Korean war memorial cover picture

Weekend Challenge #51: Trust in the Foxhole

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1950. Chosin Reservoir, North Korea. Young American soldiers and Marines huddled in the dirt, near overrun by Chinese armies. The darkness pierces as flashes of enemy gear and bullets rush at them. The enemy’s lightning movement in stark contrast to the frozen terrain. Breath hanging for minutes in the -36° air. Firing pins too cold to strike hard enough and send a round downrange.[i]

For fourteen days and nights, American troops sat frozen as the enemy attacked. No way out. No chance of reinforcement. All they had was one another. The men lying next to them in the foxhole trading time in the bottom where the slightest warmth could be found with time on the top peering into the darkness. Shaking each other awake after only a few minutes to avoid frostbite while they slept. All they had was the man next to them. All they had, was the hope brought by another person surviving the same situation they were.  All they had was trust in the foxhole.

Marines at Chosin
Marines at “Frozen Chosin” relying on one another

Do you have foxhole trust with friends in your life?

Although you and your friends will likely never face anything such as Chosin, the lessons learned there shine light upon what it means to build real trust.

In his book, Think Like a Monk, Jay Shetty, outlined “4 C’s” of trust.[ii] See if you can catch how they might have been at play in the foxholes of Chosin:

Competence. When someone is competent, their opinions and recommendations can be trusted. They do their job and fill their role.

Care. We can trust people who we know care about us and have our best interests in mind.

Character. Those with a strong moral compass and uncompromising values earn our trust because we can rely on them for wisdom and guidance.

Consistency. Those we trust are reliable, present, and available when we need them.

It’s not a leap to see each of the 4 C’s at Chosin. Those soldiers had to be confident in each man’s ability to do their job and keep everyone alive. They cared for each other by sharing desperately low food rations and taking watch while others slept. They leaned on the uncompromising shared values of service and sacrifice. They were confident in each other to be there when temperatures dropped, the sunset, and the enemy was on the move.

The foxholes at Chosin can be tough to relate to but if we shift the enemy from the literal Chinese army to the metaphorical battles of life, we can start to see ourselves peeking over the edge. We need a foxhole built on trust when a family member passes, we lose a job, we move to a new city, we wave goodbye as our kids go to college, someone leaves a relationship, anxiety rises, depression sets in, a pandemic surges, a natural disaster strikes, or in the face of any other tribulation that comes our way.

If we are alone in our foxhole of LIFE, we are almost certain to be overrun by tragedy and loss. But if we turn around and see others in the foxhole with us, our resolve is strengthened.

It leaves us to question if we build the kind of trust necessary to fill the foxhole or if our adulthood and complacency strip us of some of the most important relationships of life. Loneliness, particularly in men, is rampant as I wrote in the very first piece for this blog, and our inability to build trust is a big player.

This is where the finger-pointing starts. We blame lost friendships on others. That old friend ditched you when they got married. Your college roommate got a job out of state and you never heard from them. When you moved, your friends seemed to forget about you. You ended a bad relationship that your friendships were tied to and no one took your side.

All of those are real possibilities but they rob you of ownership. You stopped reaching out. You pouted instead of making plans. You took it personally when someone had to cancel. You didn’t build your own network and relied on your old partner to do it for you. You let the friendships go and emptied your foxhole in the name of pride and being busy.

The problem is, we like ownership when it comes to workouts and waking up early. We don’t like it when it comes to our relationships and friendships. It’s easy to take what Jocko Willink says about extreme ownership and apply it to your alarm clock but his message is so much more.

If you don’t have foxhole friendships, you have to look at yourself first.

If you don’t have foxhole friendships, you have to look at yourself first.

You might be expecting me to give you answers at this point, so I hate to let you down. The truth is though, I write about things I struggle with so I’m working on how I build and maintain trust with my friends too. The best I can do is offer some questions that can jumpstart your ability to build trust and friendship:

  • Competence
    • What can I learn about that my friends are interested in?
    • What needs are there in my friend group that I can be more aware of?
    • Do I have the skills needed to be in the foxhole with my friends as they face challenges?
  • Care
    • How do I show my friends that I care about them?
    • Do I really operate with my friend’s best interest in mind or do I bring selfishness to our interactions?
  • Character
    • Do I live the LIFE values as an example for my friends?
    • In what circumstances do I compromise our values for my own betterment?
    • Am I vulnerable in my journey to live with character or do I only present the strong moments to my friends?
  • Consistency.
    • Am I consistent enough?
    • What are the inner conversations I have that hold me back from reaching out to friends?
    • Am I secure enough in myself to answer when they call on me?

These questions can be tough to handle. I for one, know that I act selfishly in a lot of my friendships. I don’t want to admit it, but the truth is where I have to start.

The bottom line is that you need foxhole friendships to live LIFE to the full. The lone wolf sounds cool, but no lone wolf survives. It takes a pack. How will you build yourself into the person others want in the foxhole when the sun sets, temperatures drop, and the enemy is on the move?

Weekend Challenge

Two parts to really get into action on building yourself this weekend.

First, determine what your foxhole looks like. If we’re honest, a lot of us (especially men over 27 according to the research) look around our metaphorical foxhole and realize it’s empty. By being so focused on what is coming at us, we failed to build the trust that others need to be in the foxhole with us. We use excuses like being busy, prioritizing family, and having a career to justify our small number, and low-quality friendships but the truth is we simply don’t place the value on them that we should. We don’t admit that strong friendships would make us better family members, colleagues, and leaders. So, take stock of the foxhole. Who is with you? Would you also be in there’s?

Second, with those folks (or lack of) in mind. Ask yourself some of the questions above. Get some paper, write out the 4 C’s, and honestly evaluate yourself as a trust-builder. Find one of the 4 C’s that you might be able to improve upon to build more trust and then begin to act by making a call, checking in, buying a book, getting the LIFE Enacted Guide to align better with your values (yup, I did it!).

That’s it. I hope you have a great weekend. A weekend full of friendship, meaningfulness, and moving toward the person you want to be.

Best today. Better tomorrow.

[i] If you’re interested in Chosin, I read a really cool historical novel on the topic a few years back. It’s a big read but worth it if you’re into it. It’s called Frozen Hours by Jeff Shaara. Go check it out.

[ii] Shetty was inspired for his 4 C’s from the 3 C’s of trust put forward by a study on the Iraq War titled, “The 3 C’s of Trust: The Core Elements of Trust are Competence, Character, and Caring” authored by Michael D. Matthews and published in Psychology Today in 2016. (http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/head-strong/201605/the-3-c-s-trust)

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Weekend Challenge #50: Three Reasons to Embrace Your Jaggedness

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You are not average. No one is. There’s no such thing as average. That’s what Todd Rose, a high school dropout turned Harvard professor, says. I’m inclined to believe him, and I see the truth in it every single day.

In the 1950s, the United States Air force had a problem. Their pilots were struggling to get their wings and even crashing planes at times. The problem was quickly identified. The pilots had grown since planes were first developed and the cockpits no longer fit them. To fix the issues, they set out to measure over 4,000 pilots for 10 dimensions of size – arm length, torso height, etc. The thinking was that the new cockpits should be designed for the average size pilot among all these dimensions. Sounds about right. But, it wasn’t.

There were exactly 0 pilots that fit the average. No single pilot was “average” size. The Air force had spent a lot of money to figure out their research was ineffective.

The ultimate solution was one that inspired many of the features in your car today. They made the cockpit adjustable to the pilot, instead of trying to make the pilot adjustable to the average cockpit. Yup, that car seat that has 4 settings for every member of your family was inspired by the Air Force. Thanks, America!

Instead of the average, Rose said that each pilot had a “jagged profile” of size. One might have long arms but a short torso while another has long legs and broader shoulders. (Notice how “average” also negated the chance that women may ever fly the planes).

Example from Todd Rose of jagged profiles of intelligence

Such findings are important for the Air Force and car manufacturers, but they hold true power when we start to see them everywhere. In schools, we want to teach for the average students but when we understand jaggedness, it’s easy to see that there is no such thing. We want to create an 8-hour workday that is the average time spent on work tasks for a good employee but now we have entrepreneurs, freelancers, and a deep passion for our lives beyond the office.

In your daily life, jaggedness is crucial. If you want to live well and be fulfilled you can’t chase some kind of average, even if it’s “above average.” Instead, you have to understand your own jaggedness because it carries three important implications for your LIFE.

First, jaggedness reminds us that we are in fact unique and no one is “average”

I don’t mean this in a “we’re all special” kind of way. I mean that, in a very practical sense, you have unique things to offer the world. You have skills, talents, treasures, thoughts, and ideas and that can work in distinctive combinations to improve your life and those around you. It also means you don’t have things that others do. Popular culture tells you to spend your energy filling that gap between what you have and what you don’t so eventually you have everything but that doesn’t hold up in reality.

The Jagged principle tells you to use what you do have to optimize your life just as the Air force pilots did with the cockpit. If you have business acumen, start something. If you have a talent for sales, sell something. If you can sing like Mariah Carey then grab that mic. Worry less about becoming a culminated above average person who has a business, sings at Carnegie Hall, and sells ice to Polar Bears because you won’t get there or at least won’t have the passion to sustain it. Worry more about how you might be a unique contributor to something you believe in.

