The tendency to cross disciplines and underestimate difficulties

The tendency to cross disciplines and underestimate difficulties

I had the most irritating interaction with Dave yesterday. He was intruding on my conversation with Charles, but that was only the beginning. So not only was he being rude, but he brought two more insidious irritants to the moment.

When he found out that I was an avid biker (read insane) he went on and on and on about how his husband Shaun who was piddling around Chiang Mai on his granny bike, was looking for something more challenging. He firmly believed that the jump from a three times a week one mile ride in his flat neighborhood, to a 53.5 mile ride up and down some of the steepest mountains in SE Asia was a small jump. He. Is. So. Wrong. 

It took me 10 years to get to the fitness level to ride these mountains, and I am carrying 70 pounds less weight, and workout every single day. Just another Westerner dismissing expertise and experience. But if this 53 year old man, thinks he is gonna make this 53 mile loop with me, while 70 pounds overweight, I don't care how much his bicycle costs!, then he is a lunatic.

And then he spent the next 45 minutes trying to convince me that practicing Yoga and that holding my breath would increase my VO2 rates. Here we are in public and he is showing me how to breath, or not to breath, so that I could build my optimal red cell counts and oxygen rates while biking. Just another Westerner dismissing expertise and experience. While I don't mind him being a fanboi of Yoga, validating his chosen joy by forcing it onto others is not necessary. And how the hell does he think I can hold my breath when I am making a climb of 11% grade in 100 degree heat??? Yoga is probably a perfectly valid exercise and activity, but it will not cross wholly into the discipline of cycling. No way.

When Dave finally gave Charles and me a moment alone, Charles said, "please don't take him biking with you. He will die, no doubt about it." And I told him "no worries, not a chance". Why is it that we think everything we might be interested in, applies to everything someone else is interested in? Why do we even have to tell everyone else what we are passionate about (unless invited to do so)? I have had one steady stream of foreigners imposing themselves onto my life this week, trying to convince me of various things, from appearing as a guest on TV, to converting to JW's, to changing from cycling to yoga. Not a single one of these people asked me what I was interested in. Not one of these people were interested in me, only what they perceived that I might could give to them, or add to their lives. 

I don't mind this in my clients nor my friends, but I will think less of you if you make our introduction transactional in these ways. You don't know everything, and what you are interested in doesn't apply to everything someone else might be interested in. 

1141

1141

1141 beautiful miles this last month on the bike up the grueling mountains of SE Asia in the heat and humidity. Sweating out the toxins and bad stuff of a Western diet. It's been great and revealing in a humbling sort of manner. I am not a young man, but I feel much younger (after a few weeks) when I give myself these kinds of limited challenges in short intense periods each year. If you want to get stronger and more flexible, you must push yourself into new areas of accomplishment, no matter how long it takes you. The worst thing you can do to your body is not use it and feed it poorly with calorie-intense-nutrient-deficient food.

I can't duplicate the intensity of these mountains and the temps anywhere else I generally go in the world, and so I can't see the immediate benefits of such rides when I am not in SE Asia. But it sets the standard for the rest of the year. It gives me a peek into what top fitness feels like, what my body experiences when I work it like this day in and day out. It is a pretty spectacular experience for a 57 year old grandpa. Combine those levels of effort, with an Asian diet and the results are astonishing. This is why I keep telling myself that I want to move to Chiang Mai. It's difficult to live astonishing in Eastern Europe,and darn impossible in the USA.

Buckets and buckets

Buckets and buckets

I have unearthed a disturbing trend in my clients. And it probably has its roots in our Evangelical background, where the super devoted never tire and never quit and never are frivolous. The trend is that it seems we are still trying to burn ourselves out for Jesus or the kingdom or whatever. 

This trend is one of the most deadly pieces of awfulness that I have to carefully work against in almost every single one of them. Deconstructing this whole conceptual idea that you can sleep when you are dead, that God loves best those who work the hardest and sacrifice the most, that there is merit in weary exhaustion that leaves you weak and defenseless in too many ways, that crushes energy and excitement and creativity.

Here is what I mean in very technical speech ... the “very tool we need to prosper in today’s environment: our cognition. So, when we require mental acuity, we experience diminished recall. When we need sharp thinking and problem-solving, our minds are full.” From "The 24 hour rule" by Charles Fred.

