Soundtrack

“I don’t think any of us should trust fate to write the story of our lives.  Fate is a terrible writer.” 

~ Donald Miller

---

One of my best friends from college, Scot, used to talk about how he wished he had a soundtrack for his life that would play as he meandered through.  Before digital music, that was a bit of an impossibility, but now, you could almost cobble together some version of that if you liked.

I am fascinated by music as narration.  A great soundtrack so elevates a story that it almost becomes a character all its’ own.  Setting up environments, enhancing the story, and establishing a mood that dialogue and setting alone can’t seem to provide.  A recent obsession of mine is the FX series The Bear.  While it has more FPM (f-words per minute) than what I am typically comfortable with, it also provides some of the most beautiful stories of restoration and healing I have ever seen, especially in season two.

In the seventh episode, it utilizes Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” in unexpected and beautiful ways.  It is the backdrop for deep heartache, it provides narration and moves along a portion of the story.  But where it most powerfully shows up is when it is used as a transcendent and emotional breakthrough anthem.  The soundtrack of that song exposes and elevates the deeper story of what is going on with a particular character.

People who possess my worldview often filter life through a challenging idea; they try to determine which good and bad things have direct attribution to God.  Now, we believe that the Divine is sovereign over all things, but it is a very slippery slope to start assigning direct intentions to the good and bad of our lives.  Was that person struck with cancer on purpose?  Are they being taught a lesson?  Did they deserve it?  And what about those great parking spots that everyone seems to be “thanking God” for?  Is the Creator tending to the universe with my desire for great parking in mind?

I am good with the idea that God is sovereign over everything.  And I am committed to finding growth and learning through my Creator in both the good and the bad experiences of my life.  But when I find myself believing that all the bad in my life is sourced from above, it gets me to a very dark place and can even keep me from taking personal responsibility for things I should.  And when I give all good things direct attribution, it often removes the agency and momentum needed in my life to do more of the good.

This perspective is woven into our Life Plan retreats as well.  We help people write a better story with their lives.  Regardless of where your story started or has taken you, you can craft a different, better next chapter.  We’ve seen that play out in our lives and have been privileged to watch the same for over 700 others now.  For people of faith, they see it as more of a coauthoring, as we do.  For others, they wield the power of the pen with what they believe is a solo and independent enterprise.

Regardless of their worldview, however, they come to realize a grander understanding of their lives and repurpose it in a way that produces greater meaning for how they live.

And who isn’t interested in finding that? 

Consider

• If you were creating a soundtrack, what song would best represent where you are in the story?  Which would represent your desired destination best?

• Do you believe that the decisions you make, and the aspirations you agree with, help determine the direction of your life?

• Are you ready to write a better story than the one you’ve been living?  Maybe partner with the Divine to create a better one?

---

Quitting

“For leaders and managers, loud quitting can signal major risks within an organization that are important not to ignore. Conversely, quiet quitters are often your greatest opportunity for growth and change. They are waiting for a leader or a manager to have a conversation with them, encourage them, inspire them.”  

~ 2023 Gallup State of the Global Workforce Survey

---

We are working with a company on the back end of cleaning up an incredible mess.  Unknown to them, two key employees seem to have “quiet quit” many months before they actually left.  Like a college student going through the motions for an entire semester, fooling everyone but themselves, the report card at the end of the term was a sobering reality to those who didn’t know.

Gallup surveys millions around the globe working for organizations of every size.  It is the most expansive and highly regarded of all the surveys on the “state of employment” at any given time.  This annual survey is their most extensive and most widely known.  They break employees into three broad categories:

1. Thriving at work: These employees find their work meaningful and feel connected to the team and their organization. They feel proud of the work they do and take ownership of their performance, going the extra mile for teammates and customers. 

2. Quiet quitting: These employees are filling a seat and watching
   the clock. They put in the minimum effort required, and they are psychologically disconnected from their employer. Although they are minimally productive, they are more likely to be stressed and burnt out than engaged workers because they feel lost and disconnected from their workplace.

3. Loud quitting: These employees take actions that directly harm the organization, undercutting its goals and opposing its leaders. At some point along the way, the trust between employee and employer was severely broken. Or the employee has been woefully mismatched to a role, causing constant crises. 

First, the good news.  The percentage of those thriving at work (engaged employees) hit an all-time high this year at 23%.  Well done on growing that number, employers!  This is obviously our preference for where many of our employees would land.  Ironically, the place we would next prefer they land is “loud quitting”.  At that point, it is obvious to them and the leadership that they need to find an employer better suited for this 18% (actively disengaged) portion of our workforce.

Some of you have likely already done the math, but that means that the remaining 59% of our workforce is “quiet quitting”.  And this is the worst possible place for our employees to classify! They still seem to be showing up for class and doing the work, but by the time that report card comes, it is too late and there has already been a tremendous loss of time and money.  That is how Gallup identified almost two-thirds of this disengaged portion of our workforce!

Lack of engagement has never been more costly.  And while there are dozens of things you could focus on to drive engagement, building trust with your managers and investing in their growth is the single most significant thing you can do.  Gallup states, “The manager is the linchpin of engagement. Seventy percent of team engagement is attributable to the manager.”

Our particular worldview says that we are responsible for caring well for everyone under our leadership, but it is also excellent business to do so and likely the only antidote to this significant problem.

Consider

• What percentage of your employees do these three categories represent?

• Are you aware of the hidden costs that might be lurking behind all that silent disengagement?

• How much time, effort, and money are you spending to build trust and engagement with your key leaders?

Cairn

Cairn [ kairn ]

noun

1. a heap of stones set up as a landmark, monument, tombstone, etc.

---

I met with a leader of a large company before their annual offsite. We were scripting the event, and I wanted to help him create an introductory statement of where he felt they were and how he thought they were doing. He struggled mightily to say much good about the company's progress over the prior year. Because I was very aware of all their previous year's successes, I could ask a few pointed questions to help him create an extensive list of all their accomplishments.

And this isn't an isolated case. Most people can create a long list of failures on inadequacies in their life, leadership, and business but struggle with identifying much good. We've worked with owners who could only come up with a handful of accomplishments to have the teams they lead identify dozens of things to celebrate. It is a worthwhile exercise with a group of leaders or an entire company (depending on the size).

It is like creating a cairn, commemorating a point in time by celebrating the progress and making a memorial. When we generate numerous flip-charts of a team's accomplishments, the leadership often wants to take and keep those summaries close because the antithesis of all that good is whispered constantly.