Second, the jagged principle helps you build stronger relationships.

Consider Michael Jordan who remains to be the best basketball player to ever live. His track-record is undeniable but when we say he is the best player ever; what do we mean? Even Jordan himself in the new docuseries, The Last Dance, acknowledged that without Pippen and Rodman, he wouldn’t have won so much. It was no coincidence that Pippen had the most assists in the NBA and Rodman was near the top in rebounds nearly every year the Bulls won. Jordan, as you do, had a staggered profile of skills. What he understood is that it wasn’t his job to fix the lower skills and become closer to the average – it was to elevate the teammates that could fill those gaps for him and allow them all to fully capitalize on their high points.

You have a team too. The LIFE Council is built on the foundation that friendships matter. Friendships in this case though are not people we like to hang out with and make us feel good. A LIFE Council member will call you out on your fear and push you when needed. They don’t care about your feelings as much as they do about your character and potential.

If you can understand your jaggedness, you can begin to build a network of reciprocal relationships – romantic, friendships, mentorships, and others – that provide fulfillment for everyone. Now, to clarify, I’m not advocating that you build relationships based purely on what others can do for you. That’s sociopathic behavior and would ignore jaggedness to only honor others for their best attributes. Instead, knowledge of jaggedness allows you to embrace friendships as components of being your best self. As a friend, you can offer the areas that you have strength in but can be humble to accept guidance in those you do not. You don’t have to hide behind the facade that you have it all because you are aware that “having it all” doesn’t actually exist and that vulnerability creates trust, the foundation of all relationships.

Third, the jagged principle helps us get better in meaningful ways instead of entering the unrealistic “be the best in everything always” rat race.

Related to the first two lessons, the jagged principle creates space for focus. The “grind” and social media want you to believe that you must get better every day, in every way. Ever notice how little attention is paid to what “better” even means? It seems to be just having more. More money, more intelligence, more fitness, more beauty, more abs, more productivity, more discipline, more rest, more mindfulness, more everything. But more of everything soon becomes less of what matters as you become some robotic type of “average.”  

Instead, understand your jaggedness and stop aiming for a good average. Like Jordan, aim for excellence in one or two areas. Become the best in the world (or at least your world) at one thing. Be the best father. Be the best wife. Be the best writer. Be the best and watch the average of your other traits come along for the ride. If you don’t know your jaggedness, you don’t know what to focus on and you shift your attention like a dog surrounded by an army of squirrels.

Don’t fall for the trap that you need to be “better” at everything. It’s impossible and an invisible prison of mediocrity because if you’re average everywhere, you’re not excellent anywhere.

This principle of jagged gifts and abilities is not new but Rose offers it to a world that is teeming with distraction and comparison. The LIFE Council exists to help people move the needle in their lives forward but not in a “do everything” sense. Instead, to have LIFE to the full, you must know your jaggedness and harness your gifts to contribute to those around you and build meaning. I’d dare to say that being some culmination of average, would be a pretty boring life. Live big. Live full. Live jagged.

Weekend Challenge

This weekend get to know your jaggedness. This isn’t necessarily an exercise in strengths and weaknesses. It could be that, but it offers more if you want it to. You can do this with one big exercise, or you could do a few and be more specific. Here are some examples.

  1. Fitness. I went through this about a year ago and it led me to train for my first Ironman. I plotted out the jaggedness of my fitness with the traits of mobility, cardiovascular, strength, size, mental toughness, and intensity. Turns out I felt below average on cardiovascular and intensity. So, I decided to choose an event that would capitalize on my mental toughness but expose the weakness of the other two, and I still lift a few days a week. I didn’t simply drop my above averages toward average to bring the others up. I tried to elevate my jaggedness
  2. Parenting. Obviously, without kids, I haven’t done this one but I could imagine you plotting things like time with kids, patience, service, activity planning, or positive talk. Then you could share that with your spouse, or even your kids, and see that you’re not trying to be the average parent, but you are trying to be really excellent in areas that matter to you and that you already have an edge. Use your above averages as leverage for the others or compliment your partner.
  3. Self-development. This could be a broader way to approach your LIFE. Plot exercise, healthy eating, reading, journaling, prayer, sleep, learning, and bad habits to see how holistically jagged you are.
Jagged fitness example
My jagged fitness

With each of these, you may see places for growth and areas to celebrate. What you will not see is a perfectly average person across the board. Even if Instagram wants that from you – an above-average everywhere robot – you can’t and shouldn’t want to provide it. Understand your jaggedness and then start to see it in others. Just because someone isn’t as rich as you are, doesn’t mean they are dumber than you too. Just because you’re kid isn’t at the top of the class doesn’t mean they aren’t incredibly creative.

See the nuance in people. Stop labeling based on one thing you notice. For you and for them.

Have a great weekend!

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #49: The Ultimate Believer

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It’s 2021. 2020 is behind us and the world looks…the same? We’re six days into the new year and the pandemic is still here, schools are still closed for now, and we had one of, if not the, most egregious acts ever committed in American political history as a mob got inside the United State Capitol on January 6th. I’ll be honest, it all left me feeling pretty low, defeated, and wondering if what I do even matters.

Amid all of it, I was reminded of a quote from a mentor and friend. Zach Mercurio, the author of The Invisible Leader, has said “The first step to discovering purpose – in school, at work, in life – is a deep appreciation and love for yourself – the belief that you have something to offer.”

The first step to discovering purpose – in school, at work, in life – is a deep appreciation and love for yourself – the belief that you have something to offer.

– Zach Mercurio

I had to remind myself that even in the midst of chaos, the individual – I – could meaningfully contribute to a better life. I was almost ashamed of myself because I launched a product just weeks ago based in the belief that an individual person, with a clear vision and purposeful commitments, can change their lives and impact those around them in positive ways. I felt like I had been a fraud.

Zach and other authors have shared the message of self-belief over and over, yet I still have trouble with it. Maybe you do too. As I drafted this on January 5th, my message was, “you should believe in yourself because you are awesome.” It’s still true but now, on January 7th, I hope you can begin to believe in yourself because I fear the people our nation needs most are often silenced by their own self-doubt.

It took me 30 years to start having a voice. I still don’t know if I’m contributing but I’m trying. In those 30 years though, I can recognize two main reasons I didn’t believe in myself. Have these kept your voice from the world too?

The Shoulder Shrug. The first barrier to believing we have something to offer is the metaphorical shoulder shrug we give when we aren’t sure how to contribute in the first place. When we can’t see how it can be incredibly difficult to believe we can at all.

I’ve dedicated a lot of my life to projects and degrees to ensure that I can contribute to others. But I’ve probably spent equally as much time in the anxiety of not knowing how I can make a difference- feeling purposeless despite projects and degrees – and questioning if I can really contribute at all. But I have picked up a couple of things from people smarter than me that are helpful if you’ve ever been there too.

The best thing you can do when you don’t feel like you can contribute is…contribute. Do something seemingly tiny but that you know without a doubt is useful to someone else. Get up early to make coffee, walk the dog a few times this week (contributing to dog lives counts too), or reach out to a friend to check-in.

If none of those ideas sit with you, you can always lean on connecting people to contribute. The great thinker, Adam Grant, spoke to this in his book Give and Take as well as articles since. He said,  “An email intro is the ultimate five-minute favor: An act that costs you a tiny bit of time yet can be life-changing for others.”

If you dig through your 2021 version of a Rolodex, you’ll start to notice there may be people who you know share an interest but don’t yet know each other. Send an email to them that says, “Hey, I was thinking today how you two both share an interest for _____. I don’t have much to add to it, but I thought a connection between you could be meaningful. Cheers!”

Another way to move past the shoulder shrug is to make a list of all the ways you CAN’T contribute. Things only make the list if they truly have no impact now or seemingly into the future. What you’ll find, as I did when I tried, is the list will be incredibly short. This will force you to see that your contributions might not seem meaningful, purposeful, or giant but you contribute ALL THE TIME!

As Zach has said in other places, “if you ever wonder if what you’re doing contributes to someone else, finish the sentence, ‘This task exists so that’…” and you’ll find that at the end of nearly everything, there is another human.

If you catch yourself in the shoulder shrug of not knowing how to start, start small, and build connections. You’ll be amazed by how things can get rolling from there.

I can’t see it. The second barrier to being your own ultimate believer is the failure to see your contributions. An unfortunate lie of the Instagram culture that we’ve bought into is, “if you don’t see it, it didn’t happen.” If you do a great workout but don’t take a picture of the sweat on the floor, then you might as well have stayed on the couch, right? NO! That’s so obviously ridiculous when written on paper. The same ridiculousness applies when you convince yourself that you’re not contributing because you can’t see it clearly or immediately.

What is it called when we can’t see but we believe anyway? Faith. To be your own ultimate believer, you need faith in your contributions. It is common for teachers to talk of the ten-year rule, where students from ten years ago come back and thank them even if they were thankless a decade earlier. You must acknowledge that the same can go for you. Your contributions may not have immediate and visible outcomes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t count. In fact, lasting impact may take longer to be visible anyway.

Don’t underestimate what you can’t see.

So, yes, if you want meaningful LIFE – to love well, be a person of integrity, create fellowship, and pursue your excellence – you must start with a deep and genuine appreciation of yourself and belief that you have something to offer.

