Why Not Do Your Best?

Stop drifting…Sprint to the finish. Write off your hopes, and if your well-being matters to you, be your own savior while you can.” - Marcus Aurelius

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Not too often do I allow conversations to haunt me after the fact – the recent self-development of temperance and “stillness” has proven to work pretty well. 

Well, that’s what I tell myself…

But a recent question from a colleague weeks ago continues to linger with me, with the vexatious words of “why not”?

Some may know I used to play sports at a high level – baseball specifically.  I’m not sure why I choose this sport. 

Perhaps because I had a deranged enjoyment for failure. 

Perhaps because my father played professionally, and it was ALWAYS around me. 

Perhaps because I was too slow to achieve the same in other sports. 

Regardless, it was a part of who I was through the age of 24. 

Now I dedicate nearly 100% of my free time coaching women’s youth competitive softball – the faster, more strategic counterpart to baseball.  I love it. 

I love it not for the physical play but for the opportunity to guide, development and mold young athletes at such an impactful chapter of their lives.

Back to that evocative question posed to me a few weeks ago…

“Hey, if you could go back to 12 years old, what would you have chosen to do differently in your approach to sports? What about you would have been different?”.

 Other than spending less time collecting baseball cards, sneaking twinkies in my room without Dad noticing and investing early in Exxon…here is my list:

1.     I would have never followed the crowd. Things might seem cool today, but that crowd is not going where I want to go.

2.     I would sprint to my position every single time. It wouldn’t be something I do. It would be who I am.

3.     I would show up early, always dressed, looking prepared.  I would look more experienced than I really am.

4.     I would play with more intensity. Effort is a baseline requirement. Coaches do not want to coach effort.

5.     I would never hang my head if I made an error, struck out, or gave up the game-winning hit. I would’ve been kinder to myself - because I know I’m good and I will win the next go round.

6.     I would have played catch like I was already playing for a D1 school. With purpose, polish and intensity.

7.     I would be known for my work ethic and being a selfless teammate. When this game is over, all you have to be known for is your character. People will always forget your performance.

8.     I would have played fearless and put more of my safety in God’s hands.

9.     I would’ve treated my equipment like my Golden Retriever.   Unconditional kindness and respect.  We must have temperance and control of emotions.

10.  I would’ve told more coaches and more umpires how much I value and respect what they do.

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I recall a story I read in a recent Ryan Holiday book when little-known young Jimmy Carter (who later became the 39th US President) was being interviewed by Admiral Hyman Rickover, the 'father of Nuclear Navy’, for a in the nuclear submarine program.

For 2-3 hours, Rickover quizzed Carter about strategy, tactics, physics, history, literature, and other technical issues.  

Carter had prepared for weeks so the interview was going well.

But unexpectedly, Rickover asked young Carter “Where were you ranked in your class at the Naval Academy?”

Being a brilliant student, Carter viewed this as an opportunity to shine. 

Beaming with pride he replied, “I was ranked 59th in a class of 840 Sir”.

Finishing among the top 10% in any class is an EXCELLENT result, and the Naval Academy was no exception.

So, expecting a congratulatory smile or at least a nod of approval, Carter was surprised to hear a follow-up question. 

Rickover asked him, “Did you always do your best?”

Carter was about to instinctively answer that of course he always did his best, but something caused him to pause.

Recounting the event years later, Carter said: “No Sir, I didn’t always do my best.”

The admiral, Rickover said nothing. He simply stood up and left.

But before leaving, he stared at the young man for a long time before asking one last question, “WHY NOT?”

Like “Why didn’t you always do your best?”  Carter would never forget the question.

The question became a driving force guided everything he did afterward, and eventually propelled him into the White House.

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Although I could stretch my list of 10 to something much longer, I do not recall why I didn’t do my best at a young age. 

Perhaps I didn’t know what doing my best really was. 

Perhaps I didn’t understand the impact it would have made on my future self. 

Perhaps I didn’t believe it at the time.

I cannot be 12 again. 

But I do realize who I am today determines the course of how I will benefit tomorrow. 

Love.  Family.  Relationships.  Education.  Finances.  Character. 

I have no excuse not to do my best, every day.  So let’s start today.

8-ish Questions That Make Me Pause

The instinct is to look for answers, but the truth is that questions that teach us most. It can also be that the rhetorical questions—the ones that don’t even seem to have answers—that push and push the hardest. Who do you think you are? What does all this mean? Why? Why? Why?

The right question at the right time can change the course of a life, can still a turbulent mind, or heal an angry heart. While every situation can generate its own, there are twelve questions, I think, that deserve to be asked not just once but many times over the course of a lifetime, some even many times over the course of the day. I have gathered them from some of the wisest and most incisive thinkers, greatest leaders and most awesome badasses that ever lived.  I question whether I really know the answer to any of them, but I can say there is value in letting them challenge you. If you let them. If you let them do their work on you—and let them change you.  It has for me.

Start now by asking:

Who Do You Spend Time With? 

Philosophers would say “Tell me who you spend time with and I will tell you who you are.” Who we know and what we do that influences more than any other factor, who we will become. Because what you do puts you around people, and the people you’re around affects what you do.

Think about your friends and colleagues: do they inspire you, validate you, create unnecessary stress or drag you down? We seem to understand that a young kid who spends time with kids who don’t want to go anywhere in life, probably isn’t going to go anywhere in life.

What we understand less is that an adult who spends time with other adults who tolerate crappy jobs, or unhappy/unhealthy lifestyles is going to find themselves making similar choices.  Or those with who you are always having to validate and reaffirm, versus share in the confidence that the relationship doesn’t change just because something changes. 

Same goes for what you read, what you watch, what you think about. Your life comes to resemble its environment – it is the proximity effect.  So choose your surroundings wisely.

Is This In My Control? 

Stoic philosophers would say that the chief task of the person is to make the distinction between what is in their control and what is not—what is up to us and what is not up to us?

We waste incredible amounts of time on the latter and leave so many opportunities on the table by mislabeling the former. Our actions, our thoughts, our feelings, these are up to us.  Other people, the weather, external events, these are not.  But here’s where it comes full circle: our responses to other people, the weather, external events are in our control. 

Making this distinction will make you happier, make you stronger and make you more successful if only because it concentrates your resources in the places where they matter.

What Does Your Ideal Day Look Like? 

If you don’t know what your ideal day looks like, how are you ever going to make decisions or plans for ensuring that you actually get to experience them on a regular basis? It’s important to take an inventory of the most enjoyable and satisfying days of your life. What did you do? Why did you like them?

Now be sure that your job, personal life, even the place you’ve chosen to live takes you towards these, not away from them. More importantly, ensure that your habits are ingrained in you such that they are the building blocks for your day.  Without positive habits (even recognizing the bad ones), there is little direction towards what you are looking to achieve.

What Am I Missing By Choosing To Worry or Be Afraid? 

When you worry, ask yourself, ‘What am I choosing to not see right now?’  What important things are you missing because you chose worry over introspection, alertness or wisdom?”

Another way of putting it: Does getting upset provide you with more options? Obstacles in life make us emotional, but the only way we’ll survive or overcome them is by keeping those distracting emotions in check—if we can keep steady no matter what happens, no matter how much external events may fluctuate.

It is hard to live with the absence of irrational or extreme emotions.  I find myself battling this too often.  But I try to reflect when indulging in those emotions and get back to reminding myself of the cost they incur:  That I’m missing something by being nervous, scared, or anxious. That I’m taking your eye off the ball to do it. Can I afford that? Probably not.  Can you?

What Is The Most Important Thing? 

If you don’t know what the most important thing is to you, how do you know if you’re putting it first?

How do you know if you’re taking the right steps to get it? Maybe the most important thing to you is family (this is it for me, but it has not always been that way).  Awesome, so that’s your priority.

What it means is that not only do you have to start measuring yourself by family-related metrics, but you must stop comparing yourself to people with different priorities. Maybe money is the most important thing to you. That’s perfectly fine. Know that and own it.  You must know and own whatever it is. Only then can you understand what matters and what doesn’t.

Only then can you say no - can you opt out of stupid things that don’t matter, or exist? Only then is it easy to ignore “successful” people because most of the time they aren’t - at least relative to you, and often even to themselves.

Only then you can develop the quiet confidence that stoics called “euthymia“- the belief that you’re on the right path and not led astray by the many tracks which cross yours of people who are hopelessly lost.”

Does This Actually Matter? 

The reason that wise people never let the very real fact of their mortality slip too far from their mind (memento mori – look it up) is because it helps them ask this question: Given the shortness of life, does this thing I’m thinking about, worrying about, fighting about, throwing myself into even fucking matter?

Sadly, the answer is usually no. We want to ask ourselves this question before we throw good time after bad, before we waste more life than we must. “You could leave life right now, let that determine what you do and say and think.” Considering that, does this thing you’re so worked up about actually matter?

Will This Be Alive Time or Dead Time? 

Early on in my career I had a pivotal conversation with a business mentor who the world lost earlier this year – I miss him greatly. 

At the time, I was working long hours and sacrificing much of my life towards building my career (at the time, family was not the highest priority).  I remember telling him about all the great things I was going to achieve, all the money I was to make and the “richness” I would showcase to others.  Ridiculous now thinking about it. 

He said, Jayme, there are two types of time: Dead time - where we are just waiting and Alive time - where we are learning and active and leveraging. And then he left it there with me to decide which I would choose. Alive time or Dead Time? 

So let that question catch you the next time you find yourself sitting on your hands or goofing off as you wait. Let it jolt you back into line. 

Pick up a book, listen to a podcast, grab coffee with a friend who has something to teach you, and get back to work. Resist the temptation to get distracted with silly politics or wanderlust.

Make the most of every moment as you prepare for the next move or the next event. If you want to be productive, be fully alive.

Am I Being Who I Want Me To Be? 

Our mind has the cunning ability to make the distinction between what we do and who we are. The problem is that this is complete nonsense.

You can’t be a good person if your actions are consistently bad. You can’t be a hardworking person if you take every shortcut you can. It doesn’t matter that you say you love someone, it only matters if you show that you love them.

I read somewhere, “In your twenties you’re in the process of becoming who you are, so you might as well not be an asshole.” This is true for life itself.

You are what you do - so ask yourself whenever you’re doing something: Is this reflective of the person I want to be? That I see myself to be? How we do anything is how we do everything. It is who we are.

So ask this question about every action, thought and word. Because it adds up in a way that no amount of self-image or belief ever will.

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Last question. Sort of.

What is the meaning of life??

Who the hell knows and I’m not smart enough to think in these dimensions; however, I think life is demanding that we answer the question with the actions and decisions we make. That we create meaning in our choices and our beliefs. I think we create it in doing our best to challenge ourselves with the questions above:

What am I here for?

Who do I spend my time with?

Who do I want to be – am I being that?

What’s up to me – can I control it?

What does a good day look like?

Some are simpler than others, sure, but the answers rarely are—and the act of asking is the most important thing.

Temperance - Learning From A Legend

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.” – Seneca.

Temperance (or self-discipline) is the ability to keep your lower self in check and strengthen your higher self. It involves working hard, practicing good habits, enduring challenges, setting boundaries, and turning a blind eye to temptations. In short, it’s about living a life guided by principles, moderation, and determination.

For me, for much of my life, it has been, Hell, no. Not for me. Self-discipline? More like self-deprivation!  Maybe you celebrate or even envy people who take the easy path. You might think they’re having more fun or getting ahead faster. But look more closely, and you’ll realize that all that glitters isn’t gold. Take greed, for instance. It means you’re always on the prowl for more – and so never really enjoy everything you currently have. And not realizing your full potential? That’s a state which breeds pain, misery, and self-loathing.