Even in myself, I am still discovering that I need buckets and buckets of self care to find optimal balance of input and outputs. In the past I laughed at this idea. But I can remember so vividly the day in 1993 when I read a quote from Bill Hybels who was the pastor of the largest church in the USA at that time, that he needed to spend 50% of his time in developing (PTA essentially) himself, in order to pastor that huge mega-church, when I was working 80 hours a week and barely getting everything accomplished for a small growing church of 125 people.

Eventually I got what Hybels was preaching, and now I preach it myself. We need far more and better buckets of caring for our own souls, bodies and minds than we ever thought was necessary. I only wish that I could package up all the energy and power that I got from 9 hours of sleep last night for today's opportunities, and show it to my clients. Buckets and buckets of care people. Stop cheating yourself or cheating all the people in the world that your life affects.

95 is perfect . . . for me

95 is perfect

I spend most of the year being cold and less productive than I could be, were I warm. But here in Asia, at this moment sitting in the shade of the patio, its 95 degrees, humid, slight breeze moving to keep things just under the sweating point, and its perfect, wonderful, excellent. My brain is jumping with possibilities and relief. No wasted energy going to the effort of staying warm!

Of course everyone's perfect is gonna be different, because there is only one perfect for each person. And that applies to all the pieces you need/want to be the most powerful version of yourself. One of the primary tasks of crafting the right PTA for yourself, is understanding what you need in order for it to take place in an optimum manner. I find far too many of my high capacity clients pushing this back down the priority list - mistake!

One of my peeps, likes it really cold. He is basically a polar bear. He would melt and only suffer here. Another one needs regular appointments with a fishing pole in order to be the most powerful version of himself. Another needs longs daily connects with her hound and husband. As you can see, this can be most anything. My perfect is Asia and 95. Know yours and make it a priority to get it often!

If I let my mind wander . . .

If I let my mind wander

In this cramped small seat next to the largest person on the aircraft who is crowding my small space even more, then this might be an exercise in smallness and constraints.

But if I look out the window on the other side of my small seat, and see all the puffy clouds, and tiny roads and twists below and let my imagination soar, this might be an exercise in bigness and freedom and possibilities.

Both are true, the big man and the window, but I get to choose where to focus my thoughts and attitude. 

So much power

Everything in 2019 is pretty much overclocked. The propellers (yes this is a prop plane) and engines on this aircraft are more engine than we need to get airborn and make our way to Bangkok and Siem Reap. The processors in this phone are far more powerful than I will ever need to get the job done. In fact the processors in my iPad are such overkill, that there isn't even any software made that can stress them out! My motorcycle will go 115 miles per hour (yes I know this for a fact) but the speed limit is 55 most of the time and with all of these items, I only use a fraction of the power that is available to me.

Likewise, my body is capable of far more than I usually demand. I have run marathons and ultra marathons and climb the Rocky Mountains and crossed the USA on my bicycle and still I can do even more. Interestingly enough the area of life that is **most** overclocked in terms of capacity, that I think gets the least mileage out of that potential - is our brains.

Thinking is hard work, really hard work and there is not nearly enough of it going on around us. It doesn't appear like it is actually work (until you try to do it for a living!), because there is no sweat involved, although there certainly is a great deal of effort involved. We all need to use a great deal more of what is available between our ears. There is so much power untapped here.

Temptation Bundling

Temptation bundling 

James Clear speaks eloquently about temptation bundling in his book “Atomic Habits” as the combination of an activity that you want to do with one you need to do.  I can personally vouch for this habit builder activity. It could even be called a structure builder in my opinion.  And if you want to layer it up even more, add a “not that until this” requirement.

What this looked like for me is that what I want to do is read. I am years behind in my reading lists! What I need to do is exercise. Temptation bundling is combining the two - audiobooks are the way to effortlessly do so. Thus I only allow myself to listen to books while exercising. Period. No exceptions!

Layering it up means that I touch no electronics before I temptation bundle every single day. That means no distractions! It’s icing on the cake!! 