Weekend Challenge

If you’re a rational person who wants the best for others and cared about the state of the world, this weekend, please don’t let your mind convince you that you can’t contribute in a meaningful way. Take on one of the mini-challenges below to get started:

  • Connect two people who you think might have a shared interest
  • Try to make that list of what CAN’T contribute and realize how short it is
  • Complete Zach’s sentence with a few actions – “This task exists so that…”
  • Find faith in your contributions by thinking back to something you did and then saw it impacts later (it happens all the time but we so easily miss it)

That’s it, everybody. At the end of a crazy week, I hope that you can find your contributions, see the meaning in them, and move forward to make more. Have a great weekend!

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #48: A Life to Envy or A Life to Remember?

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Dare I be another blogger who is going to do an end of the year post? Should I join the ranks of those who will bait you to click on their articles by opening with something about how awful 2020 was and how we all deserve a big pat on the back for getting through it?

Maybe I should but if you know me, I hope you know, that’s not my style.

I’m publishing this on Christmas Day – a day that for me, as a Christian is one full of gratitude for the greatest gift ever given. Jesus is the reason, am I right? In honor of life given that would ultimately be traded for the lives of others, I think it’s valuable to keep this blog short to leave you with more questions than answers and time to think about them.

Over the course of the year, I hoped to give you a reason to pause and think about what you truly believe in and how you act in accordance. I’ve challenged you each week to take on a task that would help you reflect, learn, grow, and improve for yourself and those you love. I wrote every single article for myself, created each challenge to help me be a better person, and invited you to come along for the ride. I can honestly say, 2020 was an amazing year of growth for me. I hope it was for you too.

Well, this is the last Friday of 2020 and as we end the year, I want to challenge you with two final things:

The first is a shameless plug for the LIFE Enacted Guidebook that I will release next week. It is a five-part guide to set our intentions along with the LIFE principles for the next year. With 2020 being what it was, I knew it would be important to be intentional about 2021 and I want to invite you along with me. It’s was more than goal setting and will be a LIFE launching experience. Stay tuned on social for more and I challenge you to take on the hard work with me.

The second challenge got me this week and was spurred by a podcast from Tim Ferris with the great organizational thinker, Jim Collins. Collins is famous for his books Good to Great, Built to Last, and How the Mighty Fall, among others. He is a prolific thinker—about everything he says can change your life if you’re open. His genius is, in my opinion, not in his answers but in his questions. During the podcast, he shared a question he got from a coursera on philosophy and ethics that I think all of us would benefit from considering as 2020 comes to a close. Here it is:

Do you want to live a life to envy or a life to admire?

Many lives are worthy of envy. The rich and famous have lives to envy. We look at them when they are gone and think, “wow, that would be a cool life.” There’s nothing wrong with that but it takes something different to live a life to admire.

Lives to admire are scarce. On Ferris’ podcast, Collins gave the example of Abraham Lincoln. You wouldn’t envy his life. Hardships as a child including the death of his mother, ostracized everywhere he went, early love torn from him, death a regular occurrence, the burden of making decisions as President that would cost thousands of lives in a single day, and ultimately having his life taken from him just as he could have finally found rest. You don’t envy that experience, but wow, what a life to admire and learn from!

I don’t know about you, but, to me, there’s a certain amount of depth in the admirable life that the envious life simply misses. Although it might be the harder path that doesn’t result in the highest levels of material gain, I aspire to the admirable life. It’s not about legacy, it’s about making the short time I’m given on earth a contribution—a “thank you” note for the gift God gave on Christmas day a couple of thousand years ago.

What about you? Envious or admirable? You get a choice every day.

(Perhaps not ironically, Collins also noted the extreme power of small, thoughtful gestures to build a life of meaning and significance. Let that sit for a minute in regard to living an admirable life…)

Weekend Challenge

This weekend get ready to launch with the LIFE Enacted Guide. A great place to start is by simply asking yourself:

“Do I live a life to envy or a life to admire? Am I fulfilled with the answer?”

Have a Merry Christmas and a great weekend! I’m grateful for each and every one of you who is willing to invest in this amazing life we’re given by leaning into LIFE.

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #47: Envy Steals Excellence

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“If you had to trade places entirely with the person you envy, if you had to give up your brain, your principles, your proudest accomplishments to live their life, would you do it?” Ryan Holiday asked this question of readers in his most recent book; Stillness is the Key. When I read it, my answer was “no”, and I moved on. But it stuck with me the last couple of months.

Envy has been a struggle of mine. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I want other’s lives. In my case, envy is usually focused on money. I was jealous of what other people have and can buy while I struggled to pay rent in graduate school and lived in a friend’s basement. As a kid, my stepdad would drive home through the “rich neighborhood” and point with amazement to houses that we couldn’t afford. Envy of what other people own is equally deep-set as it is irrational. My life is blessed beyond the shadow of a doubt, I have no real reason to envy what others have.  

The reason you and I can answer “no” to Holiday’s question and yet struggle with envy and comparison is in the complexity of our social world. In 2020, we’re not tempted to keep up with Jones’. We’re tempted to keep up with the Jones’, Hemsworth’s, Bezos’, and fake Instagram pictures of houses people don’t own and cars they rented for the day. Our phones provide a fast pass into the lives of the rich and famous and it’s not a far jump to think we should be there too.

The E in LIFE Council represents the pursuit of excellence. It is a commitment to holistic – mental, physical, spiritual – growth, and development. When you start to pursue excellence and push the boundaries of what you are capable of, envy can become very real. You’ll soon find yourself feeling like the smallest, weakest, dumbest person in the physical or virtual room. On Instagram, your training plan to run a marathon – a measure of excellence for you – is quickly eclipsed by people taking on ultramarathons that span 200 miles or more. In real life, you’ll start to be around people who warrant comparison. For example, I started swimming at a local pool this winter and realized in five seconds that even though I was the youngest person there, I was leaps and bound behind everyone else. I started to look to the left and right and be envious of their speed and form in the water.

As an envious person at times, and someone who knows a lot of people who struggle with it too, I thought passing along four pieces of us that I’ve noticed envy steals and how to reframe our minds around each, might be helpful. Especially as we go into a season of turning over the calendar, your pursuit of excellence in 2021 can’t be envy driven if you want it to be meaningful. Let’s go:

  • Envy steals self-confidence. When I got to the pool that first day and saw everyone else was better than I was, I wanted to quit. I was embarrassed. I knew that in other areas of fitness, I might be better than them so I figured I should go back to the gym or my bike. Envy and comparison will steal every ounce of self-confidence you have. It will tell you that because someone has more than you, you must have nothing and therefore are nothing. Reframe your confidence by asking, “how did they get more or become better?” The answer will almost certainly be that they worked for a long time. I asked two of the swimmers that day how long they had been swimming. Each had been in the pool at least three days a week for over 15 years! I was comparing my first day to their 1,000th day and losing confidence because of it. That doesn’t make sense. Also, ask yourself, “would I trade what I do have to be where they are?” In entrepreneurship, I don’t have to look far for someone better than me, I haven’t made a cent yet. But I’m also unwilling to give up the experiences I’ve had, the people I’ve met, and the lessons I’ve learned to get me to this moment and my confidence needs to come from there. Self-confidence is reliant on self, not on others. Pump yourself up now and then and remember that you bring a combination of strengths and experiences to the table that no one else can. Be proud of that, not ashamed of it. Don’t let envy rob you because, without self-confidence, true excellence is out of reach.
  • Envy steals love and fellowship. Along with excellence, two LIFE principles are love and fellowship. They recognize that life is best experienced in the company of others. It’s our job to build bridges between people, pull others into fellowship, and love deeply. When you compare yourself to someone, you put a wall between you and them. You get defensive to protect what dignity you can while you think about how much more they have than you do. Envy steals all ability to championship fellowship or love that other person because you’re too busy guarding your ego against being injured. Reframe your thoughts by focusing on love and fellowship with people you perceive to have more and be more. Not once have I struck a conversation with someone I was jealous of and not been shown that they, just like me, are a real person with real issues. In fact, on more than one occasion, upon reaching out to someone I envied because of their financial status or business growth, I was told that they had looked up to me for my education. Once that wall was down, most of us became friends. If you dwell in envy and don’t reach out in love and fellowship, loneliness is all you’ll get.
  • Envy steals perspective. A tough exercise is to think about who we envy and for what. It’s not one person. If you ask someone such a question, you’ll hear something like this. “Well, I wish I had Andy Frisella’s business mind. Oh, and training like Apollo Ono or looking like Chris Hemsworth would be awesome. With Warren Buffet’s money and humility, I’d be happy. And this guy I work with just has the best family, I wish I could be a dad like he is.” Notice the problem? In our envy, we pick and choose the best pieces of people and act as if we should have them all and more. Frisella struggled in school and business, Apollo Ono has faced massive depression, Hemsworth doesn’t always look like he does in movies, and Warren Buffet has struggled financially in his life. Reframe your mind by realizing even the most amazing people have trouble but learn from their ability to use it as fuel for their growth. In fact, by comparing only to the best piece of someone you steal their humanity too. You look at them like a robot of success instead of a complex person with emotions, trials, and hard work. Remember what Robin Williams, the funniest man alive before taking his own life, said, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” Be kind to the people you look up to and don’t steal their humanity because you’re too envious to see reality.
  • Envy steals you. In her book, Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown pointed out that comparison is actually a form of conformity. If I asked if you wanted to be a conformer, I don’t think you would give me a high-five and say, “hell yea!” You are pursuing excellence to be different, to be creative, to be unique. By living in envy, you essentially give yourself over to becoming someone else. You say with actions, “I don’t want to be anything for myself, I just want to be that person.” I don’t know about you, but I’d never say that out loud because I don’t believe it. Be you. Not them. Reframe your mind by pursuing excellence for your own identity. If you want to be a healthier person, compare yourself to last year, not to an Olympian. Yes, the Olympian is probably healthy but you’re not trying to be an Olympian. Plus, go watch Weight of Gold and see how often elite athletes aren’t healthy. Don’t buy into the Instagram hype of being the best at everything. It’s fake.