Self-discipline isn’t about depriving yourself – in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s about using control to open a world of opportunity.

It’s true that it takes courage to cultivate self-discipline. But embracing this lifestyle will likely make you more successful. And, more importantly, it’ll make you great – no matter what happens. 

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He played through fevers and migraines. He played through crippling back pain; pulled muscles; sprained ankles; and once, the day after being hit in the head by an 80 mph fastball, he suited up and played in Babe Ruth's hat, because the swelling made it impossible to put on his own.

For 2,130 consecutive games, Lou Gehrig played first base for the New York Yankees, a streak of physical stamina that stood for the next five-and-a-half decades. It was a feat of human endurance so long immortalized that it's easy to miss how incredible it actually was. The Major League Baseball (MLB) regular season in those days was 152 games. Gehrig's Yankees went deep in the postseason, nearly every year, reaching the World Series a remarkable seven times.

For 17 years, Gehrig played from April to October, without rest, at the highest level imaginable. In the off-season, players barnstormed and played in exhibition games, sometimes traveling as far away as Japan to do so. During his time with the Yankees, Gehrig played some 350 doubleheaders and traveled at least 200,000 miles across the country, mostly by train and bus.

Yet he never missed a game.

Not because he was never injured or sick, but because he was an Iron Horse of a man who refused to quit, who pushed through pain and physical limits that others would have used as an excuse. At some point, Gehrig's hands were X-rayed, and stunned doctors found at least 17 healed fractures. Over the course of his career, he'd broken nearly every one of his fingers-and it not only hadn't slowed him down, but he'd failed to say a word about it. In another sense, he's almost unfairly famous for the streak, which overshadows the stats he accumulated along the way.

His career batting average was an unbelievable .340, which he topped only when it counted, hitting .361 in his postseason career. (In two different World Series, he batted over .500.) He hit 495 home runs, including 23 grand slams - a record that stood for more than seven decades. In 1934, he became just the 3rd player ever to win the MLB Triple Crown, leading the league in batting average, home runs, and RBIs (runs batted in). He's 6th all-time with 1,995 RBIs, making him, effectively, one of the greatest teammates in the history of the game. He was a two-time MVP, seven-time All-Star, six-time World Series Champion, Hall of Famer, and the first player ever to have his number retired.

While the streak started in earnest in June 1925, when Gehrig replaced Wally Pipp, a Yankees legend, in reality, his Herculean endurance could be seen at an early age. Born to German immigrants in New York in 1903, Gehrig was the only one of four children to survive infancy.

He entered the world a whopping 14 pounds, and his mother's German cooking seems to have plumped him up from there. It was the teasing of school kids that first hardened the determination of the young boy, sending him to his father's turnverein, a German gymnastics club where Gehrig began to develop the powerful lower body that later drove in so many runs.

Not naturally coordinated, a boyhood friend once joked that Gehrig's body often "behaved as if it were drunk."  He wasn't born an athlete. He made himself one in the gym.

Life as a poor immigrant was not easy. Gehrig's father was a drinker, and a bit of a lazy man.  It's more than ironic to read of his father's chronic excuses and sick days. This example shamed Gehrig, inspiring him to turn dependability and toughness into nonnegotiable assets (in a bit of foreshadowing, he never missed a day of school). Thankfully, his mother not only supported him, but she also provided an incredible example of a quiet, indefatigable work ethic as well. She worked as a cook. She worked as a laundress. She worked as a baker. She worked as a cleaning lady, hoping to provide her son a ticket to a better life.

But the poverty, the poverty was always there. "No one who went to school with Lou," a classmate recalled, "can forget the cold winter days and Lou coming to school wearing a khaki shirt, khaki pants and heavy brown shoes, but no overcoat, nor any hat." He was a poor boy, a fate no one would choose, but it did shape him.

So it went with Gehrig, who, even as his Yankees salary made him one of the highest-paid athletes in America, was rarely seen in a hat or even a vest in New York winters. Only later, when he married a kind and loving woman, could he be convinced to put on a coat, for her sake.

Most kids like to play sports. Lou Gehrig saw in the game a higher calling. Baseball was a profession that demanded control of, as well as care for, the body-since it was both the obstacle and the vehicle for success.

Gehrig did both.

He worked harder than anyone. "Fitness was almost a religion to him," one teammate would say of him. "I am a slave to baseball," Gehrig said. A willing slave, a slave who loved the job and remained forever grateful at just the opportunity to play.

This kind of dedication pays dividends. When Gehrig stepped up to the plate, he was communing with something divine. He stood, serenely, in a heavy wool uniform that no player today could perform in. He would sway, trading weight between his feet, settling into his batting stance. When he swung at a pitch, it was his enormous legs that did the work-sending the ball off his bat, deep, deep, out of the ballpark.

Some batters have a sweet spot; Gehrig could hit anywhere, off anyone. And when he did? He ran. For a guy who was teased for having "piano legs," it's pretty remarkable that Gehrig stole home plate more than a dozen times in his career. He wasn't all power. He was speed too. Hustle. Finesse.

There were players with more talent, with more personality, with more brilliance; but nobody outworked him, nobody cared more about conditioning, and nobody loved the game more.

When you love the work, you don't cheat it or the demands it asks of you. You respect even the most trivial aspects of the pursuit-he never threw his bat, or even flipped it. One of the only times he ever got in trouble with management was when they found out he was playing stickball in the streets of his old neighborhood with local kids, sometimes even after Yankees games. He just couldn't pass up the opportunity to play . . .

Still, there must have been so many days when he wasn't feeling it. When he wanted to quit. When he doubted himself. When it felt like he could barely move. When he was frustrated and tired of his own high standards. Gehrig was not superhuman.  He had the same voice in his head that all of us do. He just cultivated the strength, made a habit, of not listening to it.  Because once you start compromising, well, now you're compromised . . .

"I have the will to play," he said. "Baseball is hard work and the strain is tremendous. Sure, it's pleasurable, but it's tough." You'd think that everyone has that will to play, but of course, that's not true. Some of us get by on natural talent, hoping never to be tested. Others are dedicated up to a point, but they'll quit if it gets too hard. That was true then, as it is now, even at the elite level. A manager in Gehrig's time described it as an "age of explanations" everyone was ready with an excuse. There was always a reason why they couldn't give their best, didn't have to hold the line, were showing up to camp less than prepared.

As a rookie, Joe DiMaggio once asked Gehrig who he thought was going to pitch for the opposing team, hoping perhaps, to hear it was someone easy to hit. "Never worry about that, Joe," Gehrig explained. "Just remember they always save the best for the Yankees."

And by extension, he expected every member of the Yankees to bring their best with them too. That was the deal: To whom much is given, much is expected. The obligation of a champion is to act like a champion . . . while working as hard as somebody with something to prove.

Gehrig wasn't a drinker. He didn't chase girls or thrills or drive fast cars. He was no "good-time Charlie," he'd often say. At the same time, he made it clear, "I'm not a preacher and I'm not a saint." His biographer wrote of Gehrig that the man's "clean living did not grow out of a smugness and prudery, a desire for personal sanctification. He had a stubborn, pushing ambition. He wanted something. He chose the most sensible and efficient route to getting it."

One doesn't take care of the body because to abuse it is a sin, but because if we abuse the temple, we insult our chances of success as much as any god. Gehrig was fully ready to admit that his discipline meant he missed out on a few pleasures. He also knew that those who live the fast or the easy life miss something too-they fail to fully realize their own potential. Discipline isn't deprivation…it brings rewards.

Still, Gehrig could have easily gone in a different direction. In the midst of an early career slump while playing in the minor leagues, Gehrig went out one night with some teammates and got so drunk that he was still boozed up at first pitch the next day. Somehow, he didn't just manage to play, but he played better than he had in months. He found, miraculously, that the nerves, the overthinking, had disappeared with a few nips from a bottle between innings.

It was a seasoned coach who noticed and sat Gehrig down. He'd seen this before. He knew the short-term benefits of the shortcut. He understood the need for release and for pleasure too. But he explained the long-term costs, and he spelled out the future Gehrig could expect if he didn't develop more sustainable coping mechanisms. That was the end of it, we're told, and "not because of any prissy notions of righteousness that it was evil or wrong to take a drink but because he had a driving, non-stop ambition to become a great and successful ball player. Anything that interfered with that ambition was poison to him."

It meant something to him to be a ballplayer, to be a Yankee, to be a first-generation American, to be someone who kids looked up to.

Gehrig, as it happened, continued to live with his parents for his first ten seasons, often taking the subway to the stadium. More than financially comfortable, he later owned a small house in New Rochelle. To Gehrig, money was at best a tool, at worst a temptation. As the Yankees reigned over the game, the team was treated to an upgraded dugout, with padded seats replacing the old Spartan bench. Gehrig was spotted by the team's manager tearing off a section. "I get tired of sitting on cushions," he said of the posh life of an athlete in his prime. "Cushions in my car, cushions on the chairs at home-every place I got they have cushions."

He knew that getting comfortable was the enemy, and that success is an endless series of invitations to get comfortable. It's easy to be disciplined when you have nothing. What about when you have everything? What about when you're so talented that you can get away with not giving everything?

The thing about Lou Gehrig is that he chose to be in control. This wasn't discipline enforced from above or by the team. His temperance was an interior force, emanating from deep within his soul. He chose it, despite the sacrifices, despite the fact that others allowed themselves to forgo such penance and got away with it. Despite the fact that it usually wasn't recognized - not until long after he was gone anyway.

Did you know that immediately after Ruth's legendary "called" home run that Lou Gehrig hit one too? Without any dramatic gestures either.  Actually, it was his second of the game. Or that they have the same number of league batting titles? Or that Ruth struck out almost twice as many times as Gehrig?

Lou not only kept his body in check in a way that Ruth didn't (Ruth ballooned to 240 pounds), but Gehrig checked his ego too. He was, a reporter would write, "unspoiled, without the remotest vestige of ego, vanity or conceit." The team always came first. Before even his own health. Let the headlines go to whomever wanted them. 

Gehrig could have chosen this path but then again, he could have never tolerated it.  There was a time where his trainer once complained that if all ballplayers were like Gehrig there wouldn't be any job for trainers on ball clubs.  Gehrig did his own prep, took care of his own training and just as religiously in the offseason.  He rarely needed rub downs or rehab the only thing he asked of the staff was that a stick of gum be put out for him in his locker before games - two if they were going into a double header.

Without question, nobody plays that many games in a row without being a tough son of a bitch.  During a game Cincinnati, a bad throw from his third baseman forced Gehrig to grab for the ball in the dirt where he jammed his thumb into the ground.  In the dugout his teammate thought he'd be in for cursing out.  “I think it's broken” was all Gehrig said.  “I didn't hear a peep out of Lou”, his teammate recounted in amazement – “never a word of complaint about my rotten throw and what it did to his thumb”, and of course he was back in the lineup the following day.

“I guess the streak’s over”, a pitcher joked after knocking Gehrig unconscious with a pitch in June 1934.  For five terrible minutes, Lou laid there unmoving, death being a real possibility in the era before helmets.  He was rushed to the hospital and most expected he'd be out for two weeks even if the X-ray for a skull fracture came back negative.  Again, he was back in the batter’s box the next day.

Still, you might have expected a hesitation or flinch when the next ball came hurtling towards him.  That is why pitchers will bean in a batter from time to time because it makes them cautious - the pattern instinct for self-preservation causes them to step back in a game where a millimeter might make all the difference.  Instead, Gehrig leaned in and hit a triple.  A few innings later he hit another one.  And before the game was rained out, he hit his third while recovering from a nearly fatal blow to the brain.

