True self care

# Chapter 101

Brianna Wiest put it brilliantly when she wrote, “True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.”

I have so been there, in a life that I desperately needed to escape from regularly, or the consequences would have been so dire! Escape and planning for escape was the only thing that kept me going. All of this means that I should have left much sooner than I eventually did, because no one should have to live a life from which they need constant escapage. But as I sit here and think about it, that is where many (most?) people are in their lives. That is why 50% of us are looking for a new job. That is why we have to decompress each day to gingerly get off that tightrope we have been walking all day and has us so keyed up that we can’t relax or sleep.

Thankfully I am no where near that place anymore in my life. I don’t NEED to go fishing or NEED to ride my motorcycle to escape. I still enjoy those things, but I don’t need to escape from my regular life anymore. Of course I take breaks and sometimes vacations, but those can be about someone else’s needs now, rather than my own. For instance when in the Grand Caymans I went on an extended visit to the botanical gardens, which my wife wanted, rather than the scuba diving group off the north shore, which would have been my need in years past.

Self care is choosing to build the life that you don’t need to escape from.

Steps

# Chapter 100

/"It is not enough to take steps which may some day lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe/

Goals and outcomes are magic words in leadership and development these days, but what exactly is a goal? Well it is a desired object or preferred rank or situation or condition or status, it is an arrival at a certain point or level or competence or skill, it is where you want to go, where you have pointed your life, the direction your ship is moving, what you are reaching for, what you aspire to be or do, it is in essence your preferred future state at some level.

What the quote above reminders us of, is that most goals need to be broken down into smaller steps and pieces, and that each one of them becomes a micro-goal in and of itself. Most development pieces in our lives have multi-steps and levels and build on each part to become the whole - the overall goal that you are reaching for. Playing the guitar in public requires, practice, the tools, reading music or at least chords or tabs, calluses, confidence, systems for music, and a good pre-amp. All of these are various steps and skills leading toward the larger skill or purpose of playing in a public venue.

The other part in the quote above is that “it is not enough to take steps . . . some day.” Oh today is the day. In fact every day is the day. Reaching your preferred future is a daily effort. No one gets there easily or quickly. Better get started and stay with it - success.

Going places!

Chapter 99

Goals are fuel to keep you going. Markers to help you see and experience progress in a visceral sense. These are the signposts of progress that lets you know you are going in the intended direction. This is how you know you are actually moving at all. You can measure them and mark them off your list each day - a done check mark. A sense of accomplishment, a feeling of getting stuff done, success in finishing something and ready now to move on to something new.

Your furnace will never run out of fuel with a steady stream of goals. It will help you have clarity even in the most chaotic context or situation. Goals provide structure to your intentions and desires and wants. It helps you get where you want to go. They can become the mode of transportation to your next destination. You can walk, run, ride or fly, depending on what you are trying to accomplish and what mode and speed and effort you choose. Goals can be shaped so that they are feeding into your success and progress. And progress is the real issue here in my opinion. Success is something other. Progress is mile-markers moving past, meaning that you will get somewhere eventually. Success means that you have arrived somewhere. 

I write this as a follow up from yesterday’s chapter, in that the journey itself is the prize. But without goals, the journey generally doesn’t start for many people. Couch-potato TV-addicts are a prime example. News-addictions are another example. Leisure enthusiasts can become an example quickly. Don’t be one of these. Instead apply steady effort and pursuit of your intended direction. This will really take you places.

The richest chair in the room

Chapter 98

The journey, not the goal, is the real prize. We usually don’t realize this nor actualize this very well, but the process, the getting there, the effort day after day is what shapes us and gives us great gifts. The trophy at the end on the platform is just a momento. The prize is already yours before you ever get up on the stage. Don’t doubt it for it is completely true. You have been honed and sharpened and stretched and pulled and remade and reformed unto something more, and that is the true gift, the actual medal of glory.