So, if you really had to trade places with the person you envy in every way. To give up everything about yourself, your family, your accomplishments, would you do it? I hope not. The world needs you. We already have an Andy Frisella, Jeff Bezos, Chris Hemsworth, the guy you live next to you, and your friend. We don’t need more of them. We need more of you.

Weekend Challenge

This weekend take stock of your envy and comparison. Get serious and write down the names of every person you compare yourself to on a regular basis (careful, this could get longer than you think). Next to their name, write which of the 4 things that envy steals from you in those moments – self-confidence, love and fellowship, perspective, and yourself. By doing this, I think you’ll be able to see more clearly how envy and comparison get in the way of excellence and start to reframe your mind with the ideas above.

In a week, I’ll be launching the LIFE Enacted Guidebook. A 5-part workbook to set yourself up for 2021 to the best year you’ve had. It’s not a goal making workshop, it’s an identity shifting, purpose-driven deep dive into who you are and who you want to be. Take this weekend challenge seriously because you cannot look for a better tomorrow if envy is a chain holding you back.

Are you courageous enough to stop comparing? Can you stop hiding your insecurities behind the fact that other people have done big things and instead realize that you can too?

I hope so! Have a great weekend!

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #46: Habits of Service – Going Beyond Acts, to Show Love

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*Click play to listen to this article*

How do the people in your life know you love them? Is it assumed or is it actionable? It’s an easy question on the surface, but when we dig into it, the complexities are obvious. Showing love, communicating that we care so deeply for another person can get messier than we would hope. Think back to one of those awkward moments of puppy love in middle school and you’ll know what I mean. You try to show love by picking on the person you like and somehow being mean to show love just never landed right. Shocking.

As adults, we need to be more aware and nuanced with showing love. The obvious place to start is with Gary Chapman’s infamous love languages. Five categories of giving and receiving love help our lazy brains figure out how we can act and talk. Here’s a quick review:

  • Gifts: the act of giving and receiving gifts as a sign of love and care
  • Words of Affirmation: using our words to affirm our love for another or complement various aspects of what we love.
  • Quality Time: expressing love with undivided attention and meaningful interaction
  • Physical Touch: using small physical gestures to show love toward another
  • Acts of Service: doing something appreciated for someone for their benefit

These love languages are incredibly helpful to understand people in your life. To know how you best receive love and prefer to show love, can lead to a meaningful conversation regarding your interactions. However, many people rely on these in theory but fail to enact them except in grand gestures and big moments.

Buying a great Christmas gift for a partner is certainly an expression of the gift language but if that’s the only time of the year you bring something home, you missed the mark. Similarly, if you set aside a special dinner for your anniversary to spend quality time together but miss the moments of sitting together and reading on a random Wednesday, you’re probably off base. The love languages are at their best when they are incorporated into everyday life in big and small ways.

My language of choice to show love is acts of service and I like to think I’m pretty good at it. It might mean I’m fairly poor at the others (something to work on) but it offers me a way to connect with people across my life. Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned about acts of service is that the best way to implement them is not to think of them all the time and go big, but to create what I call, “habits of service.”

Usually, we think of habits as good or bad for ourselves. We start exercising daily or end a habit of sugary drinks to be healthier. We start reading every morning to connect with our minds or spirituality. We take up a habit of drinking water before coffee in the morning. We stop checking our phone first thing when we get up. We’ve all heard these before, and they all are “me” focused. Habits of service turn the power of what we know about habits and make them “they” focused.

If it isn’t enough for you to want to create habits of service for the good of others, consider that research has shown time and again that doing nice things for others is a great way to be happier. Giving makes you happier than receiving. Volunteering boosts your levels of dopamine like an Instagram notification that your favorite influencer just liked your cat picture. Taking the extra step to do something nice for another person, benefits you basically to the same degree as it does them. So, if you’re selfish, being unselfish is actually going to fit you just fine. Lucky you.

The challenge with habits of service versus general acts of service is that they are easier to neglect. It’s easy to remind yourself that you volunteer at the soup kitchen every year at Thanksgiving or that you want to clean the house when your wife goes out of town. Those are big and intermittent. Habits, the smaller acts that take place every day or every week, are easier to forget and to underestimate.

I want to suggest that to show love, if you can make habits of service part of your daily or weekly routine, you’ll level-up your relationships. Nothing complicated. It’s as simple as applying the same skills to build these habits as you did to start working out or whatever you’ve changed.

Habit building strategies:

  1. Complete the act of service each day for 30 days and it’ll stick.
  2. Write the new act on a sticky note where you’ll consistently see it to remind yourself.
  3. Plan for service. For example, to remember to make coffee every morning, set out the supplies the night before.
  4. Create feedback loops. After you complete the act of service in mind, create a way to notice that it was accepted. In the coffee example, you could see if your partner used the Keurig or took a cup that you left out and you get feedback that it is useful.
  5. There are a ton of others. Go check out James Clear’s Atomic Habits or Duhigg’s The Power of Habit and you can apply their ideas to these relational habits.

I won’t belabor this too long as I recognize the concept is simple enough to get in a few hundred words. Plus, you all are smart and have probably already started thinking of habits of service you have now and ones you could create. The last thing to say is that a true act of service doesn’t need recognition or a “thank you” to be valuable. Make these habits for the other people you love, not to fill your own ego.

Fair warning, creating these habits will put you on the hook to continue them for a long time. This isn’t bad, it’s good. Seth Godin in his new book, The Practice tells of the real practice in Turkey of placing bread on the hook. When someone fortunate buys bread, they purchase a second loaf to put on the hook. When someone in need comes by they can ask if there is any bread on the hook and receive the blessing of someone else’s giving. Being on the hook requires more from us, but only in our culture is being more seen as a burden. Be more generous and loving, it’s good for you.

Let me give you some examples of habits of service to start your thinking and then this weekend, share out other ideas so that we can all start to build more into our lives at home, work, school, and friendships.

Habits of service ideas:

  • Make the coffee each morning. Put out the K-Cup, find your hipster and pour it over, or go old school and make a pot.
  • Make the bed. If your partner or pup isn’t still in it of course.
  • Clean the dishes. Every day, not just sometimes, and even if they aren’t the ones you made dirty.
  • Lay on their side of the bed to warm it up for a bit. No one likes a cold bed)
  • Go for a walk with a friend. Even when you’re busy, it’s good for you too.
  • Feed the pets in your home or offer to do so for neighbors out of town. This is an easy one and the pets will love you too.
  • Start the car on cold days. Good for the person and the car plus getting into the cold in the morning has some great health benefits.
  • Open doors for others. Car doors, business doors, whatever. I know this can backfire sometimes in the social justice circles but do it for the folks you know will appreciate it.
  • Answer an email sent to a group. When those dreaded “reply all” emails come through that everyone plays virtual nose-goes with? Take care of those for the group.
  • Turn on the heater in the room people spend the morning in. My wife is always cold so when she does yoga in the morning, it’s super easy to hit the power button on the space heater for her.
  • Scrape off the car next to yours in the parking lot. Every time you clean your car off, take care of the one next to it.
  • Put an extra cart away in the grocery store parking lot. Don’t be that guy who leaves your cart in a parking space and take care of one of those guys while you’re at it.
  • Connect people. When you meet someone new, jump on email or LinkedIn and try and connect them to someone you think they could help or be helped by.

Before we go, I feel obligated to mention that there’s a flip side here. Habits of service are easy to miss and take for granted when they are done for you. Be sure to be on the lookout for when others are enacting habits of service and recognize them.

Weekend Challenge

Let’s go at both parts of this idea. First, write a list of the habits of service that you already hold. Then create space to write down three more that you want to integrate before 2020 comes to a close and get started with them this week (bonus points if you share those ideas on social media and tag me).

Next, soften your eyes to the acts of service others might be doing for you. Just try to notice them over the next few days and then make a list at the end of the weekend. Share the list with the folks who enacted the service and thank them for all those little, daily, and seemingly insignificant acts.

2020 is ending everyone. I’ve seen a lot of satirical celebrations as a tough year goes to history. But the reality is that nothing will be different in your life on January 1 than it is on December 31 unless you change it. The government can’t fix it, your partner can’t change you, and your boss isn’t responsible. You are. Start with these habits of service now and they’ll carry into strong relationships for 2021.