Is celebrating progress something that you and your team regularly do? We think it should be done annually, at a minimum, but we work acknowledgment and celebration into our regular meeting rhythms. Rather than making people comfortable with their progress, it typically does the opposite. It becomes the motivation and the fuel to keep moving forward despite all the obstacles they face daily.

I often get to hear leaders say:

• A particular employee is doing a great job

• The team is performing well

• They really love their spouse

• They are super proud of their kids

I always ask, "When was the last time you told them that?" Guess what their answer almost always is? "They know." Meaning; I did something or said something to let them know my appreciation at some point in the last year or so. Almost everyone around us is comparing their average day to the highlights of millions of others' greatest hits through social media. We can't share our appreciation enough.

I've had occasions when I felt I needed to share something positive about a person's leadership. It is common to have to circle back and repeat the encouragement several times before it ever seems to register. We are swimming against a powerful cultural stream we have to break through.

They can tell you a hundred ways they don't measure up and how inadequate they are. They are starving for honest, thoughtful, and sincere appreciation and encouragement. I was meeting recently with a leader, and I asked how one of his team members was doing. This team member is 3-4 levels down from him. He said he didn't interact with him directly but listed several good things he had picked up from those managing him.

When I later told the team member what the senior leader had said, he excitedly told me, "It made his year." and fired him up to keep working harder. But, beyond this obvious benefit to your organization that encouragement and praise can provide, it also raises the dignity and agency of even the lowest common denominators in your organization. If those under our care experienced that, we could change the world.

Consider

• What is your culture like for celebrating your team’s progress?

• Can you remember the last time you did that in a meaningful way and what the response was?

• Make a short list of people and think about how you can show them your gratitude.  Or establish a time with your team to mark the progress they’ve made over the last year.

Embody

“Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.”  

~ Moses

---

Sometimes when we work with a senior leader with a struggling area of their business, they are forced to make a leadership change. They level all their efforts on getting a proper replacement. But rather than hastily making the new hire, we often ask them to embody the role of the exiting leader for a season as a first step.

Despite how knowledgeable a person is about every aspect of the business, walking a while in the shoes of the struggling leader can be powerfully illuminating. There are often other people's issues, challenges, or unknown vagaries of running that portion of the business that can only be fully understood from the inside. Leaders then grow in empathy and understanding and make much better hires.

It is a bit of what Moses is getting at in the quote we started with. Teaching moral principles is necessary (we are particularly good at that), but embodying them in every arena of your life (we are not particularly good at that) is necessary if they are going to be truly caught. So understanding comes from seeing things lived out rather than just shouting them out.

Children are particularly adept at learning through example rather than being taught, but employees aren't much different.

Don Draper, one of the advertising executives from the celebrated AMC show Mad Men, doesn't seem to adhere to traditional morality. His ability to creatively manipulate while not possessing any relational attachment makes him incredibly unlikable but also very successful in the advertising of his day. You had to be pretty detached to overcome every health risk and consequence and successfully market a client's cigarettes, for example.

In a flashback from his early life, Don remembers encountering a homeless man (a hobo, as they called him in the Depression-era United States). The man had agreed to do several days of hard labor in return for payment from his father. But once the work was completed, his father refused payment to the powerless man.  

While staying on their property during the work, the man taught Don the "hobo code" of symbols used to help others find food and work or even warn them about danger. As the man left, hat in hand, without any payment, Don noticed the "dishonest man" symbol written on the front gate of his father's house. Despite the moral high ground his father spoke from, his actions told another story. Don came by his moral ambiguity, honestly. 

The way we live speaks even louder than what we are saying.

Consider

• Do you have an area of your business that is struggling?

• Is it time to make a change?

• Do you think it might first serve you to embody the role for a season in order to make a truly informed best replacement?

Personified

“Most people meet someone new and try to figure out if they like them or not.  Zack meets new people knowing that he already loves them and seeks to figure out why.”  

---

While filmmakers Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz visited a friend at a camp for people with developmental challenges, they encountered a man with Down's Syndrome named Zack. They talk about being completely overwhelmed by his love and confidence in his identity.

When Zack finds out about their vocation, he confidently tells them he will become a movie star. After they gently say to him that very few roles are available to someone with his disability, he tells them they need to write a script with a lead character that is, and he will star in it for them.

The movie, Peanut Butter Falcon, was written, produced, and directed by Tyler and Michael out of that challenge. They wrote the starring role of "Zak" for the real Zack they had been so taken by. His love of everyone captivated them and changed the lives of anyone who encountered him through the film, including actor Shia LaBeouf who credits the experience with helping save his life.

Just great acting, perhaps, but when Zack tells Shia’s character that he is his “best friend” and will “give him all his wishes on his birthday,” he seems genuinely wrecked by the sincerity of the gesture. Acting or not, how could you not be?

Christianity was launched through the life of one man who embodied love and identity in a way the religion of his day had somehow missed in the law they were trying to live out. He so ingratiated everyone with his love that a movement he initiated changed the world.

Unfortunately, most people don't see the Christ that way. The one who came to un-shroud everyone else's faces has become shrouded himself. Obscured through opinion and misrepresentation, wrapped in nationality, denomination, and financial opportunity, the distortion of him barely resembles the real deal. That distorted representation is even being perceived as less attractive today than ever.

An old gospel song describes the authentic version and then asks, "How could you say no to this man?". Indeed. If we stripped away all the fog, distortion, and misunderstanding, we would, like the directors of Peanut Butter Falcon, have an incredibly hard time saying "no" to that kind of love.

Some of the most profoundly loving and kind people I've ever known came from families privileged to live with that sort of love. So rather than seeing the developmentally challenged as a disability, most describe the ability to love others that way as an incredible ability. They seem, like Zack, to approach everyone from the perspective of loving them first and then figuring out why.

A famous religious leader often encourages people to ask the Divine big simple questions and expect big answers. Because of all the misrepresentation and confusion, he sometimes tells us not to ask how "God" might respond but to simply ask what the "voice of love" would say. That would be an excellent place for all of us to seek answers to our biggest questions about ourselves and everything else.

Consider

• When you think of God or the Christ, what comes to mind?

• Do you see it as love personified?

• How would it change the way you lived if you did?

Covenant

“A covenant is an agreement between two people…it is formal, solemn, sometimes even sacred.” 

- Vocabulary.com

---

I am done with marriage. Whatever it used to mean, or the promise it once held, seems long forgotten. It has been reshaped, translated, redefined, and contorted. It doesn’t seem to resemble what we used to know. With a marriage license fee of $81 (in my county), it is the easiest and cheapest contract you can enter into. And not even worth the paper it is written on, with over 50% of those contracts being broken, usually by another far more expensive legal document.

