Directions

Directions

Normally folks ask directions of people who look like they belong right? Well today is the weird anomaly in the sense that three people have asked me for directions today and no one in their right mind would ever mistake me for a local. Hair too long, beard too wild, clothes too young, skin too white, etc etc. Maybe it was the bottle of whiskey I was carrying? Maybe it was the jacket I was wearing? Maybe it was the way I was walking and carrying myself? Who knows . . . 

After some thought, it was mostly just a matter of convenience I bet, in the sense that I was the handiest person to ask? The best part was that I actually knew all three places I was being asked to give directions toward . . . that felt powerful and wonderful. When you can deliver what people need and seek, it gives a great feeling of accomplishment and significance.

It was like after church today, when a Dutch guy came up to me and told me that this was the best worship service he had heard in two years! Followed by another worshipper who communicated how awesome today was for him and how much he enjoyed hearing me play the guitar. Made all the work and effort all the more wonderful and worth it. There is simply nothing as good as knowing where the goal is located and delivering it well. Directions - leadership 101.

There will come a day . . .

There will come a day . . . 

"There will come a day when you would give everything you have left to have what you have right now." As I am coming through one of the most surprisingly difficult weeks of my life, a time of recent family death anniversaries, I was wonderfully blessed that this article resonanted deeply in me today. The bottom line is this, as difficult as today is with all these deep feelings of grief and other things, that I will still soon find myself in a time, where I would give everything to have what I have right now. Of course this is not about material things for me, but rather my work, my life, . . . what I HAVE rather than what I DON'T have. Its about the life I can live today, not the losses that we have experienced these last few years. It is about being grateful and appreciative, rather than consumed with what is gone. Because for the vast majority of people and their experiences toward the end of life, the losses will mount and mount ever higher, and so what I have TODAY may well be the best I can ever look back on.

One year ago today . . .

One year ago today

Today is the one year anniversary of the worse day in my life, when I got a call from my niece telling me that my brother was dead. It has been a really difficult year, and frankly it is unbelievable that a full year has come and gone. And it is funny-sad-weird how angry I am, yet dying is a normal part of living right? What is there to be angry about? All the couch psychologists out there are thinking that this is simply one of the normal cycles and seasons of grieving and they would be right and they would be wrong.

My brother was not a simple person. Life could never measure up to his ideals, and so crushed by the harsh realities, he instead lived life of self medication, on the edge of depression and anger for decades. With the decades of self medication came a host a medical ills and pains and chronic conditions that self-medicating only made worse and worse. I am glad that I spent some good quality time with him in his last years. I am thankful that my wife gave me the freedom to do so.

The most horrible and difficult thing I ever had to do in my life was call my parents one year ago today, and watch them melt before my eyes as I told them their youngest son was gone forever. There is simply a big black hole in the fabric of life that was once him, for all of us. There is no getting it back, there is no fixing it, there are no answers for a life now gone.

As I sit here on the same balcony, where I received the news that he was gone, I can't help but think that he had lots of living left to accomplish, he is missing so many wonderful things in his girls lives, in his granddaughters lives, in my life, in my parents lives. 51 years is not nearly enough to finish this thing we call life. And now the lives of all of us are changed for forever, because he is not here to share it with us.

The Monday blues?

The Monday blues?

There are so many things that we associate with Mondays. One of my favorite songs as a teenager was "Just Another Manic Monday" by the Bangles. Just another Monday-bashing song actually, but sometimes Monday's can be magical and fun and productive. Especially if you take the weekend for what it was meant to be used for, to disconnect, unwind, rest, restore, a digital dotoxification, and no email. Then Monday feels like a great opportunity to jump in and get some important stuff accomplished rather than the continuation of an ongoing grind that you may not enjoy.

And the finish is so important. Me? I did it with a nice dinner on the balcony on this lovely Spring day with my wife, having a conversation about the beautiful sunset and the nice ambience and the perfect temperatures. Snow-capped mountains visible in the distant horizon, good food, and a nice cold dark beer.

Sure there are lots of things to be concerned about and to yet accomplish this week, but we are off to a great start. And yet . . . this week marks the one year anniversary of my brother's passing . . . and that weighs heavy on all of us. We miss him as if it happened yesterday rather than a whole year past. But there is so much living left to be doing, we can't let what we can't change destroy the possibilities of the present and our effects on today and tomorrows.

The best gifts

The slow concentrated present . . . was a great gift

As I said in the previous blog I surround myself with A level people. They never let me rest! They offer so much to me that I would never be able to see on my own. This particular gift of a person, reminded me that the masses are being trained to have "continuous partial attention" and also reminded me of what a disaster that is for our world. Attention is the rarest element in the social universe! Focus is the most difficult skill to foster in the modern world!

Yet if you want to be a change-the-world person, you must give the MIT (most important thing) your deepest attention, your most intense focus, the very best version of yourself! I have found that surrounding yourself with A level people who will never let you rest, who will never settle for less than spectacular, who want you to be the person they hope you are, is the very best way to move in that direction. 

Is it easy? Oh no! Is it comfortable? Are you sh**ting me? But is it incredible? You bet! Yet you can't get there without A level people who demand and expect more of you. People who will send you material that will rock you, who expect you to live it!

Science is not what you thought it was . . .

In my previous blog I mentioned that I very deliberately surround myself with A level people. In this blog today and in the next one I hope to show what I gain from doing so.

One of the A level people I surround myself with, focused me in a brilliant manner last week. He pointed me to a Godin blog (which I had already read) but his take on it blew me away. The blog he redirected my attention toward can be found here, Seth explaining what Science is an and what it isn't . . . as only Seth can do folks. 

As I said, I read Seth's blog each and every day, right after I read the Scriptures, and just as religiously. But it did not resonate with me. I did not save it to Evernote nor did I tag any clients with this bit of wisdom.

But then this A level person texts me while he is on a trip somewhere out there, and he is having his own daily PTA time (Protect The Asset time - read Essentialism by McKeown if you are foolishly ignorant of this critical idea) and he helped me see that what I do each day in The Leadership Development Group is precisely this "Science" it its truest and most real form. A lesser person would have glossed over the article . . . like I did. There are very very good reasons to surround yourself with A level people.