The gap

# Chapter 136

Measuring the gap is trouble. I was reading yesterday about how many of us measure the gap of performance in our lives, and we are chronically unhappy, dissatisfied constantly, and not pleased one bit about it. Falling short is something no one wants, not a thing that we would aim for under any circumstances. But we do it so consistently that something is amiss here and we need to talk about this.

First of all, what are you measuring? There is a whole scale at play here, and I am pretty sure that we have placed some of our desired marks in inappropriate places on this scale. Speaking of scales, that is my first remembered performance gap, my piano recital. I was eight or nine years old and believe it or not, there were quite a few aspiring pianists that had been studying for years and years and who were much more accomplished than I was as a first year student. There was definitely a performance gap, between me and those older more accomplished students, but the gap felt personal. Even though I had played my assigned pieces reasonably well, the very real gap across the scale of talent and years of practice, made mine seem . . . less. What are you measuring and is it skill appropriate?

Second of all, when are you measuring? There is a time frame at play here, and I am pretty sure that we have placed some of our desired marks in inappropriate places on this scale too. The newbie out of college expects to be the CEO immediately. Yeah, there is a performance gap. The med student who wants to skip residency and start at the lead surgeon role . . . yeah that ain’t gonna work either. Measuring the gap is trouble. Tomorrow I will tell you a better way.

Mr Grumpy Pants

# Chapter 135

Sometimes you have to sweat your buggers out. For me this works far more often than it fails. When I am a grumpy pants and I am snapping at my lovely bride, which happens too often, then it is time to get on the bicycle and go for a long hard ride, and that generally wipes the grumpy pants right off of me. Happened yesterday even. Not enough sleep - often a primary cause of grumpy pantness - and I find I can’t even be civil. Yep, time to get on the bike and not come back for a couple of hours. That will wear grumpy pants right out of you. For novelist Murakami it was running every day. Others might find swimming, walking, rowing, or mountain climbing to be your forte, but whatever it is please be sure to get your time in every day and be the best possible human you can be.

Nothing works like sweating to equalize your emotional state and condition, so that you can interact with other humans and do no damage. Heck you might find like I do, that people actually enjoy being with you once you are no longer Mr or Mrs Grumpy pants. I am sure that my wife would have divorced me long again if I had not taken up daily exercising, it keeps me much more evenly keeled than I would be otherwise.

Perhaps you are one of the naturally steady people who never act like a crocodile or an angry bear, and I am jealous that you have that kind of emotional foundation, but I don’t think most people do. The divorce rate and break-up rate is too high for those emotionally easy-going people to be the majority. Regardless where you fit into the emotions scale, you can benefit greatly from regular daily exercise. Evening out your jagged moments is just one of the best benefits.

When I am the problem

# Chapter 134

We never consider. That it is WE who might be the problem as we complain about how things are arranged in the grocery store, complain about why this product has been moved from its previous location, complain about how they are upselling me, complain about the check out process, and the shelves that don’t carry what you want at the moment, that the parking is all wrong, that whatever isn’t the way you would do it. Have you ever considered that you might be the problem? I am considering that I am the problem. Seriously considering it. You should as well. We may find that we are unpleasantly surprised that we are the problem.

Even when I understand that I am the problem, that doesn’t make it easy to change my thinking nor especially my behaviors. I know this for sure because I am trying to do precisely that right now . . . and failing miserably. I react and am emotionally and have these knee-jerk reactions that pop out of my mouth before I can reel them back in and then I have to deal with the consequences of me being the problem. I do not like being the problem, I do not like knowing that I am the problem, and I do not like my lack of success in correcting the problem. I have got to do better. It is my only New Year’s resolution.

Consider carefully if you are the problem.

Don’t wait

# Chapter 133

Don’t wait any longer, now is the time. The future is closer than ever and there is less of it too. So get to it and stop waiting for . . . whatever. Far too often we find ourselves waiting and waiting and waiting. Said another way, we procrastinate, we defer, we delay, we get distracted, we get overwhelmed, we don’t want to put ourselves out there, we are afraid, and we wait. We have more than we should already on our plates and it is all too easy to just ride that normal too-busy-with-too-much-to-do pace than we like to throttle our lives with, instead of taking that new step, making that way more important decision to take action on, instead of doing what could change your world and change your future. Don’t wait any longer.

