The Ice Cream Counter Problem — And the 3-Minute Fix
Field Shift: From Rigid Determinism → To Emergent Sensitivity
Too Busy to Read? Here’s the 2-Minute Version
At a roadside ice cream shop, my 6-year-old’s meltdown exposed the same paralysis I’d lived for 20 years.
Perfect grades. Prestigious firms. “The right path.” Outwardly flawless, inwardly root-bound.
When COVID collapsed every plan, the Great Lakes taught me to loosen control and sense instead of force.
The shift: from asking “What’s optimal?” — the question of spreadsheets and control —
to asking “What do I have a taste for?” — the question of aliveness and emergence.This week’s practice (3 minutes): Taste Sensing. Bring one frozen decision to mind, drop into your body, and let appetite replace analysis.
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The Perfect Ice Cream That Never Happened
Retro roadside shop. Summer afternoon. My son at the counter.
Twenty flavors. Endless combinations. The promise of the perfect cone.
He studied every option. Calculated combinations. Cone vs. cup. Toppings matrices.
Twenty minutes later: tears. “I want to go home.”
His determination to have the best ice cream of his life meant he had no ice cream at all.
Watching him, I realized: this wasn’t about ice cream. It was about me.
The Twenty-Year Freeze
Before college, I never thought of futures as X’s on a gameboard.
Then university hit. Suddenly, every move had to be the right one.
The pressure sent me into contractions that lasted two decades.
The path looked perfect:
Near 4.0 GPA ✓
Recruited by top global firms ✓
Full-ride graduate scholarship ✓
Yet walking Chicago streets with my now-wife, the truth slipped out:
“This career is everything I did NOT want to be doing with my life.”
But like my son at the counter, I stayed frozen. Studying options. Optimizing paths. Melting down inside while maintaining the perfect exterior.
When Life Refuses to Obey the Plan
Even after admitting the truth, I tried to plan my escape:
Switch firms (didn’t work)
Switch industries (didn’t work)
Switch cities (got closer)
Then LA taught me something.
I was surrounded by people who let their paths emerge:
an A-list chef, a rising winemaker, designers, award-winning creatives, and friends who went from sleeping in a recording studio to headlining a world tour.
I admired them but couldn’t allow myself to be like them.
They didn’t study their way to mastery.
They sensed their way to it.
The Collapse That Set Me Free
COVID’s end. Two boys under four. Company hemorrhaging.
I defaulted to control:
Functional requirements docs with my wife
Budgets and projections
Written agreements
Got me exactly nowhere.
Then — a road trip to the Great Lakes. Endless “Save California” signs. Everything existential, final, determined.
But standing by the water, something shifted.
Life felt less threatening. Less noisy. Less congested.
Instead of searching for the perfect next move, I sat with what actually interested me: the intersection of mind and performance.
Not strategy. Sensation.
Not plan. Permission.
And possibilities emerged.
Back at the Ice Cream Shop
We’ve returned many times since my son’s meltdown.
Now we talk differently:
Not “What’s the best choice?”
But “What do you have a taste for?”
Last week, he walked up and said:
“I have a taste for something crunchy and cold.”
No paralysis. No optimization. Just sensing.
He got swirl with Kit Kat crumbles.
Perfect — because it was his.
Why This Matters Now
90% of strategic goals fall short of reality — not because leaders don’t know what to do, but because rigid plans collapse in dynamic systems (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2023).
Even 67% of well-designed strategies fail at execution — not for lack of logic but because they’re locked into force instead of flow (Harvard Business Review).
70–90% of strategic implementations fail outright (Strategy Implementation Research, 2023).
Leaders who “sense and respond” outperform “predict and control” by over 3x in complex environments (Deloitte, 2023).
History proves the cost of rigidity: 66% of the Fortune 100 in 1966 no longer existed by 2006 (Icarus Paradox research).
Rigid determinism exhausts. Emergent sensitivity regenerates.
When you grip outcomes, you run leadership at 0.00036% of available bandwidth.
When you sense emergence, you access the full symphony.
This Week’s Practice (3 Minutes): Taste Sensing
A serious-play experiment to break frozen patterns.
Find your counter. Bring to mind one decision where you’re stuck — overanalyzing, spreadsheeting, waiting for certainty.
Drop the plan. Close your eyes. Take one slow breath into your belly. Let your shoulders soften.
Ask your body. Inquire: “What do I have a taste for here?” Notice where your body leans — toward lightness, curiosity, relief.
Anchor the shift. When you feel even a flicker of appetite, place your hand on your chest. That’s coherence, not calculation.
Three minutes. One glimpse of emergent sensitivity.
The Pattern Breaking
Rigid Determinism says:
Figure out the best option
Control all variables
Force the optimal outcome
Emergent Sensitivity says:
Feel what you’re drawn toward
Surf what’s emerging
Let the right outcome find you
One exhausts through control.
The other energizes through discovery.
Your Move This Week
Find your ice cream counter — the place you’re frozen, studying options.
Stop asking: “What’s the best choice?”
Start asking: “What do I have a taste for?”
Notice the difference:
Analysis creates contraction
Appetite creates expansion
The future that fits you won’t be forced.
It will be sensed.
P.S. Yesterday a client spent 30 minutes analyzing decision matrices. I asked: “What do you have a taste for?” They laughed, paused, then knew immediately. The body knew what the spreadsheet never could.
P.P.S. That functional requirements doc with my wife? We laugh about it — a monument to the futility of forcing life into predetermined shapes. What emerged is nothing like what we planned. It’s better because it continues to unfold.
DM me “Taste” when you notice your frozen moment melt into appetite. I want to know what emerges when you stop optimizing and start sensing.
—Adam
„Let appetite replace analysis“
I love it Adam!