The person you want to be

Chapter 319

A crisis doesn’t change us; it just amplifies what is already there. - Barbara Shannon

A decade or so back in the past I worked for an organization which was known for its super rigorous filtering process for International Workers. They proudly proclaimed and advertise that they had an 87% failure rate in their candidate progress. They knew that they were sending their workers into the most difficult challenges that they would ever face, and that each one of those crisis’s would amplify whatever weaknesses and deficiencies were already present in these workers. The challenges they faced wouldn’t necessarily change them, but it would violently bring to the forefront all their deepest faults.

And that is pretty much the way that it happened. I worked for them for 23 years and went through the deep cultural changes and challenges TWICE! As a result I eventually faced every deep crevice and wrinkle in my soul and heart and emotional and mind. Every insecurity, envy, jealousy, wicked, selfish, self-righteous, and nasty part of my personality came out in spades. In my self defense, everyone else was struggling with the same pressures and experiences, and they weren’t looking too pretty either, but that doesn’t change the fact that amplification is hard at work in a crisis. You will not be able to deter nor deflect this onslaught. It was already in you buddy, and now the jar is open and everyone can see what you are really made of.

So instead of avoiding every crisis that comes along in life, deal with all your monsters inside. I did eventually, and actually continue to do so. You can do it too. Become the person you want to be, wrestle those demons.

The real prize

Chapter 318

The virtue lies in the struggle, not in the prize." ~ Richard Monckton Milnes

It doesn’t feel this way. We are told and taught to be goal oriented from our first memories. No one says anything about the struggle. Our focus is always out there in front on getting that prize. Most are laser focused on getting to . . . that target, that bullseye, that wish, that goal, that pursuit . . . and you should be. Yes just like that. The goal is, well, the goal. Getting confused here by the wonderful word-smithing, is not something we want to do. So don’t be confused, the goal is still the goal, the prize is still the prize.

But the goal or the prize is not the only value in the process. The struggle to reach that goal or prize is itself a goldmine of potential. And mostly potential benefit. If this is actually so, and I am arguing that it is for I have not seen nor experienced anything to the contrary, then we need to stop cheating our processes! This is where the big changes and real development occur. “Virtue” is what throws you off here. That is such a 19th century word and Milnes was a 19th century dude, but the idea at the core is solid. The real goodness, the great value, the part most beneficial, the special development piece is in the process, the fight, the striving, the effort, the sacrifices, the discipline, the rigor, the grit that you use and develop to get to the prize.

It took me five years to get my doctorate - or 44 years if you really count it. Most people looking in from the outside would say five years. But I know that it took so much more than those research years, a lifetime of difference.

Hoarding and rotting

Chapter 317

“Hoard food and it rots. Hoard money and you rot. Hoard power and the nation rots.”

― Chuck Palahniuk ,  Adjustment Day 

What an interesting thought. This of course written during the multiple crisis’ of 2020 where leadership is difficult to find in any quarter and problems abound, especially riots and quarantines and the WWS (world wide shutdown). The solution seems super simple - stop hoarding and all these ills will cease. But that super simple solution has less effectiveness as you progress from one of these points to the next, because the context of each of them are different. But the implication from the author is that they are all rooted in greed of some type and that greed rots. 

This may be true. Food will rot, and money can easily corrupt your soul, but the power to nation connection is more tenuous I think. No one has any trouble believing that power corrupts, and that the more you have the more corrosive it can become. History is rife with examples. And there are practically no examples of great power and someone withstanding the corruptive influence. This is why we always put checks and balances in place to mitigate the power of power in a leader. Whether that be a CEO or a president.

But I am less clear here, if the author means the nation will rot from lack of leadership, or that the leadership is so ruinous that it destroys the nation? I supposed either or and or both could be true. But I think this point is different, because the nation can be and perhaps should be, autonomous from the leader, and thus have the power to resist and change. 

Between your ears

Chapter 316

dismantle the mental and emotional barriers to . . . 

