To Mark and me

I was reading a novel on my flight to Asia this past weekend, and while it was not a leadership book or a business book or even an important book, (I was just chillaxing) there was a powerful line or two in there. "Most people aren't really living. They are just planning, remembering, or regretting." 

I thought that to be powerfully accurate. While there may be more than the three listed options of what people are really doing, I find far too many of my associates, neighbors and acquaintances, not really living. Too I find myself horribly guilty of those three tasks far more than I am guilty of living.

Living means being here now, living in this moment. Not in the future because that is planning. Not in the past because that is remembering. And not in the negative because that is regretting. Well there is certainly a place in life for all three of those things in different measures, but I rob the present of all that it is and could be, when I focus excessively or obsessively on any one of those three (or others).  

So I am practicing being all here right now for the majority of each and every day. And I am flabbergasted at how difficult it is proving to be.  I have always labored under a "destination disease" cloud. As a young boy even, I remember how I would escape from the present by dreaming of all the different places, worlds, cultures I read about in books, endless books, I think I read for 15 hours a day some days. Then as a teen trying to plan, dream, scam my way out of that small town I grew up in and the life that my parents had built for themselves. Then in college where the dream was cast over and over to go and win the heathen at any cost (or some variation on that theme) and I drank the koolaide all the way to the bottom of the glass. Then in ministry, grad school, ministry again, all the time resolutely looking toward "the field" never realizing (or perhaps just not acknowledging) that some really wonderful things were happening along the way. I missed the impact and significance of about 80% of each of those days, because I was always planning something greater, reaching for more, in such a way that I lost all of those immediate, those present moments, those irretrievable nows, that will never be quite the same again. And I could go on indefinitely with this confession, as it reaches far deeper into my existence than this short paragraph can communicate or bear.

Long story short, I am still practicing this one diligently. And while I still have far far to go to call myself a success at this, I can honestly say I have done more living in the past three years, than I did in all the previous 50 years combined. I am not proud of that, but it is a great deal of progress for me. Three years ago this month a dear friend killed himself. He is no longer living on this plane of existence, but neither was I. Now I am determined to change that every single day. Here's to you Mark.

Anti-fragile

I am enjoying some beautiful autumn weather in the USA, and October may be my most favorite month of the entire year. It's perfect weather for motorcycle rides, for grilling out, and for clear beautiful days. Right now in this moment, I am sitting on the front porch enjoying a beautiful sunset and a great Honduran cigar. This is excellent PTA for almost everything that could be wrong or right in a person's life.

However for the most part I continue to undervalue and under appreciate the need and requirement of PTA. Even when I see, feel and experience the daily benefits of doing it, unprograming 50 years of "exhaust yourself to the maximum" and "run yourself ragged" and "busy equals valuable" bullshit, it is still hard to "feel" that taking care of myself is an important critical component of working hard and getting the mission accomplished.

But it is, ever more so as I get older and more fragile. I don't feel older and more fragile, yet the reality is that I am. Spending lots of time these days with my parentals as they struggle desperately convinces me of it, as I am less than 20 years behind them. 

So I will take these moments of thinking and peace and pleasure and care and let them do their wonderful work in my body, soul and mind in order to make the biggest, and longest, impact possible.

Difficult places to get to

After three days in Kusadasi Turkey, I have a renewed appreciation for the beauty of this part of the world. One of the very few advantages of my life and work (there are far more disadvantages most days, and you need to have compensation strategies to overcome them and mitigate them) is seeing some beautiful spots and amazing views. This of course is balanced out by the difficulties of travel and the hours spent getting to and from such places. But then again, if they were too easy to access, then everyone would go there and they would quickly lose their beauty and uniqueness.

This is a good metaphor for important work too. If you want to create or be a part of something beautiful and unique and special, then getting to that place can be plenty challenging and exhausting. More importantly is what happens once you get to the work place destination. You can't just stop once you are there, as all beautiful places in life, it is part of a larger journey. It is more a stopover than a final stopping place. As I recommended quite a few times to my clients in Kusadasi this week, you may need to look forward to four or five years down the road, and deconstruct how to arrive there, working your way backwards to the present. It is often a very helpful process to some really amazing experiences and destinations.

By the way, while I haven't posted much here recently, it is not because I haven't been writing, but I have been going deeper and polishing more, rather than popping one or two off to you my readers. So those potential blog posts are sitting in the percolator getting "cooked" some more, before they are made public, and frankly they may never reach your eyes, because they are not good enough, or provide enough clarity to whatever subject is at hand. 

Putting off distractions

This is the primary lever that I have successfully used to stick to my morning routines for years now. This actually begins the night before to be perfectly honest in the fact that I turn my phone to airplane mode when I lay down to go to sleep. This delays all texts, delays all social media notifications, delays all emails, delays everything! So that the all important thing called sleep can happen unimpeded and uninterrupted.

Yet for over a decade I would check email first thing in the morning, and that mental productivity and problem solving and challenges of the day, would funnel my energy into a tornado of work work work. But starting my day with work is very very counterproductive. I know that sounds really wrong, but it is not. I have measured my outputs throughout the day, and I can consistently get more done each and every day, by not starting the day with work.

Instead I start the day with development. I need to develop my primary asset which is me myself and I. So I develop my flexibility in a mental way first. I play a couple of puzzle games in order to get my brain up and moving in the mornings. When I successfully conquer those, I develop my physical flexibility. This gets ever more important as I get ever more older! 15 minutes of stretches, twists, reaches, crunches, curlings, stretches, twists, bends, and stretches. There is a pattern here.

Then a couple of hours of working out on the bicycle, weights, pull ups and dips and curls, all the while listening to audible books on the earbuds, makes for an energizing and high accomplished morning.

Now it is time for the best meal of the day, spicy noodles is my preferred breakfast, but I can only get that when in Asia. When at home in Europe, I often have two eggs soft fried, with hot spicy peppers all over them. And of course my daily pot of coffee!

One would think that it is time for email now, but no, because email is a lower productivity activity than reading a couple of hours of leadership material, blogs, leadership tools, and research. This requires my very best energy and speed and insight and thinking, so it gets premium time in my work day. Only after I have completed all these other highest priority tasks and events each day, do we get to email . . . which as we all know, can suck the rest of the day away like hurricane.

But this consistent putting off of all distractions until the most important things are finished, produces an amazing result over time, that allows me to make my best impact on the world. This is what makes life significant and meaningful. I live it intentionally, rather than allowing the urgent to drive the immediate, which in the long run are just distractions.

Holidays?

Macedonia has the most holidays of any country in the world it feels like, honestly there is one every week I think. And for me, as an ex-pat here, these constant holidays just disrupt my schedules and plans and life for the most part, because I don't work on the Macedonian payroll somewhere. However it has come to my attention while my daughter and my granddaughter are here in Macedonia, I, me, myself, haven't taken any holidays for quite a while. Not. Good.

First and foremost it is a terrible example to the hundreds of people I work with, who hear me advocating PTA (protect the asset, and YOU are the asset) regularly, who hear me preaching the genius of the word "no" often, and who read this blog and realize that I don't update it nearly often enough because I of all people have overbooked my life. Do I hear someone saying "is it time for vacation yet?" 

I wrote that I am on vacation for two weeks in my weekly letter on Saturday. Every single letter in response so far has basically said, "YES about time, enjoy!" I have my auto responders on in my three primary email accounts stating that "I am completely unavailable" and so I am actually on vacation right now, and will be for the next couple of weeks.

So why am I blogging one might ask? Well because blogging, is an expression of a life with appropriate margin and space in it. Blogging is a thinking time, an analyzing time, an assessment time, a relaxing time. It represents that I have enough space and time in life to sit on this park bench, enjoy a Cuban cigar, and write my thoughts down on digital paper. As we say in the Balkans, "I am on holidays!"

And I hope to leisurely write a number of these blogs, over the next two weeks, although I may just be absent and not. So far today I have just enjoyed taking care of me, tickling my granddaughter, laughing with the wife and daughter, getting a massage, riding my bike, playing with some new apps, and reading. How is your PTA going?

