In episode 67 of the Potential Leader Lab Podcast, I'm excited to tackle the idea of embracing the absurd, inspired by Albert Camus. Camus’ concept of the absurd explores the conflict between our inherent desire for meaning and the human struggle to find it.

This is a theme that resonates deeply with leadership, where the best leaders thrive amidst uncertainty and chaos. We're going to dig deep into the concept of absurdity as a foundation for self-authorship and leadership.

By exploring Albert Camus' philosophy that life has no inherent meaning, I'll discuss how we, as leaders, can create our own path, embrace uncertainty, and foster impactful leadership. We'll touch on the construct of faith and religion, and why great leaders are those who embrace uncertainty and are willing to take action without predefined plans.

We'll review the concept of being "antifragile" and why understanding that discomfort signifies growth is absolutely critical to the development of any relentless leader.

Don't wait for the perfect moment. Instead, take a step towards something that scares you and start building your own meaning. Embrace the absurd as the beginning of your journey.

Leadership Coaching Takeaways

1. Understanding Absurdity: Discover Albert Camus' perspective on the absurd as the disparity between our quest for meaning and the universe's indifference.
2. Creating Your Own Meaning: Learn why it's powerful to craft your own meaning rather than searching outside yourself.
3. Leadership and Uncertainty: Find out how great leaders embrace uncertainty and create impact without a script.
4. The Role of Action: Understand the importance of taking action to create motivation and meaning.
5. Practicing Antifragility: Get tips on benefitting from chaos and becoming resilient in unpredictable situations.

Potential Leader Moments

00:00:40 Explanation of Camus’ perspective on the absurd

00:01:16 Discussion on balancing faith with the concept of the absurd.

00:02:15 Analogy of understanding a deity’s plan

00:02:56 How we create our own meaning in life

00:03:32 Advice on abandoning the search for inherent life meaning.

00:04:06 Our desire for order and the universe's indifference.

00:04:40 Importance of personal agency and self-authorship

00:05:27 Connection of the absurd to leadership and embracing uncertainty.

00:06:43 Dismissal of the idea of universal truths in leadership practices.

00:07:04 The necessity to take action for motivation and growth.

00:08:27 Characteristics of relentless leaders

00:08:57 Emphasis on playing the infinite game for continuous growth.

00:09:23 Concept of being "antifragile" and benefiting from chaos.

00:09:41 Why we should challenge external validation.

00:11:00 Advocacy for exploration and curiosity as a path to transformation.

00:11:28 Encouragement to act without a guarantee

00:11:51 Understanding the non-linear path of personal growth.

00:12:12 Reassurance that discomfort signals proper engagement in growth.

00:12:43 Leaders create answers through actions, not prescriptive teachings.

00:13:09 Camus’ philosophy on life’s meaning and our role in creating it.

00:14:03 Personal anecdote about unpreparedness in parenthood.

00:16:10 Relentless individuals embrace the absurd and create meaning.

00:16:32 Final encouragement to take bold actions

00:16:53 Reflection on Camus' quote about absurdity as a beginning.

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Perry Maughmer believes the world deserves better leadership; that in every human interaction there is the opportunity to either build others up or tear them down; and that leadership is the choice we make in those moments.

These beliefs led Perry to create the Potential Leader Lab. He wanted to offer those who share his beliefs the space and safety to explore transformative ideas, experiment with new behaviors, and evolve into the leaders they were meant to be and that the world needs.

This is a framework he has used again and again with his Vistage peer advisory groups and companies like Turn-Key Tunneling, Convergint, Haughn &  Associates, I Am Boundless, Ketchum & Walton, LSP Technologies, and Ahlum & Arbor.

Perry lives and works on the shores of Buckeye Lake in Ohio, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, and on the beach in Anna Maria, Florida with his amazingly creative wife Lisa. They have 2 rescue dogs and are intermittently visited by their 3 wonderful children throughout the year. Perry & Lisa are living life in crescendo and focused on exploring, experimenting, and evolving their vision of a life they have no desire to retire from.