This provides the structure of my production each day. It makes certain that I get the valuable things accomplished in order of their contributions to my daily productivity. I discovered years ago that email is only doing someone else’s priority not my own. Social media is less than useless in terms of my productivity and so boxing that “no electronics “ rule into my life is a huge plus. And of course I do need to correspond with email but it is later in the day action which equals its lower value to my daily productivity.

Terminal discontent

I spent some time with friends today. They are so typical of humankind. They are afflicted with discontent. Their particular discontent happens to center around personal relationships, which is one of the primary discontents we all deal with at some point. We want the impossible, and when we inevitably don't get it from the persons we love and are involved with, the result is a nearly terminal discontent. Terminal in the sense of constant, but it also often ends the relationship eventually and so is terminal in that sense as well.

While all forms of discontent are burdened by the weight of expectations, none so much as relationship discontent. Few humans can boast of a relationship that is never strained by the stress of expectations. And we even have expectations about the other person's expectations! We weight that relationship with so many expectations that we actually frequently create problems where none existed in my opinion! Stop! Now!

Mitigating my discontent most often begins with me assessing my expectations and readjusting them to something approaching reasonable. Some will cry "settling" here, but if what is going on in my imagination (i.e. expectations) does not line up with reality, then one of them must give.

"We can’t imagine an alternative to work.”

What????

Hunnicutt stated this in an article about the "religion of work." Benjamin Hunnicutt is a professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa and author of Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream. It is astonishing how many articles and blogs are coming down the pipeline these days, touting the demise of retirement, the abolishment of free time, the need to be working in order to be mentally healthy!

I say astonishing because none of these people can imagine an alternative to work!?! Leisure has gotten a bad rap in the 21st century, and personally I think this is completely bogus. I enjoy my work and I enjoy my leisure, and I enjoy them equally! I also am a much nicer human being because they are about equal in my life. As my daughter said to me, "I like this version of you much better than the one where you worked 80 hours a week." Best part of all was the discovery that each hour of "work" is now far more productive, than all those busy hours were before.

But can I imagine an alternative to work?? Oh heck yes!! There are endless books to read, and blogs to write, and places to visit, and food to try, and drinks to sample and fish to catch . . . oh, that sounds like my life already doesn't it?? My friends I already am smelling the roses! So does that make me one of those rare people who leverages his passions and wants and best contributions to the world into a paycheck?? Probably.

If you can't imagine an alternative to work, you need a better imagination. Tim Ferris would probably recommend some psychedelic drugs at this point, and I would likely suggest some international travel to get you moving out of your mental zipcode so that your imagination could vastly improve. We get an extra 30 years now compared to generations of the past, whatever are you gonna do with that gift?? At the moment I am sitting on my balcony among the flowers, purple, pink, white, reds, and the vista is a grand range of snow capped mountains, with a glass of sparkling water and over 2000 articles waiting in my que to be read and dissected and passed along. 

War Stories

War stories

We all have them. Scars too. My dad tells his of growing up poor, fighting and struggling his entire life to scratch out a living. This was his war, and these are his stories. The two guys next to me on this flight, are telling each other actual war stories, and those are their stories to tell. But I find most of these stories the wrong stories. We need to tell ourselves and others, another story.

A story about how we changed the world. About how you made a difference. About how you changed one persons life. And then another. And then another. About how you were continually learning and developing yourself and others. About how you created opportunities and possibilities for others. About how the world is a better place because of your efforts. About how living this kind of life changed you. 

Directions

Directions

It is a typical pattern of life, but sometimes difficult to recognize it for what it is, that you have to go backwards to go forward. This happens to me all the time as I travel for work. I frequently fly two time zones in the wrong direction, in order to catch a flight going in the desired direction. Many times we have to travel North in order to reach the highway that will most efficiently take us South. 

It happens in language acquisition. When you begin to study a new language, you have to set aside a lifetime of skills and accomplishments in order to learn the very basics. Even the dogs understand more than you when you begin! It doesn't matter if you have a doctorate or not, in the new language you are several stages below the animals. It is the only path forward. And it will continue to appear to be going in the wrong direction for a long while. As one language teacher described it to me, you speak wrong! You continue to speak wrong. And less wrong. And then less wrongly. And then less wrong, and finally, more right. You only get there close to the end, and the entire trip felt like you were going the wrong direction.

