Tuesday, 5/2/23 - Day 9 at Sea

Where is Royce? Click to sail along! ⛵

“This is called leadership development.” Alejandro stated with absolute authority, looking his pupil, Staton Apple, in the eye. His student had been on the receiving end of chastisement from the captain in recent days and Alejandro wanted to help him with a more effective strategy than apologizing and accepting responsibility for his actions.

“Explain your theory,” we requested with rapture.

“First, ignorance. ‘What are you talking about?’” Alejandro explained, in an effort to help the poor guy.

“Then, you deflect. Taking 100% of the blame, and placing it on a different culprit. That’s it. You can be specific - you are deflecting onto one person. Or general - you stop talking about you, or him or her, but we. Like a group thing. Everybody does it. Everybody is doing it”

Uncontrollable laughter from his classroom.

“What about gas lighting?” I inquired.

“What is gas lighting?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about honey? Just because an ex girlfriend slept over when you were out of town doesn’t mean anything happened. You always assume the worst and should work on that,” I offered as an example.

“That happened to me in Amsterdam,” he responded without pause, understanding and adopting the strategy into his leadership theorem without argument.

Again, round of laughter.

“Then, denial. It wasn’t me” He simply stated.

“Finally, you can accept responsibility but not without groveling. ‘Oohh, I always do this and can’t help myself’,” he concluded.

“So, ignorance, deflection, gas lighting, denial, acceptance and groveling. Staton, follow those simple steps, and you’ll be much more effective. And ready for middle management” Alejandro reviewed.

A final round of uncontrollable laughing. Mind you, all of this is explained in a combination of Spanish and English, delivered with enthusiasm, like Modern Family’s Gloria telling Jay about her Columbian education in helping a body disappear.

And this, on a Tuesday morning watch as the sun rises aft of the stern, is how we are starting day number 8 on our journey to Antigua and spiritual enlightenment. God help us, and our friend Staton.