Ironically, failure doesn’t make us better at it like it does many other things. Second marriages fail at over 60%, and the latest numbers show third marriages ending 73% of the time. All our family trees seem to have piles of broken branches beneath them.

Covenant, however, is something else altogether. In the same way the Divine asks us to encircle our lives with theirs, where hope, restoration, healing, and redemption are the outcome; covenant says to do the same with our marital union. Encircling those relationships with the Creator holds the possibility that our struggles and challenges will not divide but as redeemed, actually make us much stronger.

All that is broken can be restored.  

All that is sick can be healed.

All that is captive can be set free.

I think drawing that line and guarding it, to the exception of all others, is the only way my wife and I survived 34 years.

Bono says, “Marriage is a grand madness. It is like jumping off a cliff and believing you can fly.” The view from the top is fantastic, and there seem to be endless frontiers and possibilities as far as the eyes can see. But once you leap, gravity takes hold. And gravity can be a real @#%&$.

You feel that force pulling you down, correct? The one set against the lifetime commitment you made to your spouse? Other than clinging to the hope, promise, and restoration found in the covenant, there is no way our marriage would have made it 34 years. But, in the covenant, all those things that might have destroyed our relationship, as redeemed, actually made it stronger.

We talked about the covenantal circle with a young couple at a recent wedding. We told them to draw a dark and deep circle around that union. We’ve told young couples to enforce that with hedges as well. But given the state of things, we shared that constructing battlements around them might be a better analogy. We suggested that when they allow the drawbridge down to cross the chasm, they only allow the people who encourage, support, strengthen, and celebrate their union, inside.

Our prayer for them was for a “grand madness,” endless horizons and possibilities, and a gravity-free union.

Consider

• Are you married?  Do you look at your marriage as a covenant?

• Do you think it would materially change the success rate of marriage if more people looked at it that way?

• What do you need to do in order to think of your marriage as more of a covenant?

Continuity

“MCU movies have long mastered the concept of continuity and connectivity when their writers have understood that it worked wonders for their universe in the comics. Therefore, readers and spectators would pay close attention to details in every scene to make sure they haven’t missed anything important in the plot. Continuity in a storyline is extremely important, has to be in order for connectivity to be able to link everything.”  

~ “The Artifice” online publication

---

While it has some of the better-known (Batman, Superman, etc.) comic book characters, the DC universe of superhero movies has dramatically underperformed the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).  The thirty-one films of the MCU have grossed $31B while the eleven films of the DC universe grossed only $6B.

That is almost $1 billion per film for the MCU!

I have read multiple articles about the “secret sauce” that has allowed them to differentiate and be so much more successful, but the most consistent reason seems to be the incredibly cohesive nature of all the films.  A group of 30 writers regularly gather to script the franchise well into the future.  A subset of those writers work on any given film and they always have overlap between each subsequent offering.

The precision of all that cohesion and cross-referencing makes the entire narrative feel more familiar and true.  It is almost magical how it is all so perfectly connected.  That is how they have created the most successful movie franchise of all time.  And that story arc and process of creation already has eleven other stories ready to be told.

That method of writing allows them to create cohesion across dozens of films where the DC universe hasn’t been able to create that sort of integrated narrative across their eleven.  And despite the fantastic track record, it continues to take a consistent group of writers spending weeks and years writing together.  And it takes millions of dollars to make it all conveniently fit and feel like one overarching story instead of a series of films loosely tied together.

What if you were trying to write a cohesive narrative with 40 different authors on three continents over a span of 1500 years?  Is there any way you could possibly make that sound like one story, much less a cohesive narrative where every cross reference perfectly fits with the others?  What if you had to connect 63,779 cross-references?

It would be nothing short of a miracle to make that happen.  The image in this post represents the sixty-four thousand different cross-references from the Bible.  The horizontal continuum across the bottom represents the entire written span from Genesis to Revelation.  The colored lines contain all of those thousands of references.

What the best writers in the world have worked tirelessly to do in the fantastic narrative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe completely pales in comparison.  An increasing portion of the population questions the validity of the bible or the claims of divinity by the story’s singular superhero, Jesus.  But it is pretty difficult not to step back and marvel (no pun intended) at the staggering achievement of this cohesive story.

Consider

• We all live within a story, a narrative, or a worldview we’ve chosen, consciously or unconsciously.  Which one are you living in?

• Is it a current philosophy, ideology, or trend?

• Have you aligned your life with a story that cohesively connects you across millennia and into eternity?  

Quiet

quiet 

[ kwīət/

adjective

1. making little or no noise.

2. carried out discreetly, secretly, or with moderation.

---

Most employers are having trouble finding enough or the right kind of workers.  Work behaviors are being allowed that typically wouldn’t have been tolerated as a result and things that are usually called out are being overlooked.  For most of the high-integrity type leaders we work with, this exacerbates an already existing problem: firing well.

Firing well means that you have made a reasonable attempt to help the employee succeed, and you have made them clear of the delta between their actual performance and the expected.  You have put together performance improvement plans to help them get where they need to be.  They are not surprised when the firing occurs.

But that isn’t what most employers do, in my experience.  They “quiet fire”.  They slowly choke out the employee by taking away responsibilities and rewards, and through a lack of inclusion.  They isolate the problem instead of eliminating it completely.  And I think they do it out of the goodness of their hearts, their acknowledgment of their own failure in the problem, their difficulty with having challenging conversations, or their disinterest in dealing with hard things.

Sound familiar? It certainly does to me.

This might sound a little controversial, but I think it is actually more kind and shows more integrity to fire someone than to leave them in a role where they are not succeeding or meeting expectations.  Believe it or not, most people inherently or even obviously know when they aren’t meeting expectations.  That is not a healthy situation for anyone to live in very long.

The antidote to all of this is something we all know well:

• Be slow to hire

• Be quick to coach, counsel, and help improve

• Be quick to fire when that doesn’t work

And you would think we wouldn’t have this problem given it is a buyer’s market for employees.  The opportunities to change jobs have not been this robust in some time, but concerns about the economy and the world have not been this heightened in some time either.  Changing jobs, like them or not, has been the less obvious choice than we might have expected.

“Quiet firing” was what we did when we didn’t actually want to deal with the challenges of firing.  That is when it was more of an employer’s market.  But in an employee’s market in the context of what feels like an unsafe world, “quiet quitting” is being more commonplace.  Meaning, they are still showing up to work and meeting the minimum requirements, but they have effectively quit investing or really believing in any kind of future for them in the job.

You need to look no further than many marriages we know.  I have heard phrases like “waiting until the kids graduate”, “just cohabitating”, or “fell out of love”,  far too often.  Maybe you saw that in your parent’s marriage, but hopefully aren’t seeing it in your own.  The marriage is no longer what it was or should be, but the alternatives aren’t too attractive. And they have lost the desire to try to change things for the good.