Life is not in a trophy cabinet lined with awards and accolades. Life is in living it well, striving for that next goal or level or accomplishment, while understanding that the striving will give far greater gifts to your life, than will a small bit of medal at the end proclaiming you the winner of something. You change and develop and become something other, and that is the best possible outcome, regardless of where you place in the standings at the end of the run or the race or the process. What happens inside of you and to you, is the gift, the virtue, the point actually, if you can get your mind around what I am saying and advocating.

As a young man I focused on filling the trophy cabinet, covering the mantle with my accomplishments. Now as an old geyser, I realize that the most powerful position in the room is the back, orchestrating the symphony, the dance, the choreography, the production. I turn down all most all offers to lead up front, speak, or generally be the public face of anything. That is a personal rush to be sure, but the real power, the real development, the real skill is leading from the back as my friend Bernie says.  No physical medals or trophies will be awarded for this position, but it is the richest chair in the room.

Walking on ceilings

Chapter 97

Every level you reach in life, becomes the platform for the next. You don’t notice because you are just living it and its incremental. But what was so difficult for you in the past, has over time become the simple and the normal for today. And that is now your platform, your floor for the next level. Some take months to transform into your new normal, some take years, and some take decades. I am to the age and point in life that I am experience some of those decade-long transitions. 

Yesterday was the 8th anniversary of my friend Mark passing away. The reason that date is pertinent to this conversation, is because when he died I made some huge vocational decisions. I decided to stop coasting, to stop doing what was easy and do what is important instead. It was so incredibly difficult, and so far beyond my abilities back then. Failure was frequent and always knocking at my door. It was terrifying and now when I look back it was not nearly as dangerous as it seemed. And what was difficult back then is effortless now. That impossible ceiling I was trying to break through eight years ago, is the floor I walk on today, maybe even the basement floor that I have underneath the floor I walk on!

This is normal and what we should expect. They aren’t any exceptions to this principle, however there are a small number of situations where progress is exceptionally slow and so you should be prepared. One is our emotional fears. Even after 30 plus years of public speaking, I still get sweaty palms and shaky legs. And the second one is physical development in capacity and strength. When exercising you see rapid results right away, but then your body adapts and you have to continue making new platforms from which to operate. Example, when I first started I thought 10 minutes of exercise was going to kill me. Now I regularly dig in for 2-3 hours non-stop.

What is easy for you today that was so difficult in the past? What is the new level you are using this new normal to leap from?

Crashes

Chapter 96

Crashes. There are all kinds and none of them are fun or something you want to go through very often. Yesterday Brenda and I both had crashes. Her’s was the total culture shock of realizing that she was in America and maybe for good. It shocked her system all the way down to the meltdown point. So she melted down, and cried a lot and eventually worked her way through the mental and emotional quagmire of reverse culture shock once again.

My meltdown wasn’t a personal one, I have been in the states since March 15th and mostly well past the reverse culture shock tremors. My crash was the computer crash. Unfortunately it was not my computer, but rather the bosses computer and while I successfully got rid of the virus that had been plaguing him, I also broke the bridge to all the financial data for his entire business!!  Seven hours later and tech support from all over the world later, we got some of it back, most of it back, but still are missing the last 37 days of financial data. 

Since I haven’t really used a computer in the last 10 years or so, I am solidly an iPad guy, this was a particularly challenging crash for me. Not physically painful like my dead armadillo crash on Father’s Day, but still painful in an emotional way, like Brenda’s crash. I did harm to my friends business no matter how innocently or not. And I stayed there trying to correct the error until there was nothing left that could be done. Hoping that today we have a crash-free day.

Money changes ??

Chapter 95

So the leadership question I was asked yesterday is “how can my worst employee, be my second best money producer?” Some exploration was needed to determine what “my worst employee” meant. In this case it meant that he was a fairly normal thoughtless selfish person, who really doesn’t want to work all that much. Like I said, normal, typical, the average. But the person asking the question values teamwork, thankfulness, thoughtfulness, and kindness, none of which he is ever gonna get out of this employee, nor does he reward such actions and values.

