The Truth

…is measured by predictability. And, this is personal to each of us. What is an absolute truth for one is not for another. This comes from how we’re shaped, brought-up, our worldview…and what we believe. But, and there’s always a but, there are those facts which are indisputable (unless you don’t believe in facts, math, etc.). And, this is what makes them predictable. The good news is 2+2 is going to equal 4 tomorrow…and the next day. Everything else is unpredictable. This is where faith takes over. We don’t know for sure the sun will rise tomorrow. It should by all accounts. It’s fairly reliable, predictable. But, it’s not absolute. It’s not true…until it is.

Very little is 100% predictable in the grand scheme of things. And, it’s precisely why debate is so interesting. Enjoy the fray, and contribute respectively.

Schmeggled

I thought of a new word today after some discussions I had yesterday.

Schmeggled- when you learn of communications about you which were not intended to reach you.

So, what to do when you’ve been schmeggled. Well, if the spirit of it was positive, it’s easy. Accept it, enjoy it. But, when it has negative connotations, it’s much more difficult to deal with. Should there be confrontation? Correction? Debate? Or, could we choose to merely accept it. And even, enjoy it. Be grateful we now know how someone feels. Consider it an unexpected gift. A gift doesn’t require a response…or, a regift.

Make Better Time

Our time is limited. There's often tension about making the most of our time. The concept of wasting time and the best use of time is highly personal and relevant to each individual's physical lifespan. But, no matter how much time we have, we know much of our happiness is tied to feeling productive, mentally and physically. And so, logically we should strive to do a better job of organizing and prioritizing the use of our time. And, since most of us need to conform to clock time due to work, school, hair appointments, etc., we'll stick to measuring time in minutes and hours. But, I have found these goals to be universally useful to improving happiness as it related to productivity and time.

Make more time- This is my number 1, super secret sauce tip. Get up one hour earlier. But, not at the expense of losing sleep time (get 8 hours). This obviously means something else needs to go. Which leads to the next tip.

Consume less (TV, Movies, Social Media, video gaming, etc.)- One-two hours each day of anything not considered learning or practice. Reading the news is not learning, especially the way most of it is delivered. The packaging is designed to keep you in the loop and to sell you something. If you must read the news for work, consider using an RSS reader like Feedly to keep the noise to a minimum. Most news is not likely to change our day one way or the other. Experiment, try not reading the news and see what sort of disadvantage it creates for you.

Now that you have more time...

Create more- 30 minutes each day of writing, speaking, practicing a craft, developing strategy, etc. Not mowing the lawn, doing chores, etc. Those are tasks. Make something instead.

Read- Read 30 minutes of non-fiction each day. Reading is learning. Curious people learn. Curious people are in forward motion. Forward motion is the fuel to creating change.

Exercise- 30 minutes each day if you're able. Walking is exercise. Don't overdue it, especially if you miss a day. This leads to injury and exhaustion.

Think (Meditate)- 5-15 minutes in stillness, solitude, to think. This can be combined with certain forms of mundane physical action like doing chores. But, the preference is to do physically nothing to allow your mind to wander. Bonus...at the end write about it.

These are all pretty easy to commit do. But, extremely hard to maintain. Doing hard things for extended periods of time is not in our nature. We tend to look for easy and fun. So, the key is to develop habits which turn these hard things into something which comes easier to us, something we look forward to and something we find helps makes things better. Find a subject you're interested in learning more about and incorporate this into your reading and creating habits. Choose an exercise which you can enjoy, perhaps in the company of others. Or, combine solitary exercise with meditation or learning (listen to books or podcasts instead of music). Sometimes, I run just to read.

Developing these habits in itself takes time. Start small. Exercise for five minutes. Go to bed ten minutes earlier to wake up ten minutes earlier. Do the small bits until they become easy. Then ratchet up. But, measure yourself, be honest and disciplined. If we're serious about changing our use of time, we must treat these habits as a profession...we do them whether we feel like it or not. Just like going to work or making school lunches, our own productivity (and happiness) deserves the same commitment. Be ready for failure. It will happen. Learn why you failed. Adjust and keep going. The failure is a sunk cost. It's not a reason to give up.

Most of all, please understand we are all different. This approach works for me. Your mileage may vary.

P.S. My favorite book on the subject of time is The Order of Time. The audio version is particularly enjoyable as it is narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Winner's Circle

We celebrate the winners of finite games. We give them our attention, our cheers and sometimes our trust. The nice thing about a finite game is the boundaries. There are prescribed rules of play and we keep score so we know who to celebrate. Infinite games however, the games we play in life have no score, and the boundaries are shaped by culture and worldview…and they change. Getting better at chess or soccer is fairly straightforward. Learn strategy, adapt to conditions and improve physical skills. Getting better at infinite games, like a relationship with a co-worker or child, takes different skills. There’s no finality, no winner or loser. We play for the sake of playing. And, to make things better for everyone. How can we get better at playing the infinite games? Who do we choose to play with? What’s it for? Who’s it for? Consider and choose wisely.