It happens in finances and investments. I recently purchased some investment properties. I spent the entire first month of ownership going the wrong way (spending money instead of making money) in order to arrest and reverse several directions the property was heading. Yet it was still the shortest route to where I needed and wanted to go. It happens in relationships, our spiritual journeys, and in our careers. 

Don't get frustrated when you have to go the wrong direction to get to the right directions. Where you are going matters. Patience and tenacity achieve remarkable results even when it feels like you are going the wrong direction.

Process of Mystery

Process of Mystery

Our annual "process of mystery" is in full swing, also known as the Federal Visa Process in the country we live in outside the USA. Even after 20 years (yes it has been that long!!) there is no signage, no designations on the doors, no instructions, no directions, just an entire floor of identical doors that lead to angry people who have no patience for anything or anyone disturbing their peace, even though without us (the customers) they would no longer have a job.

This is obscure and nearly impossible on purpose. It lays ALL the burden and responsibility for "figuring out the system" on those required to pursue a Visa, and thus leaves the people behind each door free to sit at their desks and find the smallest minutia and reason to "fail" the application. Even after 20 years of doing this and having professional assistance at every step of the process, we still had to return to the notary today for one additional stamp. (I think this was just a token command to just remind us of who has all the power here)

Yes every country has the right to create a process that it deems necessary and prudent to insure that the Visa process fulfills the values and expectations of said country. But having the most oblique process in the world doesn't make you a world class power, it makes you a bully. Unfortunately, they do this kind of stuff to their own citizens as well. Don't even get me started on the process of registering a car! The net result is not a better nor more efficient process (and yes I understand that such values aren't necessarily the goal in many places around the world), it is instead a mind-numbing waste of time, when we all could be producing something meaningful and important. At the very least list the requirements and process somewhere no matter how complex they may be, and the transparency along with understanding may make everyone's life more manageable. Ok rant over.

Living longer for sure, but better?

Today my wife and I had an interesting and long overdue introductory conversation about our new stage of life and what we are gonna do with it. I can start drawing Social Security in less than five years! We talked in a round about way (never really facing the truth of the failed health system here, no handicapped access here, no progressive care here, etc etc) what it would be like to continue living and working here in Macedonia. Then we talked about the wild cards - my dad, her health and our fragility as we get older - these are not the crisis that you can predict on a timetable, but at the same time you can be certain that they are much closer to your immediate future than they were last decade. We talked about the trade-offs of various decisions and in the end, stayed precariously right where we have been for the last five years or so, the decision to NOT make any decisions and therefore not close any potential doors nor conclude current highly valued activities.

This is pretty short-sighted of all of us, and probably foolish from a financial point of view, and definitely disastrous from a leadership point of view. As Joseph Coughlin of MIT said, "Over the past century, we’ve created the greatest gift in the history of humanity—thirty extra years of life—and we don’t know what to do with it!" And this is precisely where the decision to not decide is a catastrophic failure. 

I have been doing a fair bit of reading on this topic and it was fascinating to see our conversation today, exactly followed the line of those articles - that I don't mind getting older, as long as I have all the abilities/mobility/intellect/strength/resources that I have today. And that is where this entire conversation breaks down - because we won't. We will become evermore dependent on someone as we lose these currently held gifts, in our ongoing physical breakdowns. And then we die, which is nevermind not important, its the living part I am addressing! Eternity is in God's hands not ours.

But this extra 30 years of living, now that is a conversation worth having and facing and planning and doing. Life is longer for sure, but better?

What’s part of our “next”?

What's next?

The only constant seems to be change itself. I am fond of saying that I am living with the third version of my wife, and she is probably living with the fifth version of me. No one stays the same unless they are dead, and I am not yet. The person you married has gone through a number of revolutions since your wedding day. That is normal. That is to be expected and even admired.

Long story short, in my life, that means I keep leaving really great and perfect jobs, for the next challenge. The current one is what I am calling "13 doors" and if you are into real estate investing and understand your "freedom number" then that makes sense. Otherwise, you will just have to wait until I write that particular blog and clue you in. For those in the know, I am currently at five doors.

