Unusual compression, more of the present?

The coffee was surprisingly great. Not my typical experience on a plane. The steward told me that it was a new Columbian blend they were trying from South Africa. I told him flat out it was a keeper! I had four wonderful cups to prove my point!

But I skipped the history that brought me to this place. Age has given me a number of gifts, two of the more unusual ones are that I can now sleep on airplanes and I rarely experience dreaded jet-lag. I attribute these two gifts to age, as surely it could not be that I am changing time zones so frequently that my body has given up jet-lag?

So after two intense hours of work, interrupted only by a flabbergasted stewardess who simply couldn't believe I did not want to eat dinner, although she couldn't know that I rarely eat food served on airplanes, and after four hours of relatively good sleep – I was ready for coffee.

Typically I slurp down a cup or two, just to hold me until I can get off the flight and get ahold of some real coffee. Today I might skip that ritual altogether, as I sit here contentedly (did I just use that word on an airplane??) sipping a very hot tasty brew and jotting down these thoughts on my iPad as my brain is waking up.

Everything can be more intense on a trans-ocean flight. It is like time and work and thinking and food and the air in the cabin is compressed into a more intense experience than a normal day. Perhaps it is as simple as sitting in a space designed for children rather than adults for hours on end, but even the waiting is compressed and each moment can seem to take several hours depending on your state of mind (on the other hand, the flight West took 10 hours and 30 minutes, this one East only took 7 hours and 15 minutes!). I mean compressed in the sense of MORE rather than in the sense of SHORTER.

Dr. Marshal Goldsmith, an excellent leadership guru of high caliber, started me down this path a number of years back. He travels far far more than me (I shudder at the thought!), and he advocates that the best way to travel and make it as productive and painless as possible, is to live in the moment only. Not as my lovely bride does, bouncing mentally back and forth the entire flight between the time zone she left and the time zone she is heading toward - but the moment. Perhaps this is why everything seems MORE? Perhaps this unusual compression is fostered by living in the present moment, no more, no less.

Clarity of purpose . . . at a price

There are all different kinds of clarity needed in life, but clarity of purpose may outrank them all. Surprisingly, pain can actually bring some significant clarity of purpose.

I recently went through round three of excruciating back pain – all three were very different – except for the pain part and the excruciating part. At least in this third round I could sit without dying, but walking? It very well may kill me.

So what do you do when hurting physically? You probably will think me completely crazy, but in my family, we pretty much do whatever we would do if we weren't hurting at all. I mean, it is gonna hurt no matter where you are and no matter what you do, right? Just as well work.

And that is what I did. I remember sitting on my second flight of the day, heading to Berlin for three days of intensive work. But this hurt so badly those last 24 hours, that I seriously considered just tossing the whole trip into the garbage can and bailing out. All that money, all that planning, all those irretrievable moments - down the tube. Lost. But I couldn't do it. Because of clarity.

The clarity I had of the possibilities of what might be, what could happen, what potentials exist to change the world, all of that was at stake. And it is gonna hurt no matter what, right? Some of you might suggest that I over-estimated the importance of my trip, or suggest that I didn't really hurt that badly, but you would be wrong, on both counts. It is clarity about the importance of what I do, and the limits of what I can't, that put me on that plane that day, and through the agony of the next three days walking in Berlin. Clarity! Purpose! Meaning!

Rush

I love the breeze blowing (and sometimes whipping!) through my hair and across my skin.  I love the rush of taking the curves fast and furious. I love carving those big fat S's and hairpin turns. I love the tension of danger, the near possibility of falling is always present and it usually hurts. But the energy given and released in exchange for being on the edge of the board, or the side of the tires, the lip of disaster, is generally a fair transaction. Ok, I am adrenalin junkie. Anything with two wheels or anything with snow and everything pointed downhill and curves!! Let's go!

There is something very powerful in these moments of movement. The controlled risk, the measured danger, the pain of making an error in judgement, all necessary parts of living loud and experiencing something completely other, than sitting at my desk all day. Having fun is an essential part of balance as you integrate life and work. What do you need to do today to get your blood pumping and make your heart jump up into your throat?

