Christmas gift giving? Gorging in America

I had the unusual opportunity to observe/be present for another family's gift giving process/event. The sheer volume/amount/number of gifts was amazing. Breathtaking. Mind-numbing. Overwhelming. Beyond the ability to be thankful for in any meaningful way. They had a lot of fun in a gorging overeating sort of way. But the mountain of gifts were quickly opened and everyone had their pile of stuff. And I sit here trying to determine if anyone is any happier for it? 

There is no judgment in my assessment, because my clan is going to do something very similar a week from today when we can finally all get under the same roof (today, the actual 25th of December, finds us in three different states). Not only are we going to do the same thing, but my clan loves it! But last year I refused. I gave no gifts. And I liked THAT much better. I want a house full of laughter and good smells, more than stuff, far more than stuff!

But while we have broken free from the slavery of the 25th of December, we have not broken free of the bondage of excess. My favorite book this year is "Essentialism: the diligent pursuit of less but better." and I need to find a way to help the whole family shift to this way of thinking! But now we are shifting from excess of gifts to an excess of food- it's dinner time! And this may be worse than gorging on gifts.

Spaces

There are some great and unusual working spaces in the course of my everyday life that perhaps others don't get to explore. But I think that almost everyone I meet has some kind of unique possibilities, if they would only give it some keen thought and consideration. Mine is airplanes. Enforced sitting for long periods of time, lends itself to sharp periods of boredom unless I have some "work" to think through and engage mentally and "do". I can play a few games and I can watch a hockey game, but that is about the extent of my capacity for lite weight amusement, and then I find my mind hungry for something meatier to bite into. So my special little space in life is airplanes. I often delay certain kinds of work and projects for upcoming flights, simply because they are perfect for the cramped, can't really get up and move around kinds of time stretches, that air travel generally forces on us. So what space is within your grasp that you could shape or use to dig in deep on some thorny problem, some deep challenge, or get some necessary-but-less-than-sexy work accomplished? I bet you can do this, and make a pointless dead spot turn productive. Pulling for your success.

(I also work and play hard at making this dead spot in life a productive place. I am always testing and trying new tools, hardware and software, to make this more productive and more interesting. For this blog today I was using an iphone 6 plus in landscape, typing on an iwerkz bluetooth keyboard, and on the software/app side of things, I used Drafts.)

I love Christmas!

I love Christmas! Of course I love the fact that it is Advent and that without Christ come in the flesh we have nothing. We are nothing without that monumental event.

But I love just regular old pagan Western Christmas too. I love the way gift giving sharpens our focus and attention on those we care deeply about, actually enhancing that care considerably. I love the highly repetitious annual Christmas songs every store plays. I love the energy with which things are happening. I love the crowds of people and I love the atmosphere and energy.

Most people think I am crazy, but I love Christmas and try to reproduce many of those elements in the teams I work with and the people I lead. In fact Christmas personifies the energy and attitude that I feel most days while working! Now you are certain I am crazy :-). That is ok, I know most people don't like their work, but I do.  I get to work with interesting people and fascinating situations all the time. And if you think I like my work, then you should meet my wife. She would pay them money to get to do her job!

So yes I love Christmas and think every day should be Christmas, and thankfully most days are close.

a 300 pound manual

It's late in the afternoon. My dad is sitting there, with a 300 pound car manual in front of him, meticulously and carefully detailing all the intricacies of gasoline motors. He is looking for minuscule and microscopic information about why his lifters are "rattling" in his newly rebuilt 289 hot rod engine. Reading is a big chore for my dad. The reason is, that when he completed the eighth grade, that was the last year he went to any kind of formal school. He is a slow reader. And it's just like it digging a ditch for him – hard manual labor.

The point being here, is that my 74-year-old father, even though it's not easy or fun, continues to dig in and learn. There is a great lesson therein for all of us. You are neither too old, nor to handicapped, ever, to learn. Even though he only has an eighth-grade education, the reality is he has the mind of an engineer, and always has. You can see it by his creations, a solid dozen of them over the last 25 years, All from scratch, all from nothing-rusty-holes in a bucket of bolts, into beautiful shiny amazing hot rods that are highly desirable and in high demand.

Thus the second lesson to be learned, that you can't really create something beautiful and amazing, unless you're willing to learn, sharpen, retool, reach beyond where you are today. You can't innovate, build, develop something beautiful and desirable and needed and wanted, unless you are willing to dig in deep and always be humble and always be learning.

And even though I have my doctorate (in large part also due to dad), I find myself at almost 53 years of age learning more than I ever learned at any point in my entire life. And even though doctoral students often joke that they know more and more about less and less, (and there is some truth to that), it's a great stage of life to be where I'm at today was such a good model in front of me, urging me on to learn more and more every day.

Cafe-bar change up!

There are many "offices" available in the modern Western world, and some of them can even provide a high energy atmosphere or ambience for work, to help you be more creative, innovative or simply a great change of pace from your normal space.

Space/environment is critical to producing certain types of work. Sometimes I need I NEED quiet and intense focus. For a particular kind of "flow" or "zone" to occur, I usually need this quiet and focus (sans distractions) to get into a great flow or to resolve a particularly thorny problem or to crush a difficult task. Other times, I like the energy and liveliness of a cafe bar to enable my brain to make unusual connections or jumps that don't usually happen in the low distraction of my office setup.

Sometimes simply people-watching is enough to get my creative juices pumping and flowing, imagining their lives and their situations and their dramas. Life is the difficult pieces that are hard and less than ideal, whereas the easy and fun stuff is more like just the icing on a tasty cake for me. The texture and challenge of the tougher parts is what makes life living and enjoyable. Without the challenging we quickly fall into boredom and less than interesting. A problem free life is nothing that anyone ever has, first of all, nor would it be very interesting second of all.

Of course solving problems for myself helps me solve problems that others are facing. The beauty of age is that I have had the opportunity to do my fair share of problem solving. It is called experience and it is almost always negative in some fashion. How we approach it and perceive it determines if the negative rules or is merely a portion of the overall experience. Changing our working space regularly is a good reminder and helper in realizing that one reality is not the only reality. While I don't want to work every night in the cafe-bar, tonight it is a good time to realize that there is a whole big wide world of difference out there, and every problem can be view/resolved from an almost infinite number of ways and possibilities @ Play Cafe Skopje

Virtually yours

Buying a house while traveling to Europe? Well it is aaa serious juggling act I can tell you that for sure. I have done some crazy things in the past. In fact the last house that I purchased, I did sight unseen, actually never laying eyes on the physical place until six months after I had already purchased it. Did it all, every single bit of it, on the advice and recommendation of a friend . . . who also signed all the documents in my name!

Today I am trying the same thing in a different way.  I am placing a bid on a house in one state, while flying through two others, on my way to two other countries, all happening over the internet through a VPN, while never actually physically signing anything. This is just another side to the virtual world I live in all the time and the virtual work I accomplish every week. Most of my meetings and most of my work happens on the web, not in person. Virtually buying a house may just be the logical normal next step for a virtual president and CEO like myself.