You can't have it all and neither can I

There are no truer words out there, that we really don't want to hear. Clarity in life often comes down to this statement though, because we need to know that we can't have it all and we must do that terrible horrible thing called choosing. We are forced to make the choices of what we give our attention to and what we focus on. Today I am sitting here in the Zurich Airport, and there is an entire wall taken up with this advertisement, "Am I a good father? Am I working too much? Can I have it all?" Of course, along with a wonderful pic of an eternally happy and joyful family. Everyone is asking this question.

I am returning from 6 days in Berlin Germany where I work with a number of teams and ministries and non-profits. And no matter what the supposed topic of conversation was over those days and in all those different situations, the underlying (often unstated) question was, can I have it all? No you can't and neither can I.

It is known as the "reality of trade offs", no one can have it all or do it all. FOMO indeed (see previous blog)! Greg McKeown points this out graphically in his book "Essentialism" which may be one of the most important books written this decade. He states, "Once we accept the reality of trade-offs we stop asking, “How can I make it all work?” and start asking the more honest question “Which problem do I want to solve?” And it is here that we can start to gain some traction in life, make real progress, resolve some of the thornier issues that plague us.

Once we grasp and accept this truth, then we can start the all important process of eliminating the unimportant from our lives, to paring life down the really meaningful and very significant. To living a beautiful wild life where we change the world, and make our mark on it. While you can't have it all, you can do the amazing.

The astonishing experience of freedom

I worked for my previous employer for 23 years. I lived in the throes of FOMO (fear of missing out), every single day followed a powerful and amazing horrible cycle - no matter how free the day may seem at the beginning, it would fill up by 10 am, and overflow by the afternoon, and find me exhausted by the evening! I said this, pointed this out to my lovely wife over and over, "it's amazing how the day fills up with work work work." That was because I did not know what I should be doing, the one or two absolutely necessary things that I love and can make the best contributions with, and consequently everyone else prioritized my life for me. Every. Day. For. Decades.

Now I have a different challenge, a different experience. Now that I and I alone am prioritizing my life, there is actually space, margin, limits, boundaries, time in my life to do????? Yes, I actually come to a place many days now (every successful day) where I find myself with nothing to DO!! Does this mean I am no longer important? Does this mean that my work load is not heavy enough? Does this mean that I am gonna be bored for the first time since I was a teenager??? No, no and no. However, what it does mean is that I am doing only the right stuff for only the right reasons. It means that I can watch hockey three nights a week. It means I can take my wife out for dinner and not feel like I should still be grinding away at the computer. It means I can leave my phone at home in the evenings and turn it completely off every night. It means I am living exactly in the sweet spot of doing only the significant and meaningful work that I am best suited for, and that I can do better than almost anyone, and I am not chasing endless pointless activity in the name of progress or forward movement.

It means I can enjoy my cigar while watching the moon rising in the east, with a glass of excellent something, with no other pressing matters to be accomplished today. It means that I am free from endless meetings where I have no contribution to make, no reason to be there, and am free to not be there! It means I can call my parents more often, talk longer. Ditto for the kids! It means I can "be here now" and not mentally somewhere else. It is an astonishing experience of freedom, a chance to be still, and not frenetically pushing to the next whatever, because you finished today's super important work, and that is all the work you should be doing.

As this beautiful Seth Godin blog said today, 

"Change is the point. It's what we seek to do to the world around us.

Change, actual change, is hard work. And changing our own minds is the most difficult place to start.

It's also the only place to start.

It's hard to find the leverage to change the way you see the world, hard to pull on your thoughtstraps. But it's urgent."

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices..." William James

Closet cleaning questions and screaming babies

I fly to work these days, or I simply connect to the Internet. Those are the two ways that I go to work. Honestly I much prefer the Internet mode of travel. Currently on a flight from hell with 9 screaming recalcitrant children surrounding me, the whole plane is shaking with the volume and pitch of their screams. In the old country, my mother would state, that "these children are begging for a spanking" but of course having consequences to our actions is not allowed in the modern world, but that is a blog for a different day (btw, these are 2 year old or older children, not infants, and that is a big difference to me).

The Internet is a much friendlier and more peaceful route to make my way to work each day. However, there is much to be said for face to physical face chats and good meals, smells, stories, hanging out, cigars, drinks, laughter, sharing of burdens and struggles, celebrations of the good stuff, etc, etc that simply rarely happen in the virtual meetings online, no matter how good the connection, and no matter how painless the "travel" of getting there. It seems that a balanced mixture of both is required to maximize the leader/developmental dynamic that I am seeking to find.

But right now, I just want to find either some noise-destruction headphones, or help 9 little children go into a deep sleep. I finally understand the whole rationale for adult communities in Florida and other retirement centers - my capacity for endless mindless shrieking unhappy children is almost at zero.

AND the fun did not end once I arrived in Vienna at the airport. I arrived on concourse F. My connecting flight leaves from concourse F, exactly three gates down from my arrival gate. However in typical aviation paranoia I can't just go down the concourse three gates. Even though I got off a secure airplane into a secure airport, with only secure hand baggage, I STILL had to go through passport control and customs AND another full security cycle, in order to make this huge circle in the airport and end up right back where I started. While I enjoyed the walk and the chance to stretch my legs, the purposes of doing so, were only irritating and unnecessary, not much different than 9 screaming children. Oh, and for the record, the second flight has at least one screaming child too. It is simply that kind of day I guess. Let's make the best of it somehow.

When days go like this one, the best way to get back on track is to ask the three "closet-cleaning questions" from the book Essentialism: do I love this? Do I look great in this? And do I wear it often? Translated into my professional world, do I love my work? Is it my best contribution? And is it meaningful and significant? Oh yes! Screaming bambino's be damned!

Quitting or getting it done!

The difference between quitting and achieving our goals? The right mix of willpower and planning, according to Michael Hyatt. I have already been doing this for decades, and didn't know it! The official phrase is "intention implementation." You anticipate the obstacles and once plans are made to remove them, you just do it, you get it done. 

Scroll back to May 1995, some of you weren't even alive then, but for those of us who were, we can go back into our memories and see and remember where we were and what we were doing with whom. Me? I was living deep in the former Soviet Union back then, and I was a basket case health wise. Over the years I have learned that I eat my way through stress, and boy was I ever doing that well back then. I weighed 295 pounds give or take 5 or 10, and I was a walking talking time bomb. At the end of the first week in May 1995, I had a brain aneurysm. Long story short, it's simply a miracle and gift from God that I survived it at all.

Today I am 165 pounds and I have little stress in life, and I am very very healthy. After the aneurysm I started exercising. Every day. Every week. Every year. And have pretty much every day for the last 20 years. Every day for the most part. Perhaps 1-3 days per month, my work and schedule keep me from doing that, but I exercise pretty much every day. I have evolved to use this "intention implementation " to make sure that it happens every day.

Now I don't weigh 165 pounds because I exercise every day. I weigh 165 pounds because I eat like a 165 pound person. That is simple portion control and nutrition. Exercise provides fitness, not a calorie deficit. I have vascular health because of exercise. But I digress. This is about doing it every day. The difference between quitting and achieving our goals. We remove the obstacles and then just do it. I can't imagine a life without exercise now. 

I also can't imagine my life weighing 295 pounds any longer, or working a super high stress job where no good deed goes unpunished, or working with people who are negative and vicious, or working with a team that is filled with jealousy or envy, or spending my days with clients who only celebrate my failures, etc etc. you can apply "intention implementation " to every area of life, and achieve all the goals that you have for yourself. Quitting? What's that??

FOMO

FOMO

This "fear of missing out" is fracturing our one and only real choice in a time-obsessed western mindset - our focus, or if you prefer, our attention. We can blame the company we work for, or the spouse we married, or the expectations we place on ourselves, but FOMO is driving us to waste our focus and attention on the insignificant and BSOs (bright shiny objects) in life. Usually they are in essence whatever makes the most noise, email, phone calls, information overload, project overclocking and expectations of never missing out on any single opportunity ever in our short lives.