(disclaimers: I always wear a helmet in each of these activities. I love the rush, but I take some precautions against utter stupidity, and for the record, my bike helmet and snowboarding helmet have saved me numerous times. Have not tested the motorcycle helmet against the asphalt and hope I never do.)

Moments

There are many moments in life where we can make a difference. But seeing them can often be the challenge. What I mean is that we are so focused on other things, that we miss many of the golden moments that cross our paths. Most of us have been taught to actually do this on purpose, to show how focused and attentive we are to our objectives and goals and how we "get things done."

But activity is not necessarily productivity, especially when productivity includes (demands) that we see and respond to these moments, these opportunities, these events that cross our paths. Busyness is not the goal, making a difference is the goal, changing the world is the goal, doing something meaningful is the goal, far more than how many hours I clock each week. I am not suggesting that we stop working diligently nor reducing our standards to something less than excellence. I am merely observing that punching the clock (for those of you old enough to remember that) does not translate into definite success in terms of making a meaningful difference in the world.

I would suggest that this requires us to cultivate an awareness of God and new ways of "seeing" or observing the world around us. It takes practice to discern what is an opportunity versus what may be simply a distraction - but it is a different kind of "focus" and one well worth every second, so we don't miss any of those God moments and join in with His plan to change and love people.

Positive energy??

While reading an email from a friend today, I had to spend some time thinking through an assessment he made of me. His choice of words messed me up a bit. He said " I am drawn to the positive energy you consistently exude." Those are not words I would typically apply to myself.

Its not that I think I am anti-positive necessarily, but more like I am married to Polly-Anna. In comparision, Brenda would generally make the real Polly-Anna seem like a curmudgeon. Compared to Brenda I am positively negative, and it is a good thing too, because someone needs to balance the universe!

Now perhaps my friend John just works in an office filled with toxic and lethally negative people, but I don't think so. He never complains about work. Ever. And so I had to stop and think a good long while about what he said and why he may have said it. 

In the end I came to only one conclusion . . . he needs to get out more. Haha, just kidding! The conclusion is this, I do make an intentional effort to see the possibilities in each person in my life. Looking for that potential all the time leaves me with very little flaw-gathering time. So perhaps what he sees in me is positive in that it is focused on what could be, rather than what may be lacking today.

What would he say about you and your energy?

Long nights

The long night happens to everyone eventually.  And the longer you lie there awake when you should be/want to be sleeping, the more things you can think of that you should be getting up to do, since you can't sleep afterall. This most often happens to me the second night after arriving at a new location around the globe. Some call it jetlag, I just call it sleeplessness. And irritating.

Its the lack of productivity that makes my mind go faster and faster as I think of all the details/tasks I have missed or failed to complete, and the urgency to just get up grows. It feels like this is lost or wasted time . . . when there is so much demanding my attention. But the reality is this, that getting up is generally a big mistake, because it will just compound the sleeplessness problem the following nights. Lying in bed in the dark is still rest, regardless of how it feels. But that overpowering feeling of unproductiveness . . .

. . . is simply wrong too, because the busier you are, the dumber you may be.  You must resist this lie the most in the modern age, perhaps more than most others, because overclocked schedules keep us from not only not resting well, but from thinking clearly, and of course since I slept so little last night, my thinking processes are even more slowed today. So I must give myself more space and margin today in order to break the cycle of unproductivity tomorrow.

I know that sounds counter-intuitive, and so does my suggestion here, but you have to just relax and live in the moment of the long night. Otherwise it may become a pattern, and that would actually be a real problem.

Hanging by a thread?

Imagine my surprise today when ropes started flying across my balcony, quickly followed by two men with five gallon buckets, all on the 12th floor!! They redefined for me what it means to be hanging by a thread! Now for some folks, they may consider painting buildings while hanging from a single rope, to be the best jobs in the world. While the majority of us may think, "what desperation drove these men to take such risks every day?"

But it won't take you very long to think of times when you have backed yourself into a corner which led to you taking big risks for low rewards. Most of us have been in this spot in our lives. Even though we are not Burmese laborers working for sub-par wages in Thailand, we still have woke up to find ourselves hanging by a thread, emotionally, financially, vocationally, spiritually (hopefully not physically like these guys!). It is a horrible place to be, yet, in some way it quantifies the non-hanging by a thread moments and events.