The most difficult thing I ever did in my adult working life, was resign from my company where I had worked for 23 years in four different countries. When I finally finally finally did pull the trigger and leave, it felt very threatening. Fast forward one year later and I was scratching my head wondering why in the world did it take me so long to leave?? I could have been free from that toxicity and free to choose my own path so much sooner. But it is frankly much much easier to stay with your status quo, rather than gain your freedom. Taking action on your future is tough and the best most important thing you can do right now. The future is closer than ever. Stop waiting. Take action.

5% of the people my age . . .

# Chapter 132

Get moving start living. This was the theme of the 2005 Ultra Alpine Marathon in Slovenia. It is a phrase that I have lived well for many years now, ever since 1995. I had a brain aneurysm in ’95 and probably died a couple of times before they got things back on track. It was time to stop contributing to my death and start contributing to my life. “Get moving start living” is a fine place to begin and to continue. I no longer am running ultra marathons much less ALPINE ultramarathons, but I continue to sweat each day as best I can. Living in a hot wet climate makes this much much easier, but since I don’t unfortunately, sweating is much more challenging for half of each year.

I am rather addicted to moving now, or as I see it, I am addicted to living and living well now, moving is just one of the means of having this body function in these ways. You only get this one body and it has to take you through so much, treat it well and it may treat you well in response. Treat it poorly and it will still treat you as well as it can, but that is a far cry from how it wishes you treated it, and it could treat you. But since I am one of the 5% of my age group that exercises regularly, I can tell you that 95% of the health problems that my age group faces are a result of not moving.

Nutella and peanut butter

# Chapter 131

Honey, Nutella and peanut butter are all the rage at our house this morning, and most mornings. It is the sugar rush that gets our days started and our motors humming. All that sugar is probably hastening our ends as well, but what a sweet manner in which to go. Much better than the strictly vegetarian manner in which we eat most of the time. Either way we are moving toward our finish and that can be healthy and whole or unhealthy and struggling every step of the way. But you have to sprinkle the day with some treats and spikes so that you can have some pleasure points along the way. There are plenty of reasons to do this, as well as some reasons not to do this, because my dental hygiene doesn’t like this as well.

In a world where there are raging viruses shutting down the world it seems, friends dying left and right, funerals to attend, sicknesses to worry about, broken bones to navigate, elder care to do, travel to arrange, multiple currency worries, retirement worries, don’t listen to the news! This is not a Ben and Jerry’s binge suggestion, but more a have-a-few-high-points-in-the-day suggestion. We need to keep our attitudes and outlooks bright and serve others. Not becoming obsessed with all the worries that are available to us. Those worries aren’t going anywhere, they will be right there waiting for you anytime you need a fresh worry to mull over. I think the Nuttela and peanut butter are a much better foundation with which to consider our concerns, than life without them.

Live it!

# Chapter 130

Another person is gone. Nothing like death to make life feel all the more precious and important. It is critical to your well being to live well today and change the world around you, change you, move forward, make progress, be fully alive. Living is an active event, not a passive one and you have to engage and live it, not just let it happen to you. This may not look the same for each of us because we are all so vibrantly different while being amazingly similar, but what “living it” means will change from person to person. And you have any difficulty at all understanding what “living it” means for you, then you have not yet begun to do so. You need to look deep within and think hard and understand what it is that drives you and makes you tick. That is the essence of “living it” for you.

Once you know what your “living it” is, then you have do it and I am astonished at how many struggle with that. The noise of the daily world and the pressures you feel distract you from living it at all, much less living it well. Living it well is a celebration of life and a full engagement in this moment that you have been given. This is all you have, and it is all you need, and honestly it is all you could manage on your best day. Live it!

What you can take with you

# Chapter 129

You have to share your power and influence if you want to create change. Most positions and most people are interested in keeping their power for themselves, and they use their influence to benefit themselves - this would be the norm in the world. But you and I are not in the norm on this one, because we definitely want to change the world, we want to create change. Change that will make the world a better place for everyone, not just better for us. This will require more of us than most things we have attempted before. This is harder than you think. Will you take a loss in order for others to have freedom or opportunity or self-determination? This sounds good and easy on paper, while you reading your blogs with your morning coffee in a warm house, but this is decidedly less easy when it costs you, and it will cost you.

Yet you can build up all the power and influence in the world and continually move “up” whatever ladder you are climbing and in the end you will die and not be able to take any of it with you, just as this is true of all of us. All you really have is what you give away, so share what you cannot take into eternity with you, share your power and influence and watch others gain a disproportionate amount of progress from your shared power and influence. You will get a much larger bang for your buck investing in change than you will investing in more success for yourself. Not only that, you can take this with you.