I once was that kind of person. Now I am aiming toward, and sometimes succeeding, at being an essentialist, as Gregg McKeown describes it, the diligent pursuit of less but better.  There are however a number of things that are undermining my success. While I personally am no longer caught in the mindless FOMO, almost everyone around me still is, and their FOMOs are urgently trying to feed mine, engage mine, overwhelm my resistance, overburden me with their FOMOs. This sabotage is amazingly constant and persistent. My daily clarity about . . . well, what I am about, has never needed more shoring up and defenses than now.

While I am not trying to convince anyone that FOMO is negative, I have merely come to the conclusion that it is negative for me. I cannot live all of the options that come my way, nor can I experience every possibility, nor can I even pursue most of them because many of them are in conflict with one another. As a friend told me this week, when listening to a breathtaking example of guitar virtuoso, that he would "give up parts of his manhood to have skill of that level" what he really said although he did not realize it, is that he is unwilling to commit to the endless hours of practice that this represents - the one desire is in conflict with his other desires. He cannot live the life of a guitar virtuoso, because he also wants so many other things . . . more than he wants to be a guitar virtuoso, irregardless of the claims to parceling out significant manly body parts.

FOMO is driving him crazy. I plainly told him that he could indeed be a virtuoso, and he immediately responded with the question "how". Oh about 10,000 hours of practice practice practice, I told him. Well that is not practical he responded, and he is totally correct. He can't live the life he has, AND the life of a virtuoso. Either or, yes, but both, no. And so he has made a choice, an unwilling unhappy choice from his point of view, a necessary and inescapable choice from my point of view. The only way to overcome the life of fractured focus and attention, is to realize that this is the only real currency I have to spend, and I need to spend it carefully, wisely and thoughtfully.

The moon and the cross

I am sitting outside on my balcony on a balmy summer evening with a great view of a 3/4 moon and the cross on the top of Mt Vodno. The moon is reflecting the sun light and the cross reflects the Son's love. It is a great time to stop at the end of a long but highly productive day and be grateful, thoughtful and content.

Sometimes you have to go back to go forward

I learned a ton of lessons today and will blog about some of them, but the most amazing one was that sometimes you have to go back (or backwards) in order to move forward or in order to make real progress.

My dad is an amazing engineer with an 8th grade education. He rebuilds antique cars with a passion that is energizing and awe inspiring with breathtaking results. All this with no formal training or schooling. Today's lesson came from a simple brake job on my ancient Japanese made pickup. We disassembled one side, leaving the other side intact. He has told me many times over the years that he takes “mental photographs” to remember how to reassemble whatever he is working on. I have none of this ability and that is probably why I never became a mechanic like him, even though I really enjoy tinkering with tools and engines.

We did this project together, because my dad is 75 years old and he simply can't physically do all that he was able to even in the recent past. As we attempted to reassemble the brake assembly, we repeatedly failed to attach a particular spring that was in the back. You guessed it, we eventually had to backup and disassemble the whole thing again, in order to install this particular spring and have a completed brake assembly. 

This is important because I had to do the second brake! Dad was out of gas, and thankfully I had paid careful attention the first time around. Long story short, this backing up process in order to move forward, enabled me to complete the second rebuild much more quickly and correctly the first time, than we experienced on the first rebuild even though the “master” was doing the first one.

What a great teaching tool and what a great learning process! This has lots of applications to other areas of expertise. As I am sure you can make many applications yourself, I will only make a one directly related to my area of work. When something isn't working, it often pays to back up, disassemble, start over or retrace your steps, in order to find the point of failure or disconnect or dysfunction. When a client is struggling to accomplish a goal, task or level of development, sometimes we need to wind things back until we find the fly in the ointment! Then we can start to make forward progress as the disabling spring is resolved. I did this mentally this past week as I spent several days traveling by car alone. I was able to “back up” and find the missing piece, the missing step to why several projects and clients were stalled, and we were not making any forward progress. I was also able to disassemble several problematic situations and find the missing spring that was preventing me from finding a good resolution. What about you? Where might you benefit by backing up in order to move forward?

How to drive a go-cart from PA to FL

Well it is almost a go-cart. In reality it is an ancient Isuzu Pup pickup with a quarter of a million miles on it, literally. Most people, all those who are sane, would never even begin a trip of this distance with such an old and worn vehicle. However I am not sane, much to my chagrin, and I am on this trip. It has let me down only once (so far) and prayerfully that little episode has been resolved. The key to driving something well past its prime condition is two fold: excellent care and a sustainable pace, neither of which mean what you may think. Let me explain.

Excellent care is not only regular maintenance, although that can not be allowed to lapse. Excellent care means to understand the nature of the mechanism, that it is a machine, and that parts wear out, that they need replacing even though they are not part of regular maintenance. This applies to our PTA as leaders in a complete and whole way. We have to recognize (read self-awareness) and understand the mechanism, that we are social, linguistic, relational, limited, finite creatures. We have limits, and those change over time. Sometimes you even have to get parts taken out or replaced that are not part of regular maintenance! Consistent PTA = excellent care in the leader's world.

Sustainable pace for a nearly go-cart type vehicle is not Interstate Highway Speed. It actually probably never was for this type of low geared small truck. But for sure it isn't the typical 78-82 mph that cars routinely travel down the vast interstate highway system in this country today. A sustainable pace for this vehicle is 60-62 mph max. My best sustainable pace, and your best sustainable pace is much slower than you think as well. And it takes a great deal of discipline to maintain that pace which is so much slower than everyone else's pace! In 2500+ miles of driving this truck at 60 mph on the interstate, I have only passed broken down vehicles and pedestrians - everyone else blows past me like a rocket! 

On the other hand, I noticed two things; that most people pass me multiple times over the course of driving down the road (which means our actual forward progress is closer than you would think) and that I am still moving forward (which is the whole point of driving at 60, that it keeps moving!) This informs us much about sustainable pacing, and I am sure you can see a dozen apparent lessons for yourself in the metaphor. I actually am living this successfully most of the time in my life as a leader. Some observations: I am much happier, content, alive, balanced than I was before in the hyper-ratrace we call productivity; I can more and more "be here now" in this moment rather than living in the next trip, curve, project, task, etc; and I can see that I am far far more productive in fewer hours than before. In fact recent research suggests at we produce as much in 11 hours now, that was produced in a 40 hour work week back in 1950. All the more reason to live a sustainable pace, you already are producing far more than generations before. But a sustainable pace for a 53 year old guy is slower than you would think, I easily have the equivalent of a quarter of a million miles on me, and I need to own that wear and tear in a responsible way. The results can be astonishing.

The dilemma of need and want

I have been on a long trip across America, some 4000 plus miles so far, and there is the most curious thing ever that I have seen this visit, a Cadillac pickup truck. I know that some of you, perhaps many of you, haven't even noticed. But to me, an occasional visitor to this great country, they stick out like a giraffe armadillo. No, there is no such animal that I know of, but a Cadillac pickup truck seems just as unlikely to me. Having grown up on a small farm, where a truck was a working tool not a transportation statement, this does not compute.

As I work with clients that are USA based I have noticed a similarly unlikely expectation. They can't say no. They have no clarity about the difference between a want and a need, a passion and a calling, a Should and a Must. I spend much of my time listening to how ovwhelmed and overclocked their lives are, and how this whole experience just happens to them. I am deeply sympathetic. I understand pressures from multiple directions and sources. I get how many opportunities can come your way, especially at the peak of your working years. I resonate with the confusing options that come at even ordering food at a restuarant.

However, each yes is a no to something else, and each no a potential yes to some other more valuable event or activity. Only you are responsible for your yeses and your no's. I know you don't want to hear that, and I don't want that responsibility either, but there it is. It will never change. Ever. You can never escape from this, you can only choose. When you do not think you are choosing, you have chosen. There is no where to lay the blame, there is no one to lay this responsibility on, there is no one but the face you see in the mirror. There are Cadillac pickups, but they are neither Cadillacs nor pickups. Wants and needs are not the same vehicle either. Have clarity. See clearly. Chose. Or someone else will make the choice for you.

Systems revamped!

I had a real embarrassment today, like I haven't had in years. I completely and totally forgot about a very important meeting. 15 minutes after I should have been there and on point, I get a phone call, and BAM instant awareness that I had majorly blown it!