“A thing like that can't stop us Dutchman”, was his only postgame comment.

What propels a person to push themselves this way sometimes it's simply to remind the body who was in charge.  “It's just that I had to prove myself right away”, he said I wanted to make sure that that big whack on my head hadn't made me gun shy the plate.

There's an old story about Gehrig’s first game with the Yankees when he started his streak, he was supposedly hit with the ball that day too.  “Do you want us to take you out”, the manager asked.  “Hell no!!” Garrett was said.  “It's taken me three years to get into this game and it's gonna take more than a crack on the head to get me out.  17 years later something finally did take him out, and it was far more serious than a wild pitch.

For someone who had been masterful at keeping control of his body, it must have been bewildering to Gehrig when his body stopped responding as it always had.  Slowly but noticeably his swing wasn't as fast.  He struggled to pull on his mitt.  He fell down while putting on a pair of pants.  He dragged his feet when he walked.  Yet his sheer will keep him together to a degree that few suspected anything was wrong.  He was even fooling himself. 

Just to offer a perspective Gehrig's schedule, in August 1938 the Yankees played 36 games in 35 days, 10 games were doubleheaders.  In one case there were five consecutive games, traveling to five cities covering thousands of miles by train.  He hit .329 with nine home runs and 38 RBI's.  For an athlete to do this without missing a game, without missing an inning in their mid-30’s, it's impressive.  But Lou Gehrig did it as the early stages of ALS ravaged his body, slowing his motor skills, weakening his muscles and cramping his hands and feet.

It would be nearly a full additional season before Gehrig’s body finally gave out.  A streak had taken on a life of its own – kept going. Gehrig continued gutting out hits and runs despite the occasional but uncharacteristic error on the field.  But a man who knows his body even as they pushed and pushed and pushed past their limitations also has to know when to stop.

“Joe”, he said to the Yankees manager on an ordinary mayday in 1939, “I always said that when I felt I couldn't help the team anymore I would take myself out of the lineup. I guess that time has come”. 

“When do you wanna quit, Lou?” McCarthy replied as he hoped this day would never come.  “Now”, Lou replied.  “Put Babe Dahlgren in.”

What had changed after weeks of inconsistent play, Gehrig fielded a ground ball and made a solid out it – a play he'd made thousands of times in his career.  His teammates celebrated like it was one of his series winning homers, and in that moment, Lou knew he was holding them back.

As the starting lineup was called over the loudspeakers to some 12,000 people in Detroit, the announcer was just as stunned.  For the first time in 21,130 games Gehrig’s name was not to be called.  Still the announcer couldn't help himself, “how about a hand for Lou Gehrig who played 21,130 games in a row before he benched himself today.”  The crowd, which included a friend of Gehrig’s in town on business, the one and only Wally Pipp (who Gehrig had first replaced 14 years earlier) struggled to register what it meant.

The crowd broke out and sustained applause, Gehrig waved and retreated to the dugout.  His teammates watched in silence as the Iron Horse broke down and wept. 

You have to do your best while you still have a chance.  Life is short and you never know when the game, when your body will be taken away from you.  Don't waste it.

On July 4, 1939 Lou entered Yankee Stadium for the final time in uniform, stripped now of the muscles that had long served him.  All that was left was the man himself, his courage and his self-mastery.  The fatigue was unbearable as he tried to beg off speaking but the crowd chanted, “WE WANT LOU, WE WANT LOU!”.  Lou struggling to hold himself up and the words would prove that when we master the lower self, we elevate ourselves to a higher plane.

“For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break”, he said as he tried to keep himself together, “yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”.

But eventually this luck would run out as it does for all of us.  “Death came to the erstwhile Iron Man at 10:10am,” the New York Times wrote in 1941.

Like Lou Gehrig, each of us are in a battle with our physical form.  First, to master it and bring it to its full potential, second as we age and get sick, to arrest its decline to quite literally rest the life.  How we choose to treat ourselves is a training ground and a proving ground for the mind and the soul.  What are you willing to put up with?  What can you do without?  What would you put yourself through?  What can you produce with it?  You say you love what you do but where is your proof? What kind of streak do you have to show for it?

Most of us don't have millions of fans watching or millions of dollars incentivizing us.  We don't have a coach, or a trainer monitor the daily progress.  There is no fighting weight for our profession.  This actually makes our jobs and our lives harder, because we have to be our own manager, our own master.  We are responsible for our own conditioning.  We have to monitor our own intake and decide our own standards.  Temperance is not a particularly sexy word and hardly the most fun concept but it can lead to greatness.  Temperance, like a tempered sword.  Simplicity and modesty, fortitude and self-control.  In all things except our determination and toughness, we owe it to ourselves, to our goals, to the game, to keep going to keep pushing to stay pure - to be tough to conquer our bodies before they conquer us.

Ode to Parenting

Each of us goes into this with opinions–so many opinions. Not just about parenting but about other parents. Parents who let their kids have lots of screentime. Parents of kids with “ADHD.” Divorced parents. Parents who ply their kids with soda and sugary cereals to get them to behave. Because we think we know better, or at least we’re confident that we know the "right way" to do things. 

But perfect parenting is a dream, a fantasy. How it really goes is more like that old Mike Tyson expression: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Parenting is an exercise in taking punches from all corners, from forces that are largely out of your control. No parent’s plan for their child survives contact with the enemy, as military strategists might put it. Which means your opinion about their plan is even more worthless.  With the panic that rises in the human heart when it’s your job to take care of someone, but despite your best efforts, they can’t or won’t respond to your care.

Parenting is a process of being humbled. Of getting punched in the face, getting knocked down, and getting back up to do it all over again. It’s a process of having your own ignorant, arrogant opinions handed back to you as karma. Knowing this, we should be a lot less judgmental about how other people parent their kids. We should be a lot less opinionated about things we have yet to experience. Because the very thing we judge so harshly may be the thing we have to deal with as we struggle through raising our children with patience and kindness and love.

Until you’ve been through it, you just don’t know. You don’t know how hard it’s going to be. And you have no idea how hard people are trying. But make no mistake, they are trying. You should try just as hard to withhold judgment and have some grace.

Flaking Till You Make It

I’m driving across the Houston freeway spaghetti bowl, it’s a Sunday, and on Sundays, I’m doing my best not to think about Mondays – hanging out with my wife and kids, watching or coaching sports, which are basically my favorite things in the world.

That’s where I’d like to be.

But instead, I’m driving across the city to attend a documentary event for military vets because a fairly new friend of mine, this brilliant ex-military vet, was selected as a Houston spotlight spokesperson, and two months ago he wrote me asking if I’d like to come check it out.  At the time it seemed like a decent idea only because my initial reaction is enjoying the support of my friends, and so I said yep, for sure, I’ll be there.

But now that it’s the day and I’m driving 45 minutes into the city (90 minutes round-trip, I think to myself as I grip the steering wheel harder, and that’s without traffic), I’m starting to regret this whole thing.

I’m daydreaming about what it would be like to be back at home, relaxing in the backyard, doing overdue yard chores, hanging with my girls, living my own damn life, and not giving up half a day driving to an area I don’t live, for a person I just met to go view an art event in which I have literally no appreciation.  As I arrive, I suddenly realize as I pull up to the event, this is a pretty terrible way to spend a Sunday.

I walk in. I buy my ticket. I find my seat. The first thing I notice is how few people are in the building. The lights go down, and the movie begins.

I won’t do a whole recap. But suffice it to say that about halfway through the doc, my eyes started welling up. I saw military veterans in a way I never had before and learned some remarkable things, which it turns out my new friend struggled with in a big way - an incredibly difficult experience to capture.

By the time the lights go up, my mind is racing.  I’m totally moved, riveted, inspired.  Outside the theater, a small cluster of people, many of them veterans, are standing around talking.  My friend sees me, his face brightens in a way I’ve never quite seen before.

“You made it!” he says, clearly surprised that I showed.

“I did,” I say as we hug, trying to figure out how to tell him how glad I am that I came.

“We haven’t talked in a few weeks, so I just figured…”

“I know, I know,” I say, thrilled to be here, suddenly realizing that this          was actually an excellent use of my time.

I tell him I loved the piece. I ask him various questions about it and how we’d gone so long without my appreciating this incredibly proud part of his life.  He introduces me to lots of people, all who were clearly riveted by the documentary.

I then run back to my truck and head home, because I’m a dad and a husband and, you know, traffic.

When I get inside, I write my friend a quick email congratulating him again and telling him in more detail just how much I was moved by the documentary. I follow up on a few of the moments that really landed, and share some thoughts I had as a civilian viewer. I do this not because I want to do him any favors, but because I sincerely mean it — because I care. I hit send, then disappear back into my life.

The next day, he sends me a reply. His email stops me in my tracks.

Brother, your words hit home. Thank you for being a part of our experience yesterday … It was a powerful day all around, and I am still feeling it.

Thank you once again my friend. I appreciate your sincerity, and more than that, I appreciate the fact that you were there. For me, presence is 90 percent of impact.

I can’t help but smile as I read his email a couple times.  Over the next few days, we discover some really cool ways to help each other. He advises me on a few interesting marketing ideas.  I share some promotional strategies for the documentary.  We talk about life and work and family. Suddenly, we’re actual friends. I feel warm and connected and grateful and all that good stuff that comes from developing a meaningful relationship.

All because I showed up at an event I would’ve given anything that morning to not have to attend.

An Epidemic of Flakiness

Let me get one thing out there right now: I’m no stranger to flaking.

I’ve flaked on birthdays, I’ve flaked on trips, I’ve flaked on events, I’ve flaked on workouts. (So many workouts.) In my 20s, when the plans you make are about as reliable as an HP printer circa 2002, I flaked more than a perfect Gordon Ramsay pie crust. Which, if you don’t know, are pretty damn flaky.

I flaked for all the reasons you’d expect. I liked being in control of my time. I preferred to not be tethered to anyone or anything too strongly. I enjoyed bailing on plans that didn’t suit my whims at the last minute. I also flaked because back then, I hung out with people who were highly flaky and therefore highly flakable, it was actually part of the social contract. And, to be fair, I made a lot of plans that made me want to bail, because I hadn’t learned yet that it was perfectly fine to say no to stuff that I just didn’t want to do.

I tell you all this because I’m about to argue for the virtues of not flaking, and I don’t want you to think I’m some boy scout who’s never bailed in his life. I came around to the idea of Always Showing Up after years of shrugging off plans, and now that I’ve seen the impact its had on my life and relationships, I’m 100 percent convinced that showing up is one of the most powerful things we can do.

And part of the reason it’s so powerful is that so few people do it.

In any given week, we receive so many “Gah, sorry, stuck at work” texts and “Sorry, not feeling great, gotta raincheck” emails that we don’t even get mad anymore. Facebook events are a graveyard of “I’m Interested” replies, messages go read but unresponded to, and if you’ve ever created an Evite, then you know that the “Going” column doesn’t mean anything until the day of the event, when who knows who will actually show up. An RSVP just doesn’t mean what it used to (oftentimes, it doesn’t mean anything at all!), and we’ve slowly come to accept that.

Technology isn’t helping things. The fact that so much planning happens through a screen only makes it easier to bail, since we’re even more removed from one another than we used to be. It’s also increased the number of events we get invited to, which jacks up our FOMO and encourages us to keep our options open. And if you do bail on someone at the last minute, then at least you know they’ll have their phone with them, in which case they won’t really be alone, so bailing won’t be as big of a deal.

So here we are.