13 doors is keeping me on the edge of my seat. It's keeping me awake at night. These are probably good things. Everyone needs tension in their lives to make things interesting. I have no idea how my current and upcoming economic engines will integrate or how one may be accepted or rejected by the other. But they WILL intersect, only the when and how are yet to be determined. Again the only constant is change itself.  This is happening. Imagining that it is not, is a Grimm Fairytale.

In the quiet

There is not nearly enough quiet in my life. Practically everyone's experience in the modern world is the noise and hustle of busy. There is far too much bad news concentrated down into constant 20 second sound bites on the news channels. Communication has made so many things better, but it has also made a great number of things far worse. 

I can know what some maniac in New Zealand did to innocent people, moments after he accomplish his psychopathic deeds. This is not healthy nor good. This rips the fabric of our peace and lives in such a way that we are forced to participate even if as only observers. Knowledge can be powerfully good, and it also can overwhelm all the quiet and peace that could be present in our lives. 

As I get older, I understand that quiet is more and more important to my well-being. So this may not come as a surprise to to you, but I haven't willingly listened to the "news" since 2007. That is 12 years of far more peace and quiet in my life. I also discovered three years ago, that I am an introvert after all! This was a real shock as I had worked most of my life in a profession that demands a charismatic and highly extroverted public face - one that I had been faking for about 30 years. No wonder that I constantly felt drained and exhausted. The energy required to wear that mask all the time was enormous. 

Pretty much everyone that means something to me in my life, much prefers this real version of me, over the fake version that I publicly wore. Now I can easily give myself permission to say "no" and to stay out of the limelight and to have the quiet in my life that is necessary for me to thrive best. Americans have a huge affinity for extroverts and busy. But I don't have to be that way. I can choose quiet.

(A good primer on this subject is Susan Cain's book entitled "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that can't stop talking") 

Which stories to tell?

These last 2.5 years, I find myself spending far more time with my dad than I have in the last 40 plus years. This has been both wonderful and trying. Wonderful because we have had to forge a new relationship, since my brother and mother have both died and there are only the two of us. Trying, because the new dad I have discovered after 40 plus years never stops talking. It's not really a conversation, its mostly just a monologue that consists of every single thought that crosses his mind, unfiltered and largely unconnected to anything I (or anyone else) may say or any response given to his previous statements. 

Often (really often!) its the same set of repeated stories of his working days, with some repeating childhood memories thrown in there, and all the freshly polished memories that he can dredge up about the past. None of these stories are about the future. Granted, I too may well be feeling and experiencing and living this when I am 78 years old and don't believe that there is much of a future remaining.

But after 2.5 years of this, and after trying 15 different strategies to break through and have an actual conversation (which I admit, happens occasionally, but nowhere nearly often enough!) I have started to wonder what kinds of stories will I tell at this stage of life? Those pieces and experiences of my past that I value are so radically different than my dad's, it has really made me pause and think about this.

I have been to 50 countries and have lived in five. I am extremely well traveled and speak multiple languages. I have accomplished things few even dream about in the world that I grew up in and where my dad lives. But unlike my dad, I don't think my stories will be about my jobs, nor all the nuances that are a part of my work. Even if I told those stories, I think few people would understand them and especially not the significance of them. 

So I don't think I will detail all the jobs that I have had, cars or machines I have driven, nor how hard I worked, nor how the big people put me down. The stories that I think about are much more about the experiences I have had like visiting the temples at Angkor Wat, riding my bicycle across the entire United States, or the people who I had the privilege to challenge and lead, and the lives I intersected with in all these places.  It's about the people you changed, not which activities you did or didn't do or got credit for or denied along the way.

Who we perceive ourselves to be

Who we perceive ourselves to be

While having some conversations with my dad this week, he confessed that he was usually one of the last two people chosen at softball or football or whatever at break time while in school. Although I was not usually in those positions, I was also often in the last third to be chosen. Obviously this did not keep us in some kind of psychic prison where we were chosen near the last in our adult lives - we excelled at all that we undertook.