Virtually yours, David

Rigor mortis

They have been sucking all the air out of the room for weeks! The challenges of working from my parents home are proving formidable. This was not true in the past, but it certainly is now. End of life scenarios run amuck in their presence. They have planned out their funerals, purchased their burial plots, committed themselves to rigor mortis, or rather a rigorous schedule of eating at precise times, certain foods, certain practices, all the confidence that these rigors will give structure and stability at a point in life that has none of those  certainties. It is difficult to watch, difficult to help, and difficult to bear - and all the while knowing that I am right behind them and wishing for my end to be different. That is what I mean by sucking all the air out of the room.

It is so overwhelming that it leaves no moments to think, to reflect in quiet, it is all too loud and noisy and boisterous even, to have some focus and clarity. It says far too much that I have to get on an airplane and cruise at 39k feet in order to find some thinking time, some reflecting time, some clarity time. 

We are all moving this same direction. Everyone before us has passed through these doors to eternity - our physical bodies coming to a place invariably where they refuse/cannot function any longer. No one is 100% certain of how our bodies and our souls can function without one another, none of us have ever yet had that experience, but it is coming, that is for certain. My brother believes when your physical body closes down, can't go any longer, regardless of the reason, then you simply cease to exist as a person. That is the END of all meaning and END of all existence in any form other than as fertilizer for the earth. 

But that simply is not the experience of the historical Jesus. And as Death's destroyer, He gives us hope and a future, even though I can't tell you or explain to you all the mechanics and physics of HOW it will happen, I simply do not have enough information nor am I smart enough to understand it even if I had it, to satisfy your curiosity (or mine). This historical Jesus is the One where I am placing my trust, in Him who broke the power of Death over us, and yes it can take us temporarily, but not eternally, and no I don't know how or why. Even 30 plus years as a theologian, and I still cannot explain it in a way that will satisfy the vast majority. I trust Him. My brother calls it "feelgoodism" and a "crutch" and a "desperateattempttohavehopewherethereisnone" among other things. I prefer to call it trust. "Trust is the evidence of things hoped for, the confidence of things not seen."

Goodbyes

There are always goodbyes and more goodbyes in our lives. It is simply a life of goodbyes, and I regularly tell newbies this when they are thinking about coming to our neck of the woods, or when they arrive. No sense in painting it as anything else. In a word, it is the highest regular price extracted of International Workers in my opinion.

This last week has been an oasis in life, hanging with the grand baby and two of the three kids, seeing them everyday, participating in their lives, making memories and having fun together. But the goodbye can always hang there in the corner of a cloudless sky if you don't take care to enjoy THIS moment, to enjoy THIS memory, to make this second count. The future is always, and never, there, to be encountered eventually. 

So tomorrow I will crank the bike up, and drive away . . .  as I have done countless times before, or said goodbye at some obscure airport in some hairy armpit of the world, or left them at boarding school, or flew away without them, and say goodbye. Then the countdown will begin until we can see them again. It is a life of goodbyes.

The thing I noticed today was . . .

Today is my first day in America on this particular trip and my son invited me to go with him while he accomplished a bunch errands, shopping and about town. I always love such invitations, and of course I said yes. Plus I needed to recharge my American phone chip to use while I am in the states, so accomplishing multiple things on one trip is always good, right?

So the thing that caught my attention today was that every single store, every single one, challenged/invited/requested us to join their bonus card, their discount card, their brand card, to get all their discounts, bonuses, and well, their stuff at a cheaper price. In fact, and this is gonna sound weird, I hate shopping at my two favorite (I already told you that this was gonna sound weird) grocery stores in the states, because every single price posted, demands that you have their "card" in order to get that posted price.

A much better way to get my commitment to their store, a devotion to their brand, is to simply give me that special price to begin with, without all the extra I-can-now-track-all-your-purchases mechanisms that they force us to do. This enforced process LOWERS my commitment and my devotion to them. Does not in any way enhance my shopping experience, nor has it ever a single time made me want to return and spend my resources in their particular store.

Those who make the shopping experience one that I want to repeat over and over, make it extra simple and straight forward. There is no "if you have our special discount piece of paper" price enticements or processes. If you want to build a long term relationships with me, think about my experience, not your desire to track me in some fashion.

High on earplugs

I have taken to ear plugs in a grand fashion. "Almost everything is noise" Greg McKeown said, and he was right in more ways than he knew. Not only have I taken to wearing ear plugs in such a way that I frequently have them with me ALL DAY, but I have now crossed an ocean (different oceans) 12 times without watching one single show on the entertainment screen in front of me. What did that cost the airline? Something like $10,000 per seat. All wasted on me, because almost everything is noise.

Here is the McKeown quote, "The prevalence of noise: Almost everything is noise, and a very few things are exceptionally valuable. This is the justification for taking time to figure out what is most important." Followed by an equally good one from John Maxwell, “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.”

For transparency sake here, let me state that I do download and watch American Ninja Warrior and The Voice, because otherwise I would have nothing about which to talk to my brother and he is addicted to both of these shows and I like them fine too. I also am a huge hockey fan and watch games every week, and thank God regularly that the hockey season is nine months long :-). But that is it. No movies, no drama shows, no game shows, no TV in general, because it is all noise. 

The additional effect of the muting, that comes from the ear plugs, makes for a much quieter world, a world where you can think, a world where you must decide to be responsible for your life, a world where the frenetic noise of entertainment does not allow you a free pass. You have to choose what you do with your life, or someone else will.

Help at 4:22 am

I travel. I travel alot! It is practically a weekly activity for me. Needless to say I have missed my share of flights and connections. It happened again this week, even though I did everything humanly possible to prevent it, including running two kilometers through two airports, asking for help all along the way, trying to enlist every Turkish Airline employee I could, fruitlessly in the end, because I still missed my flight, by less than three minutes.

Fast forward two and half hours, I finally, finally, finally get to the hotel that the airline provided me, and then was informed by the front desk that I would have to be ready to go at 0400 hours back to the airport!! For a 8:00 am departure????  No thank you. I  told them firmly that I would find my own way to the airport. Since I visit Istanbul many times each year, I am well versed in how to get around on my own. I wanted no wake up call, and I would bear all the consequences for getting my own self to the airport.

I got to my room, and unplugged the phone just in case they did not get how serious I was. There was no way on earth I wanted a 0330 wake up call!  I set the alarm for 5:30 and went to sleep. Imagine my rude awakening at 0422 hours when someone was pounding on my door. They would not stop. They continued on and on. I finally got up and yelled, "what do you want?!?!?" The persons on the other side of the door informed me that the bus downstairs was waiting for me and that they frantically needed to leave NOW!  I told them to go on of course, and went back to bed . . . but the damage was done, I could not go back to sleep.

This is not the kind of help I need when traveling, but it is the kind of help that the Turkish culture is required to give. It is help, but not actually helpful. We do the same all the time, telling the truth without regard for how it will be received, talking about people not present in order to "help" the person dealing with them, or any other time that we decide what is best for someone without regard for their wishes. Sure there are exceptions to this rule, but not very many at all. Help at 0422 hours is not really help.