So my challenge to you (and of course myself) is to accurately assess where you are today, compared to, one of those hanging by a thread times in life. 

Suddenly my day just got a lot brighter and better.

One of THESE days!

Sometimes you can't believe that you get to be where you are today! Since yesterday was “sometimes you don't want to be where you are” day, it is fitting to have a follow up day to the contrary. Honestly this is my more normal day, where the world is tilted correctly and most things happen in a predictable manner that allows planning, thinking and building something important.

Today was one of “these” days. Even sick, this day is about 1000 times better than yesterday. What objectively changed? Really nothing at all…at least that is measurable or visible. In fact, it rained most of the day! So it wasn't the weather. I am in fact, sick and sitting on…er…the throne, or at least not getting far from it (like six steps is the limit). So what is the difference, that even an Asian bug can't falter? What is better today than yesterday? No resets needed, no change of scenery or pace to get things moving in the right direction. What is different?

Only small things, and that is both wonderful and horrible. Perspective that happened mentally yesterday, but never made it to the feeling level, was just right today, the feeling and thinking were in sync. Sleep was better last night, the exercise today about the same. Food was just as good. Weather was worse. Physically I felt much better today, well until about an hour ago when Matsuma's revenge attacked. Like I said, very small, little things. The great news is that it doesn't really take too much to have a much better day. The horrible news is that it doesn't really take too much to have a much worse day.

It seems to me that I am, or should be, much much much much more resilient than that. To think that so little could swing the pendulum so far. In fact, if you had asked me two days ago, I would have told you that I was indeed, much much much too resilient to be swung by so little in either direction. But evidently I am not, at least not on these two particular days.

One of those days

Sometimes you just don't want to be where you are today. I know you have had one of “those" days. One of those days where you are glad you can swear in three languages - fluently. One of those days, where your feet are dragging and your heart is flagging and your thoughts are sagging. You make a valiant effort to turn things around and get them moving in the right direction - any direction other than the one you have been headed in the whole day. You step back and think it through and know in your heart that this is a temporary phenomena but you can't seem to convince your soul.

It's one of those days where it seems everyone is nasty and mean without any cause, much less a "just” one. It feeds your negative experience. You are discombobulated and out of whack and just off it seems. The day can't end fast enough. Even a great meal can't assist you in turning the corner…half way through, you just lose your appetite and really don't enjoy the great thing before you, but you eat it anyways, out of habit more than joy.

You attempt a number of “resets” but it isn't happening. You just want to go home, but you don't know where that is any longer, and in my case, I haven't known where that is for decades. There is almost a sense of cosmic mischief afoot, determined to wreck the battle. A long walk to change the speed and pace, and all you get is a headache. Purpose seems to have deserted you completely and you can't remember all the reasons in your heart, for bringing you to this place, for this need, for this very necessary presence, here, right now. Or the price seems unnaturally high for the results.

Thankfully tomorrow is a new opportunity and start. May it be much much better than today.

Role changes

There are many roles that a person plays over the course of their lives. One that I never envisioned for myself is caretaker … of people that I love. It started about eight years ago when my wife suddenly and unexpectedly started having seizures, as a result of the epilepsy that we never knew she had. Of course unless you grow up wanting and expecting to take care of people as a vocation, you never will anticipate this role sneaking up on you. (since then, my brother and my mother have joined in the need to have some caretaking - my role expands)

Now let me make it abundantly clear, my wife is no wilting violet, hypochondriac, in no way does she ever live a “poor pitiful me” attitude in life. But there have been a number of moments in the last eight years where she is utterly dependent on help to even get dressed or showered or out of bed in the morning. Something neither of us ever could have imagined when we got married over 27 years ago. Something that neither of us would have believed could happen to us. But it did and it does. And now I am going through severe back pain in a chronic ongoing pattern that is both incredibly painful and very worrying, and I need a caretaker!

