🌊 The Plunge #3: This Map Totally Gets You (Vertical Development Part 2)

Also, Brené Brown is back, I'm feeling hopeful, and dognaps are better than catnaps (photo evidence included)

Aaaand, we’re back! Last week, we started a series on Vertical Development, one of the most powerful growth tools I know.

If you didn’t already catch it, you can read Part 1 from last week before starting in on today’s post.

Heads up: this post (and this whole series on Vertical Development) will be one of the most heady, dense things I ever share on The Diving Board. To give you this tool, I have to share the theory behind it, but I swear I’m doing my best to NOT sound like a textbook.

Let’s dive in.

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Pop Quiz

To remind ourselves of the main ideas from Post 1, let’s take a little Pop Quiz:

1. What two types of development are we exploring?

   [Answer: Horizontal & Vertical]

2. If you watch this YouTube video to learn how to do the Tootsee Roll, is that Horizontal or Vertical development?

   [Answer: Horizontal, since you’re growing knowledge, skills, and abilities]

3. If you used to believe the point of life was to eat lots of hot dogs and die satisfied, but now you’re not so sure anymore, is that Horizontal or Vertical Development?

   [Answer: Vertical, since you’re evolving how you think and make meaning]

Have You Developed Vertically?

Now, let’s play that beloved game from high school sleepovers of yore, Never Have I Ever.

Scanning your personal and professional history, consider the following.

Never Have I Ever:

• Re-evaluated a deeply-held belief or perspective, one that was instilled in me by authority figures or groups I belong to

• Felt like I’m not who I used to be, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint how or why

• Noticed that something used to really upset me but just doesn’t seem like a huge deal anymore

• Found my voice, my confidence, or carved my own path

• Realized that my hard-won sense of individuality or success has left me lacking connection and meaning

If you say “Never Have I Ever” to all of the above, I don’t believe you. :)

We all grow Vertically to some extent, and it starts early. Lately, my 6-year old daughter has begun asking me with furrowed brows, “Mom, is Santa for real?” That’s Vertical Development (see bullet #1 above). (And I deflect that shit real quick. Don’t lose the magic, baby girl.)

That’s So (Not) Random

So far, nothing I’ve shared has been too earth-shattering. You probably already knew that you’ve evolved your knowledge and skills as well as your perspectives and identity, even if you didn’t use the terms Horizontal and Vertical to describe that growth.

What might be new to you, though, is the concept that Vertical Development – changes in our meaning-making – unfolds in a very specific, patterned way. It’s not random.

Most of us know about childhood development stages, but Vertical Development reveals¹ that adults also evolve through a predictable series of “Mindset Stages”².

Together these Mindset Stages make up an invisible pattern, a hidden matrix of sorts, that has been shaping your growth.

Intrigued? Keep reading to discover the hidden matrix. (This is the part where you pick the blue pill or the red pill. Choose wisely.)

The Territory of You

The terms Horizontal and Vertical Development were originally coined to represent the concept of growing “out” (widening your knowledge and skills through Horizontal growth) vs. growing “up” (elevating your perspective through Vertical growth). I learned the analogy of a mountain climber exploring the mountain horizontally at one altitude or climbing vertically to higher altitudes where they could see more of the landscape below.

The analogy is helpful, but I’m afraid it flirts too much with the idea of a hierarchy, of “higher is better”.

Instead, I prefer to think of Vertical Development as expansion. When we grow Vertically, we are accessing more and more of who we really are, integrating the various parts of ourselves.

We’re going to use the analogy of a territory on a map. Imagine this is you:

(You look great, by the way.) Early in life, you may only be aware of – and acting from – this little part of yourself:

Then life experience nudges you out of the comfort of that familiar territory, and you explore a little further. Ideally, you’re still using the gifts of that innermost home base, that “early self”, while adding the capacities that come in the next part of yourself:

As we grow, what once seemed like “no man’s land” – the blank parts of the map we didn’t venture into or even know about – later becomes our new home as our boundaries expand. While we’re living the journey into progressively later stages, our experience feels aimless and messy. Yet when we zoom out for an aerial view, we see the beautiful, patterned logic behind it all.

