The ferocity with which we believe

# Chapter 210

The quality of our belief does not make a thing so. The ferocity with which we believe something doesn’t make it true either. What is true is true whether I believe it or not, and the character of my belief or not, doesn’t change the factualness of a thing. Now culture changes its opinion about a matter all the time, and which sources we choose to listen to influence the quality or certainty of our beliefs about many things. How we arrive at a great many of our “facts” are actually just a culturally or socially accepted understanding of a given subject. And the internet has acerbated this process for now, we “google” what we think we know to get verification. And that is bad enough, but not nearly as bad as believing what Facebook tells you . . . and then asks you to share and repost.

We willingly or unwillingly tell and retell unsubstantiated information and “facts’ all the time. I write this hoping that this helps me and you be open to having our thoughts and beliefs changed. To challenge us to top notch scholarly research and thinking. To explore ideas from every angle, not just to confirm what I think I already believe.

This would make what you and I believe way more certain and far less emotional. I guess this whole mental conversation has come about because of the recent political machinations that have been going on in this last recent president election. Conspiracy theories alone are enough to drive a thinking person crazy. I have rolled myself eyes so much in the last few months, that they are stuck in a loop.

Change your view, change your world

# Chapter 209

There are many opportunities in your life that feel like problems. They look like problems feel like problems smell like problems but they are opportunities. They are really are often opportunities to change something important, repair something, make something more efficient, make something better, assist an unhelpful person to move along to another job and out of your hair, to fix a broken system, to change an unjust system, to develop more leaders, to build something beautiful, to inspire people, to empower people, to change the world.

But if you see feel and smell a problem, the opportunity may well pass you by. You will major on the minors and miss the bigger issue if you come seeing feeling smelling this as a problem. For me, it is usually two factors that play into me seeing problems everywhere instead of opportunities - my feeling and attitude are the first one, and friends who are problem absorbed is the second one. Choose to limit your time with those friends! Choose to change your attitude. These are both on you and me. Show me who you hang out with and I will show you your future. Or show me how you show up each day and I will know what your future holds.

This is basically a posture on life. Decide if you want to have a problem-filled life or an opportunity-filled life? Wake up each morning and go to bed each evening thinking about either your problems or your opportunities. I am really thankful that some of my thorniest problems/challenges in the past turn out to be some of my best blessings/opportunities. For it was only as I saw and experienced that those “problems” became “blessings” did I understand that this could happen all the time, and that it was mostly an internal process. Change your view, change your world.

Misled

# Chapter 208

Change the world thinking can sometimes lead to sleepless nights, when you can’t turn your brain off from churning churning churning. It was a long long night. Its gonna be a long long day. Hopefully I did not keep Brenda awake too. Finally got up and made that cup of coffee I had been thinking about off and on for hours. And its a fine cup of joe!

But my brain kept rolling for hours about about the losses in life, the needs, the lack of resources, the challenges, the problems, the failures, history, the future, friends who have recently lost loved ones, and friends who have angry spouses, and friends who are alone. And that heavy ball of thinking kept churning and burning and sleep never returned once that got started.

So the question is what am I going to do about all of that thinking? Well its a good question. First of all I am going to work on the things I can actually do something about. Secondly I am going to pray about those things I can do nothing about. Thirdly I am going to stop right here and make me another cup of coffee and think some more. Fourthly I have to do triage to separate the doable from the non-doable, the urgent from the important, and act accordingly. There are many things that I am capable of worrying about that I can do nothing to change or affect - they just are. As there are many things I am capable of changing and affecting, yet I worry about them instead, which just is wasted emotion and creates a distraction that simulates action. Misled by this one are many.

More capacity

# Chapter 207

I am caught in the dilemma of wanting to borrow too much money for the banks to want to talk to me, and wanting to borrow too little for the private lenders to want to do business with me. It is a little bit like life isn’t it? The load is always too heavy or too light, never just the preferred amount of weight or pressure to keep things humming along. Or your pressures are just overwhelming your capacity. Clearly there are at least two things we can do here - increase your capacity and control your loads.

Actually my business model is all about increasing your capacity. We are in the development business after all. Developing people is more about helping them do the right things more than carrying more load, but a larger load capacity is naturally one of the results of doing the right things in the right ways. Everyone should be in development. You are the asset. You should always be protecting the asset and then developing the asset. If you don’t, who will? No one, is the answer to that question. Even though I am in the development business, I won’t develop you if you aren’t going to work on this yourself. If you aren’t willing to invest in yourself, why would I or anyone else do so?