Have a good weekend! Best today, better tomorrow!

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Weekend Challenge #45: 31 Lessons for 31 Years

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“The unexamined life is not worth living,” Socrates reportedly said in response to allegations of corrupting youth in Athens (he’d eventually be put to death in that trial…yikes). In honor of that notion, I’ve written a lot about reflection in the last year. I’ve told you to reflect and I’m even working on something to help you do so with a purpose for 2021.

Well, I’ll turn 31 in a few days and I figure I better put my time where my mouth is (there’s no money here but it takes time, so we’ll go with that). To be honest, when I turned 30 last year, a milestone birthday immortalized in shows like Friends and plastered to social media, I didn’t reflect much. I wasn’t in the space and it wasn’t that big of a deal. But this year, I’ve started writing more, giving ideas to the world, struggled with self-negativity, settled into my marriage, started a new job, set out for the most ambitious fitness commitment I’ve ever made, and just generally experienced a lot. I think some reflection is in order.

To honor my 31 years on the planet so far, I want to offer 31 lessons I’ve been given or learned through experience. I’ll keep each short but hopefully useful to you. Some are my own ideas; most are stolen from someone else along the way. It’s not plagiarism, it’s learning. Here we go:

  1. Life matters most. This year we all felt loss. In my life, I’ve said goodbye to more people than I wish I had had to. The loss of life should hit you hard and make you really think. If it doesn’t, you don’t know true loss and you don’t know full life. Don’t seek loss but realize the value of life before it’s gone.
  2. Your mindset makes what matters, matter. I haven’t traveled a lot in my 31 years and people tell me it’s something I’m missing. They’re probably right but if you can’t enjoy your life at your house when there isn’t much going on, you won’t enjoy your life in some exotic place either. You’ll just pretend to.
  3. True strength is in letting go. Life is too short for grudges, anger, or whatever. As it is said, holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Let it go. (This lesson presented by Frozen…what a movie.)
  4. Kids are the best BS detectors ever. If you want to know if you are authentic or not, go hang out with some kids. When I was teaching middle school, those kids knew when I was full of it, and when I was being real. They helped me be more real, more of the time. If you aren’t in a profession like I was, get around people who have nothing to gain from you. They are the only ones who can and will be honest.
  5. Luck isn’t real, blessing is. Luck is random, a blessing is not, and I don’t mean blessing in a religious sense. When someone helps us, that’s not luck, it’s a blessing. When we receive love, it’s a blessing. Nothing is random or lucky when you look back because it all connects. Don’t give credit to luck for your successes and don’t hide behind, “oh, they are so lucky.”
  6. The worst pain is often what we need most. I thought I knew exactly what I needed in a long-term relationship during my twenties. Then that relationship was ripped away from me and the pain was unbearable. I fought the pain, tried to get them back but ultimately couldn’t. When a new relationship came into my life, I realized the pain of losing that last one forced me to really think about who I was and what I wanted. Now I’m married to the best person I’ve ever met.  
  7. Friendships are underrated. Friends in our society are often seen as the people we have fun with, but they are so much more than that. The last few years have shown me that friends are the people we have fun with but they are also the ones we cry, overcome hard things, and get better with. Don’t underestimate true and meaningful friendship.
  8. Friendships are overrated. Yes, it’s the opposite of the last one but our generation has become obsessed with the number of friendships we have in real life and social media. The friends we have on the periphery of our life who we engage with here and there are overrated. Get a few good friends and you won’t need hundreds of half-way friends.
  9. You are not who you were. Most of life seems to be a progression of days and weeks where we become who we are as we go. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can be different than your parents or your past self. It will take work and it’s worth it. Don’t be a victim of your circumstances.
  10. An 8-hour workday is a damaging myth. As many of us went to work from home in 2020, we had to wrestle with the notion of an 8-hour workday. Over my life, I’ve been blessed with many types of jobs in various settings. Somedays I’ve put in way more than 8 hours, and many days didn’t require it. It’s a lie, people in offices don’t work 8 hours even if they are in the building that long, and there was no reason for 8 to be a magic number anyway. Let it go. Get done what you need to get done and enjoy your life.
  11. Learning is a superpower. If you can learn how to learn, you will be Batman.
  12. Learning is not school. I was a teacher, I have a Ph.D., and I taught teachers how to teach. But school is not learning. School is an accumulation of knowledge and student skills. To truly learn, you must take school knowledge and use it in life. Many teachers are moving in this direction, but it will always rely on a student to learn, no one can do it for you.
  13. Unlearning is the key to happiness. In a society of strong opinions and people willing to create violence over half-understood beliefs, to truly differentiate yourself and find happiness, figure out how to unlearn. Hold your beliefs with less white-knuckles and realize that you’re probably wrong, or at least partially wrong, pretty much all the time. It seems like it would make life worse but it’s actually what allows you to find happiness in new places.
  14. The process really is more important than the results. Results are sexy, processes are ugly. Processes are the hundreds of drafts behind a book, the scenes on the cutting room floor, the conversations behind a strong marriage. Learn to love the process, lean into the ugliness and the beauty will come on the other side.
  15. Leave your phone alone. At multiple times in my life, I’ve decided to not look at my phone in the morning. Then I fall off and go back to old habits. But when I leave my phone (and especially social media) alone until noon, my life is so much better.
  16. Challenge yourself because other people can’t. Anything I’ve been able to accomplish that was hard, has been a challenge from myself. Other people hold you to their standards, so their challenges are sometimes offbeat and often too small. Go big for yourself and you’ll be amazed at what you can do.
  17. Conversation matters. I’m an introvert by nature and love my alone time but I’ve learned that my most incredible moments happen in conversation. Talking to another person about ideas sharpens everything we think.
  18. Be intentional with your time. You build a life one day at a time, don’t go into them without a plan. Even a plan to relax is great but don’t operate on default for too long. I’ve chased material gain and money most of my life but recently I’ve been able to better understand that freedom of time is the best reward in life. Control it, or it will control you.
  19. Nothing and no one is as simple as they seem. The media, people around you, and every article will make things seem simple. They’ll give you either-or decisions to make it easy to live. None of these arguments make sense if you look further. Think more in “and-both” than “either-or” in regard to situations and people.
  20. Limitations are mostly our own. There are real limitations in life and some of us have more than others. However, we are almost always willing to put more limitations on ourselves than the world puts on us. If you can lift self-imposed limits, you’ll really move.
  21. Trust yourself. I’m working on this one a lot with my work. It took me 30 years to gain the realization that I had to send my work out and not worry about the result. For most of my life, I trusted others with everything, now I’m learning I have to trust myself first.
  22. Be prepared. My dad’s favorite piece of advice was to always be prepared. I used to roll my eyes at him, now I channel it every day. Thanks, dad. In life, opportunities seem to arise from nowhere. Your job is to be ready for them when they do. Opportunities for new jobs, relationships, or game-changing events in your life can’t be forced but will come without much warning and with a short expiration date. If you’re not ready to take a risk when they show up, you’ll miss them and then say you never had a chance. You did, you just weren’t prepared.
  23. Read well, live well. I’ve loved to read since the first Harry Potter book showed up under the Christmas Tree back in my preteen years but learning how to read well, was a much more recent lesson. Even through a Ph.D., I didn’t learn to read well. If you can figure out how to read in a way that engages your life with the book or article, you start to read well. Reading might not give you a great life but reading well almost certainly will.
  24. Leadership isn’t that complicated. I spent 5 years studying leadership with a certain framework and set of literature. I’ve read hundreds of leadership books. Guess what? They all say pretty much the same things in different words (and sometimes the same words). Leadership is a way of living, not a job. Care about people, show them you care, serve them the best you can for the common goals you have, and don’t be unethical. Boom, leadership. Only after those are in place should you worry about the nuances of a certain context, position, or team.
  25. Goals aren’t magic. Everyone loves talking about goals. There are smart ones, peer ones, and tons of other ones. Setting goals is cool but most are never attained. Why? Because goals aren’t as useful as they’ve been chalked up to be. The real power is in changing behavior toward a new identity. If you want to be a writer, you write. If you want to be a painter, you paint. You do it not to reach a goal but to become something new.
  26. Exercise isn’t just for a beach body. When I started working out, I was 15 and training for baseball. Okay, I was 15 and I was trying to get ripped so girls would like me. The idea that your fitness commitment should have nothing to do with vanity is crap, and you all know it. At the same time, after sticking with exercise for a while you realize that the physical benefits are only the tip of the iceberg. If you’re unhappy with your life in any area, my first recommendation is to get physically healthier. Trust me, it will change everything else too. Work out, drink some water, and sleep 7-8 hours.
  27. Humor is connection. Can you believe that I wasn’t the popular kid at school? Well, there you go, I wasn’t. I was, “too serious and straight-edged” because I didn’t party. What I learned was that even while maintaining my priority of sobriety, the best way to really connect with people was through humor. Let your humor shine for others.
  28. Don’t take it so seriously. Serious things happen in life and there are serious problems to tackle. You have to learn how to balance that seriousness with lightness and fun. I struggle with it at times so learn before I have. You’re important to the world but not so important that you can’t have some fun here and there.
  29. You don’t have to drink. This is more personal but if it’s for you, you’ll know. In 31 years, I’ve had 2 beers and 1 shot of whiskey. I didn’t like any of them. I don’t drink because I’ve never seen a benefit in it and no one has been able to really show me one. In college, it meant that I didn’t go to certain parties or the bars and I worried that I was missing out on something amazing. Looking back, I don’t think I missed a thing. This is just for anyone out there who feels pressure to go with the crowd like I did but wants to stay strong, you don’t have to and you won’t miss anything.
  30. Don’t quit. The old dad’s platitude that you can’t quit the team because you made a commitment, stands up in my life. There is a time for quitting, but it comes after a whole lot of analyzing and planning for what’s next. It isn’t the impulse decision to get out of things that are challenging that most of us have made it. With pretty much everything in life, be courageous enough to make a commitment, and then do not quit even when it doesn’t seem to be working. Remember water boils at 112 degrees, not 111 so don’t turn off the stove at 111 and forever wonder if 112 was the secret.
  31. Life is awesome. Go live. Do it your way and don’t try to live someone else’s life.

