Change the pace of change

.Chapter 17

I have entered into the twilight zone. The part of the country I drove into yesterday morning, is so vastly different than the part of the country I had just come from, its like driving into the twilight zone, the other side, the something or other that is so different, you would swear that you have changed countries.  It is giving me whiplash. Mentally that is of course. Let’s say it a different way, Pennsylvania is the new country, rural Georgia is the old country. Moving between the two is stretching my mental space to the breaking point.

Its like I live multiple lives, and while that kinda made sense when I’m flipping between actual countries overseas and just Georgia on this side of the ocean, I am astonished at how powerful that feeling was yesterday and this morning flipping between two states. And it continues to be unclear where I feel most comfortable, but I am heavily leaning toward Georgia, which most everyone in my family is going to find unfortunate, because none of them live here but the aging parent. But I have been here with him for the most of the last 5 months and that may or may not have something to do with it.

The whole point here is that I always have a measure of internal discombobulating and disturbance going on mentally. I need to change the pace of change itself in an ideal world. Or up my mental fortresses much higher than they currently are functioning at. I can’t even block out the noise from the TV this morning. '

Pivot faster

Chapter 16

Changes in the world are happening so rapidly, everyone is finding it very difficult to pivot quickly enough, and often enough, to stay ahead of the curve. We’re experiencing 1 million changes a day in our own lives it seems. For the first time in 11 years we are suddenly planning to take a furlough! If it wasn’t for coronavirus and COVID-19‘s affect on the entire world, basically shutting everything down, we would’ve never considered a furlough.

But because we considering taking a furlough, well then we need someplace to live in America. So now we have two households to support! And do we live close to the children, or close to the aging parent? These are difficult things. And Brenda doesn’t actually have a ticket back to the United States yet on top of everything. Even though we technically bought a house yesterday. Think about it. Overwhelming.

The pace of change on a regular basis is astonishing, but in the COVID-19 era it is astounding. Nor do I have wisdom about whether or not I should go back and help her transition this way or not? I don’t look forward to the idea of a flip-flop quick turnaround trip, but it may be the best thing even though it’s extremely uncomfortable for me personally. They are just too many factors, too many players and stakeholders in this whole equation.

Somehow, someway, some fashion, we have to learn to pivot more quickly, to be more fluid, to be more responsive, and to enjoy the ambiguity along the way.

Blooming promise

Chapter 15

Your leadership promise. Its uniquely you. No one else in the whole world has the precise promise that you hold and represent. You bring to the table a very special recipe of potential that can not be replicated. Your leadership can change the world for someone, if it is ever actualized.

Here is where it gets sticky, while almost everyone has promise, potential, uniqueness, and vast possibilities, relatively few ever reach that internal capacity. What about you? What about me? Are we going to remain in the typical mainstream and only develop a small portion of our gifts? Or are we going to keep moving forward and developing ourselves until we are fully developed? Until we scour every potential to its maximum? Will we be relentless in the expansion of our limits, capacities, potentials? If we don’t, who will? And if we don’t own the responsibility that is ours, to do this in ourselves, certainly there will be no others who step forward and take responsibility for our development or success.

No matter how young you are, no matter what your history, no matter where you came from, no matter where you were born and raised, no matter how old you are nor what you have been doing for the last 40 years, no matter what job you have, and no matter what shade of color you are or gender you were born, you have leadership promise. It is time to take charge of that promise and see it bloom.

Name your guidance system

Chapter 12

Another amazing day, with all kinds of twists and turns. This is where you need that still small voice inside, for guidance. The days of our lives go up and down and around turns and outside our preferred trajectory. But as long as we have a guidance system, a value system, a life buddy, a still small voice inside, whatever you may have or use to keep you steady and on track throughout the ups and downs of life and of everyday, then good. Name your system. If you didn’t or couldn’t instantly, or near instantly, then you may be unmoored, adrift, systemless, at the mercies of the whims of life and circumstance. You do not want to be here.