How you live this day

# Chapter 128

Sundays that feel like Mondays. Is that because Saturday felt like Sunday since I was on the road driving 12 hours? Maybe I am just off a day for the whole week? Nah its more likely that I am thinking about all the work related pieces that I want to get started on restoring this old truck, because I am not here long and there is so much to do and focus on and work at, that I probably just want this to be Monday so I can get at it. I know I know that you have never ever wanted it to be Monday morning, but sometimes I do. I am eager to get to the work of this week.

And honestly what day of the week it is has long stopped mattering to me very much, they all blend more and more the older I get. If you don’t have a very specific job related to a very specific day of the week, like a pastor of a church which meets on Sunday, then I think it is easy for the days to sort of start blending together.

And now to the point of all this chatter as I enjoy my coffee peanut butter and Nutella, that what you do each day is far more important than what day of the week it happens to be. How you live this day is what it critical. It may be your last and it may not, but what you do, or don’t do, really matters. And that mattering is what is crucial to today. Make your mattering count!

Less than a child

# Chapter 127

The beginning is where you start. I know that seems beyond simple but when I listen to people talk, they all want to start much further down the line than at the beginning. My son-in-law wants to be in the C-suite right out of college! If only I were joking. Now I agree that doing time for the sake of doing time in a business or company, especially as a reward for loyalty is cruel and typical punishment. Talent should be rewarded in one manner, loyalty in another. My son-in-law has talent, and he will need to spend far less time at the beginning than perhaps will others, but everyone starts at the beginning. You have to learn what you have to learn. You may have earned highest honors in your engineering class, but this application at this job of your engineering skills will require a beginning. A context in which to understand what is needed. This onboarding may vary in length and degree but it is necessary for each and every person.

So why do we resist the beginning? Well at the very least we hate being beginners again. Engage learning a new language, and you will quickly find out the dogs in the street understand far more than you do! This realization occurred to me about a month into learning Russian at Rostov State University in Rostov-na-danu Russia. I went from being a highly accomplished respected professional to less than a child in mere days. This is what a beginning can feel like. Just get over it, beginnings are where you start, embrace it, go with it, learn the basics well, excel in all else beyond.

Incentive

# Chapter 126

Incentive, what makes us want to move forward? Well of course if we are talking about work, then compensation in all its forms is a big part of that, at least it seems like that is the primary lever for almost everyone I talk to. Since Brenda and I are not wired that way, it is not what gets us going, but we get it that it does others, at least to a point. Money never brought anyone any long term satisfaction so it is a little difficult to imagine that being what gets me up and moving every morning. On the other hand, it is important to pay your bills. And the feeling of safety that brings is powerful.

After the bills are paid, a much better incentive is appreciation from someone up the line. Appreciation from peers and your buds is fine too, but that is not where the incentive comes from. Appreciation by a boss, or someone further up the food chain is what will get you cranked up and moving in the mornings, afternoon and evenings. When people are noticing and finding something to like in your choices, actions and initiative, that feeds something inside of each of us. And a little appreciation goes a long ways.

Finally incentive is fueled by you working on something that is within your wheelhouse, within your strengths, within your interests. When we are interested or talented within a certain action or conversation, it gets us going. We all want to contribute in certain ways and when we get the opportunity to do so, we are reeved up and ready to go.

(All these ideas come from a podcast by Bernie Anderson and Joshua MacLeod, and the Growability podcast)

Don’t get run over

# Chapter 125

Keep moving or get either left behind or run over. I know I know, you want to just rest on your laurels and plod along. But in case you haven’t noticed things are changing faster than ever and you need to keep up, or at the very least keep moving. Because right when you want (need) to matter most, you are in danger of becoming irrelevant. Your history and experience are valuable components of who you are and what you can bring to the table, but they also are the potential millstones around your neck as you try to swim in the deep waters of life. They can sink you completely as you rest restfully on your laurels (awards trophies prizes, etc). No one cares about those because they are in the past, and most everyone is future-oriented. Whether they should or not is the subject of today’s point. Those reveling in the past are those past considering, those past their prime, those who aren’t making a difference today or tomorrow, and yes I agree the past is important - critical even to learning - but don’t get stuck there. Keep moving.

This becomes more difficult it seems as you age and the more tendency to focus on the past becomes a temptation, perhaps there is some correlation? Yeah I think there probably is, its just too consistently what happens. But you can choose differently, you can keep moving and not get run over. More importantly, you can choose to continue to matter in the lives of those you love the most.

Home?