Photo: Redhook Crit Championship, Barcelona, Spain 2016

Scarcity

Why go to college?

Why take a leadership class?

Why spend time practicing a craft?

Why learn a new skill?

Why do the hard thing?

The purpose of becoming more unique is to lead change and make a difference. But, it's also to create value through scarcity. A unique set of skills and experiences when combined with talent and some good luck creates value. The price is higher when there's only a few...or one. Abundance, on the other hand, creates commodity. One of many is not a premium position. The goal then is to become uniquely qualified to lead the change we seek to make. Determine what's hard, the skill other people shy away from and perhaps what scares us. It might just be worth working on.

We're lucky we live in in a time when we get to choose...which skills to learn and how much to practice Choose wisely.

Rowing the Boat

Someone needs to row for the ship to move

Someone needs to navigate

Someone needs to build the boat

Someone needs to decide when to launch

Someone needs to pay for it

Someone needs to be responsible if we fail to get there

We tend to focus a lot on who's rowing the hardest. We forget about the other hard parts which need to happen to accomplish the goal. The sum of all parts, of all the work, makes things possible. Understanding and respecting roles is critical in the teamwork concept, especially if everyone is expected to give it their best. Leaders see value in having different people do different things. Great leaders get other people to see it also.

How Do I Make You Feel?

If our goal is to make a difference, affect change and leave a legacy of service, we might start by asking this very important question. Because without trust, security and the confidence of knowing we have unconditional support from those on the journey with us, we might never achieve the outcomes we seek.

And part two...am I vulnerable enough, open enough and generous enough to accept the answer?

Important Questions

What's it For?

What problem does it solve?

Who's It For?

How does it help make things better for them?

Every decision which affects other people (and almost every decision does) and where there's more at stake than satisfying a personal desire should flow through these questions. If our goal is to make things better for someone else, to serve someone, we can't avoid them. And, if we're honest, we might find our work is more for us than anyone else. Choose wisely.

Sacrifice and Burdens

A lost life is considered the ultimate sacrifice, the burden of which is carried in advance, often as the result of the uncertainty of the outcome. Honor, courage, selflessness and a sense of duty help us manage this burden. We think of these qualities mostly associated with first responders who put their lives on the line...for us. 

There's another burden. The one most of us carry when we feel we haven’t done enough. The same burden Ira Hayes carried after WWII. We compare ourselves to others who have done more, given more of themselves.

What burdens do we carry when we feel we haven’t sacrificed enough? When we haven’t given enough? When we’ve been selfish? And how can we better manage these burdens? What actions can we take to relieve the tension, and perhaps the guilt?


Who Will We Become?

We are all in motion. Some more than others. We are all going somewhere, physically, emotionally and psychologically. We won't be the same person five, ten or twenty years from now.

Most of us focus on achievement and success, especially in our work. We're trained by our culture, education and environment to be seen as productive, smart and to make a contribution. We measure ourselves through status, financial wealth, material possessions and comfort. What we do, what we make, what we become is an important part of the fabric of our culture.

But, there's another goal each of us faces. Beyond, what we do and what we become is a more important question...who will we become? How will we act? Which values will we hold dear? Will we care enough to choose improvement over status quo, both for ourselves and for those around us? Will we choose to remain curios and resilient even in the face of adversity? Will we choose a path of empathy and learning over authority and control? Will we live into the possibility of changing our mind?

It might be better to focus first on who we want to become and the qualities we want on display, vs. what we hope to achieve. The order is vitally important. Turns out, character matters. Please choose wisely.

Living Into Values

We all have core values. They are the framework we live by. They shape our belief system and our way of doing things. Some of these values are more sacred than others. We would be hard pressed to waiver on the ones we hold the most dear. The most common stated values are integrity, honesty, kindness, spiritual faith and hard work.

Making this list is relatively easy. Acting it out, day by day, especially under pressure or when no one is looking, is the challenging part. These moments are the traps which bring out our true values, and perhaps not those we wish represented us. Our deepest values, the ones we're most committed to, are habitual. They show up in everything we do, whether we state them or not. They are the non-fiction version of ourselves. And, we don't need to think about them. We've practiced them so much, they merely happen.

Our values don't happen just because we believe in them. They happen because we practice them...we live into them. We aren't kind just because we want to be kind. We're kind because we act kindly. And the more we do so, the more we become the kind person other people see.