Load control is completely another subject. How much power or control you have here is business-specific. But how you manage the loads you have is different. You can always recruit more people, invest others with responsibility, share the load, leverage the load, and I mean you can multiply the lift-factor many times by repositioning the fulcrum and changing the length of your lever.

The change you can still be

# Chapter 206

What are you waiting for? The future is getting closer and shorter, if you understand the future to be a soon coming event and that you have limited days upon which to act upon it. In your thinking, the future are the days ahead. Others see the future as a mental construct of a not yet arrived present. I am certainly not smart enough to determine what the future is, or what the future means, nor to define it to the satisfaction of everyone. And the future is not even the point here, just some cerebral candy to delight in.

The point is that you are waiting, when in fact you should be taking action. You are waiting for . . . something . . . and this waiting is leaving you fewer and fewer days weeks months years to act, to choose, to be. So stop waiting! Get this thing in action and get it moving forward! Whatever is luring you to inertia is, in fact, robbing you of the results you could be experiencing! You could be changing the world but instead you are sitting at your desk bored doomscrolling your Facebook feed!! What is wrong with you??!!

There are so many important events that will not occur without you, so don’t wait. Waiting is losing. Losing the window of opportunity, losing the remaining daylight, losing the victims ground up by trafficking and broken homes, losing the interest to act, and losing the change you could have been, and that you can still be. There are no perfect moments in which to start. Beginning is the most difficult action of all.

Too many get out of jail free cards

# Chapter 205

We do have a great deal of control over our lives and the trajectory that they take. Not sure that I would go as far as Churchill did and state that we are masters of our fate and captains of our souls, but I do think that our small decisions add up to big results over time. The influence of outside factors keeps me away from the “masters and captains” way of thinking, although it is obvious that many times we do have gatekeeper and bottleneck powers that we underestimate. Our gatekeeper and bottleneck powers would and could keep many of these outside forces and influencers away from our lives, and in effect give us more “masters and captains” types of powers.

But that is enough debate about how much power we have over the trajectories of our lives. The bottom line is that most Westerners don’t own that. More importantly I don’t always own that - the power I have - instead choosing to focus on the power that I don’t have or some other silly nonsense. All to mentally get me off the hook for where I am today. This is our mental “get out of jail free card” that we play all the time. Quit. Stop. Own it. Be 100% responsible for where you are today and 100% responsible for the direction you are heading. Put your adult pants on and wear them well.

My parents always warned me to be careful of what I read and watched, because of spiritual reasons, to protect my soul. But that warning is even more appropriate today to protect our minds. Use those gatekeeper powers to the maximum - keep your ownership of the results at 100% .

Act!

# Chapter 204

What we do matters far more than what we say. Don’t get me wrong, words are powerful and they can be persuasive and important and life changing. They can inform us and teach us and communicate so much to us. Words are important. But they cannot compete with actions.

One action of kindness is so much more meaningful than 100 words of kindness. One action of love means so much more than 100’s of love words. One action of help is way more powerful than 100’s of words about help. People are going to judge us by both our words and deeds, but they are going to judge us far more harshly by our actions. Those are events by which we can even be held in judgement in courts of law! These are the events in our lives that God will hold us accountable.

As I read over this, I realize that it sounds like I am warning you to not act, but quite the contrary. I am advocating that your actions are 100 times more important than your words and that we should take action 100 times more than we speak. Be people of action, and then your words will need to be few.

Twin Towers of Power

# Chapter 203

Patience and perseverance! The magical two that change every endeavor. John Quincy Adams said that difficulties and obstacles are vanquished before these mighty two warriors. Patience and perseverance. They both are in short supply just about everywhere these days. Patience far more than perseverance. People have had to persevere this past year with our coronavirus world, but they have not been patient with it, nor with their neighbors, or the national systems in place, nor with themselves. Patience is in super short supply, and persevering is the only option.

But what if we came to the table with those, piled up and ready to go, wrapped and prepared to attack life with these warriors? Instead of dragging patience and perseverance up from the last line of defense and the bottom of the barrel, what if we started with them and made them the cornerstone of our strategies? This could change everything. Especially in our coronavirus world. We could do so much more and at such a deeper level if we just started with these two attributes, and faced the world and all the difficulties and obstacles with pockets full of patience and perseverance.