# Chapter 124

I have dug in deep here at home after eight days on the International Road of travel. Literally I don’t want to go anywhere and I want to burrow into this place as much as I can. This may be referred to as nesting after almost 30 years of jet setting around the world and international living in multiple places - the deep desire to go no where and change nothing and just BE at home. And the is the key word there, home, whatever it means to you, is an ever moving target in our lives. By necessity it has been more about a set of relationships than a place because we have moved so often and into different countries, but now as a result of the worldwide pandemic may just start to mean a place for us as much as a set of relationships. At least it looks like it is heading that way, or has become that way as we now have at least two major people anchoring us to this physical place - that means they need us and we provide something for them.

Everyone needs a home base, whether that is a geographical spot on the planet surface or a network of relationships or both if you are lucky. A place to decompress and unwind and recharge and reboot and get your feet back under yourself after you have spent all of that there is serving others, helping others, doing your special gig in the world, after giving all that you have to give, you need a home to refill all the now empty places in yourself. Come nest at home for a while and be filled.

Drips

# Chapter 123

Be the drip that changes the world. Oh I guess the word drip has some negatives attached to it culturally now, don’t we all. Ok, be the steady never-ending force of tiny impacts against the stones of wrong in the world and break them down! Like I said four days ago, these consistently done daily actions and systems, produce a far great result than does blinding inspiration or tons of motivation. Inspiration and motivation make things easier, but they don’t produce a better quality result. Daily steady consistent impact and effort in the same direction can cut through anything eventually. You will be changed as you change the world!

I know that when you sit back and look at what I am suggesting, it doesn’t seem so, but it is true and you only have to ask any, or every, person who has a track record of doing so, if it is true. They will always confirm what I am telling you here. On the other hand you don’t have to take the time to do that, just think about it for a moment. Do you think that we would continue to practice our daily systems and action were they not producing something valuable? Oh so you don’t doubt me that they are producing something valuable, but your question lies in the scale and reach of our value? Your constant steady drip will break any stone if it is designed properly, instead of being designed to only build your muscles for instance. The steady and consistent part are the tactical pieces, the design or intent is the strategic piece. Yeah!

Effortless doesn’t exist

# Chapter 122

Effortless. That is what the work seems like, when a master is doing it. Effortless. But the appearance of effortless beauty is not an accurate reflection of what has preceded this moment. My wife and I have lived in a number of countries over the decades and we have learned some difficult languages and some easier languages (if there is such a thing). And my wife is a marvel, a complete master, a musical phonetical linguistic genius, you should hear her speak the language of the country of where she is now! But what no one but me sees, are the hours and hours, daily and more daily, of intense diligent effort that she puts into this flawless seemingly effortless flow of language that wells up within her and spins out like silk when talking. No one seems to account for the years and years of labor that made it possible. For some reason people want to think that Brenda was just born multi linguistic and that the rest of us aren’t the prodigy that she is, but the reality is that the rest of us just will not work that hard. That’s right, we are lazy bums, unwilling to apply the diligence and discipline required to master something.

Effortless doesn’t exist. Oh it certainly appears to exist, because we just saw it with our own eyes, but it is an illusion, a mirage, a shimmering magic show, that does never convey the work, the dedication, the effort, the years of labor behind the illusion. As my dad has often said, “when someone makes it look easy, you are watching a master at work.”

Drinking with the boys

# Chapter 121

What is holding you back? For many people that would be bad habits and systems that are creating negative traction in their lives. I see it all the time and frankly I still experience it sometimes. When negative traction starts holding you back, you need to discern the sticking point - and honestly that is abundantly clear 95% of the time because of direct correlation. You see the negative results immediately following this poor decision, habit or process. I love beer, or at least I used to love beer. But 30 years of stepping on the scales the morning after drinking with the boys irrefutably proves that drinking adds weight. 30 years of impacted sleep after drinking with the boys (and it got worse as I got older) irrefutably proves that drinking affects my sleep in a negative way. This may be a silly example because drinking is socially expected and is incremental in its effects, and some of the smartest people I know in the world regularly abuse it!

But for me, the regular consistent negative traction that drinking with the boys was giving me, screamed “give it up!” for 30 years. There is no upside to continuing, other than the small social benefit of how others see me in a given context. Everything else about it is negative in some fashion, and still it took me 30 years to start setting aside drinking with the boys, even though it was holding me back in so many ways. Don’t be dense. If something is consistency providing negative traction, then stop. Today is always preferable to tomorrow and easier too.

Taking a break?

