Repeat

Chapter 236

Add up the sum of our days and that’s who we are. We get what we repeat. - Seth Godin

We get what we repeat. We mostly call them habits. I used to have a Coca-Cola habit and a burger habit and those kinds of habits lead to a 300 lb body. Now I have a daily bike ride habit and that kind of habit can lead to a weight appropriate body. You get what you repeat.

25% of the folks in America haven’t read a book this past year. That is a quarter of our population that hasn’t repeated a high productive learning process one single time in the last 365 days! Now granted, they may have been on a high learning curve in a machine shop or some other hand’s on type of work, but for most people, not reading means not learning. You are what you repeat, but conversely I think you likely are not what you don’t do. You are not what you don’t repeat.

If you are generous, and are repeatedly so, that generosity will define you and come back to you, even though that was never the reason to be generous in the first place. I like the “sum of our days” being a generous person. If you are lazy and are repeatedly so, that laziness will define you and come back to bite you in the ass. If you are a thinking person, and are repeatedly so, that thinking will define you and come back to you, and many will come to you for wisdom.

You get what you repeat.

Decide what you want to get.

The adjacent possible

Chapter 235

found in the adjacent possible — the space just beyond the cutting-edge of the relevant skills. - Cal Newport

The adjacent possible. This is not a typo. This where things morph into something else entirely, than they were before. This is the place right over the horizon from your current expertise. You have just a bit further to go and you will see it and you can grasp it. Its not really your expertise perhaps, but a unique application of what you can you better than most other people. 

My dad does this regularly, as he is/was a mechanic, but he regularly (and occasionally brilliantly) ventures into engineering. He can design some amazing stuff. This is the adjacent possible. Or rather he would argue that it is his adjacent necessary. Touché. Either will work. 

My adjacent possible are the business and non-profit applications of leadership learned in the front lines of cross-cultural church planting work. Yes I understand. In your mind there are no parallels. But you aren’t looking at my skills from the inside. You can’t see the adjacent possible that Cal Newport is referring to and describing. Nor can I likely see your adjacent possibles.

But it is now time for you to start looking for your adjacent possible. Your application of what you have at hand. It can be as simple as the 20 year old that has a big bad pickup trunk that he can’t afford - going into business hauling other trucks and vehicles with his big bad truck - I just had a direct experience with this 20 something over the weekend. He saw the adjacent possible in his life. 

Now it is your turn.

The bravery to be myself

Chapter 234

It is something most of us are striving toward, the bravery to be real, to be ourselves. The process and the action is far more difficult than it should be. Bravery isn’t generally difficult to find, but bravery at this level can be. This is rejection-level bravery. When was the last time you allowed someone to see the unvarnished you, and you received an unvarnished positive response? Exactly. This is why people as much as possible congregate toward people who are most like them. It lowers the friction to manageable levels and doesn’t require very much bravery.

But we don’t have the luxury of hanging out with our peeps 24/7 and at some point we have to be with people who aren’t likely to be super-accepting of us. Their tolerance for our appearance, or politics or attire or views or beliefs or age is low. And they will not permit you to be real and unvarnished without comment. And how much power (or not) those comments have over you, is the amount of bravery you will need in your emotional and psychological tank to face the comments without injury or scarring.

One of the pieces that fill my bravery tank in these situations, is the understanding that I have come to late in life, that the person making the comments, is generally making the comment because they themselves are terrified to be themselves, and that is why they can’t admire you for doing so. 

That understanding fuels my bravery. 

May it do the same for you also.

Be yourself, but don’t stop growing.

No lies

Chapter 231

Gaining weight in the Coronavirus era is easy to do, if you eat your stress like I do. I mean I am on the farm right now, working myself very hard, very physically, but the scales won’t budget. And as hard as I am working these last three days, I keep expecting expecting to wake up and see a drop in the number on the screen. Heck, I am so frustrated I got out another scale this morning, because I was sure the one I had been using for the last three days wasn’t functioning properly!