The energy and the power

World class cities have a energy that is very unique. Istanbul is a city of around 12 million jammed crammed people on endless rolling hills, awesome horrible traffic, a million refugees, no parking places, and sea of asphalt and cement. And it hums and it thrums with a powerful energy that comes from all this humanity, all this potential, all these possibilities thrown together in one small landmass. Yet it is relatively safe and unthreatening as world class cities go.

But there is so little chance that someone who lives here will meet a Christ-follower. There is almost no witness. There is practically no opportunity to hear Truth, to meet God on neutral ground, to choose Life everlasting, to read the scriptures, to hear His voice in the roar of the crowds and in the masses of humanity that vibrate with the pursuit of everything else and all other.

What if we rose up and responded with an equal energy, a response of love and compassion and redemption that was rooted in our daily powerful experience with Yahweh, the creator who pulses with power and light and clarity and love? It seems to be hard to find such people of character and competence and compassion, who will live the Kingdom dream rather than the Western dream or their personal ones.

A lovely day!

Its a lovely day to work and enjoy. Yes I used both those words in the same sentence. On purpose. Intentionally. First of all it is simply a lovely day. I am alive, the sun is shining (literally and figuratively), pollution is very low (rare here) since we have this nice breeze blowing, the cafe has their mist/humidifying system going, I have a great meeting taking place, followed by a vid conference with Cambodia/clients, followed by a vid conference to Ukraine, followed by a nice Honduran . . . well you get the picture.

I am alive, and I can choose, and I can decide, and I can change some things in the world. I can make some things better for some folks today. I can change parts of the world today. I can point people toward Eternity filled with God and Hope. It is a lovely day to work and enjoy!

There is that

A hot summer day, quiet and calm. Too much to think about and too much to consider. How to focus in that which produces the most good, that which is most significant and meaningful?

Contrast that with the mall nearby. People walking about dressed to the nines, mostly worried about the fashion statement they are making. And they ARE making fashion statements!

Worrying about what other people think is a powerfully disrupting force. To see and be seen? There is that. Or to create something powerful and moving? There is that!

Avoid this fatal mistake

There is so much fun going on with the English camps we are having in three locations in Macedonia this year. Tons of pics posted on Facebook. The team from York is doing a fantastic job. The volunteers from all three locations are super!

This kind of synergy requires tons of preparation though. It usually only comes about through a deep confidence in the person making the promise, the person who is going to deliver the results, the person bringing all the elements together. That kind of confidence can't be built in a short amount of time.

It takes years of delivering what you promise and more. Our foundational premise for delivering our commitments is “under-promise and over-deliver.” It is a perfect contrast to practically every American that walks through this part of the world. They promise everything and deliver little. 20 years abroad, and we see this fatal mistake happen endlessly. My wife has delivered the goods for decades here = three great camps!

Moments that take a decade to enjoy

Sitting in a building I spent years of my life building, listening to the stampede of kids running up and down the stairwells as they excitedly switch positions from crafts to sports and games. They have already had their first bible lesson, and learned some new songs, and when they finish their current class, they will begin their English lesson.

It is weird to be "sitting" here. I haven't done much sitting here. But I have sweated much, cried some, worked long long weeks and months every summer, while we built this place one step at a time. Watched and loved team after team come through here and work their vacations for free and even pay for the materials we used at each step. Remembering the many mornings that Pastor Sasho and I stood together, in misery because we did not have another single denar (penny) between us and we had no idea where the next one might come from . . . and then later that morning see God supply everything we could possibly use that day.

Experienced tragedy here, a collapsing deep trench, two friends dead, the worst kind of accident, no one really at fault, while all of us feel that we are in some manner. It changed us all. Nothing has been the same since. Some things better (more clarity) some things worse (court case and such). But here the building stands, and it is full of children from the neighborhood, having a grand time, learning about English, Jesus and and themselves. The place is alive and being used. This moment is worth much. The very best kind of chaos in the whole world.

Unimaginable

Seth Godin keeps me honest. I like that about him, because he asks the most difficult questions and I rarely have the answers his questions demand. That is a powerfully good value to provide in anyone's life. Today he asks in his blog, "How do we do something so difficult that others can't imagine doing it?" is a fine question to ask today."

What a great/frustrating question! Instead of the easy, the natural, the apparent, what am I capable of that is difficult, beyond the range and scope of others, so difficult that others can't even imagine doing it? That is a stop and think deeply sort of question. It demands an answer. And if we can't answer it this very day, then it demands that we chew on it and wrestle with it, until we can . . . at the very very least start moving in a direction where we can answer it.

To do less is to be average (in all the wrong ways) and remain with the 95% who fail to capitalize on all that they could and should become with this one precious life that they have been given.

Sinister shopping

There is something sinister about what marketing believes are the values of 50 year olds. Since my brother will be turning 50 this Friday, I started shopping for a gift for him. I am thrilled that he is hitting this landmark epic birthday. It seems to me that this is a celebration worthy of something significant and something weighty and substantial.

But shopping for a gift for a 50 year old is terrifying. When you go to search "birthday gifts for 50 year old men" the results are so asinine that you use words like "terrifying" and I can think of a few other ones as well. Jewelry??  Really? Golf seems to be another big theme. Beer another BIG theme, along with wine and coffee options. Coolers and music and official "stocks" like for Ford or Harley Davidson were in abundance. The one and only gift out of the 100's of suggestions that I could even consider for my brother was a reprint of the New York Times front page of the day of your birth - that was a historical marker of sorts - it seems to have the appropriate weight for such a epic birthday.

The shallowness of the other suggestions was a very telling story about our culture and values . . . not to mention an assessment of the significance (actually the lack of significance!) that turning 50 has in North America. Now perhaps this is just me, or perhaps it is my twisted and warped perspective after living abroad for the last 20 years. But it seems to me that a person should have more substance to life after 50 years, than gourmet caramel popcorn.

What I do

It is difficult to explain what I do for work. That is rooted in the lack of a single concrete definition of the situations clients face. Essentially I am a curator of applied information. It requires the same processes we all need to solve the problems and challenges in this world. Greg Mckeown describes the process like this: getting to the essence (of whatever) takes a deep understanding of the topic (this sometimes means you have to work long and hard to gain this understanding), and it's context (this often requires your physical presence) and it's fit into the bigger picture and how it relates to bigger fields of study or knowledge. This is different client to client and therein lies the difficulty of explaining it in simple concrete terms.

As you apply these practices to the operational or developmental challenges, you (hopefully) can see the patterns and the obstacles that prevent progress or success. This in a nutshell is what I do for my clients day in and day out. It is immensely satisfying to see someone leap the hurdles preventing them from having powerful success!

If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will - Greg Mckeown

There he was, drunk in the middle of the day, whiskey soaked, brain turned to mush, until security came and removed him from the smoking terrace. Until security got here though, he kept trying to light my cigar, and I was afraid that he was going to set my beard on fire! The two Turkish airline pilots that I was sharing a table with, found him to be hysterical. Believe it or not, speaking Russian to problem-makers like this works wonders. No one seems to want to talk to Russian speaking guys with cigars! Of course the trick is to never let on that you ever understand a single word of English - something we have perfected over the years. 