So we find ourselves at another one of those moments, recent surgeries keeping her immobile, as much as she hates any kind of perceived weakness in herself and as much as she detests having me (or anyone) help her. The result is that I cook by proxy sometimes - another unimaginable role that I can do now with aplomb. Cooking by proxy entails Brenda telling me what to do from whatever prone position she finds herself forced to remain in, while I make jokes and behave badly in the kitchen. Thus it takes two of us to make a simple cobbler, one that a small child could have done. But we did it together … in roles that we could not have imagined just a short while ago … and we had some good laughs along the way. Perhaps these role changes are not as bad as they seem? Perhaps this is the way to really grow and develop, by being forced to do so? Hmmmmm . . . 

Focus

Where are you focused? And what do you see there? Call it vision, call it foresight, call it prophecy. Or it could be more concrete, like my current scenery. Here is what I am looking at, now, at this very moment of writing.

Some would say that I am focused on a huge mountain range, some might say that I am focused on how small I am in comparison. But actually I am focused on you - my surroundings are just giving me scale to think, scale to be inspired, to see what I could not with a lesser vista.

So what are you focused on? The immediate? Depending on the task or need, it can be most excellent and most productive to be fully immersed in the now, in deep work, in the current, in the present, in the urgent. Or are you focused on the end game, the future, the result? How well can you see it? Can you sense it vaguely, or is it a sharp and persistent vision? Can you envision what it can be, what it will be, how it will take place, the steps to get there, to experience it, to bring it to fruition?

Focus has at least two parts, and maybe more depending, the first part is understanding WHAT you should be focused on - the timing of your focus, now, mid and future - and the second part is WHAT you see, the product, the sermon, the content, the competency, the skill, the reality out there … eventually. I could focus on the vista in front of me, the cool slight breeze on my face, the sun peeking through the clouds, the ambience of this mountain side cafe, the smell of the fresh air, the sounds of the birds chattering. Or I could be focused on you, what you are facing, what you are challenged by, what you need, your dreams, your goals, your hopes - fueled and scaled and inspired by all that is immediately present around me.

Tender skin?

“You don't have tender skin!” The guy mumbled under his breath as I walked away … after decking him hard on a cold Sunday afternoon football game many years ago. He had been giving me a hard time because I was wearing forearm guards. When he asked me why, I had told him that I had tender skin. It's important in football, and it's important in life, to have skin in the game. Nike has a slogan these days similar to this.

Are you invested enough in your work, your life, your family, your passion, your calling to have skinned knees and elbows? Have you wrestled to the point where you have left skin behind? Have you competed, struggled, stretched, reached, discovered, thought, inspired, mobilized, empowered, and settled for nothing less than your best in your fields of responsibilities? In your areas of opportunities? In building your core competences or products? Have you sweated and toiled and been diligent? Do you have skinned knees and elbows to show your commitment, your resolution, to produce something beautiful and unique and of high quality?

Most people think following your passion is simply about doing what you want, or what comes easy, or what requires the least from you. I believe it means quite the opposite. It means caring enough about the outcome that you leave skin behind. Everyone considers my wife a great linguist, and it's true that she actually enjoys language learning (shudder!). But what no one but me sees, day after day, year after year, and now decade after decade, is how hard and diligently she works at it. She has got skin in the game. What about you?

The alone times

Most people find they don't get enough alone time. And when one of these moments comes along, they find they don't know what to do with it. I hear this over and over, and sometimes even experience it myself.

It is especially difficult when you find yourself alone while, or because of, trying to do the right thing! Alone can be down right lonely when you find yourself standing alone or all alone because you are doing the right thing for the right reasons.

The challenge is to find enough internal discipline to stay the course. To stay in the right, no matter how painful or alone or difficult you find the moment. Tomorrow will be a new day and you want to be able to look yourself in the eye and not be ashamed of anything.

The other side of this, is choosing to be alone. To think, to pray, to create, to accomplish the difficult work of building something beautiful or valuable. These types of important activities demand alone time. They can't be produced in the middle of constant interruption and distraction.

All too often though we find the discomfort overpowering our golden opportunities.

The asphalt is really hard

Asphalt is hard. I mean really really hard! I met with said asphalt in a very unfriendly meeting last night. Very unexpected and very very quickly. I went down so fast, I don't even have any defensive wounds … just lots of sore sore muscles and a bent bicycle frame.