It is time to stop and listen. To find, hear, listen to that small voice inside your heart, that voice that tells you if a thing is wrong or right, that voice that tells you when something is unjust or good for all, that voice which is the essence of your character as a person. This voice can also help you not panic when things and life get volatile and out of control. This voice can help you not be smug when things are going really well, and just the way you want. Everyone needs to listen to this voice inside of them. 

It is a voice where empathy is found and compassion and kindness and generosity are found as well. We need far more of those expressed in our world. Instead of the rage and anger and division we see every day. These are too easy to express and just below the surface - you don’t need a system of guidance to have these come out.

Stop and listen throughout the day. Especially when things get rough

You just might

Chapter 11

Life is plenty difficult, and if you are convinced you are going to lose, then guess what, you are definitely going to lose. If you think you can win, then you just might. It is not certain by any stretch, but you just might. Those who don’t believe they can succeed won’t and those who do believe they will succeed might. And that is just how it works out pretty much all the time. I am observing here, not decreeing. You are welcome to disagree with me.

So for me the big question is how to believe that you can succeed, that you can thrive, that you can move forward, that you find a win? I am facing this dilemma right now. You are too, or will soon, because this one pops up in life steady and sure. No escaping it. You have to find a way to believe in yourself, to believe you can, to think differently than as someone who is convinced they are going to lose.

So most important of all, find objective. This is critical. Objective feedback or perspectives from people who have no skin in the game, yet are pulling for you. They need to be your fan, they need to be pulling for you, or they won’t make the needed mental effort to really look at your situation, and you need them to do that so that you can have confidence in their assessment, especially if it is different than your assessment. You have your emotions all tangled up in this decision or action, and that is swaying your course. You may well need three or four of these people to get your mojo back.

You got this.

The aches of joy

Chapter 10

The fullest day ever! It was crazy and wonderful. Hours and hours of people, movement, fun and interesting conversations. Exciting possibilities. Makes you younger and younger! Engaging children for five hours at the local roller rink when you are 5 times their age is tough and awesome. You gotta be on your toes, you gotta think fast, you gotta BE young so that you can connect. So I skated and loved it. Creaky this morning though, and that is a signal that I am still alive, right? That is how I am going to view it. Ouch that aches!

But to fly too fast on small wheels with nothing but cement underneath you racing your grandson is exhilarating. When your granddaughter and grandson want to skate with you holding your hand, is priceless beyond words. Nothing can buy that! When you get the opportunity to enter into high stakes negotiation with three grands at the same time about going or not going to the local ice cream shop to cool off after skating. They are so hysterically wonderfully persuasive. In the end, we ended up at the ice cream shop, while the air was filled with promises to eat their dinners, even if it was asparagus! I need to follow up on that and see if they did.

Then time with both daughters. Looking at houses with one, chatting up about our days and our weeks with the other. Precious! Finished the day off with a great cigar and a solid conversation with my son-in-law about real estate. Then collapsed into bed. Fullest day ever! It was grand!

Younger next year

Chapter 9

Are you healthy and getting stronger, or are you like most Americans, sick and getting sicker? Having lived in five different countries around the world, it seems that America is sicker and heavier and more doctor and pill focused than those other places I have lived, by a very very long shot. Of course I am stereotyping with this statement and not everyone in America is heavier and sicker, in fact I am reading a delightful book right now by American authors called “Younger Next Year.” Its about getting younger each year, especially holding off the ravages of aging in the final third of our lives. But on the whole, based on what I see at the store, and hear advertised on TV , I think I am pretty safe to say that we are getting heavier and sicker.

We have a great deal more control over this aspect of our lives than we take responsibility for is seems to me. Those other countries I have lived in, just don’t have the massive amounts of junk food (everything in your grocery store except the fruits and veggies section) that are considered the norm here. And honestly, they move around physically a lot more than Americans do. Some of that is urban design, more of that is a mentality - they take their responsibility in designing their own health way more proactively than Americans do. They talk about diets and food a lot less, and they eat a lot less, ALOT less! Most eat two meals a day max, instead of the three Americans do. In other words they are far less food-focused and absorbed than we seem to be on this side of the planet.