We live in the Age of Maybe, desensitized to other people’s flakiness, either too proud or too numb to let ourselves be bothered by how noncommittal our relationships have become.

In return, we play by the same rules, and treat other people just as casually. The result is a society that doesn’t take its promises very seriously at all. And why should it? We give as we get, and if we can’t have the kind of friends who show up when they say they will, then at least we don’t have to be the kind of friends who show up. And in a certain way, that’s kind of nice, even if we all know it’s total bullshit.

The flipside to all this, of course, is that when you do show up, it means a great deal. We’re so starved for integrity, so deprived of reliable connection, that any act of showing up feels like a major act of service. It shouldn’t be this way — it should be that when you show up, people go “oh, cool, you said you’d be here and now you’re here, that was totally expected” — but it is. And because we live in this Flake Age, showing up when you say you will has an even greater impact than it used to, which makes it one of the most important things you can do in your relationships.

Which brings us back to that email.

The Joy of Showing Up

For me, presence is 90 percent of impact.

I kept thinking about that phrase in the days following my friend’s note. In that simple phrase, he captured something crucial about presence. The act itself — just being there, whatever “being there” means in a given situation — is the biggest part of helping people, building relationships, and influencing the world.

To make a difference, we have to Show Up. And when we Show Up, sometimes the simple act of Showing Up is precisely what makes the difference.

But Showing Up isn’t just, you know, “showing up.” I’m not talking about showing your face, engaging in small talk or checking the box on an RSVP. We all know that being somewhere isn’t the same thing as being there. We can spend hours with people and bring little to the experience. We can spend years hanging out with someone and never really scratch the surface. We can clock in and clock out of a job and never make a mark on the company.

For many of us, this kind of perfunctory showing up is at least 80 percent of daily life. Which might also explain why we find it so tempting to bail. After all, what are we really bailing on, if there’s not much for us to show up for?

So when I talk about the joy of showing up, I’m talking about a more meaningful kind of showing up, which really comes down to three key qualities.

Commitment

The first and necessary condition of showing up is, well, actually showing up.

That means agreeing to be somewhere when you say you will. That could be a live event, a scheduled phone call, a role on a project, a timely response, a moment of need or a sudden crisis. It could be planned or spontaneous, required or elective. But when you say (or imply) that you’ll be somewhere, then the first step toward Showing Up as a way of life is to agree with yourself that you will not bail. You must make this promise to yourself before you expect it of other people. (In fact, as we’re about to see, sometimes this promise to yourself is all you really need to build a non-flaky life.) Showing up is a one-man job, to start.

When I drove to the film festival that morning, I had committed to showing up, even though I didn’t want to in the moment. Without that promise to myself, the relationship with my friend wouldn’t have been possible. It’s a simple agreement, but it’s absolutely essential.

Presence

Showing up in a meaningful way requires you to truly be somewhere, as opposed to just being there in body.

It’s a squishy term, I know, but “presence” really comes down to this: cultivating an awareness that you can only really be in one place at a time, and that the place you’re in now is the only place that really matters. It means being disciplined about mental chatter, distraction and the nagging desire to be somewhere else. It means being fully in the place and in the company to which you’ve agreed to show up. It means agreeing to make the most of the thing you’ve shown up for, knowing that you showed up in order to make the most of it.

When I surrendered to being at the festival — and agreed to take in everything I saw as much as I could — I let go of the (impossible) desire to be somewhere else and allowed myself to be completely in the theater while I was there. That presence allowed me to appreciate the doc and have a true experience to share with my friend. This one is a tougher mindset to cultivate, but it’s just as essential, because it allows for another crucial quality to kick in.

Fullness

When you’re truly present, you’re also in a position to bring all of yourself to the moment you’re in: to be somewhere in full. Bringing all of yourself to a moment means offering as much value, perspective, attention, joy, and involvement as is appropriate and desired.

Like presence, fullness is a choice. Instead of holding back — say, by refusing to socialize, retreating into your thoughts, shutting yourself off from the experience, deciding not to contribute to the moment, and so on — you agree to bring as many relevant qualities to the moment as you can. If it’s a meeting, you chime in, reflect, contribute. If it’s a movie, you stay open, take it in, engage with it. If it’s a first date, you ask questions, invest in the conversation, commit to authenticity. If it’s a crisis, you look for ways to help, offer support, and help people find solutions. You bring your full self to whatever the moment is.

When I watched the doc, connected it with other ideas and discussed it with my friend, I was showing up with fullness (or as much fullness as I could offer on a day full of other obligations). I wasn’t just another body in the theater. I was a viewer, a participant, and a friend cheering him on. That’s the stuff of a meaningful relationship, and it’s only possible when you bring as much of yourself as you can to every moment.

These three qualities — the act of commitment, the mindset of presence, and the quality of fullness — are the raw material of Showing Up. They’re the difference between “being there” and “being there.” (Or, to put it another way, the difference between being there and being here.) They’re how you honor and capitalize on the decision to show up when you say you will. They’re how you elevate the check-the-box act of showing your face to the meaningful act of becoming part of the thing you’re showing up for.

When you do show up in that way, you open up an entire world of potential value. That value, at the end of the day, is the source of the most important experiences in life — starting with great relationships.

The End of Flakiness

Is there absolutely no room for flakiness in our lives? Is showing up a non-negotiable?

Not quite. Sometimes we will have to bail on plans for legitimate reasons. Sometimes showing up will become impossible. Sometimes something more important will come up. Life happens.

But that isn’t flaking. A medical emergency, a more urgent obligation, an actual (not fake) illness — these are all acceptable reasons to cancel plans. But even here, respect and courtesy apply. There’s a rude way to legitimately bail and a respectful way to legitimately bail. The respectful way usually includes an honest explanation, a sincere apology, and concrete steps to reset the plans. Anything less tends to give way to good old-fashioned flaking.

Outside of those cases, though, bailing on commitments is usually a form of flakiness, and that’s what we have to eliminate.  I am certainly not there yet.  Yep, still bailing on occasion!

So what does it take to end flakiness in your life?

How do you stop being the kind of person who regularly bails, and start being the person who shows up no matter what?

The answer comes down to three simple agreements.

Do what you say you will. Don’t say what you won’t do.

From now on, make a promise to yourself to follow through on the commitments you’ve made. 

This might mean driving across town when you don’t feel like it, attending an event when you’d rather stay home, or doing some extra work when you’d rather relax. Showing up despite that resistance is how you create value that other people can’t. In the short term, it might feel quite onerous, especially if you’ve lived by flakiness up till now. Over time, though, it will bring you deeper into your own life, and avoid the dysfunction that flakiness causes.

At the same time, make a promise to not make commitments you don’t intend on keeping. This is the other side of the integrity coin. When you refuse to commit to things you can’t show up to, you eliminate the need to flake at all. You also free up room to only commit to those things that matter to you, so you can experience the joy of showing up more often.

Celebrate showing up.

The more you show up, and the more you hang with people who show up, the more you’ll discover how important showing up really is. Celebrating un-flakiness reinforces the promise, and spreads the showing up mentality across your life.

What does this mean in practice?

For one thing, it means taking stock of the impact of showing up. Every so often, check in with yourself and ask how honoring your commitments is working out. Are you feeling more connected and more productive? Are there opportunities to show up in ways that you haven’t yet? What impact would showing up for those people and places have?

Another way to celebrate showing up is to institutionalize it in every area of your life.

At work, you might make it a company policy (e.g., responding to your teammates because you care more about letting them down than you’re your boss thinks, incentivizing follow-through on goals and KPIs, creating a medium to highlight employees’ accomplishments).  In your family, you might make it a ritual (e.g., showing up at every moment for your kids and spouse, agreeing not to check phones at dinner, having dinner all together every week). In your personal life, you might make it an informal policy (e.g., not dating people who regularly flake, celebrating your friends’ accomplishments socially, looking for ways to commit to the other person’s growth).

The beauty of showing up is that it’s infectious.

The more you do it, the more you’ll want to do it, the more you’ll expect other people to do it, and — with you as an example — the more they’ll want to do it, too. It’s a virtuous cycle that begins with one person saying: I’m going to do what I said I would. That one agreement can literally change your life.

So this is our task: to show up when we say we will, to not say we’ll show up when we won’t, and to share that commitment to showing up across our lives.

The epidemic of flakiness is part of our culture now, but we can reverse it in ourselves. Ultimately, that’s all we really have to do to live a non-flaky life.

When we show up, we always end up finding other people who show up, too. We either attract them with our commitment or we inspire them with our example. That’s how great relationships are born. They deepen with value, gratitude, generosity, and kindness. But they begin in one place — ourselves — when we resist the urge to bail, and choose to be there instead.

For all those I love in my life, just know, I’m working on it.

Life Beyond Hustle

We live in a world where “content” is the new currency and although I’ll never argue the profound impact it has created on learning, perspectives and ‘self-help’ but I continue to see the damage path it creates. 

Of all the forms of toxic self-help out there, “hustle culture” is probably among the worst. 

Hustle culture — and all of its questionable offspring, including the “rise and grind” mindset, “motivation porn” and so-called “toil glamor” — is the ethos of constantly working your ass off in the pursuit of some vague goal, no matter the cost.

Whether it is work, sports or the daily grind of life – hustle is only attributive if it has direction, purpose and intent.  The “hustle” I’m about to describe is aimless self-loathing activity.

It’s a psychology, a philosophy, and an identity that glorifies nonstop labor, brute-force drive, and blind resilience — as well as the publicity of that effort, by constantly talking and posting about how damn hard you’re working.

But there’s also something undeniably seductive about this stuff.  For me, I was one of the bleeding disciples who believed that anyone who doesn’t devote their life to rising and grinding is scared, lazy, defective, entitled and/or unworthy of success.  So ignorant.

Because baked into hustle culture is the idea that it’s possible to rise up, break through, improve your situation, tap into a deeper purpose, and finally excel in all the ways you wish to excel.

This is a universal longing, and it’s a legitimate one — if, of course, getting ahead matters to you. To some people, it just doesn’t, and that’s perfectly okay.

According to the gospel of hustle, only those disciples who are willing to outwork everyone around them — usually because they’re dissatisfied and angry and terrified of not being special — will find true success.

More than that, those are the only people who deserve success.

And that’s the toxic belief at the heart of this movement. This idea that work = good, work = success, work = the only way to live a fulfilling life.

Which, of course, is patently BS. We all know that meaning comes from tons of things — work being just one of them — and that what people find fulfilling is highly personal.

But hustle culture “works” because it preys on a cluster of impulses — the hunger to succeed, the fear of failing, the desire to conform, the wish to be admired, the need to feel fulfilled — and promises to resolve them with one simple strategy: working your ass off.

Again, this was me, subordinating everything in my life to this pursuit of the grind and ultimately ending up experiencing Burnout. Resentment. Self-loathing. Alienation. Disillusionment. Directionlessness.

I certainly have not been alone in this while knowing so many people having experienced similar struggles, many still today.  Tragic.

They all talked about feeling further away from their goals, less connected to their purpose, and more resistant to growth — exactly the opposite of what hustle culture promises.

I hate it.

I believe there is a way to work hard toward our goals that doesn’t involve a toxic relationship with our careers, other people, and ourselves.

But first, we have to agree on a few ways as to why hustle culture can make you miserable…

It sells the destination, not the journey.

You’ll notice a few common themes in hustle videos within social media. People getting out of luxury cars or boarding private jets. People wearing fancy clothes and hanging in exotic locales. People looking cool and attractive or surrounded by cool and attractive friends, always the center of attention, always the star of their own movie.

