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.

52 years old today

Today is my 52nd birthday. I am pretty sure that I spent it like few would choose to spend their 52nd birthday, but there is a method to my madness, but you just may want to have me committed to an insane asylum. Today marks my third consecutive (almost) birthday in Thailand, sweating profusely. I like to sweat, for I am convinced that it is one of the primary reasons I have zero blood pressure problems here in Asia, whereas in Europe and the USA, I have to take medication to keep things under control. Here I just sweat, and sweat and  . . . well you get the idea.

But I am not here to sweat, I am here to work in part (since I have such excellent locationless work, place is relative workwise) but more importantly to be with my brother, who has advanced cirrhosis of the liver due to an incredible commitment to beer in vast quantities, every day, for years. Until he was so direly diagnosised 2.5 years ago, we had spent little time together as adults. We are both enjoying the process of making some adult memories and sharing our lives together, even if it is more than a little late. There is a lesson in this for you too.

But we were actually discussing birthdays. So I spent birthdays 50, almost 51 and today number 52 here in Thailand. On number 50 I struggled to bicycle 16 miles. On number (10 days before my birthday) 51 I handled 26 mountainous miles fairly well. Today I did a very mountainous 54 mile circle and I feel really good! As you can see, I am making birthday progress, of a sort. At mile 36 I stopped at a roadside cafe and had an excellent breakfast of super spicy fish and rice (well I AM in Asia). Then when I returned to Chiang Mai, I showered and did a load of laundry (a never ending task where you sweat and sweat), and then I went and treated myself to a one hour massage to work out some of the kinks to a 52 year old body that biked 54 miles.

No email or work today . . . instead I am concentrating on all the things I am thankful for, blessed by, gifted with, and the opportunities that I have that I never thought possible when I was a chicken farmer's son growing up in rural GA. With some careful thought, it becomes apparent that I have been given some magical moments, turns, twists, chances, and offers. I am looking more to what the future holds than what the past has given. I am wallowing in the pleasure of the moment, today, this my 52nd birthday.  Its gonna be a great year!

Thinking space

Thinking space is hard to come by. It is rarely quiet enough to dig into the hard work of thinking. I am not talking about silence, though that too has an important role to play in our lives, but quiet enough to think. Wanting to think and planning to think is not the problem for many of us, it is much more how loud our environments are, the noise of life around us, the almost inescapable constant grind of traffic and construction, at least in the cities that I live in around the world.

This morning I decided to do an exercise experiment. There is a mountain cafe about 2 miles further along from my normal turnaround on my morning bike ride. I decided to pack up some working gear and ride with a small backpack on to this cafe. I decided to order a coffee, sit on the balcony that overlooks several ranges, enjoy a completely different ambience. Wait and soak, wait and listen, permeate my brain cells with less bombardment, feel the breeze less polluted by smog and noise, to actually be able to hear the birds sing, be surrounded by trees instead of asphalt.

The difference was astounding! No jackhammers, no shrill saws cutting pipes, no cement trucks racing their engines, little traffic, no one hammering in the room next door, no telephones ringing, no racing motorcycles, no crowds of people all talking on their phones, no loud music playing, no taxis honking their horns, no shouting vendors on the street. It wasn't silent, but the sounds were much calmer, more nature could be heard, much more soothing and relaxing and the thoughts began to flow, coalesce, take form, make new connections - thinking! Not just doing a mental to-do list in my head, but actual real honest thinking. And the coffee was great too.

What experiment do you need to do to find a thinking zone? I had to pretty much restructure the first half of my day in order to pull this off. It is not something that is practical to do everyday. But if you don't try, then you are sure to fail to find a place of creativity, rejuvenation and new possibilities.

Sacrificing for someone else?

When do you sacrifice for someone else's success? This is a trickier question than you might think. Most leader-want-to-be's are pretty good about sacrificing for someone else's success . . . as long as they can see the ROI eventually, in some manner, benefiting them. Even if that eventually is still a long ways down the road. Even if that potential benefit is small, they can still do it regularly.

It is when there is no "eventually" that separates the men from the boys, so to speak. If fact I would challenge you to think carefully, and see how many investments in people you have made, that can not ever bring some benefit back to your door, ever. Hell I am in the "helping others succeed" business and I am hard pressed, very very hard pressed to find more than a few. 