Now that I have done as much damage control as I can exert today, I am sitting in a near empty cafe (because it is raining), drinking a mineral water, with a Nicaraguan and my mobile office, reviewing what happened and how it could have been prevented. It is like Peter Senge's seminal text The Fifth Discipline, came back to haunt me. Calm my racing heart! The very systems that I use to be as effective as any three other people, those very structures, my over-reliance on them, created a hole, and I fell into it.

This is a very important lesson, that I not grow weary of redundancy in my systems of execution, that I not  become casual about what I have allowed other people to place on my schedule, that I not let down my guard in the pursuit of excellence, that I always under-promise and over-deliver.

An ice cream free Sunday?

This time of the year is the, I-am-the-foreigner-and-I-know everything-you-need-to-learn-to-have-the-success-that-I-have-had, seminar time here in Eastern Europe. One after another! It is like they have a factory of these guys spitting them out our way! It is so frustrating, that a person from a completely different culture and language and history, believes/thinks/has convinced themselves, that if everyone does what I have done, the results will be the same.

This is not the Einstein equation of insanity where we are expecting different results by doing the same thing time and time again. This is Double Einstein equation of insanity where by doing certain actions in a totally and completely different environment, culture, language and country, and wanting and expecting the SAME results as you got in the first country when you did those certain actions! Doubly insane, perhaps even more so! This is like putting gasoline in a car and driving 600 miles, and then putting gasoline in a diesel car expecting to drive 600 miles, and you won't get even 6 miles! (This I know from very hard personal and expensive experience) This is like being in Northern Canada in the dead of winter and wearing very nice and wonderful Patagonia gear to stay warm, and then going to South East Asia the next week and trying to wear the same gear - you will die. This is like growing up under a constitutional Monarchy and then trying to enter into the ludicrous American political system of the electoral college. This is precisely like standing on a busy street corner in Russia trying to navigate the purchase of a house, while not speaking a word of Russian, with only Thai Baht for currency, and the lawyer across the table speaks only Siberian!

And on I could go, seriously. You have no idea how embarrassing it is to be an American living long-term abroad, and to have someone from your country come here and kill your credibility with ignorance and arrogance.  No amount of coaching can fix this, no amount of debriefing will help this significantly. It takes years of learning a language and a culture and a people, and LISTENING rather than teaching, of being humble, of understanding that the people you work with are your equals in every way that matters, that you have far more to learn than you will ever be able to teach.

The speaker yesterday gets up and says, "You have to make your churches seeker driven, user friendly, unchurched Joe sensitive. In our big huge church (ok he didn't actually say that part but it was implied) back in ole' America, a person gets greeted at least seven times. We start in the parking lot, where they get their first greeting, then the narthex", etc, etc ad naseum. Dude, we don't have parking lots at our churches. The vast majority of the people coming to church here don't even own a car! Why would you have a parking lot?!? And when you enter a church here, you shake hands with every.single.person!! Stick that in your "we greet every person seven times starting in the parking lot" pipe and smoke it! Do you sense that I am upset here? That is why you are reading this blog! You are one of the intelligentsia. 

America is event driven, time focused, and all about "creating community." Here we are relationally driven, everything IS community, there are no seekers, only the desperate. Take your socio-theology which has little to do with God, and much to do with Western Culture, and keep it to yourself. If you want to be missional (in the missionary sense, not the quasi-spiritual idea that everything is missions), and cross the oceans to learn. Cross the oceans to learn another language. Cross the oceans to learn another culture. Cross the oceans and learn some humility, and shed that ignorant arrogant coat from the West you are wearing in my country.

On second thought, just stay in America or wherever you came from! Thank God you don't speak Macedonian! You could do unspeakable damage with your ignorance and arrogance . . . and best of all we would not get to enjoy the translation mistakes :-). The speaker was most proud of the fact that his big huge church in America gives every guest a free ice cream sundae - and his proud point was translated, "every guest receives an ice cream free Sunday." 

 

Do it over?

It is Friday and the lesson of the week is, I am in charge of my schedule and I need to exercise that control. Otherwise I will overbook the week, and then spend all my time pissing and moaning about how busy I am and overtired I am. How counter-productive is that!

This is a lesson that I have to learn over and over again it seems, as I lower my guard and let slippage of my scheduling occur. It is a critical mistake on my part, and perhaps you find yourself doing the same thing? It is ever so easy to do, especially when trying to compress too much into too small a space.

We tell ourselves that we are leveraging the available time to maximize the results, but personally I just find this exhausts me, and marginalizes the potential value. I seem to be most susceptible to this negative phenomena when I am in a city for a short period of time, and when I have too many commitments to fit into that time. And I tend to do this when I have competing agenda's and work on either end of the trip - and then it spirals from there.

This is doubly negative when clients and work is shortchanged and nothing is as well accomplished as it would be under better planning. To have the discipline required to say "no" is the linchpin of decision making. If the work is important enough to do in the first place, then it certainly is worthy of having my best, and I (nor can you) can not produce the best work when under-resourced. Adequate time and energy to do it right the first time is the only way to do it right, and as John Wooden says, "If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have enough time to do it over?"

More on Expectations

You could easily look at the Shoulds and the Musts as the Obligations and the Commitments. There are some nuances here, but really it was more a widening of the understanding of the implications of what living with these understandings mean, more than anything else.

The nuances for me are something like this; Commitment is softer and fuller than Must. Softer in the sense that it can, but doesn't have to have undeniable urgency. It is more adult in how it feels and less hormonal or driven. Fuller in the sense that it involves my heart and my brain and my experience in more complete ways than Must does. However, it fails to have the irrefutable inevitability that Must incorporates. It doesn't have that, "this is my air and I need to breath" feel to it at all. Instead it is a "let's be a responsible adult human being" feel and vibe.

There are a few things that I want to feel Must about. There are far more things that I want to be committed to. Nor do I think we have to vilify Obligations and Shoulds. While I don't want them controlling my life, they often bring great gifts to the party and journey. Let's not throw them under the bus! Rather, let's place them in a proper thoughtful place in our lives, where we have plenty of freedom to say "no" and clarity about when they are harming us or helping us.

Which one learns?

I just spent four intensive days on the road, meeting with leaders from early in the mornings, until late into the evenings. These leaders cover most of the spectrum of leadership, from those young and just getting started, to those older than me and at the peak of their game. It was fascinating to listen and learn, which one of them best positioned themselves to learn more, get appropriate feedback and make progress.

Logic would say that the older more experienced leaders would be the top performers and also the one's who most actively sought appropriate feedback for assessment and for making some forward progress in their worlds. Did.not.happen. Those leaders with the largest responsibilities and longest and deepest reaches, largely failed to activate the feedback loops which could have supercharged their leadership. Those who were just getting started, were sponges, and took some very direct hits, in order to move forward.

I am generalizing, and there were some beautiful exceptions to these examples. Yet a humble learning posture was the key missing factor in those that had the most to gain. They are the ones most blind to the story that they are weaving, to the opportunities that are passing them by because of their biases and agendas, to their failure to learn and grow.

And what about me? What about you? Which group are we in, and how are we certain of that? You got it . . . because we are gonna be humble servant leaders who invite (perhaps insist!) that our feedback group/mentors/coaches/peers, tell us the truth of the matter, about which group we are REALLY in. The one who learns is the one who is able to humbly listen.

Be Big!

I had an early morning conversation that ran through the trials and difficulties of working for non-profits and missions abroad. One of the things my friend and I decided was the most negative in those worlds is the penny-pinching and the tight-fistedness of those cultures. One of the stories that I told my friend, was how missions and non-profits consistently try to lower the rents each year, how to pay the local hires for sub-standard wages, and generally are well known locally to be the most selfish and the people who pay the least wage for the most work.

What a bastardly way to be known! We shared stories about how our PREVIOUS parent group was always pushing us to live in smaller and smaller places, to cut corners on all things financial, to pay the least for the most value at all times. 

I don't know about you, but I do not want to live this way first of all, and second of all, I never want to be known for being such a money-grubber. I mean why would anyone ever want to follow the Savior of a group of people who live like they are on the edge of poverty and despair all the time, while being actually rich people in a poor country!?!? Why??