If you want or desire a set of actions on the part of your team, then you have to do two things fairly consistently: hire people who tend toward those actions and values to begin with, and reward those actions and values regularly. How the question was posed to me shows me what you are measuring and really valuing - producing income for the business- which is a perfectly fine value for your business. But it is not reasonable to expect your regular paychecks to turn this person into a thoughtful kind unselfish perfect employee. There in fact is no incentive for him to do so. In fact, the reason he is your second highest money producer is that he is selfish and leaves the shitty work for the rest of the guys to do.

You can’t improve a person’s character with monetary rewards. If the Bible is accurate, then more money generally corrupts one’s character more often. You have to find and use a different reward merit system.

All the little delights along the way

Chapter 94

Outside was a lovely sunny day with less wind than the two days previous. We will take it and enjoy it! There were other little delights along the way too . . . .

The foster baby and I snuggled for a while. That is lovely in a special, one of a kind way. Probably any snuggles from any baby would have sufficed, but this one was better. My arms get tired so fast! I have no idea how my wife and daughters do this all day long.

The micro tuner for the guitar was a delight!! So tiny and so easy to read!! Would every purchase I make be this wonderful!! Something that works so perfect, so instantly and easily. So precise and accurate, it made the guitar sounds so much cleaner and vibrant in perfect tune.

And last but not least was a new printer for the new house. Anyone who has long decades of experience setting up printers and their finicky drivers on a computer or networked system, is groaning already. Especially since we are Mac household, AND we have not one single CD drive on any computer nor anywhere in the house with which to load the drivers. But never you fear, 2020 is here! I downloaded the driver from their website, the scariest part of the whole process was picking the right product from their 10,123 different printers, and viola! We can print from every computer and tablet in the house. Amazing!

Everything has a price

Chapter 93

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

Price, that is the point. Everything has a price, a cost, a demand that cannot be thwarted or evaded. The pain of regret is just another price, or a way of saying the price. Then point is this, everything has a cost and you need to decide which ones you are going to pay. 

Yes you can chose one price over another and that Qubein’s point here. Be disciplined and while that is costly, it will allow you to avoid experiencing regret - it is your get out of regret free card. Regret for not having discipline in your work, diet, exercise, whatever, is now negated. Of course there are other types of regret. Regrets that have more to do with choices in general and less to do with discipline per se. You can have regrets for your career choice, your college choices, your spouse choices, your children’s choices and other such genre of regrets that can happen to anyone. 

The main issue here though is that were we disciplined in our pursuits and wishes and dreams, then we would have a lot less regrets period. But discipline is the piece that keeps getting away from us. Rather than discipline driving my life, I tend toward habits and structures to keep me on track, but that in itself is a form of discipline. However you do it, is less important than, that you do it regularly, all the time, every day. Let’s leave no room for regrets.

A contactless world?

Chapter 92

Trick or treating in the COVID-19 world was so strange. Brenda and I bought a very large bag of candy of course, and we turned all the lights on in the house to make it as welcoming as possible, and we got out the guitar and keyboard and were playing some music, a fun and festive ambience for all the kids to come to, but no one came, well except for one kid, who’s parents yelled at him for ringing our doorbell. After about a half hour of this puzzlement, our daughter shows up at our door and exclaims that we are “doing it “ all wrong! You have to sit outside! You have to put the candy in a bowl far away from anyone because of COVID-19, and this is how you have a contactless contact with your trick or treaters.

And so we sat outside freezing for the next hour and half, repeatedly filling the candy bowl, making small talk with a steady troll of people we don’t know, with kids we had never met, but then again, we only moved here a month ago. This this is the new way to connect with people, and I don’t think it is going to be enough. Not enough touching, not enough hugging, not enough talking, not enough skin on skin magic to make us feel fully human and connected. I think we are wired for more than this. 

While I don’t mind giving candy away to children and making polite small talk with strangers, it was a fairly empty event emotionally. It cost me little, gave me nothing, and accomplished zero except for rotting out some kid’s teeth. We can do better than this.

All wet?