But I wonder often how much of that prison mentality remains? I see in myself and in my dad the willingness to hang on to every injury, mostly mental injuries, where we were chosen last in some fashion. Certainly this was fuel in some ways to have bigger ambitions and competencies than we would have otherwise. But it also left us mentally weak in some key areas. My assessment is that our confidence in our capacities has always suffered a great deal from these school yard experiences.

But we are not powerless or choice-less as adults. We have the power to decide for ourselves. We have the choice to choose ourselves first, and best of all we can choose to believe in ourselves and our abilities. We can choose the competencies that we develop and polish and use. While the metrics of the school yard playground may be weighted toward who can run the fastest or hit the ball the longest distance, those metrics don't matter much in the adult world. Diligence, grit, focus, thinking, and such skills carry the day, and I can choose.

The luckiest guy in the world

The luckiest guy in the world

Who would that be? Well me of course. It was always this way, but I didn't know it until these last six - ten years or so, when I had my eyes blown open. Six years ago today, a very very good friend killed himself. This was such a shocking event, that it completely changed what I do every single day since.

No more taking life for granted. I have this one wild beautiful opportunity at life, and for far too long the glass felt like it was half (¾!) empty. Now I realize that it was almost always mostly full, and I just was so ridiculously blind to what it contained. I think it was Mark Sanborn who said, "one day in the future, you would give almost anything to have what you have today." That blindness, that unawareness of all that is within my grasp today is deadly business.

No more living in the future. When Mark killed himself, I could not fathom what had been lost. We ran marathons together, traveled across Europe together, worked together, rode bicycles together, laughed together, and so much more. But my nearly terminal future-focus, diminished all the nows and immediacy of all those great moments I had with Mark . . . I thought that there would always be more in the future, and that reduces the power of this moment. I live in the now far more than before.

No more working with people I don't like. Life is short under the best of circumstances, and far far too short when we take matters into our own hands. It became clear that I could no longer work and share my life in significant ways with those I don't like. Not everyone has this power and control over their lives, and it is one more reason I am one of the luckiest guys in the world. 

I could list so many more factors that make me the luckiest guy in the whole world, my lovely bride, kids, grandkids, my dad is still with us, and so many other great relationships, but its the one I lost that made me realize what I had.

Thought leader

Thought leader?

There is no designation more sought after in my professional world. None more difficult to accomplish either. But few make the space, nor create the time, necessary to actually think, which if you give it a moment, is a necessary predicate to being a thought leader. Believe this or not, I actually work dillengently at making room for thinking. I own no TV. I never listen to the radio. I try to reserve as much mental bandwidth as possible for thinking. And it still is not nearly enough.

This feels like a permanent deficit in my life. No matter how hard I try, I still need more thinking time.

It is not something that happens quickly or easily.  Often one great thought leads to another mental dead-end or mental end zone where "the flow" stops, and new challenges begin. Just when I begin to consider myself at the breakthrough point, I discover that I am actually at a new beginning, not a pivotal or well leverage place where I can leap into a thought leader position.  Or where I can take the lead in some significant mental or conceptual place where a "lead" can be considered or claimed.

This striving though, has value all by itself, and can give a great deal of value. Like it's time to sleep right now. 

The lesson

The lesson

I just spent an entire week teaching/facilitating a group of top professionals in some professional development for their field. Some would consider me an expert. I probably am. I have a number of decades in my experience of doing this very successfully. It was well received. I received compliments and encouragement from 90% of the audience over the week.

But I did not enjoy it very much. This is not where I want to shine nor what I want to be known for. Individual one on one or very small group interaction is far superior. It is also far more demanding and far more rewarding. There are many people who would kill for my public and large audience opportunities, but I am not among them. My friend Bernie, calls it "leading from the back of the room." I like that mental picture and what it says about me. Not only that, but it is a much richer experience and much more gratifying at a personal level.

This too fits my personality much better. As I get older, my introvert is seems to grow stronger. I desire public acclaim and the public spotlight less and less. I desire a crucial personal interaction far more. This about being quiet and enjoyed for the value provided, much more than for the charisma and energy expressed in a far too public venue.

The lesson is that I need to say "no" more to the big gigs, and "yes" far more to the small personal gigs. While it may not make sense to the "more and bigger" crowd, I am walking to the drumbeat of a different group. What about you? Do you have the calm confidence to make this call?