Copyright 2025 Perry Maughmer

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Welcome to The Potential Leader Lab. I'm your host, Perry Maughmer. And today, on episode 67, we're gonna be talking well, what we're gonna do is embrace the absurd, and that is the relentless leaders beginning, as far as I'm concerned. And so we're gonna start with a quote from Albert Camus. And the the quote is, the realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning. Now an absurd now the definition of absurd for Camus and other folks, other existentialists, was the conflict between our tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and then our human inability to find any. So I wanna repeat that. The conflict between our tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and the human inability to find any.

So that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna talk and and I guess I wanna set this up with, just one thing that I know the last time I mentioned this, I ended up having a pretty lengthy conversation with one of my members who's, fairly, religious faithful person. And so we had this struggle with the absurd when I talk about the absurd and there's the absurd and there's no meaning in life, I wanna just give you my my take on it. I I wanna say that even if you are a person of faith, we we can't and shouldn't profess to understand any deity's plan. Because in my mind, if we think we understand whatever person whatever thing you whatever person or thing you worship, if it's, Buddha or God or, Mohammed, I don't care. Everybody's free to do their thing. What I wanna say is I've often thought about this. And I think that my the reason that I can absorb this and still balance those two things and and faith and this discussion around absurdity is because I view myself if I were talking to God and God was explaining his plan to me, I would imagine that's like me explaining my plan to a squirrel.

And that's how I envision it. So that's why I can balance both of those things in my head, and they can coexist at the same time. Because I'm not saying they're that that some greater being doesn't have a plan. I'm saying my capacity to understand that greater being's plan is much like me, a squirrel understanding my plan for the day. So when I say absurd, I mean absurd because I do believe just like Kim Woo did that that what we need to do is create our meaning as we go. And I don't think that's contrarian. I don't think that that's contra indicated by anybody's fate. So having said that, and maybe some people have already flipped off the podcast, that's fine.

We're gonna go ahead and see what happens. So, Kimu's concept of the absurd. Life has no inherent meaning. We create it. So we don't go around too many, I think too often we get to, we get too much naval gazing going on, where we just wanna think and try to figure out and try to think our way into meaning. Like, what does it mean? Why are we here? All these things. And what Camus said is that there isn't any, so just stop it. If you wanna have something fun to do, look up Bob new just Google Bob Newhart stop it and watch that fifteen ten or fifteen minute video.

It's really funny, and it's a lesson for all of us. You'll never need to go find an executive for a professional or life coach if you just watch that video. And every time you have a problem, just play the video back to yourself. It's perfect. You'll you'll save yourself a lot of money. So life has no inherent meaning we created and the tension between our desire for order and meaning versus universe is indifference. So there's this natural tension we have because we want we want order, we want meaning, we want reasons, we want a guidebook, we want a timeline, we want a project, we want all those things. And we don't get them because they don't exist.

It doesn't exist in the universe. The universe is indifferent to us. It it never has, doesn't currently, never will care about what the hell you want. Now, why we need this? Why we resist this realization? Because we need certainty control and predefined meaning. We we're built to want something to mean something. So we want our life to mean something. We want it to be pre preordained, predestined to mean something. We we're very uneasy with the fact that we might have to create that meaning as we go along.

We wanna know with the capital k. We wanna know what the meaning is of life. So the key shift here is accepting the absurdity as a foundation for our personal agency and self authorship. Like, once we accept the absurdity of life, we have this wonderful power to create. We can self author our own life, which is a wonderful thing. And it gives you an immense amount of power because we're always at the moment of choice. Now, how does this even tangentially connect to leadership? It's because the best leaders are those who create real impact. They embrace uncertainty rather than fight it.

They're okay with it. Because guess what? Everything we're doing, we're making it up as we go along. That's the thing. None of the we don't have a script for any of this. We're literally making it up. There's a I forget who said it. But, you know, people who are who are willing to take up the mantle of leading are essentially people who are willing to jump off of a cliff and build your parachute on the way down. Because that's really what you're what you're gonna do.