There’s a reason that these hustle “gurus” feature this lavish lifestyle, and the reason is that they’re selling you The Dream. The Dream of becoming fabulously wealthy, powerful, important, popular, and independent. And the best way to sell The Dream is to sell you the destination.

Not the process. Not the journey. Not the mission. But the glorified end result.

By doing so, hustle scammers tap into the low-effort, high-reward mechanism of our lizard brains. They focus on the rewards and completely gloss over the sacrifice required to actually succeed at a high level. They know they have nothing to offer in that department. In fact, they know that acknowledging how hard the journey is would actually work against them. So instead, they dangle the fancy car, the sleek jet, or the huge house, to shift your focus to the end result.

In the process, they reinforce a toxic mindset that values the spoils over the journey — despite the fact that tons of science (and virtually every successful person’s experience) confirms that most of the joy in life comes from the process of doing something.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Material things can be fun. Nice house, Cool toys, exotic vacations, nice clothes — they’re a fun benefit of doing well in life.

But when those material assets become the point of the journey, then we’ve missed something crucial.

High performers don’t do what they do so they can fly to Aspen on a Gulfstream or drive around Berlin in a Bugatti. Most of them — the best ones, anyway — do what they do because they’re lit up by a mission they care about deeply.

Walt Disney famously said, “We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.” That’s a very meaningful way to look at one’s work. But hustle bros can’t wrap their heads around that outlook. To them, anything worth doing is only worth doing for money, end of story. Passion, purpose, conviction — those are secondary, if they factor in at all.

It’s no surprise, then, that most people who get caught up in hustle culture eventually abandon their dreams. As soon as the destination feels impossible to reach — because they’re not in a strong relationship to the process itself — they eventually grow disillusioned and give up.

It teaches shortcuts, not skills.

Hustle gurus also tend to focus on hacks and techniques rather than knowledge and skills. Just as they sell the destination over the journey, they also focus on workarounds over work.

They do this, of course, because shortcuts are attractive to the primitive part of your brain. That part of you isn’t interested in becoming an expert or growing as a person. It gravitates to clever hacks and easy solutions, which hustle “scammers” know they can sell with much greater ease.

The irony, of course, is that hustle scammers simultaneously preach the value of hard work. Just not the kind of hard work that involves real substance. Hard work, in their view, is pure man hours and raw effort. It’s not about where you spend those hours, or how you direct that effort.

In their minds, you don’t just work hard to be successful; you become successful so you can keep working hard, because that’s the only source of value worth pursuing in life.

If you’re going to break your dependence on hustle content, you have to come back to your own values, standards, and expectations.

·        What do you believe is most important in life?

·        How do you want to spend your precious time?

·        What do you want to spend the fruits of your labor on?

·        Which goals, missions, and problems do you find inherently rewarding to work on?

·        Where in your life and career do you make the most impact?

·        How do you judge the value of your effort?

·        What would make you proud, content, and fulfilled?

Answer these questions, and you’ll start to create a system for yourself that is much more meaningful than whatever you might see in your thread.

Beyond Hustle

Good self-help equips you to navigate life’s challenges — not with endurance and faith, but with skills and purpose.

If it encourages you to increase your input, it’s not because it shames you into working harder, but because it empowers you to chase the goals you find inherently meaningful.

Most importantly, it doesn’t preach a system that pits you against other people in the pursuit of success. Instead, it puts you in touch with what you believe is most important in life — and helps you hold yourself to your own standards.

So if there’s one antidote to this whole toxic productivity culture, it’s probably the people you surround yourself with — and the quality of the relationships you form with them.

It’s only within these close relationships that we really become our best selves and do our best work. And it’s only by sharing our experiences with those people — experiences both good and bad — that we can find the lasting motivation to go after what we want. Not by chaining ourselves to our desks or running to second, third, and fourth jobs out of desperation, but by figuring out what really matters in life with other people who care about those values too — and drawing on those relationships to realize our goals.

High-quality self-help can be great. But strong, meaningful, intimate relationships — that’s where the magic really happens.

Life Shrinks Your Circle

The smaller the circle, the greater the riches.  I’m not talking about a network, I’m talking about meaningful relationships. 

There was a pretty long period of life where I had lots of friends.  Lots.  To me, it gave purpose, currency and status to how I was doing.  Ridiculous.

Looking back, it was exhausting, and it drained me.  Always seeking affirmation but masking it as someone who was always there for people.  It did it more for myself, than others.  Again, exhausting.

And then I moved into a period of life where the number of friends began to dissipate.  It affected me for a while.  Always asking “why” and giving up more self-worth than I’d like to admit.  Hadn’t I helped them whenever they needed help? What had I done wrong?

Doesn’t matter.

Never ask why? There is never an answer to why? if you ask the negative people in your life.

There are many posts that will give a perspective.  Life is pretty hard. I don’t want more homework.

Here is what I was doing bad:

I was spending time with people who were bad for me.  How do you know if someone is bad for you?

Try this checklist:

• Do you feel bad or anxious after you spend time with them?

• Are you more often than not, arguing with them?

• Do they put you down in a way that is destructive and not constructive?

• Do they try to limit your opportunities?

• Do they try to isolate you from your friends?

• Do they resent your successes in any way – or try to compete with your successes?

• Do they not listen to you as much as you listen to them?

• Do they add drama to your life instead of remove drama? And what is drama? It took me a long time to realize what “drama” meant. Drama is for the theater and not for your life. In a good drama, often the hero dies. Don’t be the hero of a drama.

• Do you get so busy with their life you forget about your own health, your own creativity, your own ability to change and better the world? Remember: if you are not making the choices in your life, someone else is – and the results won’t be good.

• Do you sometimes cry after an interaction with them.

If you say yes to any of the above, then even if they are sitting at the table across from you right this second, stand up and go sit at another table.

When I was in the early 30s I had many people in life where I could check the box on all of the above.

Finally, I gave up. I dropped out. I lost touch with many for awhile (the good ones always stuck around). I started a family and redefined a new criteria for “friends”. 

It is scary sometimes but eventually I found others like me.  Others who were no longer “civilians.”

Reverse the checklist above.

Those are the people you want in your life. There are very few of them. There should be very few of them.

That is the secret of all success in life. There isn’t anything else. 

The other day I was spending time with a relatively new friend.  I couldn’t stop thinking about how impressive this person was.  Not for what they’ve accomplished but for the ways they treat me and my family.

The next day, it was easy to give advice to my daughter who is still figuring out her friend success criteria. 

Listen, I said, just do this. When you meet the new person, lean back and think inside your head, impress me. And then see what happens.

People will quickly show you who they are.

So she did.  So do I.  And now my life is a little better than it was a week ago. And I hope next week… even better.

Rule #1 – people are crazy.  Stop asking why?

Instead, I try to only ask about “now.” What is good right now? The flowers of tomorrow can only bloom if you plant the seeds today. Regretting not planting them in the past will make nothing grow.

1% Factor

She kept throwing all the food on the ground.  I was 24 and bought two tuna melt sandwiches for us to have lunch outside in the nearby park – because it was a nice day. 

Tuna melt, that was the way I rolled.

We were arguing. She took a sandwich out of my hands and threw it all over the ground. Tuna everywhere.

I bet the Old Man and the sea never knew he was catching tuna so it could lie dead in pieces in the grass because of an ex.

If I could say “Advice to myself at 21” would I avoid her? Of course not. Without her, maybe only now would I be with a woman who threw my food everywhere.

I gradually started improving what my line was in terms of what I could handle.

“I don’t want someone who throws my food everywhere”. This became rule #1.

Over the next 20 years I felt I got better and better. Sometimes I slipped. But mostly I got better.

But it took 12 years.

I wish I could go back and tell myself one thing: nothing is going to change for you tomorrow.

Diets don’t work tomorrow. But every diet works.

Habits don’t change in a day. But 1% a day makes every habit work. Every.

The reason is: they work if you do a little each day. If you relax and give yourself permission to only improve a little each day, then a good habit works.

It’s permission to improve. It’s also permission to fail. Because when you first start something, you’re on day one.

If you want to succeed at anything, you have to give yourself permission to fail twice as much as you thought you would.

If you insist, I need to change RIGHT NOW, then it won’t work. Nothing changes until something changes.

If you insist the habit changes tomorrow, then the habit will certainly fail.

Coolio, the rapper, wrote lyrics every day for 17 years before having a hit.

Kobe Bryant, one of basketball’s greatest, practiced three hours of basic skills every day (since he was four) before he ever picked up a basketball. Basic.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote every day for 25 years before he had a major bestseller.

Even Mozart, despite being a prodigy, wrote music for 10 years every day before becoming a true master.

 Improve a little each day. It compounds. When 1% compounds every day, it doubles every 72 days, not every 100 days. Compounding tiny excellence is what creates big excellence.

You can’t be a master in one day. You have to improve a little every day.

Picasso created 2 works of art a day. That’s 50,000 in a lifetime. It adds up.

“I’m too far down the road to start this now?”  Nope. Compounding creates fast results.

If I read 5 pages a day from non-fiction books, then in a year I will have read 1830 pages of knowledge. And each page I read will build upon the pages I’ve read before.

And it’s 1830 pages 99% of people won’t read. Most people don’t pick up a book after age 20.

If I write 1000 words a day, then in one day that’s nothing. In one year that’s the equivalent of 6-8 novels.

Also you can also decrease 1% a day. Such an easy choice. It seems trivial. 1% up or 1% down. But it sneaks up. And then we’re old and lonely.

Every day matters.

When I was at the lowest phase of life, and spending time with the wrong people, it was because I never had a mindset of growth and continuous improvement.

The 1% Rule can be applied to everything. If I spend 1 less minute feeling regret and use that to feel gratitude, how much better for my stress levels will that be in one year’s time.

Stress is 100% reverse correlated with longer healthier happier life. With more money. With more love. With more creativity.

Every habit can be built using this technique.

Thoughts are in the head. Thinking, “this seems like a good habit” is a start. Reading about it is a second start. But…

Actions are outside of the head or body. Take 1% action per day.

More than that and you’ll give-up (“diets don’t work!”). Less than that and it might take too long (“diets don’t work!”).

It doesn’t happen in one day. There are no goals. There’s only practice. Practice never makes progress. Practice makes happy. Practice makes habits.

I started writing on my own just a few years ago. Every day I read a little. Every day I wrote. I wanted to get better.

I was very bad at the beginning.

•  Can I read a little more

• Can I write a little better

• Can I run and exercise a little more

• Can I improve my relationships a little more

• Can I be more present – standing where my feet are

 Unless someone throws a tuna melt sandwich at me today, it will be a great day, 1% better than yesterday.

Learning from Dr. Seuss

Ted Geisel doesn’t exactly have an uplifting storybook illustration of himself.  If there was, people wouldn’t read it.  I’ll let you do the research if you want.

However, Ted is one of the bestselling authors in history and I have learned so much from his books.

One of my children loves his books dearly and as we lay in bed reading, I can’t help but draw connection to some of the greatest practical advice.

Every day. He had a very particular formula for success.

Ted Geisel was Dr. Seuss.

It happened by accident. Dr. Seuss got annoyed and irritated.

Very. Annoyed and Irritated.

Ted Geisel saw an article saying that kids were illiterate. Schools were failing to teach kids to read.  “This is ridiculous!” he said, “Kids’ books are boring! That’s why they don’t read.”

“Bobby likes Jane. Jane and Bobby run.” etc. No kid wanted to read them. So no kid would learn.

He chose himself to solve the problem. He was doing well in the advertising industry. He could’ve stuck with that and just argued and been apathetic about kids and reading.

Instead, he wrote a book.

