Ep 188 Resource Netting

Today we explore the idea of resource netting, a term first heard by the author Greg McKeown and then built upon by Martha Beck & poet, David Wythe.   Join us as we look at our resource rich world and the contemplative invitations for us in it.

Transcript

Resource Netting

 Hello. It's great to be with you today. I want to talk about the idea of resource netting. This idea has been popping up in multiple ways the past few weeks with people who may use different wording but have a similar idea. And so I've found in my life, when an idea appears from different sources, that it's usually worth paying attention to.

And so let me unpack what I mean by this idea of resource netting. I first heard the term from Greg McKeown, who is an author. And he talks about that we often have ideas of things we would like to do or to contribute to the world. But, as human beings, we can start to feel overwhelmed, and it can keep us stuck from taking any actual steps.

So we can end up living in an ideation phase, but then nothing ever comes of it. And we can do this for all sorts of reasons. If we don't try, then we won't face rejection. Perhaps we feel overwhelmed, and rather than working through the emotions of overwhelm, we tend to just spin in place. Maybe we can feel unsure about ourselves about our lack of resources available to us, and so we shut down.

And so he goes on to say that resource netting is looking at what we already have, who we already know, and what resources are already available to us. He used the example of fly fishing. So evidently you have these polarized glasses that you can put on, and all of a sudden you can see the fish. Now the fish were already there, but now they're visible to the eyes.

And in the same way we live in a resource rich world, those good ideas that we have usually come with some small concrete ideas that we can take action upon. And then there's something about that tiny version that can then give us momentum towards the next and the next. Now, building off this idea is another concept by Martha Beck, who's another author and thought leader.

And she describes this idea as the adjacent possible, which again is something that can happen but hasn't happened yet. But in order to see it come to fruition, she describes that there's small fragments given to various people and that we have to come together in order for fullness to be expressed.

She uses the example of the Founding Fathers in the USA who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And she said these ideas began percolating in various people, and it was when they began looking at the resources they already had, which, interestingly, in their case, was relational networks through the local coffeehouses.

She said people would go to these coffee and tea houses, and they would rub up against other people with ideas and have conversations, and from that form these important documents and leadership. And so again, this idea of resource netting is looking at what we already have. Maybe more importantly, who we already know and what resources are already available to us.

And I think this relates very much to contemplative living and I'm excited to unpack it with you. Let me pause for a minute and Chris have you weigh in on some of your thoughts about this idea.

Thank you so much for introducing me to these two terms. I have not heard the term resource netting or the, adjacent possible. But I one of the things that I really resonate with what you said is that we live in a resource rich world. And I think a lot of times I forget that, like we, there's abundance everywhere teeming, I really.

Resonated with the fly fishing analogy that, just a minor thing of putting on these polarized glasses allows us to see what's already there. And, I think in my own life, I can get bogged down with all the details that are like 10 steps down the road and I don't see what's in front of me now.

And so I really appreciate you. Bringing this to light. I think it's a very rich topic and worth delving into.

Yeah. I like that too. And I, I think lately I've been reflecting a little bit on this. It's actually a passage from the Bible where it talks about asking God for wisdom, who gives generously to all, and just really trusting that there's enough wisdom out there for me. And so if I'm facing a decision I can tap into wisdom.

Lately I've been on this health journey of trying to improve different areas of my health and really listening to wisdom that my body and other sources in my life have to speak to me. And I'm finding just such an abundance of what's available to me. I have these people, I have these educational resources, I have past experiences with different things that I can tap into that are all part of my resource netting to help me to take steps forward.

So I like what you're saying, Chris. And just that, that Again, I think with the wisdom, then we do have these tiny concrete things that become available to us. And then, of course, it's our choice whether or not we're going to do that. But I appreciate what you're saying there.

I think another thing that comes up for me with this idea of what's possible or taking the step that's right in front of you. You is a poem from, I know I've talked about David White before. I really love him and his poems, but he has a poem that's it's titled start close in and maybe I can just read it to us.

Start close in. Don't take the second step or the third. Start with the first thing close in the step that you don't want to take. Start with , The pale ground beneath your feet, your own way to begin the conversation. Start with your own question, give up on other people's questions.