And they just move more. Cranking a car is the last thing they want to do, and one of the most expensive things they can do. You see 70 and 80 year olds on bicycles and walking every day in Germany, France, Macedonia, Poland, etc. 

You got this - you are the author of your health, or lack of it.

The problem mentality

Chapter 8

We have lots of problems in life. So many in fact it is all too easy to start thinking of everything as a problem, when in fact, they aren’t. It has been suggested by a number of people smarter than me, that we start replacing the word “problem” with the word opportunity. When I suggested this to a group of people I regularly write to each week, I was shocked at how much push back I received.

It seems more than apparent that they believe the problem focus is the norm and that we should never expect more from ourselves. Just accept the fact that every “problem” is really a problem. This is, well, problematic, because it keeps us focused on the issue rather than the possible solutions. And worse yet, it robs us of all inspiration and motivation to see any opportunities that may be lurking right there in front of us. It blinds us to other possibilities, and cripples our innovation and creativity to find opportunities.

I am no PollyAnna, but wife may be. Yet I can be all too problem focused and I need to pivot and see all the rich possibilities and opportunities that these challenges might be bringing our way. It is a very different posture toward life, to get rid of the problem focus, the problem mentality. It requires me to try things and think things that are not easy nor natural for me. I am a product of my culture and I inherited this as a normal course of events, and so did you. We have to energize our thinking and perspectives and opportunities and see what really is right before us, to see differently.

Superior world changers

Chapter 7

What if no one else shows up?

You are only five minutes early, and there is no one else there! First thought is to double check your information and make sure you are in the right place at the right time. Check! Ok you are, but where is everyone else? What if no one shows? What if all your work and efforts are not engaged and honored by those who are supposedly with you?? Panic wells up inside of you even though your brain tells you that it couldn't be true. Every perceived rejection you have experienced throughout your life, seems like it is standing on your grave at the moment

And .... but . . . 

It is not true. Everyone showed because you have invested in them for years and you make their lives more significant by your involvement with them. You thank them with written notes and you talk to them and do lunch with them and go fishing with them and most of all you listen to them. You have been and are a dogged supporter, advocating for each of them. You have been there for them in the good times and in the bad times. The highs and the lows. You know their spouses and the kids and even the names of their grandkids! You are connected and integrated into their lives, and they yours. 

And not only did they show, they focused and delivered and helped you move forward, just like they were supposed to. They were and are every bit as dependable as you are - whoever you are attracts others who are similar.

Be a superior world-changer - attract more superior world-changers.

Larger than life

Chapter 6

Today is the day. One of those annual events where I have to be larger than life, meet requirements that are far beyond me, lead and inspire men and women who are already accomplishing astonishing things. These are no fresh faced college recruits, but people who win the day everyday, for decades. Just typing the words out on digital paper gives me the willys. But this day has arrived again this year and nothing will stop it. Go big or go home? I am not even sure I understand what that means.

But over the years, these people have believed in me, cheered me on, listened to me whine, watch me reach for the stars, and supported me left and right for decades. I can’t let them down. Even people who are already hero’s need someone to believe in and look up to, and be inspired by. There is serious weight to that thought. It’s a weight that no one can carry well for long periods of time.

“Just do your best” many of you may think, but I am here to tell you that your best is likely not good enough. Like Winston Churchill said, you gotta do what is “required” your best or not. So stand up before these men and women and help them believe. They will not know what is going on inside of you, they will only know what you left them with, what you inspired them with, how you made them feel. Then tomorrow, when you are looking back on this day, remember that you did what was required, what was needed, and that is what makes you into a person that they can believe in and trust and support. 

Just your best - is too limiting.