“THE MORE THAT YOU READ, THE MORE THINGS YOU WILL KNOW. THE MORE THAT YOU LEARN, THE MORE PLACES YOU WILL GO.”

Ted Geisel took ACTION.  You can have thoughts, theories and dreams.

But the one thing that’ll work is work that screams.

Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, wrote “The Cat in the Hat” using only 236 basic words. The book was a huge success and quickly sold over a million copies.

He then wanted to write and entertain for an even younger audience.

He wrote “Green Eggs and Ham” with only 50 unique words, which sold over eight million copies.

All because he was ANNOYED. He was annoyed that teachers and writers thought kids were too simple-minded and would only read simple, boring books.

ANNOYANCE + ACTION = SUCCESS.

“Kids are smart,” he said. So he DID something.

“UNLESS SOMEONE LIKE YOU CARES A WHOLE AWFUL LOT, NOTHING IS GOING TO GET BETTER. IT’S NOT.”

He didn’t have any kids. He never had kids. But he knew they weren’t stupid.

Kids like to play.  If you can get kids to play, even with their mind, they will learn, they will have fun, they will be “all in”.

He didn’t waste time arguing with scholars in newspapers. Here was his THREE-STEP GUIDE TO SUCCESS:

• He found something that annoyed him…

• He thought he knew a better way…

• He proved it by doing it (and making sure he had fun).

Then repeat.

Find the thing that annoys you!  Make it better.

“BE WHO YOU ARE AND SAY WHAT YOU FEEL BECAUSE THOSE WHO MIND DON’T MATTER AND THOSE WHO MATTER DON’T MIND.”

All too often, society reinforces that when you stick out like a nail, you’re going to get hammered.

School hammers away many of those nails before we are adults. The epidemic of worrying about what others think about you can be debilitating.

It’s hard when you come across people that don’t seem to like you – even worse to see hate from people whom you don’t even know.

It’s hard.  I’ve received it in some form for most of my life.

People say, “Ignore it,” and I mostly do. Now, more than ever, it has become a lot easier to ignore it.

I want to always say what I feel. And those who matter don’t mind.

My favorite Dr. Seuss book is “Happy Birthday to You.”

I wanted to fly out my window and go on a journey like the hero of that book.

I still do.  In my story, I will take my family and close friends with me.

“TODAY YOU ARE YOU, THAT IS TRUER THAN TRUE. THERE IS NO ONE ALIVE WHO IS YOUER THAN YOU.”

Sincerely,

Jayme

P.S. Everyone has the amazing ability to share your ideas, dreams and perspective – to teach.  So go teach, like Dr. Seuss did.

Destination is Never a Place

“90% of fulfillment comes from choice. Only 10% comes from circumstance. The wanderer surrenders to the 90%, not the 10%.”

It started when I was six months into my second-chance “life”.  It delivered the most impactful life experiences in the form of a global pandemic.  It is ending with a fresh perspective on happiness. 

What a f***ing crazy year.

There were moments of fear, feeling lost.  I was grateful, but scared.  I was alive, yet destroyed. It was the best year of my life.

In a lot of ways, I had to start all over.  Started businesses, consulted others, served.  I wandered to where my heart was beating, and my feet were standing.  I was present.

In reflection of the process, I know that following my own advice was difficult but worth it.  I will do that more often.

RESTLESSNESS

Something is off. Something cracked.

After having to leave a business I loved, the experience destroyed me.  I swore I’d never put myself in a similar situation. 

I knew that despite the fulfillment created from my own businesses, there was still a piece missing.  Something cracked.  So I went back in.

Now, it is so similar yet so radically different.

I think it’s important to recognize that restlessness. To give permission for it. To even welcome it.

THE SEARCH

What the hell do I do now?

The search begins. It’s scary and confusing.

If a relationship ends… will anyone love me again?  When I fail in a business… will I ever make money again?

I kept cutting out all the “extra” in my life.

Bad friends, bad people (who are contagious and viral), bad positions, bad investments. All my low-value belongings, old addresses and homes. I clean up.

Was ready for the search. I am ready to explore.

DISAPPOINTMENT

Some things won’t work.

I was a founder of a company that never reached its full potential.  It failed and so did I.  I tried everything I could do to save it.  It didn’t work.

I started businesses that never reached its full potential.  Blame it on the pandemic?  Too easy.  I started writing a book.  But life got in the way. I had to stop.

No matter what your routine: a daily practice, a miracle morning, a lot of money, love, family, fun—life happens.

90% of fulfillment comes from choice. Only 10% comes from circumstance.

The explorer surrenders to the 90%, not the 10%.

TIME

People say, “Time is money.”

What a pitiful way to look at time.

I have taken advantage of friends and those I respect over the years in business.  I’m sorry.  I’ve used small businesses and consultants to support various needs.  I’ll accept a price or a rate that I know is lower than what I should pay.

Most people don’t have the confidence to charge for their experience, their creativity, their brilliance. 

You can buy “hours” from anyone. People can only get your creativity from you. 

Your time is the greatest gift you can ever give another human being.  Period.

ANXIETY

When I’ve ever leaned to try something new, I’m terrified. More than 50% of the time I’ve failed.

When I start a new business venture, there is always a great chance it doesn’t work. When I go hunting, only a 10% chance I will be successful.  When I start writing, only a 25% chance it will get finished.

Is it the correct decision? It’s so hard to know.

Most decisions have failed.  Others have provided me the greatest moments of happiness I could ever imagine.  Amazing wife and children were the result of decisions that hours before I was breathing into a paper bag.

Every decision is packed with anxiety.  Else your ancestors would have been eaten by lions.  Complacency killed the cavemen who had no children.

The key is to make today’s anxiety work for you.  And then say goodbye to it.

MENTORS

On more than one catastrophe that’s happened to me in life, the first thing I did was call five people.

Some gave great advice, some gave me the truth I didn’t want to hear, others checked on me every day…one person even offered a place to stay.  I didn’t need it. They just did it anyway.  

You don’t seek out mentors. You spend decades building goodwill with people. Then there is a pent up supply of people who want to do goodwill towards you.

How do you do goodwill towards people? Start being kind to them. Start coming up with ideas for them. Give them the truth.

Start introducing them to others. Start giving constructive advice on their projects.

Offer them a place to rest their hat emotionally, or creatively.

Do it for a year. Do it for 10 years. 20 years. And see what happens.

These become your most valuable mentors. Just like you were for them.

UNIQUE

Eventually reinvention kicks in.

You’ve done the search. You’ve had the restlessness. You’ve had the teachers. You’ve had the feedback of what’s wrong or right.

You’ve put in your practice. You’ve rebuilt your energy. You are healthy again. You’ve dealt with the anxiety.

You look out one day and the light is coming through your room and you suddenly have an idea you want to try.

Nobody has ever done it before.

You wrote 10 ideas a day for 20 years to finally come up with something nobody has done before.

I’m excited right now about many things on the horizon.  I’m ready to wander.  To explore.

THE SOURCE

Eventually, you connect with the source again. You are physically healthy, emotionally connecting with people, creative every day, grateful every day for the the magic around you.

You have chosen yourself. You are working on your ideas. They are helping people. They are giving and others are receiving.

You are still just a drop in the ocean. But it doesn’t matter.

The single drop that is you begins to ripple.

The ripples go out to every shore.

Your search has led you to help the entire world, even in a microcosmic way.

Every day the search begins anew.

But every day I want to be that drop of water. To drift. To float. To bathe in the sun.

Knowing that once again, a storm will come. I will know how to survive it.

A friend told me, “Don’t live life like you are going to die tomorrow, live life like you are going to die in a year.”

OK then. This is the year I’m going to wander.  To explore.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” - Henry Miller

Advice I Will Never Forget

“The way you do anything is the way you do everything”.

One of my business mentors, Mike, only speaks in highly intellectual obscure fashion – almost often in quotes.

His experience in leadership development with a passion for teaching must be the reason for his incredible memory.  He remembers sayings and quotes that fit every situation.  He doesn’t speak in “normal”.

Another highly influential figure in the early days of career, Jerry, used to say “your life is perfectly designed to produce the result it produces”

I’m an advice combiner.

Mike + Jerry = “Hope is not a Strategy”.

In the journey from desperation to destination, I have learned that the key to mastering relationships, habits and mindset is when you realize you are the common denominator!

————-

About four months ago I lost my phone.  It lasted for three days.

The pain was nearly unbearable. It’s like stopping carbs. Or stopping that evening glass of wine during a multi-month quarantine.

The average person touches their phone 2,600 times A DAY. The average person spends 4 HOURS, 40 MINUTES on their phone every day.

The average person checks their phone every 12 minutes.

By day two I was having the shakes.  I was standing in a long line at the grocery store.  It was very long line.  We had yet to reach the shopping shortage fear of the pandemic but the lady had her cart over-flowing in front of me.

This was going to take a while.  No phone and I was missing my emails and Instagram dopamine hits.  I could scroll the LinkedIn feed, send a text to a friend, FaceTime my wife, watch a YouTube video of a comedian or the handyman who’s supposed to help me fix the sprinkler.

I could look at a map and see where I fit into the universe. I didn’t know it would take me 37 days to walk to California given current traffic conditions.

I could read news or political blogs.

Instead I just looked at the people in front of me. I thought about things.

Not very interesting thoughts. I thought about dinner. And I thought about missing my phone. And I was bored. Probably I’ve become a boring person.

I stood, I waited, I watched, I listened, I stood more, I thought more.  I didn’t get the dopamine hits. Dopamine is the same neurochemical released when you feel good or happy.

I didn’t look at dog videos. Or funny memes. Or vacation spots.

I stood, I waited, I thought, I stood. I daydreamed.

As I slowly made my way to the checkout counter, I looked at the line of people behind me and I could hear their phones tingle and tinkle and buzz and vibrate and everyone looking and people feeling their phones.

I struck a conversation with a few people in line.  A few nice people.  It was nice.

When I was home later, I still had no phone.  I read.  I listened to my kids.  I laughed with my kids.  I sat on the back porch.  I watched shows my wife wanted to watch until I feel asleep with her.  I feel asleep earlier than usual, woke up earlier than usual, worked out earlier than usual, laughed earlier than usual.

On day three, I had my phone.  It is a long story as to how I found it.  Nonetheless, I had my phone.  I looked at it first time in three days. But there wasn’t anything interesting on it.

Giving your full attention is the greatest gift you could ever give someone.  I have certainly learned this the hard way over time.

Too much of my life, my kid’s life, my relationships have been without my full attention.  Too much I simply don’t remember.  It is lost.

The scarcity of attention is the single largest challenge for our society – and business for that matter.

The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

COVID-19 Myths - Still Believe Them? (Copy)

COVID–19 has shown us what the myths of society are and now they are quickly unraveling.   Here are 13 myths that COVID-19 is shining its light on:

MYTH: University is the best way to get learning and then a job.

Well, colleges have sent kids home, refused to return tuition and rent, and online college courses have proven to be worse than online schools. Universities, for those that remain, can accelerate social acumen but it might not be the best way to learn skills that are hirable in the future.

MYTH: Getting married means you aren’t alone.

During this time of quarantine, calls to divorce lawyers have surged 50—100%. This is so sad.  “In sickness and health” didn’t take into account that sickness might mean forced isolation with each other.

MYTH: Having kids is the purpose of life.

I love my kids and I’m cherishing this tight connection with them. But rise in child abuse during this lockdown is a horrific thing. Doctors are reporting they have never seen this many calls about child abuse. I hope this HORRIBLE thing is factored in when we look back at this.

MYTH: My friends are “my friends.”

What a wonderful opportunity to reassess how you view the world and the people that live within it.  How you treat people and how they choose to treat you during this time should be a compass for who gets invited to the next milestone birthday.  Stop hanging around toxic people after this is over. Life is short.