... to whatever is holding you back. There are mental barriers. These are the thoughts that you are not good enough, that you can’t do it, that “people like me don’t do things like that” and I don’t have enough education, etc etc. There are also other mental barriers of perception and possibilities. I mean that I could not have even imagined a job like I have now, 40 years ago when I graduated from high school! I could not have conceptionalize it. There were no mental handholds to grasp such an idea. The first type of mental barrier you can dismantle, you can fight it, you can overcome it. The second type of mental barrier you have to just walk through it, live it, walk the journey through it. As you grow older your conceptionalizing will improve and your dreams can sharpen.

And there are emotional barriers. Feelings of failure, feelings of unfairness, feelings that you can’t cope with and process. Feelings that you are a victim. Feelings that you can’t win. Feelings that people are out to prevent you from succeeding. Feelings that you aren’t good enough. Feelings that you can’t cope and manage. Feelings that you can’t face another day. Feelings that you are lost and floundering. Guilt for this or that. All these feelings I copied out of a book - not true. I have felt all these feelings and these emotional barriers are high effective at blocking you from moving forward.

All this happens inside your head. Mental and emotional barriers are cerebral mostly. You have to fight this battle between your ears. You can do it!

Giving it away

Chapter 315

Making things better is an attitude. The attitude of possibility and the posture of generosity. And then making the decision to own your  learning . Seth

I don’t know why so many people feel like making things better is impossible. I hear this a lot. But things got worse, so things can get better - the point being that this is a moving scale, not static. What I think is really happening here, is that making things better is really really difficult and few want to make the effort. I am not being negative, but this matches up much better with what I see happening, rather than “making things better is impossible”. Making things better is possible and it can be really difficult, especially the attitude required for it.

As Seth points out, making things better is primarily an attitude. A posture. A decision to be generous and make as many possibilities for as many people possible. Instead of taking an opportunity, why not give an opportunity? Instead of taking advantage of a situation, why not give the advantage away to someone disadvantaged? Instead of socking away everything in your retirement, why not share some wealth and help others now? Instead of capitalizing on your position, why not use that power to advance someone else? Instead of vegetating in front of the boob tube when you get home from work, why not spend some time helping kids in the neighborhood with their homework, or teaching a free class, or volunteering at the soup kitchen, etc etc? 

None of this disadvantages you in any way, because you can choose everyday to learn new stuff and redevelop yourself. What I have suggested here makes the world a better place and makes you feel wonderful. 

Keep showing up

Chapter 314

"Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success." ~ Napoleon Hill

I am a living walking testimony to this statement. Two of those three P’s are all I have going for me many days. I just show up every day, mentally and physically and keep at it, until it is done. We have just spent the last eight WEEKS sanding the old cab of a 55 year old pickup truck. 60 days of doing the same thing for hours and hours and hours. But today that old cab is ready for paint. When we pulled it out of a briar patch three months ago, no sane person would have ever thought that we be having a paint day anytime soon.

I will admit that I falter on the Patience piece regularly, this is not my forte. I often have very unrealistic timelines and expectations. Normally this would trip you up badly, because few people can stay with Persistence and Perspiration once their Patience has faltered. But I am one of those people, I just keep all that loose and goosy in my mind and just keep plugging along. Its what I do. I am very much like a beaver. Not a lot of talent, but very tenacious. He just keeps chewing until the tree falls down. Every time.

When I was working my way through life and my doctoral studies, the three P’s kept everything aligned and moving forward. Just keep showing up and it gets done. Everyone throws up potential roadblocks and difficulties and a wise person listens and takes notes, but doesn’t stop. 

Keep moving forward. Success is yours.

The circle of damage

Chapter 313

we watch shows that are designed to numb us instead of inspire. - seth

Stop. Just Stop! There is no upside here unless you consider the numb passing of time to be an upside. Look I understand stressful, and I understand boredom, and I have experienced them both many many times. You think your life is boring, you should try spending days in airport, nowhere to go and no way out and no choices. I get it. The temptation to become a vegetable in situations like this is almost unbearable. But you are better than this.

You need all your superpowers here, to be strong enough to selectively filter what you watch and read. I mean five minutes of “news” watching has enough depressing information to last you several lifetimes. Why would you want to put that crap in your head on purpose? Everyday? Every hour? What Donald tweeted is about the least important flamboyance that a narcissist could ever write. It benefits me in zero ways, to know this or be shocked by it or frustrated by it or angered by it. It affects my mood and attitude for hours after hearing it. Which affects all the people I love and the people that I work with, and so the circle of damage continues, all because I watched shows that are designed to numb us.

