This Summer, Spend Some Time in the ‘Neutral Zone’
It’s the most important thing to do after a big life event — like, say, a global pandemic
Exactly one year ago, my friend Greg Epstein told me about an intriguing mental strategy. Greg is the Humanist Chaplain at MIT and Harvard; he helps students figure out how they’ll define a meaningful life. Not a small task in the best of times, but especially hard to do when the world is suddenly put on hold by a pandemic. Last summer, Greg’s students weren’t the only ones struggling. After we went into lockdown, Greg started questioning his purpose too, wondering what big changes he should make to better live up to the ideals he spent his days talking about. Greg’s no stranger to existential dilemmas, so he returned to the writings of William Bridges, an academic known for his research on how the most resilient people and corporations managed major transitions.
Bridges studied how businesses should guide their employees through upheavals like a merger, product debut, or introduction of a new CEO. His research found that the best leaders, the ones who kept drama to a minimum, gave themselves and their staff time to process the period that was ending before rushing into the next phase. Bridges called this the neutral zone and wrote that it’s crucial to keep a change from turning into a…