Sorry to report, it was functioning just fine. Thus, no matter how much I want to dispute this, the truth is staring me back in the face, I am eating more than I realize. And when I am eating more than I realize, I am stressed. I eat my stress. I need to calm down and relax. Perhaps you do too?

This could be a list of all the things that I could be stressing out about internally, or this could be a list of all the things that I can be grateful for, or this can be no list at all. Let’s be honest here, I have coffee, peanut butter and Nutella with me here at the table, what more could a person want?? Well the scales don’t lie, and clearly I want something more - and I end up putting food in there instead of resolving what is the cause of this stress inside. That will only cause me more stress, and not fix anything. The scale doesn’t lie. Pay attention to what the facts are telling you.

The scale doesn’t lie.

Durability

Chapter 230

The power of jet engines.

In our world, international travel is so common place. I recently ran an eight consecutive year span of more than 100,000 annual flight miles. That is more than I wish to subject my body too these days, so I am cutting way back, but the fascination with moving across fantastic distances in relatively short periods of time, is still very strong in me. These jet engines are simply amazing. Their power is enormous and their durability is the stuff of legends. I regularly fly on planes that are 20-30 years old. Rock solid.

The only engine in the world more amazing than the power of jet engines, is the human body and mind. It is capable of incredible feats, over and over again. Even though they are organic and very fragile in one sense, they are also regenerative and capable of fantastic achievements of endurance and creativity. And after a few hours of rest, you can get up and do it all over again and again! There is nothing like it in the entire universe.

I have observed that many have a terrible attitude toward their bodies, and that regularly and methodically abuse them. But our bodies and our minds are the instruments with which we experience life, share joy and grief, enjoy food and sex, laugh and cry, accomplish and create, make and do, think and ponder, hold our babies and grandbabies and with which we bury our parents and grandparents. They are our vessel of moving through this life and it deserves the best from you. They are better and more powerful and more durable than the jet engines I am relying on at this very moment, to keep this humongous airliner in the air.

Expectations

Chapter 228

"Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can." ~ Richard Bach

Surprise winners are rare. We even have a name for them they are so rare - cinderella teams. Those who typically win, are not surprised that they did, they planned for it, they worked for it, they strove for it, they never gave up, they always believed they could win, they designed their actions and their days and their steps so that they could win.

No matter how long it takes, no matter the effort required, no matter how many setbacks they experience, and often no matter the cost, winners expect to win, they don’t expect to lose. Now of course there are only so many winner positions that can be had, but winners and winning don’t just happen on the gold medal platform. Winners win all along the way. They realize that the process itself is usually a huge win. They count the difficulties as blessings.

Losers just don’t win even if they somehow end up on the gold metal platform. They may experience the same euphoria as anyone else who reaches the peak of a season, a game, a competition. But they never really expected to be there. Honestly they didn’t. That doesn’t mean they didn’t work hard . . . just not as hard. That doesn’t mean they try their absolute hardest to success . . . but it generally still falls short of winning.

This is not a chapter against losers, its a pathway to moving from the loser category to the winner category. Winners expect to win. And they do.

You go first

Chapter 227

“ The toughest person you will ever lead is yourself.” - Betsy Myers

Setting yourself up for success is much more difficult than you would think. You are immune to all your pep talks, all your psychology, all your learning, all your best practices and all your convincing. Yes that stuff works on other people and on your clients, and the other people you lead, but your immunity to what works on other people that you lead, is so strong and is an impregnable mental and psychic prison. This rabbit hole is a really deep one and this chapter not nearly long enough to dig very far into it, but . . . 

Maybe its imposter syndrome, we can’t fool ourselves much, and we know all our own weaknesses impeccably. And we likely amplify them far too much and call it clarity, but maybe not.  Perhaps this is simple insecurity and that can be expressed powerfully internally and completely disarm all your confidence in the facts - that you are actually a very accomplished and capable person. Maybe you are far more critical of yourself than you are of others, unreasonably so, and that this cripples your self leadership. Perhaps its is the internal narrative you have still going from your childhood or teen years, those stories that can make so difficult to hear and follow your self leadership.