If you can’t control your desire to watch, and you can’t find something educational or inspiring, then create something new yourself. The tech is easy and readily available to everyone. And you won’t be bored any longer.

The hardest thing you will ever do

Chapter 312

"Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought." ~ Napoleon Hill

I have always been so amazed at Victor Frankl and his posture and attitude about his years through the Holocaust. He proved that no matter how difficult and unbearable life became, life still mattered and that you could have a good attitude about the worst of circumstances. His book “Man’s search for meaning” has proven that you can choose what you think about every situation. Or as Dale Carnegie said, “its what you think about it” it being any given thing, that makes it good or bad.

What Napoleon Hill suggests is right along these same lines. We can choose what we think. Of course you don’t or shouldn’t apply this to facts, because facts are facts. Like the sun rises in the East, because the earth is round and turning (and I have flown all the way around it many times) and the sun is stationary. Facts. Even though here in the state of Georgia there seems to be some people who are insisting that the world is flat. They clearly have not flown a transatlantic flight.

No what all three of these men are advocating is that I can view circumstances and situations as good or evil, negative or positive, for we have this power to choose. And Hill goes further by adding plans and purposes to the pile. Your mind is the most powerful tool that you have at your disposal and it gets far too little respect or use! Thinking is the hardest work you will ever do, regardless to what non-thinking suggest.

The fresh start

Chapter 311

Its Monday morning, Its a blank page. Its a fresh start. Its a new beginning. Embrace the chance to start anew. Engage the beauty of an unmarred week. Take a deep breath and feel the possibilities. See the mental clean slate like another January 1. Set your posture for the week, page, or fresh start. Do not, I repeat do NOT allow anyone to rob you of this moment. It feeds your soul, it changes your view, it is as necessary as air to your thriving. Feel it!

Don’t smear this mental start with the jarring soul-sucking clanging of every bad piece of information available in the whole wide world - this is what they call “news” in this country - an intensely negative filled experience of every possible negative thing that has happened in the entire world in the last 24 hours. I always find it astonishing that people fill their minds with this drivel. Do bad things happen? Yes. Do I need to know about every one of them? No. Some argue that I need to know in order to protect myself from bad things happening to me. Think about that for a bit, and perhaps you will come to realization that most thinking persons have, that you can’t protect yourself from bad things. No one ever has nor ever will be able to do so. Shit happens to everyone. It has happened to you in the past, and may again in the future.

But don’t let that steal this moment of a fresh start from you. You can make so many great choices about how to live your moments today, tomorrow and this week, that won’t involve any “news” show if you are wise and committed to your best health, strongest mind, and richest future.

The Greats

Chapter 310

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Maintaining enthusiasm is the crucial piece. The difficult piece. The every long boring day piece. This is where we falter and fall short of our Great. I see this happen in my clients, co-workers, friends, enemies, and frienemies. All the Greats in my life, all the parts I am most proud of, took a huge amount of enthusiasm.

But when enthusiasm has to last more than a short while (and this is determined by the task or goal or project at hand, because a “short while” when doing something tedious is much shorter than a “short while” when doing something fun), then it morphs into perseverance. Enthusiasm is the honeymoon experience, perseverance is the gas in the long haul tank. Most of us are capable of short bursts of intense enthusiasm. Repeatedly.

Far fewer of us appear to be capable of sustained enthusiasm, or as I pointed out morphed-perseverance - in for the long haul. In other words, I have never experienced enthusiasm that can survive long enough to accomplish something great. I have experienced strong enough enthusiasm to get me started down some solid paths that eventually led to something Great. But the feeling of enthusiasm had long waned by the time we got to Great.

Enthusiasm is the rocket fuel that provides lift-off, the super energy burst that defies gravity, that gets it moving, that provides momentum. But most regular folks require grit, perseverance, stubbornness, whatever, to carry them through to completion. Most of us are not Emerson, who, evidently, could be sustained purely on enthusiasm.