All these parts are already contained within you, just waiting to be discovered. As you grow, you get to access more and more of who you really are, adding to the range of possible ways to think and be in the world.

The Mindset Stages of Vertical Development

Enough ado. Here they are, the Mindset Stages of Vertical Development:

Adapted from the work of Robert Kegan, Jennifer Garvey-Berger, Bill Torbert, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Nick Petrie, and Jan Rybeck

In the interest of whetting your appetite vs. making you feel you’ve eaten one too many of those hot dogs I referenced earlier, I’ll leave it there for now.

Bonus Question: For you extra-eager readers, go back to the opening series of vignettes from my career journey in Part 1. Can you spot any of the Mindset Stages that showed up in my story?

Until Next Time…

Still to come in the rest of this Vertical Development series:

• More detail on the Mindset Stages and how Vertical Development happens

• How to apply all this in work and life, now that we’ve taken in the theory!

• Further reading recommendations + a link to a Vertical Development assessment (yep, it’s a thing!)

I’d love to hear from you in the comments. What ‘aha’s are you having? What are your biggest questions? Your musings will help me shape my next post for you. Let me have it!

[Update Feb 7th, 2024: Want to keep going? Click here to read Part 3 of the Vertical Development series.]

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❤️‍🩹 Brené Brown’s raw post last week about the dark time she’s been going through has been both a comfort and an inspiration to me in recent days. It’s definitely worth a read. Hard Seasons and Wild Hearts

🌏 Lots of heavy stuff happening in the world. How do you stay sane? Call it willful ignorance, but I choose to believe there’s an ultimate goodness that gets blocked and thwarted but wants to break through in our world. For me, hope is not feeling, it’s a choice.

The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.

Albert Einstein

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👖This one’s for my lady friends. My friend Jenny wore the most flattering jeans a while back. I commented on them, she kindly let me try them on, and the flattery blessed me, too. I ordered two pairs for myself, get compliments on them frequently, and gladly spread the word about these miracle jeans to all who will listen. Wit and Wisdom Itty Bitty Bootcut Jeans

And maybe this video is all you need to see today to be reminded that the “ultimate goodness” we talked about up there 👆🏻 does in fact exist in the world. A dog, his toddler, and their adorable morning routine. 🐶👶🏻

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I mean, since we’re talking cute dogs and kids, here’s one of my favorite pics ever: my son Amos taking an actual nap on our dog Webster. Webby truly functions like a therapy dog in our home. Even when he’s doing naughty things (also pictured), he’s so good for our souls…laughter is medicine and all that.

My family has been on quite the ride with my son’s health the last few years. Amos has PANS/PANDAS, and you can read more of his story here if you’re curious. We’re still in the thick of it, but this week I zoomed out and thought about where we were a year ago and two years ago and realized just how much progress he’s making in spite of the dizzying back-and-forth nature of this disease. I’m feeling grateful for that this week.

In other news, I’ll be honest. Integrating this newsletter into my weekly routine is kicking my butt! I’m really enjoying it, but launching right in with something as heady as Vertical Development while trying to live up to The Diving Board’s brand promise of “deeply fun” has been a JOB. Let’s just say I’ve written and re-written these last two posts many times before clicking “Publish”. I couldn’t have done it without invaluable input from my straight-shooting husband Rob and my multi-talented Exec Admin Wizard Jill, who both forced me to delete buckets of superfluous paragraphs so you wouldn’t fall asleep while reading, then wake up and click “Unsubscribe”.

I’m learning my way through this, and I’m so glad you’re here for it!

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Thanks for reading The Diving Board. Now, get back in there!

1. In both ancient and modern times, wisdom teachers, shamans, and psychologists have pointed to adult developmental stages, so this concept is not new. What is new is the robust research* that underpins Vertical Development, the specificity of the stages, and the clear relevance to work and organizations.

2. Jan Rybeck and Nick Petrie coined the term “Mindset Stages”.