Beauty rest

Chapter 5

Jet lag with no jet

Today proves the lack of sleep is as equally bad as a terrible case of jet lag. The only difference is, you don't plan for a lack of sleep. At least I plan for jet lag. I know when it's happening, and I can schedule it, plan ahead, reduce all my expectations of myself for a few days after a transatlantic flight. But a lack of sleep, sneaks up and attacks you so unexpectedly.

I lay down last night at 9 PM, because I had a 7 AM meeting scheduled. I did not make my 7 AM meeting, because even though I lay down at 9 PM, I did not actually go to sleep until like 2 AM! A meltdown was going on between my ears, and made peaceful rest impossible. So here I am today on a long drive, sore, hurting, sleepy, grumpy, frumpy, and generally just ill tempered, and this is all from a result of a lack of sleep. This feels like a hangover without actually drinking any alcohol. I did not drink too much alcohol, nor flying a quarter of the way around the world, just a lack of good high caliber high quality sleep.

At almost 60 years of age, clearly my capacity to run all day on four or five hours of sleep is nearly zero. I'm simply not doing well today.

Moral of the story? Get your beauty rest.

PS: For whatever reason, just like a hangover often does, it got better later in the day, but that was one rough start and middle of the day. Please no repeat performances tonight!

The impossible

Chapter 4

Doing the impossible.

Belief in yourself is sometimes like doing the impossible, as the previous chapter discussed. But doing the impossible is now more doable than ever before, its only impossible until its not. Books were written by longhand, now we have Kindle. I would have had to be astonishingly wealthy to have a fraction of the books that I currently have on my iPhone back in the day. The horseless carriage, the 4 minute mile, the computer, the cell phone, the internet, and walking on the moon just to name a few of the thousands of formerly impossibles that are now possible, and most are even commonplace. Now impossible communications are so possible, that even the World Wide Shutdown of Coronavirus just moved us from our offices to our screens at home.

You can even grow your business in this environment, the impossible is possible! You can be healthier, because you aren’t eating out as before, doing the impossible. You can lose weight because you control your destiny, you are doing the impossible. You can be deeper spiritually, because you are doing the impossible and you won’t quit until it happens. You can be professionally the best in your field, (someone has to be best), doing the impossible. You can be sharper mentally than ever before as you develop and grow, doing the impossible. Again its only impossible until its not. The impossible is not as unreachable as before, as unreachable as it may seem.

Raise the bar, reach further, lean out and take more risks, fail regularly, learn ferociously, be indefatigable in developing yourself, never be satisfied, always be content. The impossible is just around the corner.

Belief

Chapter 3

Belief in yourself.

This is super critical from just about every perspective possible. It will and does affect everything you do and everything you attempt and everything you succeed at, and more importantly, if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will either! And I am here to tell you that you need other people to really succeed. No one can get really amazing things accomplished without the help of others and then more others. 

But it can be very difficult to have confidence, to believe in yourself. If you are one of the lucky people out there, then you will have someone else believe in you first and that will make it so very much easier for you to believe in yourself, to know that you can accomplish whatever you put your efforts toward. But most people haphazardly limp toward self-confidence and belief in themselves. I know that is the way it happen in me. And when I listen to people’s stories, that is how it seems to happen to them as well.

It kinda happens like an unsymmetrical snowball that you are rolling up, aiming toward a much much larger snowball. Once it gets to a certain size, it has its own momentum and is much easier to gain more size. But the start is always difficult. Getting it to roll, getting it round, getting more snow to stick to it because it has no weight to it yet. You get the metaphor. And belief in yourself is much like that. Keep at it until it has enough weight and momentum to continue expanding, largely in the background.

Change the world.

Not knowing what I don’t know that I don’t know

Chapter 2

Clarity

Clarity is always extremely difficult to find, discover, be certain of, ascertain. There are at least two factors which contribute to this significantly: one, is what I would call pre-clarity; and two, is a lack of informational certainty.

