! 

Each of us has within us what Viktor Frankl calls “the last of the human freedoms.” We can choose our response to any stimulus. It may not seem like much to you, but this idea was incredibly liberating to me. 

“Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.”

Show another person respect. Let them know they have the power to choose. 

When you choose, you change things.

*If you want to level up your leadership skills, and earn an industry-recognized certification in the process, check out FranklinCovey’s LeaderU courses at leaderu.us.

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