Well of course no one wants to follow such a Savior or such followers. My friend and I have long come to the conclusion that we want to be BIG people. Not the Wal-mart American variety, but rather the amazingly generous, the unwaveringly selfless, the indefatigably unselfish, the incredibly responsive . . . that kind of BIG. The success or lack of it that follows you, is probably related to this issue, no matter what field you are in. Be Big People!

Don't ever

If you are in the helping/coaching/guidance/perspective/development business as I am, one of the most difficult things to NOT do, is make decisions for people, or pressure them into a certain path. While you may find that you are far more objective and experienced and aware than your client may be, you still cannot do this for them.

If you do, you will find invariably, that you also become responsible for the success or failure of what you pushed them toward. Even if they only partially follow your directives, you still will (in their minds and in reality, truthfully) bear the burden of responsibility for future events and results (or lack of them). In other words, you have to provide clarity, ask questions to help them discern, paint verbal pictures of what the futures might hold, tell the story in effective ways, to help them see and decide their destination or next steps. You can only be non-directive, no matter how certain you may be in your conclusions of a matter.

It is their life. It is their future. It is their decision. You will never have the freedom to push too much or too hard for a certain path. If you can't restraint yourself from doing so, then you need to find a different career. You can freely say what you "think" will happen down each possible path, and you can describe what often happens when people chose or don't chose a particular course of action, but no one, no matter how wise and no matter how experienced can accurately calculate the human factor. It is the unknown wildcard. It is the beauty of this one wild beautiful life that we have been given, that we chose our paths and courses in life, and we have to live with the consequences, be they good or bad . . . and that perception too, is probably unknowable as well.

Expectations

I see that being back in Eastern Europe is not conducive to my blogging patterns in the same way as Asia has been. What is different? Expectations.

The Shoulds versus the Musts. The Shoulds are what other people think we ought to be doing. Musts are what we have to do, what we are compelled to do, what we are called to accomplish, they come from deep within our hearts and passions. Expectations that others have of me in Eastern Europe keep me on a different track and schedule than the Musts in my heart.

When the Musts are at the top of the work pyramid, life is simpler, there is more clarity, less clutter, less busy tasks, more satisfaction, more contentment, more certainty, less ambiguity, more "no's", less "yes's", more accomplishment of what matters and has meaning and significance for and to me. A big part of living a life that matters is moving toward a life of Musts rather than Shoulds. It is the heart of Essentialism, the art of diligently pursuing less but better. It is what I push myself and all my clients toward daily. It is THE key component of PTA - protecting the asset - me.

What is driving your actions today? Can you recalibrate and move toward the Musts? I have reset this day even though it is late in the afternoon, because I realized that I was doing good and important things, rather than the best and most valuable things. It is a subtle but critical difference.

Transitions

Life is full of them, mine more than many others. A highly productive, very satisfying trip to Asia is winding down. Laundry, packing, sorting, last stops at the noodle shops, kind of day. Now a long two day transition back to Eastern Europe, with lots and lots of long hours of sitting, people watching, reading, flying, and hopefully some sleeping too.

It feels like flying is a full time job and that airports are my second office/home. But since I am flying West this time, it won't interrupt my daily fitness routine nearly as much as flying East does. It won't even interrupt my work routines either, in fact, will give me a chance to catch up on some thinking, and writing as well.

The only downsides are monotony and limited geography (the confines of the airport) to walk around and explore, and the lack of decent high quality food at a normal price . . . and some physical stiffness from enforced sitting for hours on end. But since I am only going a quarter of the way around the world, rather than half way around the world, it won't be too bad I hope.

Asia has been good to me as usual, I feel 10 years younger here, my blood pressure drops into a completely normal range, the super spicy food is just so yummy, the temperature is sweaty hot, and the prices for just about everything are super low. Good indeed.

Saying no 1000 times

Steve Jobs in 1997 stated that "Innovation is saying no 1000 times." He also went on to say that he was as proud of what they did not do, as he was of what they did accomplish. Even though he said it 18 years ago, I think it is more true today than it was back then.

It is really difficult to have a perspective that is so self-aware that you are just as proud of the "no's" as you are the "yes's" and that is when you know you should be saying no 1000 times more often than yes. Before you just completely dismiss that thought as so outrageous as to not be important, think hard about it.

There are several equally important issues at stake here. First of all is opportunity. I was recently re-reading a book that my mother wrote about "Growing up on the farm" before Alzheimer's started wrecking her mind. The shear volume of hourly choices in today's world versus "Growing up on the farm" is mind-boggling. It is such a severe contrast, that it is almost like talking about aliens from outer space. You and I have so many amazing possibilities and opportunities, that we must say no 1000 times! Part of the problem is that people of my generation have been brought up to say yes all the time, because our parents did not have any of these opportunities. We gotta get over that right now, and realize that Jobs had it right for the most part, Innovation (uniqueness, meaning, significance) is in saying no to the 1000 BSO's that want to capture us (Bright Shiny Objects).

Second of all is clarity. Every single time we carefully say no, we sharpen and refine our clarity about where we want to go and are aiming. If you don't know where you are going and you don't know what you are aiming for, you are sure to reach it. Clarity is that critical awareness that I am spending more and more of my significant thinking time developing. Clarity is a J curve, the more I get, the more I want and need, and it just keeps going . . . I haven't found its end yet.

Thirdly is focus. All of this begins to funnel me down a brilliant path toward what I can best do, that few others can do as well, to that which is my best contribution to making the world a better place for all of to live, an easier place to discover the Creator and His love for us. Focus is a wonderful terrifying place, where what you need to be doing well is clear, and there is no longer any place to hide from that responsibility.

Saying no is the very best possible path to the right yes. It is the right synergy of opportunity, clarity and focus to give you the best leverage to change the world.

You don't need permission to make the world better

You really don't. No you can't change everything. And no you can't do everything, but you can do something. I am so tired of people talking about the need for change, and who fail to every DO one single thing to make that change happen.

Take human trafficking for example. I speak about it when I am out trying to gather resources, financial, human, intelligence, commitment. EVERYBODY thinks trafficking is horrible. Dozens tell me with tears in their eyes that they want to come and help, people write me afterwards and tell me they feel God is calling them to come and help, and to date (more than three YEARS of talking about this) and not one, not a single one has bought the freaking airline ticket and even come to SEE what is going on, much less "helped." What a crock of s**t!

People do what they want every single time. They have time and money for all their toys, TV's, phones, cars, cats, cable, facebook, surfing, music, American Idol, etc etc etc etc.. You do what you want every single time.

You want to know what I want? I want to be able to tell more stories like this: that one week ago two little girls, sisters, were being terribly abuse, and today they aren't. Period. You go have a great time on your facebook hour! You do what you want, I did what I wanted.

But I can't tell enough stories like that one, because we don't have enough resources to do more. Yes we will continue to rescue every single one we can, but please stop telling me you want to help! I know you are too tired and too busy and too extended and too stretched and too everything. You do exactly what you want to do every time. So do I.

And I picked this make-you-feel-extra-guilty-subject of human trafficking on purpose so that you might pay attention. You do what you want every single time. But this principle is at play in church development, church planting, leadership development, discipleship, having foster kids, micro-business development, clean water, market place ministry, community transformation, sanitation, urban housing, ethnic tensions, political abuse, democracy, pick your place and choose your goal, but do something. You do exactly what you want every time.

You can do something. You can. You make choices all day long every day. Its your turn as Seth Godin says. You don't need permission to make the world a better place for someone other than yourself. Do it. Talk is optional.

I woke up

I woke up

Feeling super shitty this morning, like a train had rolled over me slowly all night long. Achy sore pain everywhere, and so I took the Aderholdt cure all; a spoonful of Skippy's extra crunchy peanut butter, along with a spoonful of Nutella, along with four ibuprofen tablets, and then walked my sorry ass out the door and got on my bicycle and headed up the mountain! 10 miles later, all uphill, I was feeling human again.  I know you probably don't believe me, but that is precisely what happened and what I did and how I handled it. Life is too short for lying around.

As I assess people as potential new clients, this is one of the primary reasons I reject them. They want a developer who will make life easier. I want a client who shows up. 