Chapter 91

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet." ~ Bob Marley

It’s a matter of perspective and engagement. Everyone has felt the enjoyment of walking in the rain or in my case riding my bicycle in the rain. Usually this happens when it is above 80 degrees and the rain is warm and delightful. That’s when you want to throw your arms up into the air and take it all in and enjoy every drop. Of course in those temperatures, you will dry out quickly and be able to continue on with your day, having felt the healing touch of the rain falling from the sky. You can see it for what it is - a temporary pleasure that comes occasionally and one that leaves wonderful blessings in its wake. And I will admit here, that this most often happens to me in Asia. If you can’t embrace the rain and wet in Asia, you are generally going to be unhappy all the time.

But when the rain is freezing cold and outside temperature is cold and the pleasure is difficult to find, and you will never dry out and ... well ... you just get wet on those days. Those days are where an umbrella is more important than the rain. It’s about 45 degrees here In Pennsylvania today and windy, it feels about 34 degrees outside, and its going to rain. That will not be a pleasing rain to me, because it is just too cold period. The rain will be driven by the wind too, so the impact will be hard and unpleasant as well. Today is a just get wet day.

Perspective, context and engagement make it wet or make it rain. That is how life operates. Some things you can control and some things you cannot control. Be aware of which ones are which.

Trifecta of the highly successful

Chapter 90

Hungry, smart, and humble? These are the key elements of highly successful people I see around the world. Not too many people my age are any one of those three. Instead we are highly opinionated and selfish and proud and full of ourselves. We aren’t interested in paving the way for anyone, much less the young generations coming behind us. Each piece we touch, we make about us, we are more interested in prosperity than change, more committed to ease than hard work, more consumed with the idea of my rights than everyone’s well being. You don’t have to look far at all to see it everywhere.

When is the last time you were hungry for some result, or some change, or some action or even just physically hungry?? This ingredient is a great leverage maker. When you are hungry you have drive to satisfy that hunger and it is fairly relentless. Hunger won’t let go. It will keep at you until it is resolved.

Smart is not just a marker of intelligence and computing power. Smart is an awareness of what is driving you, the big picture, what others are feeling and going through and what is driving them, the stakeholders, the customers, the purpose, the idea, the outcomes desired, and goals you are reaching for, and the tasks necessary to see you through to them.

And humble is easiest and the most difficult to understand and master. It seems to baffle geniuses and give power to the simple. It is the glue that holds leadership in place and gives rise to new hope in everyone. It is what makes the followership so easy when your boss has it, and makes you and me want to please such a person. It allows every idea to be voiced and for no dissention to drive a wedge in between.

Like I said, you don’t see these things very often in my age group. Big sigh.

Grumpy old women?

Chapter 89

Passion, grit, and a positive mindset, three key traits for success, begin to fall off in our 50s, according to a new study from Norway. You and I are gonna lose those three key tools as we get older, and many already have. Especially the positive mindset one! I feel that 65% of my conversations with people are about this one piece alone. And its not just grumpy old men. It’s across the board for the plus 50 crowd. Is grumpy old women a category?? And some of this loss comes from worry about other things you are losing in your 50’s, that the passion grit and positivity get pushed aside.

But I honestly think you gain other things in your 50’s that counter these losses to a great extent. The first thing you gain is an unflappable calmness. Mind you not everyone in their 50’s gets this, but more do than don’t. There is less of that edgy excitability that can make life so tense. And then there is perspective. If you aren’t gaining perspective in your 50’s then you are a lost cause. You can see the past and present and potential future more clearly. And finally you get compassion, and realization that all of us are human and make mistakes and are prone to be our own worst enemies. You are more tolerant and understanding of less than perfect outcomes and results.

I think these are three positive gains you make in your 50’s that can can lead to other kinds of success. Of course you just as easily can get grumpier, more negative and caustic, and more fragile rather than tougher in a good sense. But you can make these choices with your eyes wide open. You are in your 50’s after all.