Paying double

Chapter 309

"The price of discipline is always less than the pain of regret." ~ Nido Qubein

Price versus pain, which are you planning to pay? Oh I understand that you would rather pay neither, but that doesn’t happen very often in the course of your life. Resign yourself to this reality, and stop wasting so much effort each day on trying to get out of price and pain. You are just flushing all that great energy down the toilet, when it could be put to productive use.

The pain of regret sharpens as you get older and the price of discipline lessens, if that makes you feel any better. So the choice seems easier in my late 50’s than it did in my early 20’s. Having said that, the pain of regret was plenty sharp back in my 20’s. Maybe it was just that I had so little internal discipline that I felt it more often back then. I certainly had no systems and no judgement and no will-power to speak of, so discipline was pretty much a write-off. AWOL. But toward the end of my college years, I started to pull together some discipline and get things done and doing the right things.

But then after college and in the early years of my married life, it seems that I fell back into that “I don’t want to pay either” mode and that is when I finally learned that you pay double when you get stuck in the “I don’t want to pay either” mode. You are going then have the pain of regret and double the pain of discipline to get your life back on track.

Pay the price. Avoid all the pains.

40 years of stories

Chapter 308

This year is my 40th high school reunion year, except, you guessed it, it has been canceled like pretty much everything else where more than three people get together in the same room. But that doesn’t change the fact that we graduated from high school 40 years ago this summer! Holy cow! We are old!

So as most people and events and meetings are doing, we are moving to a virtual format. Facebook, where we are invited to tell our stories, what we have done and where we have gone to the graduating class of 1980. It is fascinating! Each story is filled with possibilities and potential, and tells you oh so very little about what actually happened. I want to research and write a book on each and every one of them! Their stories and possibilities capture my imagination and fill my mind. It makes me see each one of them in very different ways. I mean there is a great deal of difference between your memories of a certain cheerleader in high school and then reading that she owned and ran a daycare for tiny kids and loved it. 

That is what stories do, reshape our understanding of what and who people are, what their possibilities are, what they are capable of doing. This is why your story is so important, and why my story is so important. Our stories not only describe who we are, but they also can shape who we are, or at the very least who we aim to be. So tell your story. Tell it positive. Become the best version of you.

Measuring

Chapter 307

Success each day should be judged by the seeds sown, not the harvest reaped." ~ John C. Maxwell

First of all measure the right thing. We fail to do this so often in life. My dad and I are sitting here strategizing about how to keep the birds from nesting on the side porch, and ruining the wood out there. A porch that no one has even sat on in years. A very expensive porch. A porch that wasn’t thought out very well, and that failure came from measuring the wrong thing. The porch is a result of measuring what other people were building and valuing, not what would actually be a beautiful addition to this house and well used by the these people who live here. So first of all measure the right thing.

Second of all, many things can only be measured properly by the energy, possibilities, potentials, capacities, hope, opportunities and prospects that are present in the beginning of the work, not the results at the end. When you measure at the front end, you are measuring properly for most things, because this is where things are most set and stable and ... well measuarable. Once set into motion, many factors and reactions and results are outside of your control, or have unintended consequences, or unexpected reactions. Measuring along the way, and in the middle, and at the end require different metrics and processes and give a different kind of answers.

Third, change your focus. Change your focus to success. Success is measuring on the front end. Results focus obsessions like we have in the modern world, where the ends is all anyone thinks about, are weak and shortsighted. You neither measured nor enjoyed all the processes, plans, collaborating, teamwork, or living along the way.

Challenges and meaning

Chapter 306

Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." ~ Joshua J. Marine

This is a perspective on life that too few of us have. Most of the folks I know view challenges as a stress or a disruption. Something to be avoided or diverted, not something to be embraced and overcome. But most challenges in life can only be avoided or diverted so long and then they have to be faced like it or not. Or overcome.

Before we get carried away here, I don’t think Marine means “challenges” here in the sense of you and me overclocking our schedules and we having a “challenge” to shove everything in that we have planned for the day. That is juggling too many plates and you need to make some executive decisions, and get some of those plates out of the air. The executive decision part could perhaps qualify as a challenge, but plate juggling will never lead to meaningful. 