While Brenda and I quarantine and we can’t have face to face connections with anyone, these are good friends to have along side of you. Patience and perseverance. Dust them off, polish them up, make them the cornerstone of your forward facing strategies.

Fat chubby babies

# Chapter 202

The crunch of snow. The moon shining bright. A foster child in my arms. Happy cooing sounds coming from him as we trudge along the path to his house. He is fascinated with the sound of my boots in the snow. He keeps trying to look down at every footstep. I know he likes it when his feet make clopping sounds on our hardwood floors, but this is a new sound. And we are surrounded by the glow of moonlight on snow and the big dark trees in our yard. It was a magical moment. A significant moment. A cherished moment. Your arms full of fat chubby baby and happiness.

This is life in this moment. This is your today. Seize these moments. Make these memories. It is all we have remaining to carry forward with us. And memories are so much more than a slide show of visual pictures of the past. Remember the crunch of the snow, the reflection of moonlight, the smell of the maples and sweet gum trees, the weight and warmth of the baby in your arms, the sweet smell of baby soap, the bite of the cold, the deep quiet of a cold winter night, and wiggling bundle of contentment in your arms.

Now pull up other memories, and use all your senses, and live them again and again.

Daily common chances

# Chapter 201

A big break, that’s what all too many are waiting for. The perfect opportunity, the right audience, the stars alignment, whatever you think you need to break into the big leagues or the category you are hoping for wishing for or looking for. But the big breaks almost never happen. In fact they barely exists for the vast majority of the world. All that exists for all of us are the common opportunities we have everyday, and that is where you will find your power and opportunity.

If you can see it, and if you can show up consistently. This is truly your big break - the opportunity to show up day after day with insight and wisdom and the best version of yourself, and make these daily common chances great. This is the path for the vast majority of us. Far more succeed by the common everyday chance than do by the “big break” chance. Success is waiting for someone to grab it and go forward, to take the opportunity presented, to seize the moment given, to make the best of what is, someone who complains little and works hard - there goes the prize!

Embrace your beginning

# Chapter 200

You can learn anything. Especially in the modern world. Especially in the YouTube world. I read of a person or two who built an entire house based only what they learned from watching YouTube vids. They learned what they needed to learn when they needed to learn it. But they were humble enough to understand that they were amateurs, beginners and that they needed instruction. You can even likely become a Master at your desired task, if you are willing to learn and apply yourself.

As Emerson said, “every artist was once an amateur.” Everyone starts in exactly the same place, at the beginning. There is no other place to start. But interestingly enough, I am noticing that my younger relatives want to start way ahead of the beginning. They in fact, sometimes want to start in the C-suite. If only I were joking, but I am not. It is not clear to me why they are confused about the word start. The very definition of the word is about the beginning of something. They don’t understand that this is where we all enter the gate. There is no other way to get on the raceway of life. The entrance is always at the lowest level.

And this is certainly a power and position issue, I get it and wish it weren’t, yet it is also the only way to insure that you and I learn the basic building blocks of our craft and that we understand what we should do next. Don’t resist, embrace the start, the learning.

You will is the water

# Chapter 199

/“Constant dripping hollows out a stone.” ~ Lucretius/

This is the story of my life. It can be the story of your life. The stone can be any objective you choose. But the stone is always the challenge. The thing you are reaching for, striving for, aiming for. It is hard and difficult. It is heavy and large. It represents some dream or wish so big that just thinking about it almost overwhelms you. And the only way to conquer a stone without crushing it, is constant dripping or chipping with a small hammer. Little bit by constant little bit.

The water is soft by comparison. But the water is your will, it is your persistence, your commitment to finishing, you won’t be denied, you cannot fail because you are constant. Constant is powerful. Way more powerful than most think. In the Bible, God recognizes that a generally powerless person becomes powerful by constant pursuit of a goal or objective (Luke 18:1-8).

Power and force and impact in life usually are a reflection of persistence more than talent, of consistency more than skill, of tenacity more than opportunity.

Your business

# Chapter 198

This difficult business decision is, what business are you in? Blair Enns states that this is the reason why most businesses fail. It is also one of the primary reasons people fail in their aspirations and goals and lives, because they haven’t done, or are unwilling to do the difficult work of deciding and understanding what business they are in. Sounds really simply doesn’t it? Well it’s not, and I can vouch for that from much personal experience. And it is a slightly moving target, because businesses and lives change all the time, and thus creates a shift in the difficult business decision. In other words, the difficult business decision requires regular attention and thought. Lots of thought.