I could, and probably you could, go on for pages and pages about why we don’t follow the great self leadership that we offer to others, but won’t go there. Instead become smarter than smart - take and follow that great leadership material you are preparing for others. Take and follow those best practices that are helping others move forward.

Lead yourself first, and require that you do it before expecting anyone else to do it.

Awareness

Chapter 226

“Leadership is self-knowledge. Successful leaders are those who are conscious about their behavior and the impact it has on the people around them.” - Betsy Myers 

Leadership is a tough gig. Under the best of circumstances it is difficult, but those who do it best are those self-aware individuals who understand the nuances of how their presence and influence impact those people that are with them on any given occasion. This is sometimes called “presence” or bearing or demeanor or charisma. Call it what you like, but I am arguing that we leaders need to be very in tune with how people are responding to us.

Not because we want something, or are seeking some kind of personal gain, but because you want people to follow, to get behind a change-the-world process and makes stuff happen. Any astute leader monitors how they are affecting the people they are with or are speaking to, at any given moment. I remember about eight years ago when I became acutely aware of this and how powerful it was in my life. 

I had recently made some fairly significant changes to my weight and health and I looked different and felt different than I had in my previous 25 years of doing these big speaking gigs. The change in their response to me was electrifying. I was given power that I had never known even existed before. The content was largely the same excellent quality as it always had been, what was different was me. I was shining and energized and perfectly weight appropriate for the first time in my adult life, and the difference was stunning.

There is no going back now.

Deserving more

Chapter 225

“A leader’s work is all about relationships and interactions. It makes sense that love should guide his or her daily actions and decisions.” - Ken Byler

This is one of those mushy ideas that I don’t like talking about because I think it confuses the means with the goal. If the goal is a more productive life bringing value to everyone it touches, then the means of that goal would be relationships and interactions within those relationships. Those would be best served by love or high mutual regard or some other highly empathetic guidance. But that is the means in this situation, not the goal. I would change the statement to, “a leaders work is about helping each person become more productive and value-creating, and relationships and the following interactions would of course be key in seeing that accomplished.” Again, we are talking about a leaders work here, not marriage.

If we are discussing the goal of fine relationships and interactions, then the second sentence above makes perfect sense. If we are discussing family and romance and love life, then the second sentence above makes perfect sense. If we are on a sports team or in a sorority or in a club, at the very least loyalty and commitment should rule your daily actions and decisions if not love.

As the quote stands, I think it makes a mockery of both leader and love. Both words and the ideas that define them, deserve more than one another.

You are free

Chapter 224

It doesn’t matter who made you. It matters what you choose to be.”

I wrote this on the start of my 59th trip around the sun and the completion of my 58th trip around the sun, even though in the West we count this as me being 58 years old, I am really living out the first day of my 59th year. Josie and Earl got together about 58 years and nine months ago and made me. For good or bad, that defined me for decades, especially in the first 17 years of my life, and even quite a bit in the second 17 years of my life, but less and less so since then. As Brenda pointed out, we become something other along the way, especially and more pronouncedly if you can overcome the idea that who made you makes you.

The reality in the larger world is that, you can choose what and who you are, far more than ever before. And it can have far less to do with who made you than ever before. Of course these bonds can still have tremendous power. I have lost count of the number of people I have met in SE Asia who are willing to debase themselves in order to fulfill their cultural and social obligations to their parents and grandparents and great grandparents. They have decided that who made them supersedes every other choice that they can make. They are technically wrong about that, but their understanding of the world prevents them from ever finding this freedom to be. 

You don’t have these same cultural bonds. You may find them safe, but you don’t have to choose to have your present and future decided by those who made you. 

You are free.