You're gonna you're gonna make it up as you go. None of this. We don't we don't no leader that you work with for no great leader has a book that says this is exactly how you do it. If you're watching a YouTube video, you I have a folder here. Nobody's got, like, a secret folder that says, here's everything you're gonna need to know about being about leading anything, a nonprofit, an organization, your family, whatever. If you wanna positively impact the the future of other people, if you wanna positively impact their emotional state and create a better world for them to live in, there you there is no plan. There's no guidebook. So you are creating it, and the quicker that you that you are willing to adopt and embrace that uncertainty, then that absurdity as Camus said, the quicker you're gonna get going.

And the less frustration you're gonna have, to be quite honest with you, because there is no grand plan. There's only action, adaptation, and growth. And we do that through exploring, experimentally evolving. But there is no grand plan. There there is no perfect plan. There is no way to think your way into this. You you're not gonna think long enough to create a perfect plan. It's not gonna work.

You gotta do. You gotta take action. And our to be honest, our brains are built this way. It's kinda funny because you can't think your way into motivation. You we do this all the time with everything. But our brain only gives us dopamine in a response to action. So our brain and dopamine is the pursuit. It's the it's the neurochemical of pursuit.

Right? It makes us want to do that other the whatever that was more. The only time your brain gives you that is when it when you've already done something. It'll never give you that unless you do something, unless you take physical action. So if you wanna if you're gonna, you know, get into shape and so you go watch YouTube videos and buy new clothes and sign up for a gym membership and all those things, and in theory that you're gonna get motivated to do something, ain't gonna work. What works is doing. It once you do something, your brain says, oh, you're doing something. I better give you a little bit more motivation to keep doing that. So you have to you have to think you have to act your way into a new way of thinking.

You cannot think your way into a new way of acting. And that and the what I call the people that are the relentless few, those are people who act their way into being rather than waiting for external validation. They don't need a script. They build as they go. They don't look for permission. They create their own justification. That's what we all do. We just we continue to act every day.

We get up and we do. Some of it's gonna be wrong. That's okay. So the absurd leader's mindset is is that you have to stop looking for the right way because there is none. There is no right way to do it. And start playing the infinite game, the one where learning and resilience matter more than perfection. We're not talking about winning a game here. That's a finite game.

Again, a nod to doctor James Kars for his work in that. It's a great book. I would suggest you read it. But start playing the infinite game. The one we're learning and resilience are what we're after. We the the whole goal in an infinite game is to continue to earn the right to play, not to win. And then also, we'll give a nod to Nassim Taleb, we wanna be antifragile. Anti fragile people are ones who benefit from shock.

They don't fend it off. They're not they don't resist shock. That's not strong is not the opposite of fragile. Anti fragile is the opposite of fragile. So we wanna benefit from chaos. We wanna benefit from shocks to the system because it makes us stronger. So here's what I'd ask you to think about. What's the one way you're still looking for meaning outside of yourself instead of creating it? Where are you looking for that external validation, those external rules, that guidebook, that playbook, that certainty, that those those things you're looking for before you'll do.

And then wherever you find that, attack it. I think it was Young who said, where where you find your fear is your work. Where your fear is, there is your work. Lean into it. Take action. Screw it up. It's gonna happen. But that's the only way the only way the only way forward is through.

There is no other way. So if we use the e three framework as a path forward, the explore sides, we're gonna lean into that absurdity. We're gonna stop seeking certainty, and we're gonna explore the unknown. And we're gonna recognize that curiosity, not answers, lead to transformation. Answers are cheap. We can get answers everywhere. We need big beautiful questions, and that only comes from being curious. And leaders who open up to evolving, we gotta open up ourselves to evolving faster, which means we have to be wrong more.

Because if we're clinging to outdated truth, we can never move forward. So experimentation means we're gonna act without a guarantee. Don't theorize, test. Don't guess, ask. Take action without waiting for a road map. Because where you're going, you're creating the map. You're the only one that can. You have to you're gonna be your own cartographer.