A client who does not show up everyday, mentally, emotionally and physically, can rarely be helped by a developer. And the kind of help I give people is the cold hard honest truth most of the time, and that doesn't make life easier. Instead it opens the door for scale and a bigger and deeper impact. That is more. Not less. I think Seth Godin said it, but showing up is about 85% of success.

Pinned down

Pinned down

I have been pinned down or pinned in, however you chose to look at it, for most of the day. It is rainy season here in SE Asia and currently it is living up to its moniker. Usually at this time of year, they are regular isolated showers, kinda like what you have in Florida, where it rains every day, just not all the time. In the past, my normal wait time until a shower passes is about 15-20 minutes max. Today it has been more like an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, with little break before the next one comes along. As I look over my shoulder, I see yet another one coming. (break here, so that I don't get my gear wet)

OK, where was I . . . pinned down. You can be pinned down by almost anything, if you let yourself. You can be pinned down by finances, an ecosystem of thinking or technology or study, by geography, by the past, by the future, by distance, by assumptions, by ethnicity, by education, by lust, by expectations, by character, by your family, by the Shoulds in your life, you can even be pinned down by the desire to stay dry. And on and on I could easily go seriously!

However, if you reframe it, anticipate, plan, expect, create, turn around, view it another way, rethink it, recreate it, refuse to accept it, exert your will to chose another, expand your mental gymnastics and deny the common accepted responses, then you are free.

Free to choose a different path, a different solution, a different payment, a different future, and a different today. You may not be pinned down at all.

They know

They know

Your customer knows when you don't have their best interest at heart. Your kids know when you are bullshitting them. Your client knows when you are not giving your best effort. Your spouse knows when your mind is somewhere else. Your boss knows when they don't have all of your attention. Your team knows when you are less than fully engaged. Your friends know when they are no longer your top priority. Your pastor knows when you are just going through the motions. You know when you aren't getting it done. And they know too.

When you gonna stop living a divided, unfocused life? When are you going to start focusing on now, and doing it right? When?

Done!

Is it all done? Are you all caught up? Do you feel guilty? Like you aren't working hard enough, or you are wasting precious moments of life or some other dire thing like that?

Well stop. This is the result of you working precisely enough. That there is an end, a stopping point, a place where you can say, "I am all caught up!" And it is a place you haven't been at in YEARS! So stop. Quit beating yourself up and feeling guilty or lazy. 

Enjoy this very cool moment, that you have been working toward, in all its glory. More emails will come. There are other tasks that will have to be done soon enough. You may have finally found that super illusive balance that you have been trying to get right forever.

A techblog

A tech blog

This is purely a tech geek blog, about my experience traveling for four days while working in rural Asia with nothing more than an iPhone 6 plus and a Zagg bluetooth keyboard (http://www.gottabemobile.com/2015/01/05/zagg-pocket-keyboard-for-iphone-6-plus-note-4-more/). 

Obviously, the first trade off comes in screen real estate. There is simply no way around that. The up side of course is the tiny-ness of what I am lugging around all day in 100 plus degree temperatures. However, the screen did not prevent me from accomplishing a single working task over the four days. It did require me to make some adjustments, take some additional steps, and it did slow me down in searching for specific emails or Evernote files or anything that results in screen/visual complexity. 

However the majority of my time at the "computer" on this trip involved answering emails, reading RSS feeds, saving those feeds to Pocket or Evernote, writing blogs like this one (I write them in Drafts), typing notes in meetings and consultations, sharing information with clients - and I usually did that by sending it to them than showing them something on my screen like I would have done with an iPad or with my computer.

I also found that using this setup encouraged me to massively tweak the mobile apps that I was using, to better utilize them, finding ways to do things more simply or better, since jumping to my MacBook Pro wasn't an option. Perhaps inconvenience is the mother of creativity and full utilization? I am really pleased with the tweaks that I made in Drafts, Day One, and my Squarespace Blog.

There was also a discernible adjustment period, . . . and when it finally kicked in all the way, I found myself no longer longing for more screen real estate, nor minding the fact that I was in uber-mobile-mode. Unfortunately that took the majority of this trip. But somewhere today, I completely made a mental jump into the void of ONLY having an iPhone 6 plus and Zagg keyboard, and at the moment that feels like it would always be enough. However, I did not attempt the entire month's log of work on this set up, and when I get to the third week's work of sending out client emails and logging them in both Evernote and Numbers, that is most often when I use TWO computers at home. Yet for the hell of it, I might try to do the whole thing from this set up just to see how difficult, or extra-time consuming it actually is . . . although the thought I doing it this way, sounds complicated to me. 

Finally it should be noted that when I arrived at the airport here in Siem Reap Cambodia, I grabbed a $5 sim card (Yes you read that correctly, with 1.5 gig of mobile data!) for my phone so that I had text and internet ability for the duration of the trip, maximizing the reach and capability of my single work tool. You CAN do more with LESS, but the trade-off seems to be primarily one of simplicity for size/weight, once your brain gets accustom to having this size screen all the time. (The most annoying trade-off was iOS mail in landscape mode! Uuuurrgghhh!)

Twists of fate

As I argued in my last post, when faced with conflicting information, you have to keep moving forward until all things play out, even though uncertainty is higher than before, less is sure than before, and all your plans hang in some unknown and unknowable balance that you have no control over.

The conflicting information that I was specifically writing about in the last post was that one (usually highly dependable) tool of information informed me that my final flight of the day had been canceled by the airline for unstated reasons. And honestly, who can control that?

However, I STILL went to the airport. I still took for first legs of the trip, because who knows how this would play out? No one. The airline assured me that they were planning to fly to my final destination. On the other hand, my experience in Asia has long since taught me that the true-ness of a matter is far less important than maintaining face - usually what you hear when you ask a question is the answer that the person thinks you most want to hear. So the true-ness of whether my flight was going to actually occur was in question until I was seated on the flight.

And in the long run, I was actually able to catch an EARLIER flight than the one I had originally scheduled, and that was canceled (well they changed the departure time and the flight number which lead the whole conflicting information to begin with). If you don't press forward, if you don't continue to take steps toward your goal, then you have already failed. And who knows, sometimes in the end, conflicting information can lead you to take initiatives that you otherwise would not, and the payoff can be an early arrival!

When the data doesn't agree

Today is a day to make the most harden traveler flinch. One source of data is telling me that my final flight is canceled and that I won't reach my destination tonight, another source of data is telling me that all is well, and things will progress as scheduled. The implications to this day and to the work in multiple countries are heavy. I will lose far too much money and even more time, if the first source is correct. I will only suffering an amazing amount of stress and have heartburn for the next three days if the second source is correct.

When the data doesn't agree and throws your well planned and highly organized work structures into ambiguity hell, what do you do? 

Well first of all you have to keep moving toward the goal. Even though you are far less sure that you will get there now, and you have no real and viable contingency plans, you have to continue to take every possible step forward. Yes you have conflicting data, no you can't cancel the hotel room on the same day of scheduled arrival, yes you are gonna lose money, no you don't have a plan B. But maybe, just maybe the second source of data will actually play out. You simply cannot take the risk and stay home. That is not an option. Because if you do that, you WILL lose everything you have sunk up to this point, as well as the future results.

Second of all, you need to start spinning some mental alternatives to perhaps implement along the way. I know your options are limited. I know you already have tons of sunk cost into the product or project. But this is out of your control, you have conflicting data, you don't have nearly as much hope that things will work the way you had planned, as you did yesterday. Uncertainty is high, predictability is low, start spinning some mental alternatives.

Finally, go with the flow. Learn. Make the very best of all those unexpected bits of data and conflict and uncertainty and issues. What is being forced upon you can still bear some gifts especially if you set your attitude and mental framework in the right modes. Relax and enjoy the moments along the way, then you gain something valuableregardless. 

Air Conditioning wont cut it

After a long absence I am back in Asia. And it is hot. Really hot! And since I came here from a much cooler place, the sudden spike in temperature (think double overnight literally), the great temptation is to sit in the air conditioning all day and night. This is a deadly temptation, because who likes to sweat and sweat and sweat? I mean it is totally seriously three showers a day kind of hot.