MYTH: You have to be dishonest to be successful.

“Success” in today’s environment doesn’t mean money. It means ability to deal with increasing uncertainty. How one measures success after this is over is how one was able to master this uncertainty.

MYTH: Giving to “charity” means you are charitable.

There are hundreds of ways to help others. Volunteering has gone up. And donations to GoFundMes for people who are struggling. Service to others is the best way to reduce the stress of isolation. Give as an instinct.

MYTH: We need to vote to change the world.

People arguing all day on social media in the foolish hope that a mind will be changed show that most only care about being heard and not real change. BE the change you want to see in the world and that is worth more than a vote.  I still believe in voting by the way but I believe in personal leadership, first.

MYTH: Procrastination is bad.

Time is on our side during this lockdown. Maybe procrastination means you need time to find other interests and passions that you can develop and eventually monetize rather than going back to a cubicle job that fired you.  Don’t be so hard on yourself to remain busy – you will likely never have this time again.

MYTH: Needing little sleep is good for productivity.

Some productivity gurus have claimed this for years. Clearly sleep is one of the main boosters of the immune system, which is so desperately needed right now.

MYTH: Humans are smarter NOW than 40,000 years ago.

Compare: 40,000 years ago, a human knew EVERY fruit, animal, predator, and plant within a five–mile radius. Today, people call each other “idiots” and “fascists” on Twitter all day long. Then they watch “Tiger King.”

MYTH: Experts are always right.

Scientists at Harvard initially thought worldwide deaths could be as high as 140 million. What?? So clearly wrong and yet we shut down the entire world economy, which has led to tragic situations for tens of millions of people.

MYTH: Money solves all of your money problems.

Money is useless now. What does exist is your internal strength, your ability to be a beacon for those stuck in the fog. Your ability to rise above and spread common sense to those who are struggling to understand.

Focus on Achieving Progress, Not Perfection

“Practice makes progress”, I told the mildly attentive 7-year old softball team at the end of a long session.

A few of them glared at me with a confused look as that was not what their parents had been breathing into their ear.  “No, it’s perfect!”

I left that explanation for another day.  I felt bad. 

So much of what we’ve learned in the past is being challenged every day in the current sociological climate.  No longer is it a pandemic – it just is.

For highly successful and talented people whether it is business, entrepreneurship, athletics or parenting, the mindset must be different.  Achievement looks different.  Fulfillment is measured different.

Success is no longer measured by getting “there”.  There is no “there”.  Success is about progress in small simple steps.

The Wright Brothers ran a bicycle shop. People love to ride bicycles.

The US government was spending $2 million to get a plane in the air.

The Wright Brothers (from their tiny bike shop) were racing against the wealthy US government to fly. Who would fly first?

The US government was convinced that a plane has to fly straight or it would crash. No turbulence. ZERO imperfections else it would fail.

The Wright Brothers thought this also.

Until one day…they looked at a little kid learning to ride a bike.  He jumped on the bike and took off, he wobbled for a few seconds, and every turn he wobbled again, but soon he was off and gone. He was riding a bike.

He wobbled!

They made a plane that wobbled. The plane flew. They made history.

They beat out the government that was spending millions. They did it by focusing on progress rather than perfection.

I have a lot of imperfections. Sometimes I’m impatient.  Sometimes I don’t have enough empathy for people that deserve it.  Sometimes I’m afraid of doing things where I’m likely to fail.

I focus on being a good friend and father but it’s hard. I focus on being a good partner but I have my own insecurities.

I try to have good ideas but it’s a constant effort to keep my idea muscle exercised.

Throughout most of my career, I was thrust into positions where I was not “ready”.  I wanted to learn but I was sloppy, imperfect.  I was lucky enough to be surrounded by incredible mentors and those willing to invest in my progress.

I did not have a final Goal in mind.  Even starting and building businesses, the focus on progress always trumped some arbitrary future state.  I wanted to survive, to get better.  To progress.

I wobble.

And then, on occasion, I fly.

For many, success comes easy.  At least it used to.  Now it is less about the ultimate achievement (that winning game, that sale, that promotion, etc.). 

It is about progressing 1% each day.  It is about making good quality decisions each day.  It is about learning and becoming vulnerable to the pain, each day.

Be open to the possibility that if you had only stuck with your Goals, you would have never started with your Life.

Always go for progress, practice, persistence, pain, and then find the pleasures of life.

Be willing to wobble.

Finding Your Own Mastery

For much of my life I’ve dove into hobbies and interests with deep desire to learn them well. 

Often this time and energy has led to disappointment – ultimately never realizing the ‘excellence’ I set out for myself.  It is exhausting. 

Now after years of maturing and understanding my capabilities (I’m still pretty immature), I realize that becoming proficient in something should come at the sacrifice of fulfillment.  To master anything is to give yourself up, lean in and have fun.

Ultimately, Mastery = Mystery. You’re going to break the sound barrier on some field that nobody has ever gone that fast or that far. You’re going to find your own unique combination of passions that make you the best in the world at that combination.

What if nobody cares? That’s ok also. You care.

What if you never go for the mystery. What if you settle back into the known, the comfortable, the stress-free existence of your peers and colleagues and everyone you ever knew.

The world might not allow it. What you thought was comfortable might’ve been a myth also.

Only this moment matters. Health-wise: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Can you move forward today in each?  Small simply steps

Then you will attract the mastery and the mystery.

Here Are A Few Things I Learned:   

A)    Train to do things that you can’t do…Practice matters.

I hate to say it, but talent is a factor.

There’s a myth that everyone is talented at certain things and you just have to find it.

This isn’t true.

Most people are not talented at anything. Most people can be pretty good at something. 

Manifesting true talent takes work.  It takes practice.

For people such as doctors or lawyers, work is an evolving area of practice and a structure playground for continuous learning.  Every day, they practice.

Why can’t we view ourselves as being in the practice of “our field” – whatever that may be.

Like an elite athlete, you train.  You practice.  It is a way of “being”.

When all the chips are counted, you will never reach your level of expectations, you would default to your level of training.

B)    There is no can’t.

People have been convinced that as an adult you’re pretty much fixed - that there’s a limit on what you can do.

They’re wrong.

Whenever you start something you start at zero.  Because you can’t do it… yet.

C)    Predict today. Just today.

I don’t want to always know my future – the far future.  I want to take small simply steps.  Long predictions are dreams that become worries.

How do you change your life? I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what works for me.

Do things you love. Everyday.

Practice. Improve 1% a day.

Practicing something you love takes away the pain – this includes things that are hard.

And time passes.

Your future slips in. And you’re there with new skills. New opportunities. And a new future.

No predictions. Just presence.

D)    Follow your motivating source.

Writing often helps me sort things out. And lets me help people.  Maybe you.  I hope.

Hope is not a strategy.  Dammit.

That’s my motivating source.

To live life with gratitude, loyalty and serving others

Look at “the joy you get in everything”.

There’s a fountain inside. You have one. And if you follow it, you’ll always have something that flows.  A key to reaching exceptional levels.

E) Get a teacher/mentor…

F) …the right teacher/mentor

All the greats had great teachers.

A specialized teacher helps to build accumulated knowledge.

First you learn the basics. Then practice. Get feedback. And advance.

G) Learn by doing

You can’t really be capable of anything until you do it.

So you have to try.

Willingness to fail is at the heart

Find joy in the process.

PERSISTENCE.

Add up all of the above and you get persistence. Persistence creates luck.

Persistence overcomes failure. Persistence gets you experience. Persistence is a sentence of failures punctuated by the briefest of successes, and eventually those successes will start to propel you towards mastery.

Not one success or two. But many many many.

How do you get persistent when life is filled with changing careers, relationships, responsibilities, economic crashes, historical upswings, and so many things that can get in your way.

There’s no answer at all. That’s why it’s called persistence. Because no matter where you are, there you are, doing what you always did. Not letting any of the above stop you. Using all of the above in your Mastery Arsenal to propel you to higher successes and deeper failures and then even higher successes.

It’s painful and brutal and no fun and nobody will ever understand why. And when you achieve success people will act as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to have happened to you.

And you try to explain, “No, there was this one time…” but they don’t want to hear it. They want to know what their next move should be so they can be where you are.

There’s no next move. There’s only your next move.

THE GOOD NEWS:

You don’t have to be the master of the world. You don’t have to do any of the above.

Very few people do. And many of them experienced much hardship and pain along the way. And will continue to experience that hardship.

We live in a culture where it’s almost a damnation to be considered mediocre. But society has no clue about what real mastery is. Don’t listen to any of the “Top 10 things…” articles. Don’t listen to anyone. Not even me.

Freud has said that our two goals in life are human connection and achievement.

But often it’s a reasonable goal to overcome these evolutionary inclinations.

To be happy with your loved ones. To be satisfied for every gift in your life, for every moment, not rushing to the next moment of mastery.

True mastery can be found right here, right now.

Choosing yourself right now in how you treat yourself, how you treat the people around you, how you treat your efforts and your loves.

Nothing is more important than this. Nothing compounds into greater happiness in life more than this.

Because when you rush to get to a mythical THERE, one day you will arrive and realize you missed all of the pleasures and mysteries along the way.

A Few Things I’ve Learned About Leadership

I have failed plenty.  More times that I wish to count.  Probably because many of them are painful and many times they exposed my vulnerability.

Failure creates fear.  Fear of separation is one of the most powerful driving forces in humanity.  We are pack animals.  We need our pack.

I used to hate failing as I don’t want to think about how people will then view me.  What a crippling way to be.

I walked away from the business I helped create, name, structure and build.

It wasn’t a business.  It was everything.  Consuming every part of emotion and subordinating the other things in life to its far-reaching vision.

The grief cycle lasted a few months.  Questions.  So many questions.

Then I understood why.  I failed as a leader.

Like politics, the coronavirus and parenting, everyone has an opinion on leadership.  You can waste valuable brain cells reading all the books, blogs and self-made videos.  Some are good.  Most aren’t.

For me, it really comes down to a few simple decisions.

Is leadership who you are?  Or is leadership a choice?

Is leadership about psychology?  Or is leadership about your actions?

Whatever it is.  I have experienced enough to have a perspective.  What I’ve seen builds an even stronger perspective.

Here is what I’ve picked up along the way.  It may be wrong.  This isn’t a list for self-help – this is simply what great leaders do.

 THEY ARE PURPOSE-DRIVEN:

Leaders who are purpose-driven are likely horrible poker players.  The principles they care most about are stamped clearly on their foreheads and consistent throughout their behavior.

They are the easiest to understand.  They are the easiest to follow.  They are unwavering.  They will leave a company for it.  Stop friendships for it.  Fall in love for it.

How do you find your purpose? I believe it will be different for everyone.

 A Daily Practice:

Without a solid foundation, you can’t create a building that will reach for the sky.

I do this every day. Improve 1% (whatever that means) in each of these areas:

PHYSICAL:

Eat, Move, Sleep. If you’re in bed sick, then a purpose will do you no good.

EMOTIONAL:

Trim the toxic people (even if they are “friends” or family) and be with the people who love you and support you and you love and support.

If you are constantly angry or resentful or nervous about your relationships, your purpose will forget you.

MENTAL:

Exercise your Creativity Muscle every day. If you aren’t creative every day, the muscle will atrophy. And if you are creative every day, it will eventually become a super power.

Without that super power you will have no chance of finding a purpose and then exceeding what’s been done before. Finding your own unique voice that will make you rise above everyone else.

SPIRITUAL:

Not in a prayer sense (although it could be).  This is a feeling that you can’t control everything.