It's just a big open space, and you're gonna map it out by your actions. Innovation does not come from certainty. It comes from a relentless iteration. Relentless iteration. And then we're gonna evolve. We're gonna own the process, not the outcome. Growth is not a linear path. It's a series of jumps and setbacks and recalibrations.

It's five step forward, three step back. And then we take a step forward and we go six steps back. It's about having the grit to do that. And if you by the way, this should all feel horribly uncomfortable horribly uncomfortable. That's okay. That's what I if you're if you're feeling uncomfortable, you're doing it right. Just understand that. If you're feeling very if you're if you're feeling a sense of discomfort and you're ill at ease, you're doing it right.

You should not be comfortable. You should not feel good about this. The leaders who inspire aren't the ones with answers. They're the ones who keep moving forward despite the lack of them. Understand that leaders the great leaders don't have answers. They're the ones who are willing to move forward in spite of not having any answers because they're gonna create the answers as they go. They're gonna find the answers out in the darkness, out in the wilderness because that's where they exist. You create answers through your actions.

That's why you have to be have a growth mindset because you're gonna fail. You are going to fail, and you will not die. It may feel like it. It may feel like you wanna die, but you're not gonna. See, Camus wasn't saying that life was meaningless. He's saying it's on us to create the meaning. He people misunderstand that. They say they think he's a a a a nihilist.

He wasn't. He wasn't saying life is meaningless. He was saying it's on us to create the meaning, not anybody else. We're not we shouldn't look for that external validation or somebody externally to create that meaning for us. We have to create that meaning, and we only create it through action. We create meaning through doing, not through thinking. The world isn't gonna wait for you to get it all figured out. I mean, it the best example I can give you and I I I'm you know, if you wanna argue with me, great.

These are in fact, I would welcome it because these are just all my opinions. It doesn't matter. I'm not telling you any absolute universal truths. But I will tell you this, nobody ever is ready to have a kid. If every I mean, we and I remember I think I remember years ago when when Lisa and I were starting out and we were talking about having children. Well, we have to do this first and that first, have this and have that. And no matter how ready you think you are, you're not. Because you have no idea what's gonna change.

You can read all the books in the world, talk to all the people, get all the advice, watch all the YouTube videos, watch all whatever. You're never gonna be adequate adequately prepared for when they give you that human to take home. I I still remember, when Zane was born, our our first child, we we bought a car seat. We didn't we bought a car seat. We didn't know there was kinds of car seats. We bought a car seat. So we took they and they just, you know, at least in the hospital, they bring her out. Next day, they bring out Zane.

They're like, here you go. Good luck. Two thumbs up. Good luck with that. And so I get Lisa in the car. We put Zane in the car seat. I put the and this was obviously, you know, thirty four years ago. But so it was an older car seat.

But we brought the thing down over top of him, and it was the and first of all, he looked like he didn't he looked like he was about a third of the size of the car seat. Like, the car seat was far too big. And then then as you all know, they have a kid. You put him in there and you strap him in, and his head just kept falling from one side to the other because there's no support for it. And I'm just looking at Lisa going, what the hell? Like, what do we do now? Is that supposed to work like that? Like, is that okay? So we just sat we've got a couple towels and, like, propped it. We had no idea. For all I knew, that's the way it's supposed to work. He can't hold his head up.

He's two days old. That's what I'm talking about. That's what happens. That's that's every day when you take the mantle of leadership. Every day you're doing that. You're asking yourself, is that the way that's supposed to work? Should I be doing something different? But the fact that you're willing to ask the questions is half the battle. The the people that are relentless don't retreat in the face of the absurd. They embrace it, they work with it, and they create something new.

They create meaning out of nothing. So here's what I ask you to do. Just take one step today. Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Choose something to do that scares the hell out of you and do it. And then because that's a step in building your own meaning and not searching for it. And remember, Kimu said, the realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning. So if today is your beginning, what are you willing to do next? Thanks a lot for joining me.

I look forward to talking to you again soon.