This list itself is a lesson I learned this year more than ever, so maybe we’ll call it a bonus. For anyone out there that has an idea or wants to contribute to the world in a meaningful way that requires you to do something creative, there is a lesson I’ve used every Friday this year to write. It’s the same one I used to finish this list.

A year ago, I would have mulled over this list to get the perfect 31 lessons that everyone needs to live better. I would have reworked it for weeks before putting it out to you. Then I would have tried to hit the “unsend” button a thousand times because I might have missed that one big lesson. Not now though.

Here’s how this went. I sat down on Monday, wrote the introduction. Tuesday, I came up with 14 lessons that resonated with me that day. Wednesday, I wrote out the rest of the 31. I didn’t create a list of 100 ahead of time that I narrowed down or brainstorm all year. I simply sat down and wrote what came to my heart that I thought might help you live better, if even just in the smallest way. Then, I reviewed it for general writing, added some flair to a few, and hit publish. That’s it.

We are incredibly blessed with the opportunity to create and contribute. Maybe my work isn’t for you or you read some of these lessons and rolled your eyes as I used to toward my dad. That’s great with me! My hope is that something I say resonates with some of you, but I know it won’t always matter to all of you.

When I was teaching, I tried so hard to get my middle school students to listen to one piece of advice from me. Nearly every day, I’d say, “don’t try to be perfect for me, work toward it for yourself.” Now, I’m listening to my own advice and I hope you will too.

If you have an idea or something you want to try, go. Live life to the full and enjoy. Let the haters talk behind your back, they’re back there for a reason. It’s not always easy but just think about how you’ll feel if your life comes to an end with every dream you had still within you. The only way to guarantee failure is to let your ideas stay with you. Let them out for yourself and more importantly because we need them.  

31 years of wisdom boiled into 31 lessons that may or may not be the ones I’d write tomorrow. All well, this is for today, not tomorrow anyway.

I hope something here meant something to you. If it did, I’d love it if you would share with me, or maybe you have a lesson that you’d add to the list. Perhaps I’ll steal it for lesson #32 next year.

Weekend Challenge

This was a fun exercise for me and this weekend, I think you’d enjoy it for yourself. Grab a piece of paper and write down some lessons. It doesn’t have to match your age, I’m just trying to be an effective click-bait blogger so the numbers matter here. Write 1, 3, 10, or 100. Think about what you’d want your kids to remember most or what you’d tell your younger self to prepare them for the life they will lead.

Then share some lessons with us! The LIFE Council was literally created on the notion that ee can all get better and we don’t need gurus to do it. We just need one another to be willing to share the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

Have a great weekend!

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #44: Picking Up the Rope

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*Click play to listen to this article*

There I was, bright-eyed with the rose-colored lenses of a fresh college graduate stepping into the place that I just knew I would change the world from. It was my third day as a new eighth-grade History teacher, and I was ready. Then, reality struck in the form of a five-foot, 85-pound challenger. We’ll call him, Tommy. Tommy came into class that day with a “let’s see what this guy is really about” look and attitude to match. Five minutes into class, Tommy stood up in the middle of my opening instructions and told everyone his opinion about how stupid the assignment was, the irrelevance of the class in general, and how he felt cheated having a “student-teacher” anyway.

With the best of my twenty-two-year wisdom, I came back at him in defense of the work I had designed. We went back and forth for a minute – felt like an hour as all the other kids stared at me – until my mentor walked by. She came into the room with an incredibly calm presence and with one look from her, Tommy immediately sat down. She asked, “mind if I do some grading in here? They need my room for a special event.” I didn’t mind and there was no special event. After class, she casually headed toward the door at the end of the line of students and as she passed me said, “Hey Mr. Mac, don’t pick up the rope.”

At the end of the day, I was still trying to figure out what the heck she was talking about. There were no ropes in my classroom, and I didn’t remember picking anything up. So, I went to ask her.

Leaning against the railing of our second-floor hallway watching kids grab their things, give those awkward middle school hugs, and leave for the day I simply asked, “Rope?” She knew what I meant.

“When I started teaching,” she began, “I was overconfident in my abilities to simply relate to kids and have them follow suit with whatever I needed. Then, I met a student named Devon.” I could hear the heaviness in her voice as she relived the memory.  

“Every day for almost a month, Devon challenged me on everything. From directions to due dates and even facts I had in lectures; Devon pushed every button” she sighed. “But then, just like I did today, a mentor told me to stop picking up the rope.”

So, I asked again. “Rope?”

“The rope,” she told me, “is what other people use to get us into their drama. They pick up one side and push us to pick up the other so that we can give our attention and enter a tug-of-war.”

I was starting to get it.

“In your case, Tommy comes into class with a rope just like Devon did to me. Your job is to not pick up the other side of that rope.”

“So, what do I do then?” I followed.

“You have to learn to not pick up that other side of the rope” she answered as if it was the most obvious solution ever.

“How do I do that when he challenges me though?” I pushed back. “Won’t the other kids see me as not having control or think my words don’t matter?”

“That’s just it,” she said with excitement, “your words will mean more when you say less of them and they come from support, not argument.”

My head nodded.

She continued, “What you need to do right now is realize that Tommy carries that rope because of where he comes from. His dad works two jobs, mom has battled cancer twice, and his older sister is a straight-A student and being recruited for tennis scholarships as a sophomore in high school while he struggled to make C’s and got cut from the basketball team last week.”

I didn’t know any of that about Tommy because I never cared to ask.

“Tommy wants you to pick up the rope because he doesn’t know what else to do with it other than fight and get attention that way.”

Ok, I was getting it but what she said next was the wisdom only a lifetime of working with thousands of kids can bring.

“What you really need to do,” she said calmly, “is leave your end of the rope on the ground, walk to Tommy, and help him pick up his side so you can pull together. It’s not about you versus Tommy, it’s you and Tommy versus what holds him back.”

She walked away to get her things and end the day. It was one of those moments for me though that required some time right there at the railing. “It’s you and Tommy versus what holds him back” played over and over in my mind, then in my heart, and eventually in my soul. It reminded me of my faith because isn’t it true that at the core, it’s me and Christ against what holds me back? It reminded me of sports where it was me and my teammates against what kept us from victory. It even reminded me of history and Lincoln’s famous notion that a “house divided cannot stand.”

I left teaching a few years ago but the life lesson I learned that day never left me. 

So What?

Last week, I posited the idea that insults, negativity, criticism, or judgment can never promote enduring change but only love can. The choice you make about which end of the rope to pick up is your choice between love, hate, or indifference.

At holiday tables and the moments that will come in the New Year will you help others carry their rope, pick up the other side to do battle, or walk by and ignore their significance? Will you act with love, belittle them, or simply act as if their ideas are of no value?

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said that every situation we find ourselves in has two handles. One handle is frustration with your brother, or the other is the recognition that he is your brother and that you love him and don’t want a fight. One handle is negative, the other is love.

If love is the only door to meaningful change, the choice you make about picking up the rope has impacts far wider than you probably realize.

As an example, when you gather with family for the holidays (or decide to cancel the gathering) and someone pushes an opinion about the pandemic with which you don’t agree, what do you do? If you begin an argument by waiting until they’re done and then launching a full assault with every headline you read in the last three months, you picked up the tug-of-war end of the rope. If instead, you lean in and ask questions and understand their ideas, you’ve begun to help carry their rope. By doing so, you’ll most likely uncover that underneath their opinion is the kind of real, primal emotion we all deal with. Fear of a virus or loss of freedom. Pain from losing someone they loved or from closing a business. Confusion from watching headlines counter each other all day, every day. Anxiety from living through nine months of a pandemic, election cycles, and around the clock poor journalism of half-truths (or even zero-truths sometimes).

This holiday season and into 2021, I want to challenge you to only pick up the rope out of love. It doesn’t mean you have to agree on everything. I still didn’t think Tommy’s behavior was right, but now I understood it. You can do the same.

Truth is, everyone is carrying a rope like Tommy was. The past month I’ve been struggling with my own rope as I’ve identified a deep-rooted sense that nothing I do, can ever be good enough. A sense of inadequacy has shown itself to me in ways I never realized had taken root in my mind. That’s my rope right now. If a family member this season, picks up the other side of the rope and fights me on that burden, or reinforces a message of “not good enough” it will be challenging. But, if like my amazing wife has done the last couple of weeks, they pick up my side of the rope and tug with me against that false but powerful enemy, we can defeat it together.