What this likely means is that the Gallup Employee Engagement Survey which has shown very slow, but gradual improvement, will likely start to decline.  And if you know anything about the cost of disengagement or “quiet quitting”, it will be catastrophic to many businesses.

Consider

• Have you been guilty of “quiet firing” in the past?

• Are you feeling the consequences and cost of the “quiet quitting” likely happening in your organization?

• Is it time to get serious about “slow to hire”, “quick to coach”, and “quick to fire”?

Becoming

“I am not the man I want to be, but I am no longer the man I used to be.”

~ Morgan Snyder

---

We are all in the process of becoming.  Sadly, that is sometimes becoming something worse.  But most of the very intentional people I spend time with personally or professionally are aggressively becoming something better.  And that isn’t just personally.  There is an intentionality about their families and businesses as well.

We help individuals and organizations answer key questions for their life and their enterprise:

Who am I?

Why do I exist?

Where am I going?

How will I get there?

Clearly our vision for where we are going is aspirational and how we will get there is answered by our strategic plan, but ‘Who are you?’ is an area where you are becoming.  Because core values (the answer to ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Who are we?’) serve as both a reality and a destination.  They are both an anchor and a compass.

We often encounter employees who say the stated core values of their company are bull$&)@.  What they are saying is that they aren’t perfectly lived out or fully realized.  I am sort of surprised that they are so shocked by that reality.  If cultivated correctly, they are both based on who you are and hold the promise of who you are more fully becoming.

And we have learned that the necessary fuel required to get you to where you want to go is the acknowledgment of the progress you’ve made.

Let’s celebrate the way we are fulfilling those values.

Let’s not be afraid to discuss how we are not.

Let’s earnestly address where we fall short.

The irony is that all of us avoid almost all forms of negative feedback.  But we also know that overcoming a challenge with a customer makes for a better customer relationship, that problems we’ve overcome in our personal lives have strengthened our resolve, and that so much of the valuable evolution in our organizations came through difficult seasons.  Increasingly enjoying the person we see in the mirror is the path to enjoying others better.

I would like to think that I am becoming a better version of myself.  That if I look back across the decades, I am better than I was 10, 20, or 30 years ago.  The work happens daily, but the progress is often hard to see without the advantage of many years’ view.  Some of that change came from allowing others to be honest with me, but possibly the greatest change has come from outright asking.

The three questions our team and partnership ask quarterly are:

1. What do you enjoy most about working with me?

2. What do you find most challenging?

3. What is one thing you think I least want to hear about myself?

I love getting the answers to the first question, but my life has been transformed by hearing the feedback from the other two and making course adjustments as a result.

Consider

• Who are you?

• Who are you becoming?

• Do you have people you trust to tell you things you need to know to get you and your organization there?

Returning

“Life can take you to unexpected places, love can bring you home.”

---

We are seeing a strange phenomenon among our clients.  While they are creating empowering cultures where team members are grown and opportunities for them increase as the companies scale, sometimes they decide to leave.  There is often a “grass is greener” experience where the prospect of something better is dangled and they take the bait.  Sometimes they should go.

And increasingly, the comparison culture of our age has them not really appreciating their current situation and believing that another option will not only alleviate any challenges and frustrations of their current job but also offer all the things they love about that job.  It sometimes takes stepping away to appreciate what you have.

Historically, exiting employees rarely make a successful journey back to the place they left.  We find that is due to several reasons:

• the culture is: once you leave you can never return

• the employees are embarrassed about the poor decision they made

• a clear path to return is not created in their exit

Obviously, we are glad to see some people go, but for those we wish hadn’t, there is a lot we can do to help facilitate their return.

• support their decision to try something else

• let them know that the door isn’t closed for them

• tell them you’d love to have them back on the team if things don’t work out as they hoped

• stay in touch with them after they leave or have someone on your team close to them keep contact

And why would we be so magnanimous and generous in our support of a defecting team member?  Several reasons:

1. They are already trained, know our culture, and can reintegrate immediately. The alternative is possibly hiring several to get a similar replacement and then training them to get them up to speed.

2. Every other employee is watching how you will honor and support or disparage and disrespect. They conflate that for your true feelings and possibly how you feel about them.

3. We’ve seen exiting employees change their minds and stay because of how they were treated at the exit.

Your best next hire may be a returning employee.  And if you are cultivating the kind of empowering culture that develops employees and diversifies power and authority to them, it shouldn’t surprise us that they would want to come back home.  What once felt like the place they had to leave may just become a beacon of light in the darkness.

And one more great tip.  You need to create a culture of honest feedback or at least cultivate the opinions of an exiting employee to understand hidden challenges that need to be addressed.  An exiting employee is often buffered by the shared concerns of others.  Having a safe and open exit interview will not only help you address the concerns of the exiting employee but likely improve your entire organization as well.

Consider

• Have you ever re-hired an employee who left your company?

• Do you think the way you handled their exit had anything to do with why you have or haven’t?

• What do you change in the way you transition employees leaving to increase the probability of their return”?

Bespoke

be·spoke

/bəˈspōk/

adjective

1. made for a particular customer or user.

---

I just finished the book Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara.  He took Eleven Madison Park (EMP) from mediocrity to the number one rated restaurant in the world with the very rare achievement of three Michelin stars and four stars from The New York Times (the highest classification from each organization).

Of course, they had to have great food, but many restaurants in the upper echelon of dining can claim that.  Where EMP truly differentiated itself was in the area of service.  Creating a culture of creativity, generosity, and ruthless hospitality for the entire team is what launched the enterprise into the stratosphere.

What was rare and incidental became systematized and part of the fabric of the dining experience.  Some examples:

• they eventually had four “Dream Weavers” on staff who worked to personalize the experience of all their guests

• couples who got engaged were given their champagne in special Tiffany flutes that they received as a gift at the end of their meal

• guests headed to the airport after their meal carried gift bags of elegant treats to replace the traditional mediocre ones you get in-flight

• employees created custom guidebooks of their favorite locales and also had access to stacks of gift cards for MOMA, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty to share with visitors to the city

The audiobook contains about eight hours’ worth of amazing stories of the things they did.  But the craziest stories were about the “bespoke” gifts - the highly customized experiences for special guests.  They describe these as “legendary" and have a private Instagram account established of these stories for their staff to celebrate and be further inspired.  

While these gifts can sometimes be extravagant, what really differentiates them is the thoughtfulness behind them.  Legendary experiences are so over the top that they are shared hundreds of times and result in ROIs many times over their initial cost.  These stories started the flywheel spinning and helped it pick up and keep momentum.