Yet the only way to live, to experience, to BE in Asia is the stay in the heat. It is the only way you will acclimate to the temperatures. It is the only way that you will see the sights. It is the only way that you can taste the exotic dishes. It is the only way to truly enjoy Asia . . . you have to walk through the heat, sit in the heat, eat in the heat, work in the heat . . . and soon, most folks realize that their baseline temperature adjusts, as they become accustomed to hot hot hot. Hot is relative after all, to whatever you are comparing it to. (Note: I do use the AC at night, but lightly, mostly for the white noise, and at a much higher temp setting than most foreigners)

This has multiple life applications, regardless of the kind of work you produce and generally applies to most industries in my opinion - you gotta get out into the heat in order to understand your world - whatever your world may be. If you want to be doing something meaningful, you can't sit in your room or at the hotel or at the expensive restaurants that have air conditioning, because you cannot possibly experience what the real world is like in those places. Air conditioning won't cut it. Get a sweat on!

Shot!

I got shot today. There was no reason for it that I could discern, but nevertheless. At first I thought that something had fallen off the roof and banged hard against the post next to me. The second shot beaned the post a bit away from me. The third shot hit the glass next to me, then I knew for sure that someone was shooting, a BB gun or a slingshot perhaps, because the glass did not break, I knew it was not a pistol or something deadlier. 

So I immediately closed the computer, so that the screen would not get hit and broken, and at the same time started watching the neighboring building for the shooter, or some movement which would let me know, where to focus my attention. I never saw anyone ever, so that did not work. And the fourth shot hit the drain pipe behind me. The fifth shot hit me in the hand.

I am pleased I did not get it in the eye, and at that point it became clear that I was at a great disadvantage, not being able to find the shooter nor protect myself in any way, so being a prudent person, I left the balcony. Since I am scheduled to be here for another three weeks I am at loss about what to do . . . other than stay off the balcony, however that was one of the main selling points on choosing this place to stay.

There are multiple parallels in this story to life. We often get shot at, for no discernible reason, in unexpected places, which forces an intelligent person to alter their course of action. Then to not lose momentum or be forced to take actions that prevents you from reaching your goals, you have to mitigate the frustration, pain and discomfort of being forced off your original plan. It is in situations like this, that you can shine. You might even find a better alternative than your first path.

Trade off's

Life is filled with trade off's. Navigating these in a clear and wise manner is more difficult than you realize. I think it comes down to having clarity about the long term and the short term transactions, and that requires a perspective of the bigger picture of our lives than we acquire easily.

The worst trade off I ever made was in Russia 20 years ago, and it taught me a very important lesson about this subject that has helped me many many times over the years.

We had been in-country only about three or four months, when we took a required trip down South. Upon our returm at nearly midnight, with three very small children, none of the transportation that we had acclimated to, trams, buses and the like, were availible. We were under the impression (perspective) that we were too poor to afford a taxi. I am not joking. I am completely serious. Our leaders, who had drilled this perspective into us, disappeared without a word when we returned, you guessed it right, in a taxi. We waited in the cold and dark in a dangerous part of the city for over an hour before we caught the last tram of the day. With three babies. In Russia! Not one of my brighter moments in life, that is for sure. And not a memory I like to revisit, but it has served a great purpose in my life.

Yet I see churches and businesses and people do this all the time, with equal or great potential consequences, because they don't have clarity, they don't have perspective, to choose the right trade off. Clarity or perspective is worth 80 IQ points in my opinion, at least, and Alan Kay said it and I am agreeing with him. It is the most valuable gift I can give my clients, it is the most valuable commodity you can seek. It is a gift that only gives the best returns. Make certain you are choosing the right trade off. And if in doubt, get some outside perspective.

Memories?

There are always favorite memories about places you have been and things you have experienced. And often when you get back to those favorites, the renewed experience can often be . . . less than you remember. I have had this happen to me many times in five plus decades of life.

But I am getting better at accurately rendering what happened in one place or another and I have spend most of today, renewing favorite experiences. And so far I am batting a 1000! One technic I believe has helped me tremendously with this, is living in the moments better. I enjoy what is, without trying to make it be something else. About three years ago I started practicing this for a very particular reason, and that may become the topic of another post, but I can see now that it has helped me return to a place I was over one year ago, and successfully and fully navigate the memory experience conundrum.

You will find this to be a significant part of your skill set if you live anything like I do, in a suitcase more than anything else, moving from one client to the next, or from one country to the next, or from one problem to address to the next. May the memory, as you enjoy the moment, be with you. Sent to you from one of my favorite places, on a rooftop in Asia with a good cigar and a nice breeze on a 100 degree day.

hope against hope

Hope against hope

You know how it is when you are wishing for the unlikely, the very "lucky" or the unheard of, or the fanciful? That is hope against hope. The one I am wishing for today is no seat mates, to have some space to sleep and stretch out my legs a bit on the flight to Bangkok. Like I said unlikely. The numbers are simply against you, the odds don't lend it a likely probability.

It is not just stupid, this hope, that would be doing something like playing the lottery, or driving the wrong way on the interstate and expecting to avoid an accident. But in this case, it is "low season" in Asia, meaning that is not the time of year when most people are heading that way for a holiday (nor am I), and so I may have a better than usual hope.

In work and life though, this is a poor way to plan, strategize and execute. It is far better to bank on reality, what is, what can be reasonably expected, what the current norms are for culture, or business, or whatever field you are working in these days.

My clients who most consistently produce something valuable, something beautiful, something innovative, are those most willing to face the music of real opportunities, or at least willing to work hard and make those opportunities happen. Hope against hope, no seat mate today . . . excellent, but it was just a hope, not a reality that I shaped and designed and work toward diligently. I will still take it though!

Sometimes you have to go to the source

I am learning that sometimes you have to go to the source to get what you need. Habanero sauce in Macedonia for instance. There is a great sauce that we experienced at the local Mexican restaurant. But we haven't been able to find in the local grocery stores for about a year now. So on a free/open day like today I took the chance to return to that restaurant to see if they were still serving it and to ask them where they get it. 

We don't particularly like this restaurant because 1. The music is too loud, 2. The food is expensive and 3. Marginal taste as a general rule though my wife feels this much more strongly than do I. But compared to the other excellent restaurants and dives we have available to us, it does have some shortcomings in this particular market. Through I would argue that they also have one overwhelming strength- that they serve food unlike all the others at our disposal.

So when you want something really different from the regular fare available, this is a viable option. However I digress from my primary point. So I came here today because Brenda is out of town (so I am eating alone) and because we are almost completely out of Habanero sauce at home :-). Bingo!! Boom!! Good pork chops and you can purchase the Habanero sauce right here - in fact ONLY here.

Sometimes you have to go to the source to get what you are looking for. I would say that is true concerning Habanero sauce in Eastern Europe as well as: 1. The Truth of a matter in your personal life  2. The understanding of the nuances of a situation. (What is apparent rarely is) 3. The tools you need to lead many situations and 4. Spiritual direction.

Future-thinking 2

To continue along the lines of the previous post, Marshall Goldsmith blogged about some elements of future-thinking and what he called "forecasting" the environment that we live in, grew up in, and are surrounded by, that influence what we can and cannot change.

This is directly related to future-thinking. You will see the elements line up pretty well. His first encouragement is to . . . 

Anticipate, which is basically my entire last post about this subject. He argues that good leaders and good business folks are all about Anticipating, future-thinking, seeing around the corners before they get here, you follow the drift, in order to . . . 

Avoid. He quotes Drucker, and I am going to quote him quoting Drucker, "Half the leaders I have met don't need to learn what to do.  They need to learn what to stop." Honestly I spend 65% of my time working with clients on this point alone. It seems that far too many of us have drank the kool-aid and believe that we must say yes to every challenge and problem that comes along in order to prove how valuable and irreplaceable we are to the world (and perhaps to ourselves?). This results in the majority of us being bogged down in very good things, while never having the discernment nor margin to do the great things, and accomplish the powerfully significant for the world, for humanity, for God. Stop your delusional belief that you can do it all. No one can. No one ever has. No one ever will. Let this empower you to . . . 

Adjust. Adjust your expectations. Adjust your assessment of your capacity. Adjust your will and talent and skills to the very essential stuff. You get the idea. Adjustments happens most timely and easily when we are focused and forecasting our situation and environment. The entire point of future-thinking in my opinion to to be ready, able and willing to make the adjustments that invariably come along, and will derail us if we aren't prepared.