From a leadership/personal development point of view, it was super sad to see a young affluent person (there are no beggars in an airport) to be completely under the influence of alcohol so early in the day. Of course it is sad at a certain level to ever see anyone in the grip of alcohol like that at any time. 

Over-consumption of alcohol and loss of control are synonyms. In the same way a lack of prioritization in your life and loss of control are synonyms. As Greg Mckeown states in his book "Existentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" if I don't prioritize my life someone else will, they will fill my life with tasks and responsibilities and work and so much to do that my priorities will never come to fruition.

So the task of everyone of us who aspires to reach our goals, objectives, plans, to experience all of the impact we could possibly make on this world, is to take charge of our lives, determine our paths, pursue those objectives relentlessly, be an adult, be responsible for our actions.

The vital few from the trivial many

This is a quest, worthy of a life. As Peter Drucker said so many times, it is the ability to say "no" that makes a person effective. It is only in the "no" that you are exercising your discernment that, "this" (whatever it may be) is not for you. It is not where you can make a significant contribution, it is not where you can make the biggest impact, it is not where you can be your best, it is not where you can change the world.

The primary marker of the modern world is choice. And the closer you are to the Western Core of that modernity, the more choices you face. My wife and I have live abroad for the last 20 years, and some times that included very remote places around the world. There are few choices in those places. But in the technology heavy West, the rich rich West (regardless how poor those citizens feel and profess to be) they have an overwhelming number of choices. The most powerful among us are those who learn the skills to say "no" and to separate the vital few from the trivial many (this phrase as well as these core ideas, I took from the book 'Essentialism" by Greg Mckeown).

This requires a number of disciplines, not the least of which is self confidence. Self confidence of a nature that allows you to stand in the face of immense social pressure. You will be choosing a far less trodden path than the many will be following. This level of self confidence is the product of mental and emotional discipline, and can include scholastic or experiential or spiritual disciplines as well. It also needs a risky heart, that is determined to maximize this one short life while it is mine. Are you choosing the vital few, or the trivial many? What do you want to change in the world? What or who do you want to liberate from bondage? Where can your highest contribution be made? What inspires you? What need does this world have, that I possess? Can you resist all the noise of the trivial many, and identify the vital few objectives/tasks/goals/abilities/competencies/needs/ that you want your life to impact?

Epic moments

There are epic moments in life where a synergy of events and places and times all come together to provide you with magical memories, spectacular opportunities and/or wonderful unique unrepeatable experiences. Last evening was one of those for me.

I happened to be working in the capital city of one of the two countries vying to be the soccer champions of the entire universe. Germany versus Argentina in the final match of the 2014 World Cup! While this only gets marginal play in the USA, the rest of the world views this as the premiere sporting event that happens ever four years. It is far more than the regional championships, it is far more than the Olympics. It.is.the.World.Cup! Imagine 10 superbowls all happening at the same time, imagine the planets coming into perfect alignment, imagine the starship Enterprise showing up to take you to the next galaxy . . . yes it is on that epic scale.

So I get to watch this amazing event happen in Berlin of all places, at historic Potsdamer Platz, at the Cinemax theater with 500 rabid fans, no empty seats in the entire theater, and the only reason I was there instead of with the one million people (literally) surrounding the Brandenburg Gate, was that it was raining and I hate a cold cold rain (although I might have braved that if the USA had been playing). So I was able to procure one of the cherished tickets and had a wonderful seat in front of a huge screen, surrounded by so many excited raving German fans. It was two and a half hours of tension of the very best kind, and I made a great memory with great friends. Yeah, I am living a dream!

Fines and signs

I knew I was in trouble again, when I saw the police car backing up the highway on the opposite side of the barrier separating the lanes. Sure enough he backed up the whole two kilometers to the exit and jumped on and crossed over to my side. And then as certain as the sunrise, he pulled in behind me and hit the sirens and lights.

Now you need to understand that I am on a bicycle, and the policemen are in a new SUV. I am seriously outmatched here, or I might have tried to make a run for it. Riding a bicycle on the newest, nicest, least used, slice of asphalt in Macedonia is simply not permitted, if you are riding a bicycle. Mind you there is not a single sign anywhere, that prohibits it. There is not a law anywhere that prohibits it, just the police go rabid when they see my bike on the ring road around the city.

So I stop my bike, just to get him to cut the siren if for no other reason because it was damaging my eardrums. I am breathing hard, sweating like an overweight guy out in the desert, and the fat policeman rolls down his window and lets me feel the nice cool air conditioning from his SUV, and asks me why. Really? I am a 52 year old grandfather, riding as hard as I can in interval training on a hot sunny day, and you ask me why I am breathing hard and sweating? He tells me that it is forbidden to ride bicycles on the ring road. I point out there there are no such signs or markers anywhere that state that it is forbidden to ride a bicycle on the ring road. He tells me to go read it on the internet! I try to control my snort of disbelief. 

He begins the typical interrogation of "who are you?"and "what are you doing here?" and "how much money do you make? etc etc. I am well accustomed to such interrogations. He decides that I make enough money to pay the "fine" for having a bicycle on the ring road (which he quoted as $565!). I am incredulous! While this interrogation is taking place, lawbreakers where screaming past us regularly, as well as cars with damaged equipment and illegal passing, etc. etc. 

So I said, "let me get this right, you plan to fine me for a law that is not really a law and is posted no where anywhere, while watching these lawbreakers go whizzing by, clearly breaking all the POSTED signage?" He said "yes" just as a motorcycle tore pass us doing at least double the posted speed limit. I said "why don't you go stop that motorcycle and stop harassing me?" He says, "we can't catch him (haven't they ever heard of radios and roadblocks?) but we can catch you."

How can you argue with that?

Ponidealnichki

That is the word here for Monday in the adjectival form. When someone asks you how you are doing, you can answer Mondayish. Sometimes, Macedonian can be more descriptive than English. Today is one of those days.

A late start, and slow start, and work piling up, delays and decisions, important events happening in other countries and you have responsibilities there too, quick travel plans made to get there, while putting out a fire in another country in the other direction, part not yet here for the car repair, banking issues, money in the wrong account in the wrong country, people in need but limited resources available to apply, world cup in full swing but the game you really want to watch doesn't come on until midnight!, fishy requests for help, children of a church member in the hospital, worship practice has to be in our small apartment, a dinner long planned gets changed, the neighbors are playing music really really loud, the internet won't work properly when you are trying to talk to someone on the other side of the planet, the scales are not smiling today, and then someone else dumps a big problem in your lap, and one of your clients is facing a mutiny in church leadership, and the nationals you work with are shooting one of their own, but a really nice lunch with my wife. Yes its Mondayish.

Learning to love what you do? How about doing what you do?

I think it fascinating and providential that exactly one day after I wrote my last blog about loving what you do, rather than doing what you love, in the Harvard Business Review, there was this blaring headline, "Don't do what you love, do what you do." Charlotte Lieberman wrote a serious piece of real life, and very much along the lines of what I reported the day before. 