“Gifts are a way to tell people you saw, heard, and recognize them.  That you cared enough to listen and did something with what you heard.”  ~ Will Guidara

The authors of Giftology also have some similarly great stories about gift-giving, but it is the way that Will transforms the culture of his organizations through creativity and generosity that is truly inspiring.  And it had to start with how he cared for his employees first.  We’ve seen a similar movement among our customers with their employees:

• owners not trading in old cars for new ones, but fixing them up and gifting them to employees who need them

• a business owner requiring and funding the annual vacation of a key team member who was unaccustomed to taking and funding their own

• giving a new employee a set of gift cards to experience their new city with their visiting daughter

• paying for employees’ surgeries, providing other medical assistance that the employee wouldn’t have gotten on their own

• supporting their hobbies and interests with special time off and special funding

• providing for counseling, retreats, and other experiences for personal growth

If you care for your teams with these kinds of magnanimous and unique gestures,  their engagement, commitment, and productivity go through the roof.  There is also a direct correlation with how they care for your clients.  While you should do this because it is the right thing to do, it is also the path to greater business success.

There are a few crucial ingredients we’ve identified that are necessary to integrate this magically transformative ingredient into your organization:

• financial resources - you have to manage the business with sufficient margin to provide essential resources

• personal margin - you need to not be so overwhelmed that you don’t have eyes to see the opportunity

• being full & satiated - not operating from personal depletion - not drowning with your own needs

As the managing partners of some of our businesses say, having the ability to do these types of things is the best part of running a business.

Consider

• Are you operating with financial margin, time in your schedule, and enough in your own tank to facilitate bespoke and other experiences for those you lead?

• Can you remember a time when someone surprised or even overwhelmed you with their unexpected generosity?

• Is your business created to primarily serve you, your customers, or your employees? It has to start with employees as the first priority!

Zealot

zeal·ot

/ˈzelət/

noun

1. a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.

---

Okay, so I was one of those.  I am one of those.  Ironically, being a zealot can actually do a lot of good in ways that aren’t intrinsically bad, but sullied by the motive that drives them.  Most of mine were driven by the need for validation and the hopes of convincing my God that I wasn’t as bad a person as I secretly believed I was.  I still carry the capacity to be one of those but am working really hard to redeem the more negative aspects.  Here are some zealot highlights:

1. Read an impactful book, convinced my church to let me do a retreat based on it, and ordered cases of the book to hand out personally as part of the invitation for men to attend

2. Heard of a new book that was the feminine companion to that one, pre-ordered a dozen, and suggested my wife invite a group of women to go through the book with her (and I suggested the list of women and wrote a sample of the invitation…yikes!)

3. Wouldn’t get cable or internet for my family and pretty much banned all media and music that wasn’t expressly connected to my faith

4. Was inspired by a story about how a guy made small decisions in the direction of a better life and gave away dozens of them to others (I lost count at eighty-something copies)

5. Found that writing this short blog was a way to communicate thoughts and ideas, I’ve written over 450 of them

6. Went to Colorado for two with a plan to start a manuscript around our coaching methodology/worldview for life/leadership/business and finished a rough draft with over 43,000 words while I was there.

The last three on that list came from a more recent and healthier version of my tendency to be a zealot, but there can still be some self motivation masking what might seem well-intentioned.  But if I am not careful, being a person with those kind of jaundiced drivers can mean that I miss out on opportunities to see and respond to a myriad of great opportunities right in front of me.

Slowing down, being open to the unforced rhythms of God’s grace, and seeing the people around me has provided so many special opportunities.  These are just a few of the highlights from the last few months.

• asking a few directional questions to a stranger in a hotel completely changed his thoughts on the next step in his career

• seeing and acknowledging the intentionality of a coffee shop manager brought tears to his eyes

• celebrating the beauty of some landscaping completely awakened the pride and joy of a simple manual laborer

• asking a convenience worker where his joy came from because it had really brightened my day…he said it wasn’t always the case but he was working really hard to reverse the trend in his life and was super encouraged I noticed

• finding every occasion to tell my daughters how beautiful they are and how proud I am versus pointing out everything they are doing wrong

• laughing with grandkids while they empty the water from my windshield wiper reservoir on the car and us

• moving the needle on a disgruntled auto store employee by relentlessly showing her the good in all the bad she sees

• telling a server how her joy made my day better in every way

• engaging a rental car shuttle driver around the intentionality and professionalism of his approach to his work

• getting far less “done” on a beautiful afternoon by choosing to sit outside in an Adirondack chair instead of inside at my battle post

• choosing to abandon the cockpit of my laptop and headphones in a coffee shop to in order to observe and converse with the folks around me

The reality is that wanting to do good things (and maybe big things as a zealot) finds greater purchase and more lasting impact in the still and quiet, one-on-one, and away from the hurried pace the world is badgering me to join.  What do other types of recovering addicts say?  One day at a time.

Consider

• Are you accomplishing a lot of good in this season?

• Is your motivation really all about the people you are doing the good for?

• What is all the drive costing you and are you missing opportunities to do real good all around you?

Excellent

“I'm gonna swim for a week in

Warm American Water with dear friends

Swimming high on a lea in an Eden

Running all of the leads you've been leaving”  

- Robin Pecknold of the Fleet Foxes

---

One of the ways I meditate, and take in beauty, is to listen to really beautiful music.  Not just in structure and orchestration, but lyrically as well.  One of my favorites has been the music of the Fleet Foxes.  In fact, my wife and I just saw them at the new Moody Outdoor Amphitheater in Austin, TX.  Really great lyrics not only say something beautiful, but they also open up the possibility to the expression of hundreds of other glorious things.

As a fan of the Fleet Foxes, along with the Grammy nominating committee and virtually every music critic, I was a bit dismayed when they took a 6-year hiatus after their most celebrated album, Helplessness Blues, in 2011.  A lot of rumor and speculation circled the band during that long break, but a very different story emerged.

Robin Pecknold, leader of the band and the one who penned all those beautiful lyrics was the one prompting the break.  Instead of an extended stint in rehab, a nervous breakdown, or the dissolution of the band related to selfishness and greed…like so many other stories of bands that go away, this break was completely original.

Although regarded as one of the best lyricists in music, Robin wanted to become a better writer.  Even though many compare his penning of “Helplessness Blues” as the “Blowin’ in the Wind” of this generation, he wanted to grow in the mastery of his craft.  So, to the consternation of his fans, music critics, and probably his record label, he went back to school.  He moved to New Your City, enrolled in Columbia to get an undergrad degree in literature.