Your future-proof self

Chapter 223

the university model

Life long learning is the only way to future-proof your life. The university model that I grew up with and that you grew up with is far from adequate for the pace of today’s world. There is no way that four years of university can begin to equip you for pace of change and size of needs your world is facing. It can provide you with some patterns of learning and skills of focus and demand-management, but content?? Not a chance.

You will need decades to develop and hone content. I finally felt like I was starting to really understand a few things by the time I finished my doctoral thesis. Only a few things though. Its just like when Dr Klipowitz told me that when I have read every single book on my subject, and when I have already read all the books being quoted in my latest find on this subject - that I was finally ready to begin to write, to begin to understand. That only took five years. And I am a very fast reader. The value of the university model is that it taught me some skills and practical means to continue learning.

So if you have the excellent fortune of a good university education, you get a slight headstart on the non-university graduate, but both of you will need keep learning every single day of your lives, or you both will find yourselves stuck.

Life long learning is the single most critical factor in your future-proof self.

Your future part 3

Chapter 222

"I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life." ~ George Burns

Where are you going to spend the rest of your life? Well in the future of course. George is not the only person that this is true of, that we need to be looking to the future. But then again, maybe that is only partially true. What does that even mean? 

For me, I have been so future-focused, I have missed far too many of my present moments over the decades. The future never gets here in a sense. So in the end you have nothing to show for it. That is what being too future-focus will get you - empty hands. On the other hand, you have to be future-focused enough to build a life that you want, or otherwise you have nothing to look forward to at all. Life without anticipation is no life at all. To not have a future is to be dead in some fashion.

80 year olds like my dad, seem to look almost entirely to the past. Burns was likely trying to make a statement about how that is an error and that he was choosing to not be like most 80 and 90 year olds. My dad talks about the past 90% of the time, the present 9.9% of the time, and the future 0.1% of the time. I want to talk about the past 10% of the time, live in the present 90% of the time, and think about the future along the way maybe 40% of the time. The present is all we truly have, and the future is our hoped for present at a later time in life.

Where is your focus?

A life, not a competition

Chapter 221

“If you are reading this article, today is the first day of the rest of your life, and you have every reason to be grateful for it. Thank God for the gift of your life. You are alive for a reason.” - Henry Mukuti

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. It matters. YOU matter. How long the rest of the life will or won’t be is not the question you should be asking. What are you going to do with this one precious wild life you have been given? That is a much better question and far superior course of action to pursue, and you can pursue quite literally anything if you live in the West and are not a victim of trafficking.

It is always so shocking to me that all these amazing endless possibilities end up being no more than an excuse to self-destruct, as we ink ourselves and pierce ourselves and tell the stories of our pain and scars to prove how . . . tough we are? Resilient we are? Badass we are? Or really how important we are? It is then that I come to understand that you don’t understand how important you already were, and that there is no need to nurture experiences or stories about the distance we had to cover to get from nowhere to here. Our value to the world isn’t in how much difficulty that we have traversed, but rather in how much suffering we can alleviate in others!

Instead competing for the worst horror story and the most difficult childhood which you overcame, why can’t we just be publicly and privately be thankful and grateful that today is the first day of the rest of our lives and that our lives matter, that we are here for a reason, and that reason is not us.

Its the people that help others instead of focusing on themselves who live the most fulfilled lives.

Your future part 2

Chapter 220

“Your future consists of constant changes, and if you don’t learn to manage them effectively—you will have difficulties.” - Ralph Brandt

Constant changes. Perhaps many of you feel like I do, its the constant part that can be so overwhelming, not just the change part. And at least for the last 58 years, constant pretty much wraps up the description perfectly. And its getting worse, not better - worse meaning more changes and more constant. So it is clearly time to get over this, because its not going away and its not slowing down. Brandt is correct, manage it or get ready for mega-problems.