She found herself one year out of undergrad at Harvard, with lots and lots ideas and potential plans about what she loved doing, but instead working at a job/jobs she had never considered really. She quotes Miya Tokumitsu who remarked that DWYL (Do what you love) is the "the unofficial work mantra of our times." And that it is completely elitist and that only those in the upper echelons of society have the possibility of doing this as a general rule. They are the only ones in society that have the economic freedom to choose employment based on criteria other than opportunity and money.

As I read Lieberman's article, I have to admit that there was a part of me (a bigger part than I am comfortable admitting!) that wanted to reject her premise as wrong, that she was too young to make such assertions and that she was simply too inexperienced in life to make such bold statements of reality. But I was wanting the fantasy . . . she had already made the jump to most people's reality and real life. She argues convincingly and with a great deal of maturity that belies her years, that you can make most jobs meaningful if you are mindful of what you are about.

She nails the underlying issues with this statement, "But instead of trying to find complete congruence between our passions and our livelihoods, it is perhaps more productive simply to believe in the possibility of finding opportunities for growth and satisfaction at work, even in the midst of difficulties – a controlling boss, demanding clients, competition with your colleagues, insufficient boundaries between your work life and personal life." This is a person who is facing the real real, not a pampered debutante who expects financial compensation for that which she would likely do for free given the right circumstances. 

Honestly I cringe at my unwillingness to let the fantasy go, that I should both automatically get paid for doing what I love the most, that these two should ALWAYS go together. Part of what has fostered this in me, is reading. It seems that every single book I have read in the last 15 years has assumed that this is not only the ideal, but the destiny of every single person who can count to 100. My own very real experience and that of my clients should have clarified this much more for me, before now. You can read the article that Lieberman wrote here "http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/06/dont-do-what-you-love-do-what-you-do/"

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Learning to love what you do

Sebastian Klein over at Lifehacker/Fast Company had an interesting blog and a great point recently. He pointed out that for many people, changing careers and following your passions is not nearly as good of strategy as refining the skills you already have. 

As I have come to be in the Leadership business, many of my clients find themselves in changing jobs or their industry being downsized or their job being eliminated or themselves not being an ideal fit with their current organization. I resonate with this situation, having faced it myself some six years ago.

I learned the hard way how difficult it is to follow your passions while placing a roof over you head and putting food on the table. It is not that I cannot see ways to monetize my passions, it is much more that my experience and education limits the boundaries of how far I can stretch this particular bankability. It is a difficult wall to climb, a pulverizing realization that although much is written about doing what you love, the older you are when facing these types of situations, the more pinned in you may find yourself. The time and freedom and opportunities to change fields of work dwindle with age. 

My life (and yours) is a mosaic of jobs held and done (experience) and educational choices and history. That defines most of the possibilities on the horizon. I wanted to get out of the clergy/cross-cultural worker field and I wanted out badly. Burned out toast to the crispy max, I wanted something completely other. So I resigned the post that I held and left the parent group I had worked with for 23 years. My wife asked me what I REALLY wanted to do now? Don't laugh, but I told her that I wanted to repair motorcycles (that is the subject of a future blog perhaps!). So I resigned, and started researching motorcycle repairing.

I know, the smart way to have done it (if it can indeed be done) would have been to line up all the necessary parts and pieces of this change in vocational industry BEFORE I left my paying job. But that only seems to happen to hard core planners or gypsies who can foresee the future. Mind you, I had been thinking about changing industries for years, but the urgency of the now, pretty much kept my hands full all the time, and there was not enough urgency to send me to motorcycle repair school, Yes you heard me correctly, motorcycle repairman have to go through at least a full year residential program (move the family and feed them while going through school kind of residency program) in order to be certified to qualify for a job. And that in and of itself is no guarantee of job at the end of the year of learning. With three teenagers (two in college) at the time, no savings, and no margin, changing industries/changing career fields in my mid-late 40's was a practical impossibility.

Don't get me wrong, the opportunities are the very much the same in my opinion, for everyone regardless of age, but what is not the same is the freedom of choice. So Klein is very much on to something when he advocates refining your current skills and refocusing your current experience. This is what I have done. This is what I am suggesting to most of my clients. Although I am a huge Seth Godin fan, he suggests regularly that only desire and bravery (= passion) and the willingness to risk are required to change your career, what you do, how you provide value, and to what you accomplish.

Klein's blog was/is so much more practical at most levels in my opinion. Instead of "doing what you love" he suggests that you "learn to love what you do." He references Cal Newport's book, "So Good They Can't Ignore You" as a basis for this. When these ideas are considered together with Godin's ideas, the result is a powerful possibility that can change your circumstances significantly. Become a craftsman of what you do. Practice hard and get out of your comfort zone. Acquire rare and valuable skills in your vocational area. Become so good that they can't ignore you indeed!

I would add one more suggestion to these fine one's here. Acquire some objectivity about your vocation. Involve others so that you can  see it through fresh eyes so that you can discover new areas within your area of expertise. So I still work in the clergy/cross-cultural worker fields, but I am doing something few others do within those areas of vocation. I provide a service where few others do, and with people who can't access the resources that I can provide them.

Still it was and is unnervingly risky, and I am constantly navigating new waters and my learning curve is terrifying. But I am doing far more learning to love what I do than I am spinning my wheels (pun intended) on motorcycle repair. While I still may get to the bikes eventually (doesn't that sound like a a great second career after retirement?!), for the moment, I am refining 35 years of education and experience into something more valuable and meaningful. (You can read Klein's post by Googling "Focus on the Skills you have instead of following your passion.")

The importance of habits and processes

Here I am 10 days after arriving home, with two new computers, all the hardware anyone could need, and I STILL haven't gotten back to full productivity. As I wrote in the previous post, I am indeed mentally ready for full productivity, but my habits and processes have been so totally disrupted that I have not yet succeeded in returning to my former glory or effectiveness.

Good hardware is not enough. I already knew that, and honestly I produced much of my work on an iPad or iPhone, the computers were/are primarily key to finding and organizing my daily research. The computer crash I had (and while I was at it, I decided to replace my limping-along-three-year-old-desktop)​ led to me losing the software functionality I had with several key programs. It was a combination of things, developers not supporting the software any longer, my not protecting and organizing the application serial numbers, developers not answering my inquiries to regain those, not being able to restore the now-crashed-computer on the new one, etc, etc. Trust me, I am now paying attention to said details much more. Backups of data are NOT enough!

Having said that, the loss of these software programs exposes the weakness of my processes in my workflow. I am now in the middle of replacing/recreating said process​es and it is very slow going. For a week I thought I was back in business, but then I discovered I was using bata software, and this discovery happened when the beta expired! Unfortunately I had been rebuilding the key RSS feeds for a whole week and now once again I lost them! 