# Chapter 120

This past week I have been on the road traveling throughout Eastern Europe and I did not write this daily portion at all, in fact I did not pick up a computer at all while traveling. I did none of my daily practices and systems that I have done for years, while traveling this week. It was a very very intense week that allowed no other tasks to be considered. Thank God that I don’t live like that on any regular basis! It was super exhausting and intense and I was sleep deprived and grumpy as hell. You did not want to hang out with me last week.

But you would think that a full week long break would give me some fresh ideas for writing each morning, that I would enjoy the “rest” of not working out, that the change of pace from my systems that I have followed for over 10 years would breath fresh air into my morning routines when I returned yesterday. Nope. All I did was miss my patterns and systems, but no new energy or ideas or passion or a sense of rest or recovery. I just missed the continuity of doing tasks that are important and that force me to produce some of my best work.

Many times I read that “taking a break” is helpful, and get it that it most likely is just that for many people. But for me, just the steady practice of putting my butt in the chair and not getting up until its finished is the right way, perhaps the only way for me to do this work. “Fresh” isn’t nearly as important as daily in my life. Whats your mileage like on this one?

It’s what you are

# Chapter 119

We are each unique and are driven by private things that no one else can see or know unless we allow them to do so. And thus we make, do and create in ways and for reasons that no one else understands or can do. Unique in the sense that there is no exact replica of you, but not unique in the sense that you share large parts of your makeup and culture and values with others similar to you. Yet your personality and inner world are far more private and unique and so what you are going to do, what you have been doing, at least in your head, is an invention of your own mind. And I would further this argument and direction of thought by suggesting that this is your niche in the world, and you can capitalize it if you have the drive and find the means.

This is where you will invent what you are inside. Hopefully that is altruistic and helpful to the world, hopefully helping and not hurting, hopefully changing the world better for all. This is where your time, talent and treasures all come into play into what you want to BE in the world. This is what you were made to do, make, and create all the time and this is the best version of you and the one that will allow you to make your mark on the world, on all of eternity, regardless if wikipedia picks you up or not. Wikipedia is a reflection of what is important to a culture, not a reflection of what is important. You get to decide this in this situation. It won’t be money or fame or power and stuff like that, because all of that is driven by Western culture, greed is not what you are made up of inside yourself. You were made for more than that!

The circle of success

# Chapter 118

The difficult made easy. Or at least easier. As you practice difficult things, hard things, awesome things, complex things, impossible things, they will become easy-ier. Practice takes the mystery out of the work and makes you gradually able to feel comfortable and at home in the context of this impossible thing that you are working on or toward. There is no way that you won’t make progress on this, if you apply yourself and practice regularly. Practice being one key word, but regularly being the other key word, because if you don’t use it you lose it. If you don’t regularly use and practice this impossible thing, you will rapidly lose whatever progress you have gained. You will lose the momentum you have gathered, you will lose that sense of comfort and familiarity that you have been gaining. That doesn’t mean you can’t take a break, but regularly is a key word here.

The difficult made easier because practice ramps up your commitment, and commitment, once it experiences progress, ramps up enthusiasm , and enthusiasm once engaged becomes the fuel for more practice and the circle of success has begun. And this is the good and fun part. The reframing of your expectations about how quickly this all will occur is the difficult part. Realigning expectations is demanding on a good day, but it is a monster when it comes to seeing progress on making the difficult made easier. Folks there is a reason this is in the difficult category! It is hard, it is complex, this is not building with Legos! This is change the world difficult and progress will be SLOW. So realign those expectations right now and just making living with you so much more fun right off the bat. Then you will have appropriate feeling for the circle of progress that you have begun.

what it is worth and how to use it and what it means

# Chapter 117

You do know that time is like, rolling downhill? That it seemingly goes faster and faster as you age. That you seemingly have less and less of it to enjoy. That there are more and more things you aren’t completing and accomplishing and more and more things that you need help with, that decades ago you would have simply done them yourself. Time is rolling downhill and its gaining momentum! This is apparently true until they put you in the nursing home, and then time stops completely. Or that is how it looks from the outside, and how it felt when my mom was there for a few weeks.

From a leadership or development perspective, time is not moving up or down the slope, but we certainly are doing both! There are changes to be sure, but they are all centered in us, not time itself. At most levels time is just a mental construct anyways, a system that we have developed for measuring it and valuing it. But we decide what it is worth and how to use it and what it means. So if time suddenly or incrementally seems like it is rolling downhill you are feeling the changes within you, your internal reassessment of what you do and how long it may be doing it. In my peer group, most have this sudden feeling when they lose a parent or sibling to death. That is the big quantifier that changes how and what we see and feel.

The objective reality is that time continues to march along at the same pace we have always measured it and we are the ones in constant flux and change.