The problem-free change-free life only happens once you are dead. So constant changes don’t look like the worst possible condition any longer, right? Its just like when my dad complains all the time about his aches and pains in his 80 year old body. “It’s how you know you are alive” I tell him. This is true here too - this is how you know you are alive., that changes are happening with a frequency that you are anything but comfortable with, yet the alternative is far far worse. Sooooo maybe . . .  

So maybe you should learn to manage this with a bit more grace? So maybe you shouldn’t complain so constantly? So maybe you should do a 180 and think about embracing change? So maybe you will be thankful that you get to live such an adventure? 

I get it, you were just dreaming of a present that never changed and a future that would be just like your favorite memory from the 1970’s (if you are my age), but I would venture to say that the most unimaginative among us would be ready to die of boredom within three months were that even possible.

Its not.

Manage it!

Your future

Chapter 219

How can you get what you want out of your future? It starts with identifying what you really want.” - Ralph Brandt

This is not only a future thing, I think its a present thing. But it is definitely a future thing. If you plan to get something specific out of your future, then you must take steps to get it, otherwise . . . 

Otherwise you will receive whatever the universe throws at you with no regard to what you want or desire. If you are ok with just taking what comes and choosing to be happy with it, well dear sir or madam, my hat is off to you. I am not so ambivalent about what is coming up the pipeline. There are very specific things and events I want to see and experience. They will not come my way of their own accord. 75% of identifying what you want is that you now know what to pursue.

As you have read in the paragraph above, there are certain things and events that I want to see coming my way in the future. That is mostly knowing what you really want, but not completely. Mostly knowing is not the same as really knowing. The more vague you are about what you want, the more vague your future will be. 

Identifying what you really want is one of the single most difficult things to ever nail down. I know. Because I run my clients through this gauntlet all the time, and its a tough one. But it also is one of the most valuable exercises you can do, because it defines where you are heading and what you are doing and hopefully, what you will receive.

Your message to the world

Chapter 218

"Your life is your message to the world. Make it inspiring." ~ Lorrin L. Lee

What you do matters, not withstanding the messages you receive in life telling you it isn’t so. Every choice and every interaction can have positive or negative outputs, depending on what and how you frame these outputs. Every day of your life matters, and you salt the history of the world with your presence, even if you are a wallflower type person.

Far too many of us frame our lives as living or existing or surviving, and we do everything we can accumulate stuff and have the maximum number of days possible walking around on this planet. But what if we framed our lives differently? What if we thought about our lives as our message to the universe? What if we did this with intentionality, rather than just passively letting it play out however?

I think you would live much louder, much bigger, reaching for far more impact, much higher determination to change the world, much more energy to make this a better place for everyone, and far less focus on yourself, your stuff, less fluff and TV, more books and development, less entertainment more learning, more travel and less social media, and the creation of more potential for everyone. 

The one client I have, he dreams of making Africa a wonderful place for each and every person there. No more conflict mining, no more warfare, medicine and education for all. Roads hospitals and schools that everyone can benefit from. His life is a message, and he is making it an inspiring one.

You are the message.

Inspire us all!

The top of your game is . . .

Chapter 217

The other, the growth mindset, is to realize that while you did your best, it’s not your best forever, it’s just what you’ve done so far. Seth Godin

You are not at the top of your game. You perhaps were last week last month last year, the the top of your game is a moving pinnacle. If you do hit the top of your game today, then you have to aim higher tomorrow, otherwise its no longer the top. The “top” has moved.

Think of them as PR’s - personal records -  we call then in weightlifting, where you are always always working toward a new PR, a new personal best, a higher weight lifted, bigger, stronger, and better. You want to apply the same thinking to your work, your relationships, your skills, and your development.

This is why I track so many things that I do so that I have records of how much I was lifting, or how much I weighed, or how many books I read, how many people I meet with, how many people I call and work with, how many beers I drink in a year, etc etc. I even annually record my weight on my birthday and keep a record of it in my iCal. Of course I weigh everyday too, but once a year records can show trends that everyday records don’t.