Challenges are persistent puzzles that require and demand resolution. And everyone has them at a small personal scale. Its the bigger scaled challenges of world-changing proportions that I am hoping grabs your attention and energy. Anyone can and does overcome their personal challenges, and wise people raise the bar each year, so that the challenges can get more difficult and we can grow and develop as we overcome them. But I want you to get beyond you yourself for a change, and see the wider deeper challenges of the world. 

Yes these seem impossible to overcome, but that is why they are important and why they bring the most meaning to life that you could ever imagine.

Einstein and simplicity

Chapter 305

"Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." ~ Albert Einstein

This is the smart guy talking. The guy many think of as the most smartest guy in the history of the world. We should probably listen and pay attention. Out of the chaos of your mind, find understanding. From the noise of this crazy life, find the one clear note of knowledge.

This is the direction Einstein is pushing us. Find simplicity. Yes life is ever so cluttered with tasks, wants, expectations, needs, much less all the physical things we cram into our garages other than our overpriced autos, and have spread across our desks, and have piled on our nightstands, and have mountains of in our mental space, preventing us from simplicity. The more you have, and especially the more clutter you have, the more your stuff owns you. There is no freedom or gifts of blessing in that. Simplicity!

Well you don’t have to look far to find discord. As I am writing this, riots are happening across the country in backlash to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. There are discord’s along a variety of lines, from Coronavirus lockdowns and conspiracies, to the economy, to personal tragedies and finding discord has never been easier. Finding harmony however is the challenge of a lifetime for most of us. Even someone as old as me, and I am old as dirt, can be challenged to find harmony. First of all because harmony doesn’t just lie on my efforts, it requires cooperation with others to achieve it. But it is always the goal we are aiming toward.

And then there are difficulties, no, I mean and then there are opportunities! I have actually been pursuing through on this one. I have asked my co-workers in The Leadership Development Group, what opportunities are before us that we are blind to, that we can’t see.

These three together can smooth out your life considerably.

Possibilities and potentials

Chapter 304

Possibility is where you find it. We each have more to offer than the world expects. And growth is something we’re capable of, as soon as we’re committed to seeing what we can contribute. Godin

Possibilities, offerings, growth, commitment and contributions, what great stuff. I am frequently jealous of word masters like Godin who can cram more great words and ideas into fewer sentences than would seem possible. My literary and idea hero’s are made of this kind of stuff.

So my contribution is this short blog, to unpack this idea more for the rest of us. To really gain some quick traction here, you have to move backwards through the sentences. As soon as you decide to be a contributor rather than a consumer, the whole process can occur. When this commitment to contributing is made, it sets off an entire set of potentials, the most important one being that you can grow in the most valuable ways, and the most urgent one being that you know you can grow. Knowing that you can grow is really critical. Most people around here don’t feel like they can move forward, learn something new or develop in most ways. Some of that is arrogance, some of it fatalism, but it is stunting their growth regardless.

Now you begin to realize that you have more to offer than you ever thought. You have more to contribute than anyone ever expected, and it feels . . . amazing. New possibilities are popping up in your mind faster than you can put them down on paper. You are seeing potentials where you never saw them before. Full circle - Possibility is where you find it.

To become the Master

Chapter 303

Learning is the difficult work of experiencing incompetence on our way to mastery. Godin

When I was studying Russian language at Rostov State University, deep in southern Russia, we had a saying, “the dogs understand verbs of motion better than we do, they know when to come, go, stop and roll over.” Verbs of motion are an especially difficult piece of Russian for Western minds to get, but Russian dogs seemed to have no problems with them. Experiencing incompetence. It is really painful, especially if you are coming from a previous place of competence.

I was highly successful in my industry when we moved to Russia, and boom! Overnight I was an idiot, less than a child, far less than a grade school kid, and unthinkably far from adult conversation. But two years later, and 1000’s of hours of experiencing incompetence, I could speak. Some. I could understand somewhat more than I could say, but I was far from a scintillating conversationalist. 