The best in any field always come with some mix of natural gifting and ability, but what makes them truly great is the incredible hard work they apply to growing and refining that natural gifting.  To become more excellent.

Gifting + hard work = genius.

But that isn’t even the entire equation. Because what really separates the great from the world-class is humility. Not a lack of confidence, but the humility to know that you can get better.  There is more to learn and there is wisdom and experience that you can still benefit from.

And that is true with Robin Pecknold as well.  Learning to love the writing of some of America’s great authors impacted him deeply.  His song “Sunblind” off the 2022 album Shore is a complete acknowledgment of what he gained from them.  He refers to the great American authors as dear friends.  He sings of swimming in a deep pool of their writing and comparing it to Eden.

He thanks them and honors them by “running all the leads you’ve been leaving” and exploring fully the inspiration they’ve provided.

Consider

• What are you inherently gifted at?

• What are you doing to get more excellent at that thing?

• How are you honoring those that you’re learning from?

Commemorate

“Live in the day, measure in the decade.” 

~ Morgan Snyder

---

A member of our team likes to note that I love being an Enneagram 8.  And I do.  But if you know much about that number, you could understand that it might be surprising that someone is so comfortable with that distinction.  I have plumbed the depths of how horrible that number can be and I am beginning to enjoy a bit of what a healthier 8 might look like.  For example:

Notorious 8’s - Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Donald Trump, Gorbachev

Healthier 8’s - Indira Gandhi, MLK, Franklin Roosevelt, Oscar Schindler

Both the unhealthy and notorious versions of the Enneagram 8 possess incredible will, drive, and intentionality.  They are often people of huge accomplishment.  And the obvious understanding is that the superpowers of this number can be used for good or evil.  I am guessing many of the protagonists and villains in superhero movies are likely 8s as well.

The offering of any great religion and particularly so in the Christian tribe that I identify with is the hope of restoration.  That what is not right can become right again.  It is that redemptive possibility contained in the Enneagram construct that makes it so compelling to me.

There seemed to be an inevitability of my Enneagram 8, born of so much insecurity and self-protection, that told me that I would eventually end up alone.  Divorced, estranged from my children, and without great friendships or partnerships.  Though I wrapped my life in the veil of a gospel of truth, light, and restoration, I was pretty much a white-washed tomb: the shiny and nice exterior concealing something rotten inside.

If I had to measure in the decade, this is how I would describe them:

Decade 1 - innocence lost - divorce of parents and exposure to things well ahead of schedule

Decade 2 - looking for identity in all the wrong places

Decade 3 - awakened to newfound identity and faith

Decade 4 - taking a message of freedom and creating a system of control

Decade 5 - restored life, family, and identity - a new beginning

Decade 6 - the restoration of joy, purpose, and a more meaningful life

And these decades or seasons are hallmarked by some pretty pivotal events.  In our Life Plan process, we call them “lifegates.”

Fall 1982 - 40 years ago - began attending a Christian university that completely changed my life

Fall 2002 - 20 years ago - attended a men’s event where I found a new identity, and healing, and began the process of restoring everything broken in my life

Fall 2013 - almost 10 years ago - began coaching my first client

One of the vagaries of my Enneagram 8 is that I am always moving forward.  I don’t really look back which can be enormously helpful.  But I am not prone to celebrate or commemorate much as well.  But this month, I am returning to the place in Colorado that so impacted my life twenty years ago (this month, actually).  I am going there to work on a manuscript for a book, but I am also going to do what I am not prone to do.  

I am going to measure in the decade.

I am going to memorialize the last 40 years, the last 20, and the last 10.  I am going to celebrate that while I am not the man I eventually want to be, I am no longer the man I used to be.  I am going to note the progress I’ve made and forgive everything else.

Consider

• Are you aware of the progress you’ve made in your life?

• Are you comfortable noting that progress?

• Do you need to schedule some time to commemorate what you’ve overcome across the decades? Some time to maybe forgive yourself and release the rest?

Authority

“The primary work of God is finding people to whom he can entrust his power. And the story of most men is being entrusted with power and it bringing harm to themselves and those under their care.” 

~ Dallas Willard

---

In Stephen Ambrose’s brilliant book on the “easy” company of the 101st Airborne division of the US army and their role in the invasion of Normandy, we meet two contrasting pictures of leadership.

The first, Captain Sobel, is a ruthless, dictatorial, and some would say, masochistic leader.  He is in authority, under his own authority.  He is hated universally by all those under his leadership.  They secretly contemplate ways to kill him in combat and a group of them ultimately mutiny at the potential cost of a court marshaling and even execution.  Ironically, his commanding officer is simultaneously promoting and acknowledging that he is responsible for possibly the best-trained and prepared men in the history of the military.

You see, dictatorships can look incredibly efficient and even successful if not viewed too closely.  But dictatorships are also typically short-lived, preserved only in manipulation or violence, and often ended through revolt, uprising, and assassination.

Ultimately Sobel is demoted into the paratrooper version of Siberia, teaching doctors and pastors how to parachute in case battle ever requires them to do so.  He is moved from the heroic front line of the battle to the very back.

The other example is Major Dick Winters.  He is intentional, kind, intelligent, and leads for the sake of and on behalf of those under his care.  He is a leader in authority, under authority.  He does the right things for the right reasons and when his commander, Captain Sobel, is jealous of his rising authority, he threatens him with either choosing a demotion or facing court-martial proceedings.  Winters chooses the latter, knowing he will be vindicated, but also knowing that Sobel will be exposed.

Winters is forced to live in the awkward tension of being under the leadership of Sobel while being the buffer between Sobel and the men entrusted to his care.

The ultimate question in all of this is what people choose to do with their power.  Or maybe better said, what people allow power to do to them.  And why do so many seem to choose the autocratic, selfish, and oppressive expression of their power?  Because it is way easier.  It is also shorter-lived, less fulfilling, lonelier, lazier, unsustainable, and ultimately, less successful.

Sobel looks for every opportunity to remind his men of his power over them.  Winters is constantly, in his authority, under authority, seeking to encourage, strengthen and empower them.  He even questions a new leader seen gambling with his men.  The new leader indicates that it is just good-natured fun and the opportunity to get to know them better.

Winters asks him, “What if you had won?”  And follows that with, “Never put yourself in a position to take from these men.”  This good leader, this good king, is in the service of those he leads.  Sobel, a poor leader or bad king, is in the service of himself.

Consider

• What have you chosen to do with your power and authority?

• Can you honestly say that you’re in authority, but submitted to others and possibly a higher authority?

