This summer Shira and I tried a new move. We started riding e-bikes. An e-bike is like a regular bike, with a seat, handlebars, two wheels, shifting gears. You pedal, and the bike moves. There is only one difference. The e in e-bike is for electricity. There are three settings, and you can give your bike a jolt of a little electricity, a moderate amount, or a whole lot of electricity when the going gets tough. All summer, I felt vaguely like this was not kosher. This was not authentic. A real cyclist would eschew an e-bike. I particularly felt this pang of inauthenticity while going uphill because the steeper the hill, the more electricity I summoned, with the result that it kind of felt like I was Lance Armstrong, climbing the steepest hills with ease, while all the while I knew it was the electricity, it was not me. It felt off, but I couldn’t place why it felt off—until this week.
This week I was listening to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. Andy Stanley, as I have shared before, is in my view the greatest religious thinker and speaker in America today, and he speaks not only about sacred texts, but also about leadership. In the most recent episode he was interviewing a leadership guru named John Maxwell. John Maxwell has sold 30 million books on leadership.
Maxwell is 75 years old. He has been teaching leadership for decades. He said something simple that really stuck with me.
He often asks people: what is the greatest life lesson you have ever learned?