Once we understand and know what business we are in, in work or life, we can align actions, streamline decisions, filter out distractions, reduce waste, polish skills, build expertise, facilitate teams of help, accomplish far more! What business are you in? What is the precise purpose of your life? What makes you tick? Where are you heading? What is the end going to look like? All these are the difficult business decision question. But they need tight, no-wiggle, non-vague, well defined answers, otherwise you have nothing but styrofoam in hand (mind). My buddy thinks he is in the plumbing business, but really he is in the drain cleaning business. Drain cleaning is 95% of his business. If you think you are in one business, but you are actually in another, or if you think your life is about this, but its really about that, it will create dissonance in your life and work and prevent you from all that you are capable.

What business are you in?

Decisions

# Chapter 197

Now you have to decide, and you will whether you want to or not, simply because not choosing is not an option as that is a choice within itself. Perhaps it would be more precise to say, what now are your intentions? To be busy or to be productive? I think we have clarified over the last five or six days what busy generally is, and how that contrasts with productive. And yes there are those rare rare people who are busily being productive, but you and I are not one of those people most likely. Most of your busy-ness is self imposed and posturing, and it probably will keep you from being as productive as you wish you were.

Oh and my wife just pointed out to me that there is another side of the coin of busy - lazy and self-indulgent. So perhaps all this conversation about busy hasn’t rang a bell with you because you struggle with laziness, apathy or some kind of self-indulgent behavior that derails your productivity? Only you know you, and only you can choose your intention, your purpose, your passion, your pattern of choices that has brought you to this place in life and given you the life that you want - or don’t want. Yet most of us still have time to change the trajectory of our lives if we find they are not what we really want.

Time to start a new pattern of choices.

Creating value

# Chapter 196

But lets drill down even farther. What does productive really mean? Not busy as we have already discussed. Productive means that the task has been finished, completed, that the work has been done, that what needed to be created or done or tackled has been, and that a tangible measurable something exists now whereas it did not before. There is a large scale to this meaning. If your responsibility is herding people, then what accomplished completed finished productivity looks like for you, is very different than Kevin my mail carrier. Kevin’s is super concrete - when all the mail is delivered I am done. Herding is less concrete and defined. Thus for those who work in the more abstract worlds of work, the “to-do” list is far too similar to “busy” to be of much help in defining productivity.

I too work in the very abstract world of ideas and sometimes people. There are few ways to measure productivity. Saying that I talked with Dr. Singfiel yesterday about what is going on in Eastern Europe is not measuring anything other than the shell of a task. No, instead you have to define the quality of the interaction before you have an accurate measurement of productive. Just showing up for my zoom is not enough, unless you are measuring busy, and only other busy people would be interested in that. What you are really wanting and needing to measure is value.

Creating value is real productivity. Regardless where you are on the concrete abstract scale of work, creating value is the undergirding foundation you can always build upon. Here at The Leadership Development Group we always ask ourselves every day, after every conversation and task, “what value did I bring to this situation?” Its a brutal question, and a life-giving one. Try it sometime.

Productivity requires?

# Chapter 194

How you choose to spend the next minute, hour, day, week or month is a decision to be busy or not. Busy is a choice. You can’t not blame this one on anyone but yourself. Busy is a choice. It is a choice of what we say yes to and what we choose to not say no to. It is a choice of which trade off we have - work or family or some other trade off. It is a choice of intention, a willingness to accomplish this thing over those things. It is a choice of FOMO or not. It is a choice of allowing others to shine and have heavy responsibilities or taking all the “glory” for yourself. It is a choice to be content with something others may not understand. It is a choice to be satisfied with less but better, or needing it all. It is a choice to be selfish or life-giving. It is a choice of margin or no margin. It is a choice to play or work. It is a choice to have your business own you or you own your business. It is a choice of which life you want to live. Busy is a choice, actually a pattern of choices that you have some say in whether or not you take this on.

I understand this all too well and yet I can still find myself making the wrong choice about busy. I can take on more without laying aside other things and suddenly I am overclocked again. For me , I have to generally stop one thing, before I can take on another thing. Because I am already as busy as I choose to be. And so are you.