So let's talk about pre-clarity first. Pre-clarity, is the struggle to know precisely what you want, what you were searching for, what you were trying to be clear about and find this thing called clarity. Pre-clarity is the effort to find clarity about what you are trying to find clarity about. Yes, it is that confusing, and that simple. For example, I am trying to resolve a dilemma in my life, and I realize that I don't actually have clarity about what I am really trying to decide. This is what I mean by pre-clarity, it's the deciding what I am deciding part.

The second part is the lack of informational certainty. Do I have all the facts? Do I know I can depend on the results that I think I am seeing? Why don't I know that I don't know that I know? What unseen factors will apply to the situation? Will things continue to operate as they have in the past? And that is a super important question in the coronavirus age.

These two factors make clarity more difficult than ever before. And it also makes the search for clarity more significant than ever before. The more uncertain and predictable things are, the more clarity is a game changer. Those who have the most clarity will all always succeed best and have the fewest regrets.

New beginnings again

Chapter 1

Beginnings are wonderful and beginnings are difficult. What will this second year look like? Can I raise the bar higher and expect more and better of myself? Can I do this in the noisy droning distracting world I currently live in? Can’t I do it without props and help each day? Can I dig deep enough, live deeply enough, to find this within myself? Can I create the space and margin to actually make this happen? Does it demand more structure? More planning? An outline? Perhaps it simply just needs a beginning, a start. 

So here we are in Shelbyville Kentucky, on our second road trip of the year, the year of Coronavirus where little is certain, plan-able, nor predictable. This is the start. The beginning. A fresh effort at more. Today since I am in a hotel room by myself, I have the silence, the mental space to do this. But will I continue when I am back in the frothing Earl-world? Will I continue when things aren’t going well and I don’t want to write anything? Will I continue when my mental and spiritual well is so dry that there is nothing to write, minutes or hours ticking by while that blank page sits there?

In the face of all these questions and doubts, there is still the chance to do something new. Do something better, or bigger. And new and virginal untested unchartered landscape to paint this coming year, if I have it within me. Honestly I don’t know if I do, and then again I will never know if I do if I don’t try. So here is to new beginnings and fresh starts.

The last chapter

Chapter 365

The last chapter

Today would have been my brother’s 56th birthday. I started this effort exactly one year ago today on what would have been his 55th birthday. These are sad happy memories, my brother and me. I wish he was still here, for his girls, for his granddaughters and for himself. It was a life too hard, and far too short.

But we all have a last chapter, none of us escape a last chapter. Time moves in only one direction. Your last chapter will eventually arrive, and what will it be? Of course there are things none of us can control and so we can’t say with certainty what our final chapter will be like, but we have lots of control over other things, our kindness, our generosity, our willingness to help, step up and offer our best. We have control over our conversations and our thoughts with and about other people. We have control over our inspiration, our empowerment and our motivations. Because the last chapter is never about the last chapter.

The last chapter of our lives, will be more about the whole of the choices we have made over the course of our lifetimes, than just the ones we made at the end. While you can’t go back and change the one’s you have already made, you can make better ones from here on out. And then better one’s each day after today. You can turn the tide, you can write that last chapter starting today. You also may die too young like my brother, and ok you can’t control that, but you can control what that last chapter is gonna look like if you start right now.

Becoming

Chapter 364

"The highest reward for one's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it." ~ John Ruskin

Yesterday’s post was about getting what you worked for, today is a little different, its about discovering that the work itself is irrelevant but what it develops in you is potentially the most awesome thing ever. Work produces lots of a great things like salary, structure, and satisfaction, but the greatest gift is that it can change you. Some people might push back and think that this is not possible in THEIR job! But when I think back over all the jobs that I have had in my life, and there were dozens of them in my early decade of working, every single job had at least one piece to it that would or could change me in some positive fashion if I would only let it.