Don't let them smother something simple to hear another's voice. Follow your own voice. Wait until the voice becomes an intimate, private ear that can really listen to another. Start right now. Take a small step. You can call your own. Don't follow someone else's heroics. Be humble and focused. Start close in.

Don't mistake the other for your own. Start close in. Don't take the second step or the third. Start with the first thing. Close in the step that you don't want to take. And I love this poem because Oftentimes, when we're contemplative about processes or things that we want to implement in our life we have to get to that that, that thing of the step that we don't want to take.

And then we have to figure out, okay why don't I, Why don't I want to take this step? And so I think contemplative living, contemplative practices help us identify that step that we don't want to take. And then we can adjust from there. Okay. Why don't, what's the reason why I don't want to take this step?

What am I going to give up? What's the sacrifices? What's the consequences of not taking that step? And so I think this poem comes to mind and is helpful for me as we think about this idea. It's a beautiful poem. Thank you for sharing that, Chris. And, I'm finding myself drawn to the line of start with your own question.

And I think this invitation of curiosity and, again the title of the poem is start close in right with that first step, not getting ahead of ourselves, not jumping down the road. I think we want to be at step one. 900, we don't want to be at step one and just the importance that you're naming there.

And I love that. Start with your own question and allowing that nonjudgmental space to come up of, okay, there is a hesitancy here and I don't have to be embarrassed by that hesitancy. I don't have to avoid it. It's here. What is it trying to speak to me? And how can I Partner with it, right? How can I relate to it?

I think that feels really important.

Yeah, I think I think another thing that's helpful for me is like the parable of the talents, right? I think there, there are different talents, a number of talents that were distributed and, then they were acted upon, but then there's also someone who had a talent and they buried it, right?

And I think an image that goes along with this, my kids used to love watching a cartoon called the Incredibles. And there's a scene where there's all these sticky balls that are shot at Mr. Incredible. And he was able to take a couple of steps right away, but then all the sticky balls just overwhelmed him.

I think that's what happens to us sometimes in our thoughts. If we get stuck in our thoughts, then we're overwhelmed and we become immobile. And I think, we just have to keep making steps the step right in front of us.

Yeah. What a great image. And, I have been going back to what I was saying earlier about my health journey. I've. Tapped into learning more about nutrition and some nutrition response testing. And so I just had a meeting yesterday and she was describing, some minerals and things that would be really helpful for my body and to strengthen it.

And she said, there's multiple different minerals, but we're going to start with these four because these are the most important. And we're going upstream with the hope that as we take care of some of these things, sometimes other things tend to heal itself. And, or you don't need that anymore and you can go on to the next thing.

And again, that kind of ties in with this poem of, I'm starting with right now. There's probably a bunch of things that we can do, but the priority right now is this. And then let's see what this does rather than being overwhelmed with, okay, there's 20 possible things that you can do to optimize your health.

That feels really overwhelming, but these couple of things that we're going to do, these supplements with these particular minerals, let's just start there and see and reassess in a week from now or whatever. Cool. And so I think in the same way, spiritually, I love kind of seeing the practical aspects of our physical world and doctors and homeopath and those sorts of things and how it might translate to the spiritual world too.

But I think oftentimes we have these things that unpack in our lives and, she's so sweet. She said, what happens too is after you're on this journey for a while and you're feeling better, then we hit a space where your body saying we We're getting rid of toxins. And then it almost feels like you're going backwards before you can go forward again.

And then we have to readjust and recalibrate to the next stage of what your body's inviting us to do. And again, with this particular poem that you read, Chris, there's this other beautiful line about, be humble and focused, right? Start close in. Don't mistake that other for your own. And I love that because there's a humility involved and a focus, right?

That when we're taking those steps, we have to be open to, to input from ourselves and from God, from source, from spirit. And then also to be focused in that and to say, okay, there is all this other stuff, but going back to the Martha Beck that I mentioned earlier, she said, she believes that, God has this like circle drawn or like the resources, there's this huge circle drawn around us.

And just to look within the circle that we have but it's focused, it's contained. I like to often ask the question, what's mine to do, or what's mine in this moment. And to really focus in and not to get really focused. Crowded out by all the other stuff happening there. So I think there's some real truth and wisdom that, that rings true for me, at least when I hear this.

