Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

Jimmy Buffet was playing on the radio as I drove to and from Lake Superior’s North Shore for a recent getaway.  I was listening closely to the lyrics of his famous song Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes as I thought about some of my own experiences. As I drove, the first two lines of the chorus struck me in particular.

In Minnesota, we joke about having two seasons: winter and road construction. (Some say it’s five and just tack on the construction at the end.) On this trip up to the North Shore, I ran into a detour based on said road construction. It made me think a bit about other detours we experience in our lives and how changes in attitudes can make things so much easier.

When we hit a detour, we enter into a land of mystery. Our usual route is known, and we understand the mileage and time it will take to reach our destination. But a detour, especially in more rural areas, includes a route that will take us out of the way. We don’t know how much time or miles the detour will add to the trip. We have to trust that the people who designed the detour haven’t gotten us too far off track.

Of course, on the way home, I knew there would be a detour, so I didn’t have the same level of frustration. I had a general idea of how much extra time and miles it would add to my trip.

Coming back, I connected closely with Buffett’s song once again. I knew my metaphorical “latitudes”  had changed my attitude about the detour on the drive home. Because my perspective shifted, my attitude shifted, and the drive back was much more pleasant.

Getting comfortable with walking into the unknown

Cultivating the capacity to feel comfortable with ambiguity is an important skill for our personal and professional lives. As Buffett suggests in his song, we can change our attitude if we change our latitude. While it sounds like a great idea to take a fun trip, he’s actually talking about the transformative nature of experiences and locations.

We don’t have to take a trip to strengthen our ability to flow with the unknown (instead of getting stressed out.) Here are a few things to try:

• Create a new experience. Things won’t be quite as scary when we experience a change first, and we can name it.  Here’s an example. Perhaps we want people to become more cross-functional and work across silos. We can create experiences that bring people from different parts of the organization together to do an important task. They get to experience what it feels like to work in this new way. When we announce we want to become more integrated and less siloed, people have experiences that anchor this change and make it more familiar.
• Invite people to remember a time when they walked the unknown. Everyone has had times in their lives when they choose to do something unfamiliar, and/or outside of their comfort zone.  It could have been learning a new sport like swimming. Maybe it’s a visit to a new place where they didn’t speak the language. When we invite people to share those past experiences, they realize they might be more comfortable with the unknown than they realize.
• Name the attraction to the unknown. Attraction is a powerful way to overcome the fear of doing something different. I remember the first time I went to the Netherlands for vacation. I didn’t speak the language, I didn’t know if I could navigate around the city, and I had never taken this trip before. In the end, everything went beautifully, and now it is one of my favorite places to visit.  I knew what attracted me to Amsterdam: the museums, the city’s walkability, the water canals, and the flowers, to name a few things about this beautiful place. These reasons became a powerful attractor to walking into all the unknown that existed before my trip.

Nothing remains quite the same when we shift our attitude about the unknown. We can follow Jimmy Buffet’s advice to consciously and intentionally shift our thinking and invite the unknown into our lives with a sense of adventure. Not fear.

RIP Jimmy. We miss you!