• What small step can you take in the direction of becoming a more Winters and less Sobel leader?

Super

"The most important thing about a man is not what he does, it is who he becomes."

- Dallas Willard

---

Possibly my favorite trailer of all time is from the Superman origin story, Man of Steel. Even hearing a few bars at the outset of revisiting this two minutes of video magic made the hair on my arms stand up again.  I used to think it was because it was part of the opening of every talk I gave on glory in front of the 1,100 men that have attended the four-day weekends I help host.   But I now know it is the result of something far deeper.

Of the many things that stir me, one line is burned into my memory.  When a young Clark, already super but not knowing how to administer his power, saves a bus full of school children, he is exposed.  He is offering his power and glory before his appointed time.  He is carrying an extraordinary gift that could be completely undermined if not administered when and how it is intended.

His father says, “You have to keep this side of yourself a secret.”

Both superheroes and supervillains have power. It is the administration of the power and motive behind its’ offering that determines if they are good or bad. And sometimes even good things can be bad.

A few examples:

• I knew a leader who aggressively found opportunities to do good and support all kinds of things he believed in…to mask the reality that he hated himself and was trying to earn approval from his God.

• I knew a leader who was a young superstar, way ahead of his time, who built and impacted thousands…driven by a fear of failure and needing to receive the affirmation of others since he didn’t know it from his God.

• I knew a younger me that held all types of ministry roles that intersected with thousands of lives…motivated by a fear of the world, a need for control, and fighting a sense that the tragedy of his life had already disqualified him.

How could doing something inherently good, not be good?  Motive always tells the tale.

In the biblical narrative, we see picture after picture of Jesus accomplishing good, but apparently passing by the opportunity to do more.  We see him heal, restore, and do the miraculous, working hard to keep it a secret.  He ends many of those interactions with a simple, “The time has not yet come…”.  The time has not come for him to reveal himself as the anticipated one.  To take his place as the great healer, restorer, and reconciler.

His mission is to point back to the source of the power.  To model for his followers how to do the same.  He only does what the Father tells him (and when he tells him to).  He is not a superhero, but super connected and offering the administration of power and authority at God’s hand.

And he made some audacious claims along the way.  That we have been granted the authority he carried.  We are seated in a similar place as him.  That we would do even greater things than him.  That we were glory-bearers intended to model what God is like to the world and administer his power at his hand.  The plan was not to keep showing up like so many re-makes in the Superman anthology.  His plan was to model for us so that we could offer the same in our restoration.

I am trying hard to reject self-determination and accomplishment.  I want to become more the kind of man that offers power, authority, justice, mercy, honor, and love with no other motivation than God’s direction.  This slow but steady journey is changing everything.

Consider

• What good things are you doing?

• Why are you doing them?

• Do you think a simple question of what you are supposed to do and when you are supposed to do it might be the necessary filter for everything?

Amphibious

am·phib·i·ous

/amˈfibēəs/

adjective

1. relating to, living in, or suited for both land and water.

---

When we were getting certified as E-Myth coaches, we learned a new and robust understanding of vision.  For many, vision is simply a more generous or aspirational version of their purpose or mission statement.  In fact, when we encounter companies that have a mission, purpose, and vision statement created in a traditional format, it is often hard for us to distinguish between the three.

The vision we learned and work to create with all our clients is very different.  This vision is a clear and articulated version of the future.  What will the culture look and feel like?  What will client relationships be like?  Where will we be situated in the marketplace?  Products…Locations…Systems…What will our business look like in the future when it is purposefully matured?

It is a picture to hope and work toward.  It is a commitment to a future reality.

We also learned that in order to realize that future, you have to be firmly and honestly grounded in your present.  You need to operate with “double vision” - really clear on where you are, but increasingly focused and committed to the future.  

For example, if you have five project managers that you oversee, but hope someday to have one of them manage the five, you need to either have the person on the team you can develop to that point or make your hire someone that can rise to that position.  Your current decision-making should be informed by that aspirational future reality.

In a very similar way, Jesus’ teaching was that we are to be incredibility present, aware, and engaged in the world around us.  We are to be present and honest about things as they are.  But we are also to live in the tension of a redemptive possibility.   The hope of things to come should influence and help guide our current reality.  One is tethered to the other with the future bringing perspective to the current day.

We should live today and makes decisions that are deeply influenced by the day to come.  And, by the way, the future we are shown is pretty extraordinary.  Broken things mended.  All things set right.  Everything restored to what it was intended to be, but even better from the overcoming.

In a way, we are to be amphibious, designed to live in both worlds with tremendous value sourced from both.

1. We need to claim the essential learning from our past.

2. Forget the rest.

3. Be honest about and highly present in our current situation.

4. Hold tightly to the hope of the future.

5. Live in the glorious tension of that presence and future.

And we’ve been promised that the future is going to be pretty spectacular!

Consider

• Have you gleaned the value from the past you’ve lived?

• Are you honest and fully aware of your current situation?

• Are you partnering with God to hope and plan for a better future?

Right

“Conflict resolution can be defined as the informal or formal process that two or more parties use to find a peaceful solution to their dispute.” 

~ HBR

---

When I was a portfolio manager…of a national bank portfolio…that was FDIC insured…with a stock that was traded on the NYSE…with very conservative management…that also had a trading floor of brokers we managed…we were highly regulated.  It felt like some kind of auditor, examiner, or regulator, was looking through every detail of the things we did in the investment division.

Initially, I thought we had the same objective.  We were working hard to navigate the complexity of the financial markets and the vagaries of so many different auditing bodies.  They were there to help us.  Or so I thought.

We were always trying to do the right things for the right reasons and rightly as possible.  And that is a lot of “right” in my book.  For the most part, they were not collaborative, or helpful, and didn’t seem interested in helping us to get better in any obvious ways.  They seemed to have a single rallying cry that divided us, made us adversarial, and stoked the level of distrust.

They might as well have worn t-shirts of bright colors with a big “GOTCHA” emblazoned on the front.

They seemed interested in manufacturing drama where it didn’t exist and curating motives and intent that weren’t true.  We knew they wouldn’t say they were done until they found something, no matter how minute, that would allow them to proclaim “gotcha” and signal victory.  So we shifted our relationships with them.  We made sure they found something.  We made sure some minute but obvious oversight lay waiting for them.

What a waste of energy and opportunity to collaborate. They could have shared their expertise to help us be more accurate and apprised of changing regulations.  So much lost opportunity for us to share our experience of navigating the treacherous and tumultuous financial markets to find safe and good.