Busy choices

# Chapter 194

How you choose to spend the next minute, hour, day, week or month is a decision to be busy or not. Busy is a choice. You can’t not blame this one on anyone but yourself. Busy is a choice. It is a choice of what we say yes to and what we choose to not say no to. It is a choice of which trade off we have - work or family or some other trade off. It is a choice of intention, a willingness to accomplish this thing over those things. It is a choice of FOMO or not. It is a choice of allowing others to shine and have heavy responsibilities or taking all the “glory” for yourself. It is a choice to be content with something others may not understand. It is a choice to be satisfied with less but better, or needing it all. It is a choice to be selfish or life-giving. It is a choice of margin or no margin. It is a choice to play or work. It is a choice to have your business own you or you own your business. It is a choice of which life you want to live. Busy is a choice, actually a pattern of choices that you have some say in whether or not you take this on.

I understand this all too well and yet I can still find myself making the wrong choice about busy. I can take on more without laying aside other things and suddenly I am overclocked again. For me , I have to generally stop one thing, before I can take on another thing. Because I am already as busy as I choose to be. And so are you.

Your 2 busy meter

# Chapter 193

As I said yesterday, busy people are that by choice as a general rule, 99 % of the time. Nor does busy equal productive. Not even close. As I confessed I was on track to be the busiest person in the world, but was I productive? Sometimes. More often I was simply busy, or just busy appearing to be busy. Being busy is hard work, but it is not productive necessarily. Honestly, since I have given up being busy, I work far fewer hours and I produce far more qualitative pieces of work.

Busy and productive are often seen as a matched pair, but I would argue the opposite, unless by productive you actually mean busy. But in the circles of leadership and development that I work with around the world, productive is better defined as the value you bring to a project or task or client or the world. Productive is vastly different from busy when you think of it in terms of outcomes or value provided rather than how you are the linchpin to the success of the organization or an event or how many tasks you are juggling in a certain time frame. Unfortunately everyone around you may over-value the linch-pin busy person above the person who produces the value or the best outcomes.

What value are you creating for this situation or these people or this client? This is the question that you should be answering. Not questions like, how much you have to do (quantity)? Or how important are you in the food chain of this business or organization? For a productive non-busy person, “what value am I providing” is generally the best question to ask and answer.

Your busy meter

# Chapter 192

Busy people are busy by choice as a general rule. This I know from both personal experience trying to be the busiest person in the world - the most important person in the world, and from observing my clients around the world for the last nine years. And these clients are in high pressure, change the world environments and that means there is considerable pressure to be and stay, busy busy busy. There is always more to do. There is always more work waiting for you. Busy is still a choice.

The vast majority of busy is self-imposed. Even my poorest client in the most resource-deprived places in the world, have options for off-loading many tasks and delegating most responsibilities. No that does not remove the task of quality control from you, but it does move a great deal of the execution and completion parts of busy off of your shoulders onto the shoulders of someone else. Busy is still a choice.

. . . and often a complicated emotional choice. Back in my 30’s and 40’s it was primarily about shoring up my confidence in myself, and being seen and heard by everyone around me, so that my importance could not be missed by even a casual observer. If everyone thought me to be important then surely I must be?

But I realized that being important or seen or heard or valued was far less satisfying than making a difference, being the agent of change and influencing the direction people were going. Now I can lead from the back of the room and be judged by my outcomes rather than my busy meter.

A second set of hands

# Chapter 191

“I don’t have enough hands” my dad said. And he was right, it was at least a six hands kind of job, and we only had four between the two of us. We all face jobs and tasks and responsibilities where we “don’t have enough hands.” We need help. We need to figure out a way to create another set of hands. My dad is brilliant at this, with a rope, with tape, with a sawhorse or with a chain, he always figures out how to make another set of hands out of something handy and nearby. We ended up using tape yesterday to make another set of hands and we got the job done.

Of course making another set of hands is easier and more straight forward when we are talking about mechanicing or working on something in the physical world. But it can be more difficult when we are talking about relationships and child-rearing or something emotional or feelings or grief or elder care. There are plenty more options, choose your difficulty, but I would suggest that there are always another set of hands to be recruited, although they may not be as handy and nearby.

Here a second set of hands may be insight from a book, understanding from a friend, a conversation with your pastor, a system of IFTTT, a local charity or nursing service, a neighborhood collaboration, a TED talk or podcast, there are nearly endless possibilities where you might find a second set of hands, and sometimes a second set of hands is a mental configuration or idea. Sometimes we all need a second set of hands, no matter how talented we are or what we are capable of doing.