Future thinking

Yes I had to change locations in order to be inspired enough and to have some mental space in my brain to write this blog. I have strongly advocated such changes in environment to get your creative juices flowing on this blog many times in the past. Today I had to take my own advice.

Because I am visiting the parentals, and one of them is a different person each time they wake up from a nap, and they take several dozens of naps throughout the day! The happy contented person who fell sleep 20 minutes ago, wakes up a sullen unhappy person . . . who falls asleep and then wakes up a completely incapable person who struggles to find the bathroom in the very small house they have lived in for the last 52 years. And no, we did not change the location of the bathroom. This is life with a parent struggling with Alzheimer's and dementia. At least this is how it expresses itself most days. There is no possible way to predict what the next nap will hold for all of us - those of us caring for the comfort and well-being of the said person.

It strikes me that this is also a challenge with future-certainty in any subject. The one topic most people seek my advice on is "what will the future be like, if I make this change or that change in my work or parent group?" I, of course, can give a general trends kind of answer to such a question, but there are no guarantees at all, because of the multiplicity of factors that will effect that precise outcome in the future. And trust me, the factors are far more dependable and predictable in vocational fields than they are in Alzheimers patient's naps results! Yet precise and bankable predictions about where you will end up from the decision you are making today, five years down the road, are frankly impossible.

Future-envisioning is still an important practice though, because if you don't do it with some diligence, you likely will not recognize the factors that ARE within your power to choose, when they come along. As the parentals grow older, more challenged, more in need of my regular appearance and assistance, the more I need to future-envision how I can work and live effectively, while providing the ever-increasing more that they need from me. If you are trying to answer a similarly quandary, the answers you come up will vary from mine, because of the health issues your love ones face, the flexibility of your job/vocation, the resources available, and your location in the world relative to them . . . and at least a dozen other factors that I haven't even future-envisioned yet . . . probably.

But to construct a life-work balance that meets your needs today and tomorrow requires some diligent thinking and inspiration in order to mitigate the risks and maximize the rewards for all stakeholders. 

Advice? Take a long walk, or ride your motorcycle down to the coffee shop, or some other change in environment in the regular course of the day, and think think think, and then think some more. I am confident you will be pleased with the progress you make. 

I gotta finish my coffee now, and do some more thinking . . ..

10 things I learned on this trip

It has been a very concentrated time of travel and learning and people intense weeks as I have been reconnecting with some partners across the USA. Always being "on" is very very draining, yet I feel more energized and energetic than I have in decades! Yes that is a paradox.

A number of these connections and relationships are great for my soul and encourage me very much. A few of them are very draining and exhausting, yet I am learning new ways to mitigate and negate their effects on me. Every time I make a trip, I feel like I learn more and more. This one was no different on that front.

What I learned this time in the States:

1. There is always someone nearby who is smarter than I am and that I can learn from!

2. There is a hunger in most folks to move forward with their lives and to make progress, and they are highly attracted to people who can help them do that.

3. The more you can uncomplicate the complicated for them, the more they are going to pay attention to what you have to say.

4. You better have something of substance to say!

5. Cherish the moments when you can sit on the patio (and not freeze!) and have a cigar!

6. It is never too late in life to make a new friend.

7. People learn faster when they are laughing.

8. Most people want you to make all the application for them and draw all the lines that connect all the dots. Don't.

9. Don't because it robs them of understanding themselves, and diminishes their personal commitment and follow-through to their own success.

10. Stop (or at least slow down enough) to enjoy the beauty along the journey, both the relational ones and the natural ones. Snow in Vermont, warm and wet in Florida, warm and dry and early Spring in California! Priceless!

Unlit candles

Michael Josephson said, "I’ve learned that unless I translate my thoughts into actions, my great ideas and good intentions are like unlit candles." Manchester wrote about Winston Churchill  that he understood that victory could only be won "by the vigorous exercise of his imagination and the imposition of his will by the only means he knew — action, action this day, action every day."

Too many of our good ideas remain just that - ideas. In our crazy modern world we have elevated the "idea" to accomplishment status. In other words, as if the idea itself was a product of value, or of equal work and effort as the end product that actually brings beauty or value to the world.

I too can fall into such a trap where I feel that the idea or the intention was equal or on par with actions, but that is simply not true. They are only unlit candles. More steps are required before I can have any real sense of satisfaction that I have actually produced something innovative or useful. One of the ways that I restrain this tendency to elevate intentions and ideas to the level of actual essential work, is that I ask myself every day, "What value am I providing my clients?" It is a brutal reminder that what I do - action - is the only measurement that carries weight.

Tenacity

Tenacity. What a word. It is the unsung hero of almost every success story in my whole life. I think this is true for most people that I know across the world as well. Oh there are some talented blokes out there, and great idea people, and high energy dudes, and amazing lasses who can and do lead entire countries (ala Merkel). But these people are the very first ones that will describe for you how consistently tenacity is part and parcel of their everyday lives.

As Michael Josephson said in his recent blog "tenacity is more important to success than talent." And ain't that the truth! Most people have talent, don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that people don't have some amazing talent. But relatively few can commercialize those talents. Most of us have talents that don't ever even cross over into our vocations. Many of us BECOME talented at our vocations precisely because we are tenacious about learning and working hard at it, and finding joy in the process.

I have always been quite put off by people lauding my TALENTS when in fact nothing more than shear hard effort over long periods of time = tenacity, brought about the seemingly effortless product you observed today. My dad was fond of saying and rightly so, that "the easier a person makes the job look, the higher Master he or she is" in whatever field of expertise you are observing. When people ask me to describe myself, and when I trust them enough to be honest, I am a beaver in life . . . gnawing on that tree until it falls down. Tenacity has been far more important in my successes than talent, what about you?

Getting there

On the final leg home after almost seven weeks on the road. Cannot tell you how good the thought of sleeping in my own bed sounds right now. I have an amazing job and I get to do the most interesting work in the world, but the "traveling" part of traveling is waxing very old. Oh I still really enjoy being with new people in new places and experiencing new food and sights and smells and views, but the getting there is usually tough and sometimes very exhausting.

There is a lesson to be learned here as well because traveling is a great metaphor for leadership and development. The getting there is always challenging and fraught with difficulties and things you just would really rather not have to go through. But the destination is almost always worth it. So how do you in your life mitigate or manage the unpleasantness or difficulties or challenges facing you as you move toward your next destination?

Frustrating speakers

There are so many intangibles to effective communication. Even with good coaching I find most public speakers, especially in the church, amazingly frustrating. The number one mistake they make is no cohesiveness from idea to idea. Oh the transition exists in their minds for sure, or they would not have said what they said, but they fail to bring the hearer along with them and connect the dots so to speak, in a way that their points or point is compelling.  More and more it seems that preachers (especially) and speakers that I hear, draw seemingly random points of "proof" or what I refer to as proof texting within the church, to make their argument. What they do in actuality is leave us listeners sitting there with our minds wandering toward our to-do lists or verging off into dazed daydreaming.

They fail to sharpen their communication skills as a tool of choice. They attempt to use blunt force trauma or the charisma of personality to win our minds and that simply is an impossible venture. To win the mind, and eventually the heart, we communicators need weapons-grade skills and honing of the craft of excellent communication. Isn't the message that you are striving to communicate worthy of that effort and refinement? At the very least, respect the content of the message and me as the audience enough to not waste my time.

I love Berlin!

I love Berlin! It is one of my favorite cities in the world, hands down. I would move here in a heartbeat would my sweet wife agree. Alas, that won't happen in this lifetime. Fortunately for me I get to come here often and work and I completely enjoy each one of these visits.  The ease of getting around the city, the clean air, the excellent food and the structuredness of it all makes for a wonderful experience. 

Of course all of those pluses would be for naught were there not excellent work to be accomplished here as well. In fact one of my clients here was brainstorming ways to work more in Berlin! A conversation I throughly enjoyed. Unfortunately I can't be here more than I currently am and that is that. But the people and work and connections I get to enjoy and engage in are as refreshing as the air coming in overland from the North Sea