It is nothing short of amazing how quickly and smoothly one can get around the city on a bicycle. In my opinion, it is the ultimate transportation. Nimble, maneuverable, light, green and faster than a car by a great distance in heavy traffic in the city, because you can navigate to the front of the huge backups at each and every traffic signal. Literally I can cross the city twice as fast as a car during afternoon rush hour. But all of that is predicated on keeping the two wheels on the tarmac. All of those advantages only come into play when you keep it upright!

When the unexpected, the totally unforeseen is forcibly interjected into the mix, I went down like a sack of cement! I am most thankful that there was no car right behind me at that moment (and beyond thankful for my helmet seeing how my head bounce more than once off the pavement) or there could have easily been an obituary rather than a blog coming out of the experience. But life is very much like this unexpected fall, you are just motoring along and then boom! Down you go!

Now the question for life and for biking is the same - how do you respond to the unexpected, painful though it may be? At least this time, I got up this morning (albeit very slowly and gingerly), climbed back on the bike and started up the hill.

Leadership has consequences

Leadership always has consequences. In my conversations with clients yesterday, this was never more evident. The current authority they find themselves under is mostly just bad management, under the guise of leadership. I have been there, drank the water, have the t-shirt, and never want to see that place ever again in my whole life! But what advice do you give folks locked into such a situation? When you are the one doing the advising, THAT type leadership also has consequences, big consequences!

All leadership must take into consideration the impact, scope and scale that said leadership inflicts on the lives of the people living and operating under it. In vocational leadership, it involves compensation, decades of preparation, high emotional involvement, and a persons livelihood and existence. These are high stakes indeed. It is infuriating to see how little thought and care are given to the people caught in these leadershipless actions, how little consideration is given to the sacrifice and service given to an organization, how quickly organizations can move to remove any one of us, when our perceived value is compromised. Life is way more complicated than a simple balance sheet.

“Christian” organizations are the worse, because of Whom we serve. It is demanded of us, a much higher standard of diligence and care and mercy and understanding and commitment to one another. But alas, Christian organizations seem to be the most ruthless, the quickest to pull the trigger in pulling the rug out from under people, the least Christ-like of all in the end. Cynical? Not really, because in my leadership development business, all my clients are Christ-followers, and most of them work for Christian parent organizations, and I see this happen over and over and over again.

When will anyone stand up and say, “enough” and live and build and continue a different organization!? I guess I have.

Laying our souls bare

Everyone eventually has a soul-baring event, moment, situation, crisis, need or end. There inevitably occurs a space in life, where someone is hurt and may die, is terminal, has Alzheimer's, cancer, lost a job, broken a law, facing consequences of bad decisions, financial disaster, a bad car accident, or maybe you are facing your own mortality. Some of us even PRACTICE soul-baring because we believe it to be good for the soul! Hopefully you have people in your life with which you can bare your soul.

I did this today … just talked to a missionary who works for another organization about the double loss of a parent with Alzheimer's, about betrayal in my parent organization, about my brother who is destroying himself with alcohol, about my wife who is in constant pain, about the way some of my clients are being trashed by their mission, about the lost people surrounding me, about my hopes and wishes for my children and grandchildren.

Granted, not all of this soul-baring is equal, but many of them are excruciatingly painfully emotional, and the rest can cause quite a bit of stress, angst and turmoil. These are matters of the soul. Left inside they soon start to smell like the meat in my in-laws deep freezer after the compressor burned out and it sat in there rotting for weeks. It is a smell you can never get out of the freezer! You have to throw away the freezer too! Don't let matters get that old and moldy, much less to the point of rotting. Let it out, bare your heart your soul …to someone. Let the refreshing cleansing begin.

And occasionally all of us should wear the other suit as well. We need to be the one that listens to others bare their souls. It can be very therapeutic and helpful for all involved. Most often my internal response is simply thankfulness, that I only have what I have to bear, and not what this poor soul who is sobbing has to bear. It is finally great practice at listening, which not only helps the one baring their soul to you, but helps you appreciate it when someone else does it for you. Everyone eventually gets here. Be ready.