But in the third year three things happened, my efforts increased even more (out of pure desperation) the work expectations on my language increased far more, and guess what, my language ability soared. So much so in fact, I taught a college level course before the end of that third year. Yes I was the professor and I taught an entire college course in Russian. But what a painful road of incompetence.

Honestly I never did get to Mastery. Our work and lives in Russia were interrupted and we moved to another country and I started learning that language as a complete idiot again. But this is the nature of learning.

This is the path of the Master.

The strength of our beliefs

Chapter 302

Learning not to confuse the strength of our beliefs for the strength of the evidence is, of course, one of the greatest, most difficult triumphs of our growth — as individuals, as societies, and as a species. - Popova

Wow. Just wow. That is a mouthful and if she thinks we have gotten there as Americans, America or the world, then we disagree. But do we need to get there? Oh yes. But this requires thinking and that is very much in short supply, I mean just look at the two stores next door to each other in my little community one with a sign that reads “must wear mask to enter” and the other “not allowed to wear mask inside.” Two strong beliefs, so strong that they are betting their economic well-being on it, and which one has the strength of evidence on their side? Well, both of them. You can find an equally confusing number of articles and doctors and arguments and science on both sides of this little debate of the moment.

So this points out one of the greatest challenges in the modern world - verifying your evidence. It is impossible I would argue, at least for a great many situations. There simply has not been enough time since we started wearing masks, nor the effort to put forth a large scale collaboration of data to move the “evidence” clearly in one direction or another. So people default back to the strength of their beliefs as strength of evidence. Its not actually so, but are there any alternatives?

Which brings us to the last point, that not all things have evidence of the same caliber. Whether wearing a mask will raise the percentage chance of me not getting Coronavirus, or the proof of the existence of God, or the character of a person in politics, the quality of evidence rarely is as pure as the quality of my belief.

The hook

Chapter 301

The first thing we need to do is not bite the hook. Refuse to reward anyone or anything that uses pique to get your attention. Turn up the filters and walk away. The important stuff will get through even if we filter out some of the urgent. . .Everyone gets 24 hours of fresh attention, refilled daily. But if we continue to abuse it, we won’t be able to see with fresh eyes and appreciate what’s been there all along. Seth

This happens to me 100’s of times a day as I curate the internet for my clients, and I am looking for particular information or articles. So you start the search, and see the articles, and you think this one may be useful, but you only get 4 lines of information . . . and then you have to CLICK on the article to see the real content. Seth describes it well above. It is also called clickbait in other circles. They just want you to bite the hook, click on their article, it makes money for them and you get . . . nothing most of the time. I have never actually calculated it, but my guess is in the 95% range, that clicking on these articles or even links about Coronavirus cures or whatever, results in nothing helpful or factual. Just speculation most of the time, entertaining writing if you are lucky, but just speculation.

Refuse to reward these people. Refuse to read. Refuse to click. Refuse to watch.Stop abusing your fresh attention each day. Use it to change the world, not spread speculationtheoriesconspiracies/and faceless blathering. Help others to use their fresh attention well, along the way.

The Now

Chapter 300

"Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now." ~ Denis Waitley

Oh I am trying Denis, I am trying! This is the hardest advice to follow. My nearly 80 year old father lives firmly in the past. I have generally lived firmly in the future, and we both need to live in the Now. But habits die hard and nostalgia for the past, or anticipation for the future can drive all the peace and pleasure out of the Now. 

I was so future-focused for so long that I barely experienced the lives of my children or any of the joys or pains associated with that. Same is true of my jobs, the people I met and got to share my life with along the way. As soon as the future became the Now, I was further along once again. No lazing around mentally here, more like a frenetic chase to get somewhere other. So sad, because as the man said, “the only moment in time over which you have any control is now.” I would go a bit further and say that is is the only moment in time where you can choose your satisfaction and action. The future is never that.

My dad is so intensely past focused, there is no future, heck there barely is a Now. In fact in the last four years, I have heard more details of that past than I ever have before. It was kinda fascinating at first, but after hearing each of those snapshots several thousand times, it has lost all its luster. And I mean ALL its luster. The only thing more boring than not being able to enjoy the Now because of your anticipation for the future, is not learning anything from the past and moving on.