Sure I find deep pleasure in seeing others succeed, really I do! But hidden inside all of those "helping others succeed" human transactions that take place in my life, there is also some reciprocation, some advantage, something I get in return, even if it is eventually.  Frankly that ruins my altruism. It wrecks my perceptions of how generous I am. It destroys my sense of largess. It displays how shallow my good goes. At the end of the day, it reveals my utter selfishness.

This was brought to light in my life today, when I could find no happiness, no pleasure inside of me, for the success of another. Her success cost me, and there is no eventual benefit for me. I had to pay the price, receive less, be patient, be generous, wait, make allowances, spend my time, change my plans, thwart my goal, in order for her to succeed - and there is no eventual benefit for me. And I don't like it all. And that shows my smallness: as a man, as a Christ-follower, as a leader.

Unusual compression, more of the present?

The coffee was surprisingly great. Not my typical experience on a plane. The steward told me that it was a new Columbian blend they were trying from South Africa. I told him flat out it was a keeper! I had four wonderful cups to prove my point!

But I skipped the history that brought me to this place. Age has given me a number of gifts, two of the more unusual ones are that I can now sleep on airplanes and I rarely experience dreaded jet-lag. I attribute these two gifts to age, as surely it could not be that I am changing time zones so frequently that my body has given up jet-lag?

So after two intense hours of work, interrupted only by a flabbergasted stewardess who simply couldn't believe I did not want to eat dinner, although she couldn't know that I rarely eat food served on airplanes, and after four hours of relatively good sleep – I was ready for coffee.

Typically I slurp down a cup or two, just to hold me until I can get off the flight and get ahold of some real coffee. Today I might skip that ritual altogether, as I sit here contentedly (did I just use that word on an airplane??) sipping a very hot tasty brew and jotting down these thoughts on my iPad as my brain is waking up.

Everything can be more intense on a trans-ocean flight. It is like time and work and thinking and food and the air in the cabin is compressed into a more intense experience than a normal day. Perhaps it is as simple as sitting in a space designed for children rather than adults for hours on end, but even the waiting is compressed and each moment can seem to take several hours depending on your state of mind (on the other hand, the flight West took 10 hours and 30 minutes, this one East only took 7 hours and 15 minutes!). I mean compressed in the sense of MORE rather than in the sense of SHORTER.

Dr. Marshal Goldsmith, an excellent leadership guru of high caliber, started me down this path a number of years back. He travels far far more than me (I shudder at the thought!), and he advocates that the best way to travel and make it as productive and painless as possible, is to live in the moment only. Not as my lovely bride does, bouncing mentally back and forth the entire flight between the time zone she left and the time zone she is heading toward - but the moment. Perhaps this is why everything seems MORE? Perhaps this unusual compression is fostered by living in the present moment, no more, no less.

Clarity of purpose . . . at a price

There are all different kinds of clarity needed in life, but clarity of purpose may outrank them all. Surprisingly, pain can actually bring some significant clarity of purpose.

I recently went through round three of excruciating back pain – all three were very different – except for the pain part and the excruciating part. At least in this third round I could sit without dying, but walking? It very well may kill me.

So what do you do when hurting physically? You probably will think me completely crazy, but in my family, we pretty much do whatever we would do if we weren't hurting at all. I mean, it is gonna hurt no matter where you are and no matter what you do, right? Just as well work.

And that is what I did. I remember sitting on my second flight of the day, heading to Berlin for three days of intensive work. But this hurt so badly those last 24 hours, that I seriously considered just tossing the whole trip into the garbage can and bailing out. All that money, all that planning, all those irretrievable moments - down the tube. Lost. But I couldn't do it. Because of clarity.

The clarity I had of the possibilities of what might be, what could happen, what potentials exist to change the world, all of that was at stake. And it is gonna hurt no matter what, right? Some of you might suggest that I over-estimated the importance of my trip, or suggest that I didn't really hurt that badly, but you would be wrong, on both counts. It is clarity about the importance of what I do, and the limits of what I can't, that put me on that plane that day, and through the agony of the next three days walking in Berlin. Clarity! Purpose! Meaning!