NewYears Eve 2013

The city is exploding with fireworks, as its citizens celebrate the end of the old and the arrival of the new. Our last two children arrived earlier today, and so we have a full nest, and thus our hearts are celebratory as well. It is a meaningful and heart-filling way for us to go out with the old and to bring in the new.

We are overwhelmed with thankfulness of God's goodness to us, even though in many ways it was a very challenging year. We said goodbye to Brenda's mother this year, which is was an unexpected heartbreak, and the day after we had her burial, our first grandchild was born, which would have been mom's first great-grandchild. It was a bitter and sweet time, and fairly reflective of the year as a whole.

We reduced our footprint significantly again this year, as we did last year, and found creative ways to live wider and farther on less resources. Or said another way, we chose to live with less, and less amenities, so that we could be closer to family and siblings which are in the middle of very difficult and terminal circumstances. We are making decisions that require us to walk more, bicycle more, take more time to get from point A to B, yet saving significant dollars, so that we can spend more days with those we love the most and have the least time remaining. Another one of those bitter and sweet experiences.

Yet our reach and influence in work has never been larger, our life-changing and significant points of growth and impact never greater. So we are thankful that we get to do meaningful and important work, even while our difficulties in our family are at a stage that is less than fun or frivolous. Bitter and sweet riding the same wave again.

This has been a year of hard lessons and events, yet some of the best moments too. Our grand-daughter brings us so much joy, and we have gotten to see her and spend time with her more than we imagined we ever would. We miss mom and have a hole in our hearts in the place she had in our lives. Other parents are struggling desperately as are some of our siblings, and we live far far away and that adds another layer of difficulty to the whole process and life we live.

But time moves forward and does not stop for any one of us, nor does even pause or give us a moment to catch our breath. 2013 is passing away into the history books and 2014 looms before us. We will make choices each day how to live it, and that will shape the now and the tomorrows.

What could we change?

We went to the bike show. No matter what you hear to the contrary, bikes are totally in vogue! There were a thousand bikes in the show or ridden to the show. Modifications were only limited by someone's imagination or dream.

It is something to consider were we to apply the same creativity to our vocation, productivity and innovation. What could we develop? What value could we provide? What could we change? We are only limited by our imagination or dreams!

Christmas Eve

This is Christmas Eve.  What that means to people is different as people are different. When I was a kid, this was the most anticipated event of my entire year.  It was the anticipation that made it so incredibly rich and intense. Christmas Day itself, never topped the pure pleasure of Christmas Eve, it equaled it some years, but never exceeded it.

There is an important lesson in that for life in general. Anticipation is the great energizer, that which gives life the best texture, the deepest pleasure, the most richness, it is the great enhancer of life deep and full. The physical equivalent would be when you are at the pinnacle of conditioning, right before you run the marathon you have been training for for the last 10 months.  The spiritual equivalent would be when you heart is clean and your sins forgiven, the freshness of a new start, especially after really blowing it. Anticipation. It is Hope alive and well.

Anticipation is usually even better than whatever you are, …er, well, anticipating.  Not always, but usually. If I approach life overall this way, filled with anticipation of what can be, may be, could be, might happen, could occur, it is the ultimate what if. And that potential can set us free to be…

The best worst

Christmas is the worst best time of the year to travel. Travel at this time of year can create such amazing anticipation, and the deepest of worries. We can be together with our family again … probably, if we make too tight connections, if the fog lifts, if the plane is not delayed, if the snow storm misses us.

Yes Christmas is a really really bad weather time of the year to travel. In fact the Skopje Airport has only had one flight land the last three days. Of course I am winging my way exactly that direction … and no I don't know if I will finally get home tonight or not. I cannot control the fog blanketing the Balkan Peninsula, nor can I fly the plane, nor do I make any of these decisions. The only decision that I get to make, is the one that happens inside of me. To be bitter and complain about the stupid weather, or fully present in the moment of my life right now and maximize it, experience it for all it is, rather than what I had hoped it might be?

Probably I will eventually get home and the kids flights will eventually arrive and all that I hope for will probably happen. But this is the most important moment of my life, in fact the only one I have. Best be fully present here in this moment now.