I could go on about the weaknesses of my process-rebuilding, but what I REALLY discovered throughout all of this, is that my daily habits are too dependent on external applications. This is not bad or evil in and of itself, but I need more redundancy.​ I need to have the same processes and same software on at least two machines at all times. I need to have a much higher level of continuity between devices. I need good habits that insure high levels of productivity even if I lose a peice of hardware (or two!) What changes do you need to make right now to protect your productivity?  Trust me, data back up alone is not sufficient!

The biggie decisions

There are hard decisions that come along in life. Decisions few are prepared for and no one is ever eager to engage. Aging parents are the biggie of the biggie and no two situations are the same . . . and yet they are all the same. Your parents (and certainly mine) need new bodies and new minds and that is why they (and us) need Jesus, because that is the only way that any of us are ever going to experience that wonderful necessary thing. Unfortunately, from a humanistic point of view, you have die in order to get these wonderful gifts.

In the West we don't have a strong tradition any longer of caring for our parents and grandparents in their last years. The trend is to place them in homes, assisted living facilities, nursing homes and whatevers, so that all the unpleasantness of diminished capacity, declining minds and bodies, the lost of normal adult functions, are handled by others. It is sold to us as being better for THEM. Marketing has been very successful. Here in the East though, there are different expectations, and different economic realities and relational realities. Few can or would consider such solutions. Yes we have old folks homes, but most of those there are truly alone in the world and they have no one alive to care for them and they cannot care for themselves.

The problem is that my wife and I are caught between the two cultures. We WANT to care for our parents, and they NEED us to do so, but yet we struggle to find a way to continue working while doing so. I mean we have 15 years to go before we qualify for retirement and have the freedom (in the Western mindset) to care for them. This is not a theoretical dilemma. This is real and current and the pressure builds for action to take place and soon. So what honors them and God most? We are probably too close to the situation to have any objectivity at all. What do you plan to do and how do you plan to accomplish it? 

Me? I see that I have waited far too long to do anything other than react. All the initiative has been taken away by delay and denial. Learn from my misstep.

Back to uber productivity

Sometimes, perhaps regularly, we all need to disconnect from the pace of our daily lives. The planned interruption is so healthy, that to ignore it is dangerous. That includes digital interruptions. I just returned from one such an interruption and can say that it was an unqualified success in delivering a sweet refreshment to my mind. Its like the whole cache was dumped and the memory cleared out, so that clarity and productivity can once again be something I have each day.

As productivity guru Chris Bailey writes, the three ingredients of productivity are Time, Energy and Attention.​ As he states so well, "Productivity is very much a holistic concept, characterized by the understanding of its interconnected parts." You need all three of these to really be productive. But you shatter your productivity by working too hard or too much, Bailey continues. He did an experiment where he worked 90 hours a week, and then 20 hours a week, back and forth for a month, to measure productivity. What he discovered was that he roughly got just as much work done in the 20 hour weeks, as he did in the 90 hour weeks! Why? Because when you work too hard or too long, you rob yourself of two of your most valuable resources; your time and your energy.

I am back to uber productivity, because I listened to Chris and took some down time. How about you?​

A successful person is running all the time?

I read an interesting blog today that talked about exceptional productivity, and it was very counter-intuitive to modern living.

People think that success, achievement, wealth, innovation are all things to strive for, and that these values are really valuable. But are they? Actually all the data out there shows that these aspirations cause all kinds of problems. Disruption is paid most often by the life/home/family values. This simply won't work long term because, in the end few people really value these objective metrics of success, and most finish up wishing for far more of the subjective ones. According to this article, “Research shows the impacts of overworking: exhaustion, irritation, weakened digestion and immunity.” Who wants this? And this is the byproduct of those things most people are striving for, the values that they think are valuable?

I am not ever interested in any job that creates a tunnel of chronic stress for me. I never want to feel burned out like a 40 day-old piece of toast ever again. There are few things that I value more than meaningful work that leads to significant change in people, cultures, society and countries, but not at the cost of personhood and life anymore. And according to research, despite all the chronic stress and mental and physical health problems that come from the pursuit of success, few find it. There are better ways to live (and to life!), and they actually lead to far better productivity.

The first thing you should do is more of nothing, according to the author, Dr. Seppala. Like I said early on in this post, this is very counter-intuitive and counter-productive to all the overachievers out there. Balance of ambition is a life long negotiation for most of us. We want (need) to find the right balance to integrate our objective and subjective metrics of success, where work and life are . . . balanced. Doing more of nothing is a key element of that, and something that many of us will struggle mightily with at first, because we haven't ever done more of nothing in decades. We don't even know where to start. Luckily for us the author says it succinctly, “The trick to self-mastery actually lies in the opposite of control: effortlessness, relaxation and well-being…relaxation is not only restorative but actually leads enhanced memory and facilitated intellectual understanding.”

Hmmm . . . it is difficult though, for old workhorses, to find a good way to relax. Yesterday I completed a 3000 mile motorcycle trip to Key West Florida where I practiced a week of doing nothing. It was harder and easier than I thought it would be. Maybe I will write another blog about that later, but I digress.

The article continues 2. meditation (and since I am who I am, lets meditate on the majesty and glory of the risen Savior!) and 3. serve others. There are hundreds of blogs out there everyday promoting these three keys to increased productivity, but the one today was especially good on the “do more of nothing” part. You can read Dr Seppala's complete blog here.

Too many churches?

I took a long (very long!) scenic route to Florida today, across the fine state of Georgia. Let me say with deep authority that Georgia is one seriously long deep big state. 350 miles later, I crossed into Florida. I stayed completely off the interstates and it was very interesting.

I loved the pace and lack of pressure to go super fast that you have on the crowded interstate highways. The roads were basically empty! Of course this choice of highway requires frequent slow downs and small towns every 15-30 miles were very slow, but that was the whole point, to go slow enough to actually see the countryside and relish it a bit rather, than just barreling down the road at dangerous speeds and competing with other drivers and going insane with people in the passing lane using cruise control!

I have to admit that the towns were much more rundown than I had anticipated, although there were beautiful exceptions, like Madison, GA. But the one overwhelming constant, from top to bottom, were the churches. There are endless churches in rural Georgia. Far more than any other kind of store, brand, type, more than even gas stations! Far more in fact! This was very disturbing.

At first I was glad. Because where I live in the world, there are very very very few churches. But the farther I drove, and the more rundown everything was, the more the plethora of churches began to bother me. Where is the community transformation? Where is the visible impact of these Jesus-following communities? Where is the change that comes from redemption and forgiveness? It was not evident for a stranger driving past their boroughs. On the other hand I may be completely wrong, and things would be much much worse without all these churches?

In the groove

There are days when work feels like work, and days when work feels like pleasure. On the pleasure days, you are firing on all cylinders and you know you are making an important contribution. Your life matters, and all your experience comes into play in the conversations of that day. It is like a wonderful dance where you anticipate the music and the next steps, and so the flow and the elegance of conversation, and significance of the conversation, is so pleasing. It is great to make a contribution to events and processes much bigger than we are alone. I call it, being in the groove!

The cold and the wet of it

Spring in Eastern Europe is a really fickle affair, and from what I understand, the USA is experiencing a similar fate this year. Once you get about half way up the mountain next to our house, it is snow covered! It is simply cold and wet and there is nothing else that could describe it. And not only the weather.