Steeper

Chapter 88

The steeper my learning curve the more I want to go back to what is easy and comfortable. But you can’t do that, you just can’t. That steep learning curve is going to take you places you have never gone before, places you will need to go to continue making progress in your journey, places you need to go if you want to continue changing the world to be a better place for you, your family, your grandkids, your neighbors and the rest of the world. 

But steep learning curves are very uncomfortable, even more so as you get older and slower. They challenge the status quo in your life and make much of the expertise you have built over a lifetime, irrelevant and useless. It also bottleneck’s your speed and grace in living - in other words, you are gonna look like a fool in so many ways before the curve levels out and you can gain some traction. 

The wise and hungry person, continues that steep curve, they are relentless and consistent. Although you need to apply caution to your tendency to make quick decisions, since you know so little. I find this the most difficult piece of the steep learning curve process - to slow down and take a deep breath and to depend (and wait!) for others to make the decisions about the business at hand. Be wise, and let them make those decisions, because you and me aren’t ready for that yet.

The problem with problems

Chapter 87

The problem with problems, is that we are always trying to get rid of them. Solve them yes. Get rid of them no. Problems are what makes life interesting. I think solving problems is one of the most important pieces of a satisfying life. And I think that failing to solve a problem in a manner and conclusion that you find satisfying, is one or can be one of the pieces of your life that keeps raising the bar, demanding more from you, better from you. Without problems, life would not be very interesting at all. 

I talk a lot about retirement with my friend and he insists that I would hate retirement. But I am pretty sure he is wrong about that. I would hate a life without a problem to solve, but I wouldn’t hate retirement, where you could solve them at your own pace and without the pressures and pace of modern life. We eventually will find out if I live that long.

What is so funny to me about this retirement conversation with my friend is that he is the ultimate problem solver, and its what he does all day long every day, and he even turns it to money! I just turn my problem solving into scale or more ideas, rarely into money. I am not all that good at making money, and perhaps that is my next problem that I plan to solve!

A life of goodbyes

Chapter 86

The inevitable goodbyes. After every great visit, there are the inevitable goodbyes. I have lived a life of goodbyes. They never get easier. You might think that with so much regular practice, that they would get easier, but it simply does not happen that way. I just hugged my 30 year old son goodbye, as he heads back to Indy and his life there and we already miss him terribly. There is no way, at least that I have discovered, to mitigate the pain, the emotional pain of goodbyes.

And we shouldn’t ever find a way to do so. It’s what makes us human and vulnerable and joyful when we get to be together again in the future. But the measure of our pain, tells us how connected we are to these people and that is a good thing. It shows that we are connected and that we love, and that we hurt when we are separated for whatever good reasons -that we have lots of skin in these relationships and that they matter. It proves in the best possible ways that we are invested in others.

As a mostly introverted person, I enjoy my alone times immensely. They are a necessary part of my thriving. But it is the key relationships in my life that make the alone times bearable in a sense, because they have no meaning, if I don’t value someone outside of myself. And its that valuing, that makes the goodbyes so hard. As my friend Renee said this morning as she had to leave her daughter and say goodbye once more, “my heart is full” and that is true of me too today. But part of that fullness is the pain. It hurts because these people are important.

A full house

Chapter 85

The house was filled with people and fun and laughter and games, and howls of joy. They were having so much fun playing games and being together, my heart was full to overflowing. All our kids and all their spouses, playing games and bursting with laughter while the grandkids slept at another house across the street, was a great opportunity for the adults to have some fun. And they were having it in our house, the oasis. We haven’t had a house of our own since 2004, and 16 years ago, the kids were all kids, not married, not even dating.

Now they are all grown up and have their own places and spouses and kids, but they are still our kids and it was super special to have the house full of people all day yesterday on a cold wet rainy day, and the house was warm and smelled of good food, sweet desserts baking, great discussions and chats with one another, and plus I got a bunch of home improvement projects done in between the times when they were here and going and coming. It was like Christmas come early! These are the moments that fill your heart and soul up from empty to overflowing.