Our values are not static. They change as we change, through our experiences, our trials and through learning. Values are part of the growth process. They're an integral part of our journey, serving as the guideposts for who we are seeking to become. And, as we change, as our beliefs change, we need to develop new habits to support our evolving values. This takes intention and practice. If we hold punctuality dear (because we value another person's time), we can get better at it if we practice. Over time, if we form the habit of being punctual, we'll be seen more as a selfless person, and one who doesn't waste other people's time.

The key to living into your values is to make them habitual, so they happen without much thought. We need to turn pro at acting out our values. Like any other profession, start small, practice a lot, be honest with ourselves about progress, make adjustments, rinse and repeat. For instance, if we want to be seen as generous, we can start by making one person smile each day. Not two, three or four. Just one. If we do this well, one always turns into two.

All values are a possibility if we decide to live into them. Choose wisely.

What's It For?

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It might be the most important question we can ask.

What is this project for?

What is the workshop for?

What is this debate for?

What is our persistence for?

What is this design for?

What is this job for?

What is the degree for?

What is this sign for?

What problem will it solve? Who does it serve? How does it make them feel? How does it make things better?

If we're honest, objective and care enough, we can probably make it better too. Choose wisely.

I'm Not Sure

...I don't fully understand.

Our world prides itself on having an immediate answer...even if it turns out to be wrong. Sometimes, this takes courage and a leap of faith. It might work or it might not. But, it also takes courage to pause and declare uncertainty, especially when there's pressure to act. Being unsure is seen by many as weakness. In most cases, the not doing is misunderstood. It's viewed as incompetence or perhaps even laziness. What a shame because when it's used correctly, followed by questions to gain more insight, it almost always lead to a better outcome.

Saving a life, preventing harm and tapping the buzzer in quiz bowl all demand quick action. By all means these are times to leap. Otherwise, when time permits (and it almost always does), it might be more impactful to reflect on the situation, to determine what better looks like and to select the best course to achieve it.

Courage is measured in forms of bold or daring acts when there's a lot on the line. How much courage does it take to use inaction instead? What if we built in more time? What is immediate for? Choose wisely.

What is Anger For?

to fuel rage?

to be unkind?

to display emotion?

to create fear?

to display power?

Or, is it a signal for a needed change, something so important it needs more immediate attention. How can we turn anger into positive action, to be used as a tool to calmly make things better?

Anger doesn't need to be used negatively, unless we allow it to be. Choose wisely.

You Only Live Once

Many things we do are permanent. Most of our life choices are indelible and create the fabric of who we become...how we’re seen. And, our choices also shape the world around us...how we’re all seen. Our own actions then come with great responsibility. Acting carelessly or too freely comes at a cost, both personally and culturally. Caring enough to act is if what we do will always make a difference rather than it probably won’t matter is a posture worth consideration.

Everything matters...to someone. And, as far as we know, there are no do overs. Our actions count. All of them. We each make our small dent in the universe. The size isn’t important. But, the impact is. Choose wisely.

Once in a Lifetime

Every day we have a chance. We have a chance to act differently for who's in front of us. We have the opportunity to show up with our best selves.

We might do a repetitive job. We might perform work for the same people everyday. But it doesn't mean we need to act like it. We could act as if we're the only ones capable of doing it this way. We could act like it's the chance of a lifetime to make a small difference.

What would be missed if we were gone? Choose wisely.

Posture

What we do is important. We are what we do. But, how we do them is more important. How we posture ourselves greatly affects the change we seek to make. Some elements of a positive and effective posture...

  • tone

  • approach

  • cadence

  • velocity

  • body language

  • vigor

  • regimen

  • ethics

  • generosity

  • thoughtfulness

  • open minded

  • integrity

  • smiles

  • curiosity

  • listening

  • empathy

My Mother often told me to stand up straight so people would see me differently. Turns out, she was on to something.

Create Better Listeners

Effective listening is an intentional act. It's a posture of leaning in, giving someone our undivided attention, hearing and processing what they're saying to us. It's quite easy to spot ineffective listening. Facial expressions, distractions, body language, responses and reactions are all clues. Sometimes, the recipient just isn't interested or the timing isn't right. But more often, a large part of the burden falls upon us as the story tellers. Is the subject important to the listener? Is our tone and cadence supportive of being understood? What's the conversation for? Is it to enroll someone in an idea? Or, are we delivering a tough message? Or, is it simply chit chat? Each requires a different approach. But, they all require a story, one important and interesting to the listener.

If this was the last conversation we had with someone, would we change it? Would we tell the story differently, with a different posture? Would the message be more clear? Would we make our point more directly? Would we seek a higher level of engagement by asking more questions? Would we say less?

Listening only works when someone wants to hear us. It's our job then to create something worth listening to. Choose wisely...it might be our only shot.