Our experiences related to our aging parents and siblings could be described in exactly the same way. Every action of caring and concerned is seen and interpreted as the opposite. It is a very cold and wet experience. Dismal. Dark. Gray. Wet tears. No fun. No joy. Spring in Eastern Europe as we attempt to love and care for our parents from afar, negotiate with my wife's sisters about dad's care, is a very fickle affair. You never know what the weather is going to be like one day till the next.

This is all related to end-of-life decisions and dignity and who decides. Well let me inform you of one thing we have learned too well - if you don't make the decisions ahead of time about your end-of-life decisions, then someone other than you WILL make them, and you probably (read certainly) won't like what they decide for you. If you don't want a wet and cold experience at the end of your life, then you better make some decisions today.

Crashes number 2, day number three.

I am a little flabbergasted at how much the loss of my computer has thrown me off my workflow. I am thinking that I need to make sure I regularly work on the iPad and have an equal workflow in place here, as well as the laptop. On the other hand, I could have duplicated the workflow on the desktop computer - but why didn't I?

This is actually an important question! After thinking about it a great deal today, I have come to the conclusion that I become so involved in actually working, that I forgot about the beautiful structure underneath that keeps that workflow moving so seamlessly. In my humble opinion, that is the beautiful simplicity of owning a Mac. It has been my steady and consistent experience these last 10 years of having Macs rather than PC. I just take for granted all that is going on in the background, making my work days possible … until a crash happens.

I clearly need some redundancy here, and need to motivate myself to make this happen as I develop the actual workflows. Make certain that it is happening on at least two machines at all times, make certain that a failure on one machine, will not equal a failure of process and production. But the urgency and excitement of the immediate work thus far, has prevented me from successfully doing this, and it is something that needs change.

From a leadership point of view, we have to think of these actions as preservation of a future value, as ownership in the stock in our company, keeping the output working into the foreseeable timeframe ahead of us, as responsible actions of invested people. May there never be a “next time.”

crashes

You never actually appreciate some things fully, until you have to do without them. That happened to us when we moved to Russia 20 years ago and learned to live without always-available water, electricity and heat (water is by far the most difficult to not have always-available). And over the years we have also learned to drive less, walk far more, live in smaller spaces, live the night life, be less time conscious (in a less-American way), among other things.

This week though, yesterday in fact, I had something happen, that has not occurred for over 10 years - my computer crashed. I mean it died a complete and significant death. Can't use it at all, is now a paper-weight, kind of crash. I just have never had this happen to me in my Apple world, until yesterday. Fortunately I am heading to the states in 10 days and so I can get it repaired, but unfortunately I am not heading to the states for 10 days!

It is amazing how much you don't realize where your work is centered, in terms of tools, until you are scrambling to get those tools back in other ways!

Perhaps I should examine my work processes more carefully, and think "crash!" and what that would mean, as a precautionary work of implications? By the way, I have a current backup of my computer, but I just don't have a hard drive (evidently) any longer, onto which it can be restored. So what other processes, tools, and methods need some redundancy in my work, and in yours?  

Here is to crashes and the lessons they may teach us.

Why being cheated bothers us so much

As someone who has been living abroad for most of the last 20 years, I think it is safe to say that I have been cheated far more than the average person. Since I am “the foreigner” it is like I have a golden bullseye on both my forehead and in the center of my back which makes everyone feel complete freedom to take advantage of me as much as possible as frequently as possible. This is not the cheating on a test, or the passing to the front of the line without waiting like everyone else, or even the paying too much for a competitive opportunity.

No I am talking about the systematic and automatic reaction that non-Westerners have to Westerners. They perceive me to be both stupid and rich (how they reconcile a person being both at the same time is beyond me), and thus fair game for any possible overcharge, extra payment, etc etc. When we lived in Russia, there was a local charge, and a foreigner charge, with the foreigner charge being at least double what the locals pay. Here in Asia, even at the temples, there is a charge for foreigners to enter, but no charge for the locals. Taxis quadruple their prices, vendors double the cost of their goods, when groups go out the foreigner is expected to pay every time, and this gets old very very very quickly! It has been my life for 20 years.

In fact, one of my “friends” tried to double his money at my expense yesterday! So what is really going on? Well first of all, when a taxi driver in Istanbul charges me $30 to drive me one kilometer it is plain and simple extortion. But that is unusual even for me. So it is not extortion most of the time, but rather that I actually CAN afford to pay so much more than the locals. I actually am so much richer than the locals - and I resist. I don't want to acknowledge or admit or live with the daily shame that I am far richer than most of the people I live among and work with on a daily basis. Second of all, in my home country I am on the poorer side of the scale, and so inside myself, I feel poor too! I hate that I am expected to pay more than the locals I live among - and that is my problem - not theirs.

Ex-pats argue that they have far more expenses than do the locals, that they have to live in (at least) two worlds at the same time (their host country and the country that they come from - and I actually currently live on three continents!). This is true to a point. Ex-pats argue that the more money they lose the less they have to give. This too is true to a point. But the reality that we don't want to own up to is that we are far richer than we admit, and we usually want to pay the local going rates for all services and products. It ain't gonna happen any time soon.

The flow of life, making it matter

There is a flow to life on the road that is very different than the flow of life when you are largely stationary in one location most of the time. The flow to life on the road is filled with hurry up and wait. Starts and stops. Standing sitting or walking are determined by the mode of transportation or the limitations of your transportation. Most of your choices are punted away in favor of getting from A to B in the most timely or cost effective way possible. It takes a different attitude to navigate this flow on the road with finesse and panache. This attitude is one of delicate anticipation of all the variables that travel can throw at you whether on the open highway, or in the airport or at the train station. The more Western or rich Asian your situation, the more dependable or predictable the variables. The more Eastern, poor Asian or Slavic the situation, the less predictable the variables in my opinion. But you have to keep a good attitude and know that no matter what happens, it makes sense to someone, or it wouldn't be happening. Now whether or not it makes sense to YOU is another story altogether.

The flow of life at home or a long term stationary point is completely different. You are far less vulnerable to the whims and arcane rules and ideas of someone else. You can set your own schedule and expectations. You can make choices that are impossible if you are on the road. You can predict with a high degree of certain events and schedules and expectations coming your way. A calendar is even possible!

But regardless of which life you find yourself in at the moment, it is your one and only life. Live it well, create, build, shape and design. Make a life that is worth living! Make the best of your flow!

What do you really want?

This is the number one question young leaders fail (and unfortunately a large number of older leaders as well) to answer with clarity. I have recently started asking myself this question each time a significant leadership decision comes up in my life. If I fail to know exactly what I want (to happen, to accomplish, which outcomes I am striving for, what end result is needed) then I am doomed to get something … else.

Leadership moves fast in this present world and we all want answers and direction. But if I fail to answer this question with some depth, then I can't move on to appropriate action. There is only so much each person can know and have experience to address and respond with, so we need the right coaches and mentors and peers around us to help us find solutions. If we fail to answer this question though, we can't move forward effectively.