Yeah, I appreciate you talking about, the steps that you're taking with your health journey. I think spiritual health is whenever you talk about introducing spiritual practices to your life. I think it's easy to go into a deep dive and what are all these wonderful spiritual practices?

And I think that's good advice for implementing spiritual practices into your life. If you try to incorporate. For spiritual practices at one time, you're probably going to end up not acting on them and they're going to be a short burst that happens in your life. But if you start with, let's just say the practice of spiritual direction where you're seeing someone Once a month and letting your story unfold.

And then once you have that spiritual practice in place, then you can incorporate another spiritual practice, but you start to build these habits these ideas in your life and you want them to be long lasting. But if you try to, if you try to do them all at one time usually it fizzles out.

Yeah. And I think there's real wisdom in that. Again, going back to this, start with the. Start close in with the first step. Start close in. And, to your point, too, of even, even with spiritual guidance maybe the first step is reading about it. What is spiritual direction?

Listening to a podcast about it. It's not even making the appointment. It's just even reading it. What is this all about? Or maybe talking to someone that's done that. I think I'm thinking back to when I first heard about centering prayer. And the speaker was like, he would spend 20 minutes twice a day in silence.

And it's wow, that's inspirational. And I've never done anything like that before. And for me, starting with two minutes and not even just starting with two minutes, but having a practice of two minutes of silence for months and months was a wonderful, beautiful thing. And it was, and it did work.

great things for me, right? And it wasn't some crazy dramatic thing, but there were shiftings happening over time, little by little, right? There's this idea of what is it? Tiny

it's this idea of 1 percent for infinity, right? What's just 1 percent that I can do in my life. And then I just keep doing the next 1%, the next 1%. And we can do that for the rest of our lives, right? Cause there's back to your point, there's infinite resources, infinite possibilities you Infinite ideas, right?

And another person that I think speaks to this along with McEwen and Beck is Elizabeth Gilbert, right? And she talks about kind of these ideas that come to us. And if we aren't going to take the idea to the, from ideation to fruition and implementation, then Somebody else will get the idea, right?

And so I don't know if you've ever heard of somebody invents something or writes this book and it's Oh my gosh, I had, I had thought about it, but I didn't do anything with it. It could be bigger things like that, smaller things. But the point being is the, there's these beautiful resources in the world that want to be developed.

And sometimes what Beck was describing, there's these opportunities adjacent possible where kind of major things are happening at the same time. And these ideas are forming in different people and we can build off of one another. We often maybe see that with scientists having these simultaneous discoveries within like weeks of each other type of a thing sharing ideas.

We have the internet now, which is a wonderful resource that we have. We live in an amazing. Time where at our fingertips are so much that our ancestors never had access to. And so just the possibility and the hope that this brings feels so life giving to me.

Thank you so much for taking time today to dive into resource netting. And again, if you're interested in looking up you can find it all over the internet. The poem by David White is start close in. 

And podcast where we talk about what we are into. So what are we into?

I am into something that I'm being drawn into by my son. It has been a wonderful summer. The summer's about to end for us here in Wisconsin and school's starting up, but it's been a wonderful summer. And my son has been on these adventures, these nightly adventures where in the evening, he just goes off on his bike and I usually have to go look for him.

And whenever I. normally find him. He has met one of our neighbors in the neighborhood and he's having a conversation. And so my son is introducing me to all sorts of wonderful people in our neighborhood. And it's been delightful, sitting on someone's porch or in their garage and just having a conversation, getting to know them and hearing how their summer's going, talking about, the wonderful, beautiful things in Wisconsin.

But I love that my son is so adventurous and he's drawing me into these relationships. So that is one thing that I've been into recently. Very fun. We've been cleaning out our kitchen cabinets and I rediscovered, I have this jar that you can shake and make homemade vinaigrettes that I forgot about.

And it has a little measurements on it. And so I have been all about homemade vinaigrettes and looking up different recipes for Dijon and balsamic and all these things. So I'm very much into fun, homemade salad dressings. Thank you so much for joining us and until next time, make it a great week.