This is the essence of why I created the LIFE Council. We need people in our lives who we can count on to always pick up our rope and they need us. Those people aren’t always easy to find though and sometimes who we think will be there, is actually competing against us. In the LIFE Council, we live by a notion of “another in the fire” where we know our Council will stand in the fires of life alongside us and carry us out if need be.

When you talk with someone who voted the other way than you, believes something different about COVID or the political response to it, has a different set of parenting values, or doesn’t stand for principles that you do, and you’re ready to tear them down, remember that they are carrying a heavy rope right now. You can take the lead, help carry their rope and I almost promise, they will, in turn, help you carry your own.

Weekend Challenge

Let’s take on a two part challenge this weekend:

Part 1 – Identify Tommy in your life. Take a few minutes and think of someone you are interacting with through the holidays that challenges you often. Write their name down and give yourself 5 minutes to write out how they challenge you and why you think they are in the wrong.

Now ask yourself these questions and write your answers on that same page:

  • What rope are they carrying?
  • How can you help carry it instead of fight them this season?

This will help you build empathy ahead of time and realize that fighting for power won’t help anyone. Instead, you can enter time with them with a love stance and have a helpful conversation.

Part 2 – Identify your own rope. Now give yourself another 5 (or more) minutes to write out your answer to the following question: “What rope am I carrying into my interactions this season?” You don’t need to do anything with the rope right now per se but just recognizing that you are also carrying something gives space to be more kind to yourself and others.

So, as we enter a season of ropes and potential tug-of-war moments, what side of the ropes will you pick up? I hope this metaphor can remind you to focus on the positives, be grateful for the people in your life, and begin to battle the real enemies – anger, fear, anxiety, hopelessness – together instead of alone. We are stronger together.

Have a great weekend all!

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #43: Only Love Can Change

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I recently had a great conversation with one of my closest friends. The topic of the day became change and how to create it in our lives and the lives of others. We dove into leading by example, getting back to the basics of our faith, reflecting in a journal, setting big goals, focusing on ourselves first, and more. I loved every second of it.

As I drove away, something hit me. Perhaps there is an overarching theme we can look to when we want to change. Over the next few days, I couldn’t shake the thought. I have changed so much in my life over the last ten years and now I write a blog pretty much all about change. The literature is great on it. James Clear tells us to create small changes and build momentum to new habits. Tom Bilyeu echoes Clear and says we must switch our identity to change and adds that our mindset is the key. Negotiation experts remind us that to change someone else we must focus on what is in it for them. All of this is helpful and I’m all in.

Though, I still wondered if there was a more universal way to seek change. Then, in one of those “I wish I had a notebook with me” moments on a run later in the week, I had an idea. I realized that the only way to produce real change is through love.

I returned home and went straight to my Bible where I found the principle in action all over the place. No matter your stance on faith, it’s hard to deny that Jesus changed and continues to change, more people than any modern-day guru. Not one of those people was changed through hate or anger from Him. Every person is transformed by love, healing, and grace. Interesting…can we learn anything from that? I think so!

As we enter a season of holidays amidst a pandemic and on the heels of an election still being sorted through, we’re sure to experience the next two months differently than we have in the past.

For all the potential differences this year, there is one theme sure to remain. No matter where you go physically or virtually and who you are around, opinions will be strong, and everyone will want influence.

To get that influence, the familiar roads will be traveled with two main vehicles. Insults and judgments.

What We Think Drives Change: Insults and Judgement

I get it, your family probably doesn’t insult each other at the dinner table. We are experts at hiding insults in eye-rolls, dismissals, and gossip on the couch or on the phone after dinner ends. In the world of socially distanced holidays, insults might be at bay. After all, someone will have that sweet “mute all” option at their fingertips.

However, the most common insults, the ones I refer to as “secondary insults,” won’t be thwarted by distance. These are the insults about Joe Biden or Donald Trump or some other politician. They are insults about celebrities who have taken up causes or aimed at those causes themselves. Essentially, they are a way of insulting the person in the room but taking a jab at what or who, you think they believe in. These indirect style insults provide room for our cowardice and never lead to change, ever.

When we ratchet these up a notch, we land on a judgment. Here, we dive into the character of the individuals around us. These are the lazy and arguments of, “you voted for Trump, you must be racist” or “you voted for Biden, you’re a socialist.” Neither is true at face value, but our brain likes the easy way out and most of us are happy to oblige. We use judgment to dismiss others and their ideas. It is essentially an egotistical way to confirm your own bias like a pro. Once you dismiss someone with judgment, you eliminate their value and stop change in its tracks.

Insults and judgments will never attain change. If anything, as we’ve seen in 2020 and research has shown over and over again, they embolden others to cling more tightly to their beliefs and shut out any chance of learning.

Oh, and you’re not off the hook. This article isn’t about how to help you change people because I don’t assume that you are right about anything you believe. If you are willing to insult and judge others you close yourself to learning because you’ve already adopted the stance of “I’m right and they should follow”. Well, ego man, maybe you are right about everything, always but you probably aren’t. They aren’t either. As the famous quote goes, “there are two sides to every story and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.” The truth of who’s right and wrong is simultaneously nobody and everybody.

How Change Actually Happens Through Love

If insults and judgements don’t work, what are we left with? We have no choice but to look elsewhere for ways to influence people and open chances for learning. We can’t default to where we’ve been.

If ancient texts and modern gurus agree on anything it’s the real change only comes from one place: love. That might sound wrong to you because gurus on YouTube preach about discipline, grinding, habits, morning routines, nighttime routines, diets, workout plans, and motivation as the cultivators of change. However, they are all talking about means to identify the same end. They are all pushing you to identify where your love lies and move toward it.

For example, I’ve known more than a few men who didn’t care about their physical health much until that miraculous moment a child is born, and they see their last name on the birth certificate. Their love for that child drove them to change so they could live longer and better.

In the same way, if you want to change someone or be open to growth yourself, it is necessary to enact love. The problem is that it’s unnatural to most of us in the “yell louder and post in caps to get your way” generation. It also requires incredible and genuine humility because when you operate with love, you assume others are just as valuable as you are.

In his book on fear, Patrick Sweeney II noted, “love – of spouse, of children, of family, of friends – can inspire people to charge a burning building.” Love changes people from cowards to heroes. Love, much more than anger or hate, changes hearts and minds.

Recognizing “change with love” is a foreign idea, here are some quick ideas of what it can look like these next few months:

  • Listen first. I challenge you to not be the first person at the table or Zoom room to speak up about your opinions. Wait. Listen. Learn. Ask questions. Once you feel you understand, respond to what was said instead of just yelling out the last half-researched argument you heard on Fox or CNN. Listening is a language of love, hearing is not.
  • Give context. Discuss ideas and opinions within the context of your own life. Love is showing that you are interested in the people around you. When you toss out national statistics or arguments used by political candidates, you take the argument out of the immediate experience and essentially dishonor the individuals in front of you. There is room for those bigger ideas but start local and small. You just might learn something.
  • Assume positive regard. In my morning affirmation, I remind myself to choose to see the good in people. It’s a choice and you’ll have to make it too if you want to drive change in others or yourself. If you spend your car ride to dinner, or the hour before Zoom, talking trash about the people that will be there, you’ve already lost.
  • Let go of your need for influence. Ironically the only way to change people, including yourself, is to let go of your egotistical need to be right. Be quiet about it. Ask more questions. Listen more than you talk. You’ll be amazed at what happens when you stop trying to win and you start aiming to understand.
  • Be confident, not prideful. “Pride goes before destruction,” says Proverbs 16:18. Most of our efforts to change others come from pride. We assume we are right and everyone else is wrong. That leads to destruction, not change. Instead, be confident. Understand your ideas but be confident in your value as a person. You can share ideas but also be open to new things yourself because your eternal value doesn’t ride on your stance on COVID closures or donkeys and elephants.

When I sat down a couple of years ago to conceptualize what living intentionally meant, love was not top of mind. However, the further I looked the more I realized that to be the best person you can be, you always have to operate with love. Men, in particular, have been led to believe that love is soft. That by admitting we love someone; we hand them the keys to destroy us. It’s just the opposite though, love is our ultimate strength and our only way to change.

Tolstoy once observed that love does not exist in the future. It “is a present activity only,” he said and added that “The man who does not manifest love in the present has not love.” This stands true even when your family voted for someone else or disagrees with you. This holiday season, you don’t get to say, “I still love them, just not right now.” That’s not how love works. Manifest love in the present at tables or Zoom rooms and there may be a chance people can change, grow, and ultimately love more.

Weekend Challenge

Before the holidays really get here, take a few minutes to look at your beliefs and opinions that you know might clash with people you are going to spend time with over the coming months. Consider what it will mean to manifest love even through the differences. Ask yourself if you are truly open to listening and learning from those you see as “the other”. Our world has enough hate, anger, and separation.

Can you be a part of the difference? Or will you add to the problem?