The whole point of this chapter though, is growth and development. Don’t ever stand still or rest on your laurels from the past. Always be forward facing and moving in that direction. Or forever best is just ahead, keep reaching toward the goal.

The state of things

Chapter 216

It’s always your state of mind and your thinking that produces how you feel and respond.  - Jon Gordon

Our states of mind and our thinking are directly related to the stories we tell ourselves, just as I was pointing out in the last chapter. Those stories affect us in powerful ways and always put us in a certain frame of mind, always leading  us in a certain direction in our thinking.  What we think about something pretty much defines all that we are gonna get from that something, negative or positive.  Our thinking puts all the structure to a psychic room where we experience things, and out of that room comes our feelings.

These mental constructs are the substance of our lives. This is the framing that makes our understanding of what is going on around us possible. But we also influence that framing, its not just all external, and here is how we respond. Most of the time I don’t think people do much more than react. You have your state of mind and what you are thinking, so that is the context, the mental room in which you are in, and so when stimuli come I believe most of us have deeply set paths and patterns to how we react to said stimuli. I believe most of feelings and responses are damn near automatic.

I believe this, because I have dissected this in my own life and have come to realize the tremendous amount of energy required to intercept the automated feelings and responses. This is why I think the pathways are deeply set in most of us. But disrupting those deeply set pathways can be very enlightening. 

Each time I am able to change the way I feel and respond to a normal situation is like stopping an earthquake or redirecting a tsunami, but it’s worth it!

The keys to this mental room are in our thinking.  And in our state of mind, which is just another way of saying the stories that we tell ourselves.

We should have done so much more

Chapter 215

How we respond to our world depends on the stories we tell ourselves. - Jon Gordon

I have never been more aware of the stories that we tell ourselves, than I have since my mother passed away three years ago and started spending much more time with my dad. The stories he tells himself over and over are terrible, and his defensive posture toward the world is a direct result of those stories and have they shape the world view he carries around within himself.

This is not a world view I want to carry around within me! I do not want to tell myself those same stories. In Earl’s stories there is always someone taking advantage of him or the situation. In my stories I want to be the person giving the advantage to someone. In Earl’s stories someone is always hurting someone else. In my stories we are always caring for someone. In Earl’s stories people demanded far more from him than was appropriate. In my stories we talk about how super high demands can be an opportunity to be stronger and develop more, perhaps especially when the demands are unfairly high.

In Earl’s stories someone he is helping treats him poorly in return. In my stories we understand that we are rich people in a poor world and we help everyone we can, there will be no reciprocity. In Earl’s stories, he helps out a little bit and expect big results. In my stories we help out a tremendous amount, and expect no thanks or results to come back for us. In Earl stories he help fix a car here or there. In my story, we just gave the whole car away, multiple times.

In Earl’s stories, he should be admired for doing great things.

In my stories, we should have done so much more.

Three and a half years

Mother’s Day 2020

Three and a half years and it still sucks. Sitting at the graveyard thinking about all that was, and can never be again. I can’t help but think that I wish I were as brave as you were, solid as you were, giving as you were. If only thinking about it would make me so. 

On the other hand, only a selfish fool would want you to have that life back, that it was at the end. So hard to let you go, but that is the only choice we had, if we really love you, and we do.

Obviously there are many others struggling in the same way today, as I have never seen this “memorial gardens” as filled with visitors as it is today. Then again, I have never been here on Mother Day before. Usually I have the place to myself so to speak, but there are  dozens of people all around me on this hillside where we laid you to rest so recently, so long ago.

I don’t like the changes we have had to make since you left us. The new normals that have come to be without you. Daddy speaks without ceasing and I say very little. Probably not good for either one of us. But we are making some headway in figuring out what life without you and brother looks like. How we can make a form of peace within the torn in fabric of our lives. I will be honest with you, I don’t like this new life many days. But you would tell me to stand up and change what I don’t like, if you were here. 

 I will try.