If a leader doesn't know the answer to this question they will likely (unwittingly and without any malice) use people rather than serve them suitably. They will find themselves needing people rather than leading people. Of course there are layers and layers to every challenge and every situation and no, you don't have to know the answers all up front. Yet without some real energy being applied to solid discovery of what you want, you will find yourself floundering more and more.

So what do you REALLY want? Think about it ... now.

Traveling with Jim

There are huge opportunities in my line of work. I get to meet amazing people in interesting places doing life-changing work. This weekend was a perfect example of the beautiful synergy that can happen.

I met up with the Asia Regional Director while he was traveling through Thailand, on his way to Cambodia. He asked, and I decided to join him on this trip.

I got more accomplished in two hours at the airport with Jim, than most people do in a whole day. No crap. No bullshit. No posturing. No Politics. No spiritual-speak (the use of spiritual sounding phrases to impress the hearer of one's spiritual stature). Just great content, succinct, powerful, clear, impressive, better, easier, more. There are not enough adjectives to describe the great gift of thinking he has. And, according to him, I delivered everything I said I would and more. Death to bad meetings! Long live life-giving exchanges!! You should always employ my basic cornerstone of work/business/productivity  "under promise, over deliver." It has served well for decades now.

Here in Cambodia, the synergy continued. I would be hard pressed to recall a more productive weekend. What a roll! Evidently I need to travel more often with people who spark my imagination in all the right ways. The power of possibilities!

In the International Church smoking lounge?

Is that even a valid phrase in the anti-smoking world Americans live in? Yes. It is. There is a whole world alive here, an unreached people group if you please. Where Christ followers never (well ok, rarely) venture.

I am starting to think that I should start a new church, of the tobacco addicted, of those enslaved by the moments of tutun (the Macedonian word) clarity and pleasure, those involved in the minutes of hazy smoke-filled clouds of bliss. Where pilots and doctors and janitors and leadership gurus and jazz musicians and the welfare class share bad air together in complete nicotine equality.

Yes I am convinced that this is a un-reached people group, not pinned in by the 10/40 window as much as they are Marlboro and Camels and Galoussies.

This room of smokers is the most crowded room in the entire huge Istanbul airport! They are a homogenous group of weak individuals, who willingly and helplessly bow down to a compelling desire. Who better to experience the freedom of life in Christ? Who better to acknowledge their inability to do so without supernatural help?

They are a microsm of weaknesses we all face. They are us. Albeit a smelly smoky version of us. What an intriguing study of cultural anthropology! It is an international church with representatives from every European country, every African nation, every Asian country and every state! I have thought about targeting smokers as  a people group, much as I have tourists in Asia, and sex-pats (versus ex-pats) in Southeast Asia as those who need Christ as much as I do. Who is within your reach?

Raising the bars 2

“But frankly, none of us have the time we need.” I read this quote recently and found it very intriguing. I thought it went well in some ways with my previous post. It reflects the way the entrepreneurial world/business world is highly driven, over-scheduled, over-clocked, and believe it or not I am coming to the conclusion that the majority of Westerners do this, not just the C-suite executives . . . because we believe none of us have the time we need. We admire people who are workaholics, who sacrifice and succeed, regardless the price.

The article went on and explained WHY we are often this way, “the rewards of work are immediate, and the rewards of life accrue more slowly. (To some parents of teenagers, these rewards may seem practically glacial.) It becomes tempting to reserve the best of ourselves for the short-term gains of work and “automate” the long game of life.”

I did this for years myself, and mostly (85%) I regret it. Yes it brought me where I am today, quicker than I could have arrived by valuing the rewards of life (the moment, my awesome wife, my amazing kids, my incredible parents, etc) accruing each day, than the immediate rewards of work, production, execution, competencies, education, and a paycheck. This proper balance is so incredibly difficult to find when you are in the middle of living it!

The key life moments and the key work moments seems to come at precisely the same time, at the very front end of your working and childrearing cycles of life. For men at least, the pressure and temptation to undervalue the childrearing and relationships, over the work dilligence needed to make some progress toward those types of goals, is huge. But whoever reaches the later stages of life and wish that they had worked more?? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my work, really I do, even though it is work :-). But my family and relationships bring me far more pure joy . . . and work, while often satisfying, just can't compete in the long run.

I would still argue that we need to raise the bar, increase our skills and competencies and capacities, but perhaps we need to measure the costs differently and with great care.

(These quotes I used here came from the blog, “Should You Automate Your Life So that You Can Work Harder?”by SARAH GREEN)

Raising the bars?

There are levels to every competency, whether that be intellect, physical, spiritual or hard skills. Most people get into a good groove of ability and they market that or maximize it to to a point of good functionality or ability. They find what works and they stay with it.

The problem is that what works in today's context likely won't be enough to suffice for tomorrow's demands, or you will discover that it is not enough to take you forward to where you find you need to go next, or you aren't getting the results that you want.

There are a number of factors that affect your plans to move ahead to the next level. Age is a big factor. This can adversely affect physical or intellectual skills. Moving up can be hampered greatly by age if you increase or want/need to accelerate your physical exercise or intellectual pursuits like language acquisition or scholarly studies. I recently pushed myself to ride more and eat less, and I was shocked to discover how slowly I could improve without doing injury to myself! And language learning is another area where I find it much more difficult to memorize and retain new words and grammar constructs, than I did 20 years ago.

But other things can be easier with age such as spiritual or hard skills. Experience can be a big asset in these pursuits. In fact it can be the totally-give-you-the-upper-hand asset in hard skills and in spiritual matters. You know what you know at this stage/age and the beauty of that is that you have honed down what works and what doesn't, what is needed and what is not, where progress can be made, where the pressure points are, where success can be found. Much more is known, far less unknown . . . now if you only won't allow these advantages blind you to the fact that you still have to learn . . . 

Context can be another big factor, and I would include timing, location, assignment, capacity, desire, family, cycle of life, resourcing and mobility under this heading (at the very least. There may be more factors that I have missed). This is a framing factor. I think of it as more as a structure than a limiting or enabling factor. It just is. If you are a missionary in South East Asia, you can't sell cars in Boise. Of course one of the beautiful things happening in the modern world is that these structure/context framings are stretching. Life is becoming more configurable than ever before. Reach and mobility have changed most equations. If you want to elevate your game, this one requires some diligent effort. I put about seven years of effort into this point before making my big jump away from my former parent group (of 23 years). Dilligent effort. Opportunity does not equal wisdom . . . 

 . . . though I would classify opportunity as the third most important factor in taking your efforts to the next level. Opportunity often feels like risk, and the risk-averse will have more difficulty in seeing the opportunity. What could you do, if failure were not possible, if resourcing were not a constraint, if dreams drove you?

I would like to say, that all you hope for is potentially there, is possibly possible, maybe might be, for the person who can see the steps, take them one at a time, and stay the course. Remember dilligent effort? It applies all across the board. It is the most consistent factor missing in those I work with who want to make big jumps in their abilities. You CAN do this, but you probably will have to work at it. Time plus proximity does not equal aquisition.