It is the same in every conflict with a spouse, a child, or an employee.  If our objective is how to protect our sense of “right” while revealing their “wrong”, no wonder this almost never goes well.  And it would be really helpful if our educational, spiritual, and governmental institutions modeled this for us.  But sadly, they seem to show us the opposite.  

There has never been a time when all those folks have doubled down more on clinging to the right to be right.  Almost as if their lives depended on it and maybe, because of this established objective, they do.

But so much wasted energy and opportunity to collaborate.  Can you imagine sitting down with an employee, a friend, a spouse, or even a child and saying:

“Before we get started, I want you to know that I am here to listen and understand.  I want us to leave this table with a better understanding of each other’s position and some established common ground that we can both feel good about.”

It could change everything.  It will change everything.

The leaders we work with say they are sitting down for a crucial conversation and pulling out our content and working through the steps to get to a much healthier outcome.  We all have to get better at this…and we can!

Consider

• What is the last really difficult conversation you had?

• How did it go?

• Do you think you are in a healthy enough place to surrender your “right” in order to find a “better”?

Delegate

“Delegation is the celebration of the untapped potential in others.”

---

How did we get so far off track? How did we come to the understanding that delegation was the minimizing of our power and our control?  That the limits of what was possible in our organizations were limited to what we can do or the extent of our foreseeable will to work even harder?

Maybe it is the season of my life.  Maybe it is the fact that one of my core values is “mudita” (enjoying the success of others more than your own success).  Maybe it is working with so many good-hearted leaders who reach the point of wanting to just shut down or check out.  Or seeing leaders come to the painful reality that the most precious people in their lives are not getting the best of them, but simply the rest of them.  Whatever the reason, I am ready to take a stand for delegation.

Healthy delegation, in its’ purest form, is a gift to both the giver and receiver.  It is a fulcrum we can use to multiply our impact and find the realization of success beyond our finite strength and ability.  It is the doorway to unlocked potential in our teams and unrealized capacity in our leadership.

There are some fundamental facts you should know.

• Every 15-minute daily task that you can hand off gives you back the equivalent of 1 1/2 weeks of your year

• Those 15 daily minutes turn into the equivalent of 3,600 minutes a year

Here is the painful reality, though: most of us will never successfully delegate much of anything.

• We live in a get-er-done, do-it-yourself kind of culture

• We wrongly believe that no one will ever do it as well as we can

• We believe our way is the only right way to do anything

• We love controlling every aspect of everything

• We operate as if everyone who works for us is inferior to us and their ideas or way of doing things pales to ours

But what is the path to delegation, if you were so inclined?  What is required?

• Assessment - Do they have the skill, margin, and passion for the task? Do they have the necessary tools and training?

• Clarity - Have I made the expectations abundantly clear and documented the results and process needed?

• Patience - they will not do it as well on the first or tenth time as you do in on your hundredth - but by their hundredth, they will likely do it slightly differently and possibly better than you do it now.

• Humility - You need to be able to enjoy the success and growth of others more than yourself.

• Time - Studies show it takes about 30 times the amount of time it takes to complete the task as it takes to successfully transition it (talking about it, documenting it, showing them how, watching them doing it, giving them course direction as they go, etc.)

You might be saying, “30 $#@*& times the amount of time?!? Forget it, I’ll just do it myself!” But if you keep doing it all yourself, you’re on the path to maintaining your current level or overwhelm, capping your company’s potential, and never really developing the hidden talent on your team.

Would you be willing to invest $450 dollars if you knew it would return $3,600 dollars to you every year from now on?  Investing 450 minutes (30 times that 15-minute daily task) would yield you 3,600 minutes (1.5 weeks * 8 hrs a day * 60 minutes) over the next year and every one after.  

Who wouldn’t make that investment if they knew the ROI of taking the steps necessary to make it happen?

Consider

• What are the things that only you can do?

• What are the things that you could and should hand off to someone else?

• Do you think you can follow the steps and overcome the obstacles to receive that incredible ROI?

Raft

“What would you do if you knew you only had 1 day or 1 week or 1 month to live?  What lifeboat would you grab on to?  What wish would you fulfill?  What is the minimum in life?”

~ trailer from “One Week”

---

The water was running dangerously fast.  That meant that the penultimate day of our five-day raft trip through the Royal Gorge had to be relocated.  In fact, several parts of the river were closed due to the incredible flow of melted snow.  I was there with five graduates from the youth group I had helped lead over the last year.  The snow on the ground around our tents and the water that raised our voices a full octave explained why coming this early in the season was so much cheaper.

On our last day, we pulled out of the river just before lunch.  Our guides went around the bend to determine if “Seidel’s Suckhole” was even navigable.  They said it was iffy, but the youthful fearlessness and adrenaline of my compatriots made the decision.  We were going!

When we circled the bend, we realized that every other guided trip had assembled on the banks of the river, waiting to see if anyone was stupid enough to tempt the “suckhole”.  We did as instructed and paddled like crazy away from the drop it offered, but it sucked us over nonetheless.  We obeyed our next instruction that if we dropped into that hole, we should paddle like our life depended on it (because it might), in the hopes we might pop out over the edge of that wall of water.

We did not.  We flipped upside down.

Heroic kayakers pulled most of my kids out of the water, but I journeyed quite a bit further downriver.  When they caught up to me, I grabbed on the side of the life raft and asked to be pulled in.  The guide said that they shouldn’t do that, but that I should hang on tight for the next two sets of rapidly approaching rapids.

I am not the guy who holds on for dear life.  I am the guy who helps others hang on for dear life while they matriculate through the next couple of sets of rapids in their lives.  In fact, I am usually the guy sitting high in the back of the boat with the two big oars allowing everyone else to think they are controlling the vessel when actually I am.

I was reminded this morning that life feels more like hanging on to the edge of a life raft.  And the rapids seem to keep coming.  The energy and reserve tanks are both running pretty low.  It is taking me longer to do things, my mind isn’t as clear, and I am not sure how much churning water I am up for.

Maybe you are still sitting at the back of the boat, commanding everything, big oars in your hands, making the challenging seem effortless.  If you are, we’ve never needed your ability more desperately than we need it right now.  If you are like me and most other people in our country, you better have a lifeboat you can hang onto.  You are going to need it.

The successful treatment of cancer comes with a bill that must be paid.  And sometimes, I’ve heard, the cure can even feel worse than the disease.  We haven’t paid all the bills we’ve mounted from the last 2 years, but they are coming due.  

You better be tethering yourself to a source of life that transcends your circumstances.  

You better be flanked by others doing the same.  

You better be preparing for the next set of rapids.  

Consider

• How ready are you to pay the bill that is coming?

• What lifeboat are you holding onto?

• Who is around you to help you navigate the coming season?