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #42: Gaining Control of the Emotion of Mass Destruction

Weekend Challenge |
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Have you been angry lately? Mad that COVID took away an opportunity or even a family member? Angry with the way people have overreacted or underreacted to the pandemic and social injustice? Upset with your kids because, well, they’re just home all the time now and it’s a lot? It’s time to check your anger and figure out what it is good for.

Just last night I got angry with our three dogs and acted like an idiot when emotion took over. I yelled, moved them with my legs, and generally reacted with no control. Within minutes, I was embarrassed. Mind you, I had started writing this article the day prior so I should have known better but it got me thinking how hard anger can be to control but how destructive it is if we fail to do so.

Last week, I described how we can better respond when we don’t get our way. It was intentional that anger was not on the list. As Ryan Martin said in his TEDx talk on the subject, anger has a purpose to “alert you to injustice and energizes you to face it”. That sounds useful but I didn’t include it because in most cases, our anger isn’t about real injustice and we are terrible at telling the difference. We are also awful at channeling anger into productive action. We need to think of anger like we do a “curve ahead” sign on a dark mountain road. It is a signal to change but it can’t force you. If you don’t see the signal and change your energy but instead carry forward, you’re in for an emotional, steep, bumpy path to destruction.

For its destructive ability, anger has a poor reputation. Most of the ancient wisdom we have unanimously warned against anger. In the Bible, Proverbs 22:24-25 warns to “not make friends with a person given to anger…or you will learn his ways and find a snare for yourself.” Buddhism holds “three root kleshas, poisons to the way, greed, hatred, and ignorant confusion.” Lama Surya Das says, “Anger is often singled out as the most destructive of the kleshas, because of how easily it degenerates into aggression and violence.” Stoic philosophy echoes the slippery slope of anger. “The best plan is to reject straightaway the first incentives to anger…for if once it begins to carry us away, it is hard to get back again into a healthy condition,” said Seneca. Marcus Aurelius lamented, “a real man doesn’t give way to anger and discontent, and such a person (a real man) has strength, courage, and endurance-unlike the angry and complaining.” The fight against anger is not new and yet we see it all the time.

In our personal lives, we see the downfall of many who can’t control anger. Our 50% divorce rate surely has been affected by anger, fatal traffic accidents take away lives every year from anger and we commonly use the phrase “road rage” as if it’s normal to be so mad that you’ll put life at risk to get five minutes ahead. Friendships are crushed by anger and never restored because of grudges held. Parents have gone decades without speaking to their own children for anger’s sake.

Most of the time we are angry, it isn’t real injustice, it is our selfishness being highlighted by a situation or other person. Even when anger is an appropriate emotional response to injustice, we must be intentional with how we use it. Most anger is, if we’re honest, out of control. Breaking things, yelling at people, driving unsafely and the like are not endearing and not useful. At the same time though the goal of eliminating anger is unrealistic as it serves a very important purpose in life and society.

So, the question becomes, how do we work with anger to ensure it is both a proper response and productive energy? If you, like me, have felt angry with any recent events, this is the part to tune in for. Here are a few questions to answer when you start to notice your anger that will help you determine if anger is justified and what to do next. By answering them, you’ll stay in control and not destroy everything in your path. Sounds good, right?

Question #1: Am I angry?

Before you do anything, learn to recognize the physical cues that you are angry. For most of us, we realize we are angry when it is far too late. Some even think the first sign of anger is outburst but it isn’t. Mentalhelp.net names a few cues to look for: clenching jaw, sweaty palms, feeling hot in the neck or face, and shaking. In my case, when I’m offended or angry, I get a sense of tunnel vision and I notice my hands and arms clench up. These signals happen way before an outburst so you have to learn to recognize them so you can stay in control and continue to assess.

Question #2: Am I slowing down or speeding up?

Anger is difficult because it’s an emotion of momentum. It builds upon itself quickly and exponentially, which is why you can go from calm to Hulk style mad in a matter of seconds. We see it all the time in small moments like a toddler angry about not getting dessert but also in much more serious one’s like an encounter between police and citizens when anger on either side turns deadly. You have to train yourself to stop long enough to see the signs of your anger and put your brain back in control. My recommendation is to literally stop moving – pull over, sit down, stand still – and take at least 4 big breaths. That buys you at least a full minute, which is usually plenty of time to detach enough.

Question #3: Am I assuming the worst case scenario?

The fancy word for this is catastrophizing. The idea is that when we’re angry, our brain goes to the worst possible place. For example, when a client decides to go work with another provider, your anger can tell you that they will leave a bad review, you’ll lose all of your clients, your business will fail, the house will be gone, and your family will be homeless, in  matter of seconds. That’s catastrophizing. Reading it like that, the irrationality is obvious but when blinded by anger, you can easily believe it and make things much worse by doing something stupid instead of staying grounded and offering to help them in the future if they ever need. It’s more likely your anger would destroy your business than that one client leaving.

Question #4: Am I putting blame where it doesn’t belong?

In times of anger, we love to blame others even to the point of blaming objects. Think about the last time your car wouldn’t start and you got angry at the car. “Damnnit, this car is terrible!” Well, hate to break it to you, but most car issues come from a lack of maintenance on the car owner’s part. You should be mad at yourself, but you misattribute blame. In relationships, if you can’t stop and answer this question honestly, you’re already on the path to failure.  Your wife is to blame for everything wrong in your marriage, your friends don’t do their part to support you, even the dog poops in the house to spite you. None are true but your anger convinces you they are.

Question #5: Am I assuming my needs are the most important?

I’d like to introduce you to someone. You’ve interacted hundreds of times but you’ve never actually met. He was there when you got caught behind that driver not moving at a green light and cussed them out for being an, “idiot who can’t find the skinny pedal on the right.” He was there when you yelled at your spouse for not getting home exactly when they said they would to help you with the kids. This is your ego and he kind of sucks.

He helps sometimes but when you’re angry, he takes control and when he’s in control you become a selfish jerk. In anger, you default to feeling like what you need is more important than anyone else and your ego defends you. For example, that person not moving at the green light could have just gotten bad news or were distracted by their kids in the back, but you didn’t even think of that. You just knew they got between you and that mocha, Frappuccino, no whip, stirred, slightly hot, hold the drizzle, mess of what you call coffee. It’s all about you when you’re angry and that means you’ll go through anyone necessary to maintained that fragile ego. Outcome? Destruction.  

Bonus question for so much more than anger but it works too: If I continue, how will I feel tomorrow?

This is one of my favorite questions of all time. I use it a lot in my endurance training. “If I quit this workout right now, I’ll feel better, but how will I feel tomorrow?” When the answer is, “pissed at myself”, I never quit. The same goes with anger. “If I continue my emotional reaction of yelling, stomping, etc, how will I feel tomorrow?” Maybe, “like an idiot” or “full of regret for what I said” or maybe even “broke because I’ll have to buy a new window that I broke” can sober you up from the emotion.

If you can pause long enough to ask yourself these questions, one of two things will happen. Either you’ll realize that your anger is fooling you and convincing you something is unjust that isn’t. Or, you’ll have realized that your anger is a fair response to real injustice. In the first case, you’ve slowed down enough to detach from the emption and not destroy relationships or even lives. In the second, instead of going off the handle in an emotional fit, you’ve slowed enough to channel angry energy into productive action toward authentic change.

Here are some quick examples of the difference:

  • If your anger signals an authentic injustice within your marriage, by asking these questions of yourself you can set aside the temptations to name-call, play the blame game, and give the silent treatment. Instead, you can open conversation about why you felt angry and how to move forward. You can apologize or accept apology and restore damage done instead of making it worse.
  • If an injustice in your workplace like someone getting promoted unfairly, angers you, you can trade the emotional response to yell at the boss and go out blazing in a ring of fire for a measured approach to decide if you want to stay in the job and what you will adapt to be sure you are earning the promotion next time.
  • If you’re mad about a social injustice where your race, gender, or other identity was the focus of someone else’s words or behavior you can slow down enough to isolate the issue and target your energy on it. You can organize others to the cause and create long-lasting change instead of creating a scene for YouTube that doesn’t go anywhere.

Those are a few examples but there are tons more. Anger is real and really helpful to signal when you shouldn’t be ok with something. Anger shakes you out of complicity and moves you to action. However, left unchecked, the raw emotion of anger will cause more harm than good.

So, if you don’t get your way and the initial reaction is anger, pause and ask the questions above. That pause will bring you power in a situation that you were powerless. You gain control instead of giving it away.

Weekend Challenge

Consider your relationship with anger. Take a few minutes to think back over the past few years at times where you truly felt mad. Without judgement consider the outcomes of the anger. Did it help you solve a problem? Did it restore a relationship? Did it make the world a better place? Maybe yes, but probably no.

Now pick one of those times and consider what may have been different had you used these questions. How could you have regained control of your anger? If the situation called for it, could you have used your anger as energy toward productive action? How so?

Last, plan for next time your angry. Play it out in your head as a sort of practice session. Think of something that commonly makes you angry and go through how you will respond next time. It’s the same visualization technique used by Olympians in the starting blocks and entrepreneurs at the board table.

The bottom line is that there is no room for angry, emotional outburst in the LIFE principles. Anger destroys love, ruins integrity, dismantles fellowship, and holds back excellence. If you want to live LIFE to the full for you and those you care about, get anger under control in the small moments and the big.

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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