If you don’t have any of these moments in your life, then you need to change that as soon as possible. Spend any amount of money, take any risk, do whatever is required to have some of these life-defining times and experiences. Don’t just live in your memories, make some new ones!

More difficult than it looks

Chapter 84

Everything is more difficult than it looks at first glance. I tried to convince my youngest daughter of that, when she wanted her husband and me to “build” her some custom made shelves to go inside her closets. Her husband and I are talented fellows, but not in the carpenter fashion. Our expertise lies elsewhere, and plus we did not have the proper tools to do such a job either, much less the knowledge. But we dove in . . . its her birthday, and she is pregnant. How could we say no?

Thankfully this work that we produced will forever be hidden in dark closets with the door pulled shut. Equally important is that I am pleased to still have all my fingers after all that sawing and cutting. This is not finished carpenters work by a million miles. This is what you would apprentice for, for maybe 3-5 years before you would pretend to call yourself a carpenter. Everything is more difficult than it looks at first glance, or how it appears on home remodeling shows. 

And then there is the movement to take merit and skill out of the mix. These people hate a meritocracy, because “everyone has value” and this is true. However not everyone has paid the price to become highly skilled and capable in a precise function. I personally want only the best plumber, carpenter, electrician, doctor, dentist and mechanic working on me and my stuff. The rest of you can hire people like me to do your carpentry if you want. Work done well with style and elegance and beauty takes real skill and practice and hard work - decades of it. Everything is more difficult than it looks.

Maybe its my wife?

Chapter 83

I have to recalculate. I am obviously using one set of metrics and those who are coming to my house are using another set of metrics. I have the expectation that everyone is as busy as I am, and they are, ... unless. Unless you give them something, that they find irresistible. Then all bets are off. Everyone I have invited into the house or over for a coffee, ends up staying for hours and hours, and it is wonderful . . . and a bit disconcerting because I mentally made all these other plans to accomplish after the 30 minute coffee or the one hour meal was over, because people are as busy as I am. Something at play here is irresistible.

Maybe it is my wife? I know I find her irresistible! She pretty much captivates any audience that comes her way. She is vivacious and interesting and gracious. That equals irresistible in the modern world, filled with people only interested in themselves. Brenda’s lack of obsession with herself alone is enough to capture most people’s imagination and interest. Maybe it is me? That one is more difficult to get my mind around. I mean, I know I am interesting and have great stories, but I don’t have any graciousness and little vivaciousness. And I smoke cigars all the time and stink the place up, I mean come on!

Maybe it is just that combined, we are an oasis for people? That might make the most sense overall. The effect of Brenda and me together in our space evidently is working some magic in people’s lives. We like that, a great deal in fact, but we gotta change our expectations to being the oasis, rather than the express lane.

A little jolt of happiness

Chapter 82

Life is pretty full right now, I find myself running wide open from 6 am until 9 pm each day and then falling down into a deep exhausted sleep at the end of the day. It is amazingly content-giving way to live at the moment. Fairly sure that I can’t continue this pace for very long, nor should I, but it has this unique contentment about it. Contentment is way better than happiness, way deeper and way more satisfying.

Yet I find most people are searching for happy here in America and elsewhere.  They spend lavish amounts of money for stuff they don’t need and won’t use to feel happy. They literally shop all the time to get a little jolt of happiness. They buy new cars, and new clothes and new houses. All for a little jolt of happy. They are looking for relationships to make them happy. They are searching for the perfect soul mate that will make them happy. They and we are willing to pay outlandish prices financially and emotionally to have a little jolt of happy. I keep calling it a little jolt, because that is about how long it lasts.

Contentment on the other hand is more invasive in the best way. It permeates all the other pieces of life. No, it doesn’t make problems go away, but it can and often is a great buffer to the most difficult parts of life and daily processes.  Contentment is being satisfied with what is at the moment, and not wanting more. More nuanced than it sounds in that sentence, but as an old Hasidic proverbs states, when we pursue the little jolt of happiness, we flee from contentment.