My first job was cutting grass as a 6 year old. That job provided me with the chance to be stronger, since the lawn mower was twice as big as I was. Gathering up hay and chopping/splitting wood was my next paying job, neither of which I was big enough or strong enough to do, so once again those job built my physical strength. Then my next job was bagging groceries at the local supermarket. It wasn’t physically demanding, it was socially demanding - and gave me the opportunity to develop this highly necessary life skill - but I did not take advantage of it. And so on and so forth. If you look hard enough, you can find what good thing your work is offering, and you can choose to be a better person as a result.

Do the work!

Chapter 363

"If you do the work you get rewarded. There are no shortcuts in life." ~ Michael Jordan

But we really want it to be the other way around, we are always looking for shortcuts. We are always looking for a way to reduce the amount of effort required. We are steadily looking for a way to increase the reward, to lower our investment and cost in whatever we are pursuing. This is why we all dream of winning the lottery, no effort, seemingly endless reward, the ultimate shortcut.

But notice that I said “dream” not play. I don’t play the lottery. There is a better chance of my getting struck by lightening while sitting here on a clear day writing this, than there is of winning the lottery. Playing and paying for the lottery is just a distraction to keep you from doing the work. It will also keep you poor, in more ways than one. It will keep you poor finically and it will also keep your dreams small and focused on the wrong things. That is its own poverty. Doing the work is its own reward, but that one takes a while to internalize.

The search for shortcuts is a lazy path, at least for me. So I generally now force myself to do the work extra well, read - over do it, rather than let myself fall into the shortcut life. And surprisingly over time, the work itself has become more and more enjoyable and that is its own reward. But I wish could have learned these lessons long ago, I could have enjoyed so many more rewards, rather than all this wishing for a shortcut - dissatisfaction.

Do the work!

Unleashed

Chapter 362

“Only when you can imagine a better version of someone can you play a role in helping to unleash them.” Micheal McKinney

Unleashing people is what I do. All the raw material is there, I just have to have enough imagination to see what it can develop into, and draw it out. Someone did this for me in my late 20’s and it forever changed the course of my life. I never thought I would end up doing this for others, because when Martin did this for me 30 years ago, I had different aspirations back then. I completed all those aspirations and went searching for new ones. Here I am.

Unleashing people is immensely satisfying work. Seeing what they can become, grooming that potential, watching it wake up over time and then spring into full bloom! Boom! What a buzz! So far I haven’t grown tired of watching it happen over and over again, and the participation in this process is like a delicate ballet unfolding. People can fall and the dance can unravel but you can also recover and continue moving forward if you have the will to correct course. This is can be really difficult, depending on your tolerance for ambiguity and challenge.

But if you are isolated and live far far away, you can actually imagine a better version of yourself and start moving that way all by yourself. You don’t HAVE to have a leadership developer alongside of you, but if you can, then all the better. But honestly, even if i come alongside of you and help you along the way, YOU still have to do all the work to metamorphoses into what you were destined to be.

The mental infection

Chapter 361

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

So what inspiring message to the world is your life? Most people I meet in the world are talking about how much they have overcome and how difficult their childhoods were - its honestly amazing how much this theme shows up over and over like it was some kind of competition - but its all talk. They aren’t living it. There is this reoccurring victim-hero narrative that they are telling themselves, and anyone else who will listen, its just talk and excuses for not living it. I know, I was one of those people and I am surrounded by those kinds of people (outside of my two circles of five besties). I find mostly everyone to have some of this mental infection.

We were at a local restaurant, where I ran into a childhood friend that I hadn’t seen in almost 40 years. The conversation almost instantly fell into how difficult his life is, and all the physical problems he has to deal with everyday, and the doctors, blah blah blah. People in my neighborhood in Eastern Europe go through the garbage bins daily to eat, and have never seen a doctor in their entire lives, no matter how badly they are hurting. Neither of these stories in this paragraph are inspiring, but the second one makes the first one out to be the whining western malaise of self-focus that it actually is.

Stop this silliness of bemoaning everything happening in your life.

Be inspiring!