Focusing on only the things you can control, you eliminate the anxiety or regret or resentment about what you can’t.

I try to do this Daily Practice every day. Without it, there’s no way to find purpose.

Gratitude. Loyalty. Leadership.

THEY DO THE BASICS BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE:

I always love it when the head coach of a professional American football team addresses the media after a “tail-whipping” defeat.

They say, “Next week, we need to get back to the basics”.  I believe that most NFL head coaches have strong leadership skills.  Well, at least some.  With that said, if the basics are so important to winning, then why in the hell did they leave them?

Whether you are an elite athlete, a CEO or a leader of any capacity – the basics work.  They always have.  They always will.

The basics will differ slightly for everyone.  And it is essential to know and acknowledge the basic behaviors required to lead for a particular role.

I would suspect they won’t drift too far from this list:

Self-Awareness (the trendy word is “mindfulness”):

This is being where your feet are.  Being present and fully attentive to those you lead as well as the factors that influence the world around you.  Symbolism.  What you do, say, decide matters.

 Active Listening:

After you have surrounded yourself with people who are supposedly more capable, intelligent, etc. than you are, you listen.  Great leaders know how to get out of their own way.

Communication:

A leader who says they see communication as a top priority actually doesn’t care about communication.  Communication is not a priority, it is a value.

Decision-Making:

This is not the speed by which decisions are made or how much fortitude it takes to make the tough ones.  This is about quality.  While the organization is busy unwinding the chaos created from the quick and difficult decisions, I’d rather be led by the 1-2 right decisions that are made every day.

You can’t skip the basics.

THEY HAVE AN EGO…ABOUT THE TEAM:

Often times leaders, especially dynamic ones, are seen to have massive levels of self-confidence which is defined by society as “egoic”.  Self-absorbing.  Self-preserving.

I would agree that some cases, this is true.  I have seen it.

However, I believe there is a distinctive difference in how great leaders use ego to create significant influence and impact.

Elite level leaders must have an ego to the degree of having unwavering confidence in their ability and confident in the work they have put in.  It is a believe they deserve to be successful because of the dedication they have placed during the unseen hours.  It is a belief in themselves.

However, that ego is tarnished if it is not brushed with high levels of humility.  Great leaders don’t believe they’ve arrived.  There is no “there”.  Just constant learning and growth.

This is a delicate balance.  Great leaders know how do this well.

They dissolve a personal ego into a Team ego.  An organizational ego.

This is taking tremendous pride in the team.  Every member of the team.  Great leaders have the team’s back – literally and figuratively.

Now the behavior is seen as an undeniable level of confidence of the team.  In this mindset, the team will win.  The team deserves to win.

HEALTH:

A sick leader is not a great leader.

A leader who is spending time with people who are not good for them is likely not a good leader.

A leader who doesn’t constantly practice the basics and creativity is likely not a good leader.

A leader who is not grateful for the abundance already in his or her life will never lead his vision into abundance. He or She won’t know how.

There’s no such thing as instant health. There’s only such thing as practice and progress.

All you have to do is check the box on progress. Progress compounds every day into enormous abundance.

Find your energy.  Find what lights you up!

You must fill your bucket before filling others.  It is hard to fulfill others with an empty cup.

LOVE:

Warren Buffett says he skips to work and that he would do the work he does for free. Maybe it’s easy for him to say that because he has $50 billion.

But I’ve gone through and read his letters from the 1950s when he was first starting out. These letters are not easy found – but you can find them.

He loved what he did when he was just starting out, with no money, working in his living room.

He took glee in finding companies that nobody else knew about. GLEE!

Don’t do something just for the money.

Money is a side effect of persistence. You persist in things you are interested in.

Explore your interests. Then persist. Then love.

Then… side effects.

You don’t have to love everything about your job or your company.  You simply have to find joy and love in what you are doing.

Lead with Love.

LEADERSHIP IS A PRACTICE:

I am reminded of a conversation an old colleague.  We talked about the disproportion between various industries and professionals.

Moreover, do they have to be so different?  Is it skill or is it mindset?

If you ask a doctor or lawyer what they do for a living they will say, “I work for a law practice, or “I practice medicine at _______ hospital”.

For these people, work is an evolving area of practice and a structure playground for continuous learning.  Every day, they practice.

Why can’t we view ourselves as being in the practice of Sales, practice of Accounting or practice of Human Resources?

Like an elite athlete, you train.  Leaders train and practice.  Leaders practice the basics, every day.  It’s nearly impossible to be pushed off the mountain when you have the strongest foundation.

When all the chips are counted, you will never reach your level of expectations, you would default to your level of training.

Simplicity is Leadership

I love getting my shoes shined.  Well, my boots.  I don’t really own traditional shoes.

James was his name and he was a marksman of his craft.  He could turn the scuffs into reflections.  His stand at the Calgary, Alberta airport was spotless and he took pride in his work.  He didn’t say much.  When he did, he spoke.

It was only after a 30 minute conference call (I didn’t realize he was listening) where he spoke.  “Why didn’t you just tell the people to only focus on things that matter?”

Clearly my long-winded rant over the phone annoyed him.  Even though I thought I outlined a pretty compelling message – after thinking about it, I was annoyed with myself.

James was a good man.  Probably still is.

An entire industry has been built around emulating great leaders.

Much like the story of Napolean and his raids through the Napoleanic Wars of the early 1800s.  His success is often paired with his communications style of explicit, simple and literal commands during battle.  It is said that his communication was whittled down to the pure basics where the lowest level corporal could understand and even repeat it back verbatim.

To Napolean, simplicity in communication is vital; reduce it to the elemental.

One of the most strategic and valuable skill in leadership is the ability to lead with simplicity.  I’m still not great at it.  I’m still getting it.

Those that choose to be in it.  You know.  Leadership is hard.  And now, more than ever before, the levels of complexity and uncertainty are ratcheted.  It is VUCA (you can look it up).

I believe the companies and individuals that will outperform their peers will be directly correlated to the those that simplifiy their strategy to the great sources of value.  They simplified the organization to better execute the strategy. And they took responsibility for communicating key strategic and tactical messages in simple, clear, compelling ways that inspired changes in behavior and impelled action.

SIMPLIFY STRATEGY

Developing a strategy that works is consistently focused on the things that really matter (like James said).

Leaders who help form these strategies are willing to back off even good ideas for the sake of simplicity and focus. Like master gardeners, they recognized that careful pruning would ultimately yield stronger, more sustained results.

In 1997, Steve Jobs said, “I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying “no” to 1,000 things.” But he also succeeded in consistently simplifying the strategy into memorable themes.

Although I’m tired of the typical Apple reference – Apple is predicated on bringing the best user experience to its customers.

That’s not far from the message of its first product brochure: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

In other words, when it comes to strategy, be prepared to say “no” unequivocally and to say, “yes” memorably.

SIMPLIFY THE ORGANIZATION

Organizations can falter when activities require a lot of interactions and interdependencies. Every organization has tension or rub points.  Those areas of complexity where different functions have to interact well for the organization to succeed.

I suspect some leaders have a nose for those tension points. Some have learned to let others do the heavy lifting by asking them simple questions such as, “What’s getting in your way?” and “What would make it easier for you to do your job?”

People will tell you where the complexity is.  They are dying to tell you!  Especially when they understand how their role impacts the strategy.  Guess what, they are still dying to tell you what’s wrong.  We must listen.

A hallmark of the simplified organization is clarity around decision-making.  In my experience, this has failed every time.  And I was certainly a part of the failure.

An agile organization must have clear “line of sight” to the end goal.  More importantly the ability to make judgement and decisions to move forward – whether in the boardroom, manufacturing or at the point of sale.

Another hallmark is to clear success measures for everyone’s work.  What if job descriptions were distilled down to only the success measures.  More specifically, what people are here to achieve.  Too many organizations define roles by a long list of activities that are to be carried out.

It is far more powerful to define roles by their success measures and their role in key decision-making around the factors that matter to the organization’s strategy.

SIMPLIFY COMMUNICATION

Developing strategy is tough and often painful.

Of course, people often love the retreats and nice “off-location” working sessions.  However, the bi-product is often a huge laundry list of comprehensive initiatives (I always feel so bad for the one person transcribing on that large Excel spreadsheet!) that become incomprehensible to the stakeholders for whom it matters most.

The magic is to break up any strategy into simple terms that have specific relevance to each group. Explain how each role is linked to the strategy.  Regularly ask questions to measure employees’ understanding.  Clarify any misunderstandings.

Closing the gap between strategy and execution is about having sustained motivation.

Have a clear, simple Purpose.

Bring relevance and connection to everyone.  Everyone.

Create Small Simple Steps.  Actions that are so small and achievable that you cannot fail.  It is not about advancing monthly initiatives.  It is about what can we do TODAY that will move us (even slightly) towards our destination?  Our flag on the horizon.

In short, as the world becomes more complex, simplifying strategy, inter-dependencies, decision-making and all communication becomes more important than ever.

This is much easier said than done.  I’ve rarely seen it.

I tipped James and thanked him for his wisdom.  I suspect he is still changing lives today – one shoe (or boot) at a time.

James can do it.  So can I.  So can You.

Persuasion IQ

You’re on the most important elevator ride of your life. You have ten seconds to pitch- the classic “elevator pitch”.

Love or Hate. Money or Despair. And you may never get this chance again.

Someone recently told me they were horrible at ‘sales’ and said they wanted to be better at persuasion.  Maybe they were a master and were simply using some form of reverse ninja technique.  Perhaps.

I am no master but there are a few principles I’ve picked up along the way – usually learned from failures.

There are books about persuasion and the ultimate ‘value proposition’. But don’t waste your time. They are mainly shelf-help books versus self-help.

I’ve been on both sides of this equation. I’ve had people pitching me and I have delivered my fair share.  Most of them unsuccessfully.

It is a scary thing.  Asking a complete stranger, or even worse, creating a worse situation they are currently in.

Perhaps the hardest thing for me was when I was doing my “human behavior” study in college.

I had to walk up to random strangers in the middle of campus or throughout the city and convince them within 20 seconds to tell me a secret about themselves they normally wouldn’t tell their inner circle.

Not quite an elevator pitch but the same basic idea. I had a lot of practice. I probably approached over 500 people cold.

In some cases people tried to hurt me. In one case I was chased. In other cases people opened up their hearts and I am infinitely grateful to them.

The ideas below have worked for me in many scenarios where I’ve had to be persuasive. Either in writing, or in person. In business and in friendships and in love.  These are not mechanical techniques but more a way of being.

I hope variations on it can work for you. You decide.

WHO ARE YOU?

People want to know they are talking to a good, honest, reliable person that they can trust and perhaps even like, or love.

Yes, love.

They won’t love you by looking at your resume.

You have to do method acting. Imagine what your body would feel like if they already said “Yes” even before you open your mouth.

You would be standing up straight, smiling, palms open, ready to close the deal. You have to method act at the beginning of your conversation.

If you are slouched and your head is sticking out then your brain is not as well-connected to your nervous system and you won’t be in “flow”.

I can drag out the science here but this is a social update and not a peer-reviewed scientific paper.

The reality is: when you’re slouched over, not only are you not using the full potential of your brain, but you look untrustworthy.

RELAX

Think about how you breathe when you are anxious and nervous.

I will tell you how I breathe: short, shallow breaths in my upper chest.

So do the reverse before delivering your pitch or idea.

Breathe deep and in your stomach.  People sense this. Again, this builds trust and relaxes you.

Be confident.  Everyone has confidence.  It just depends on how deep within the mind it is buried.  Be confident with a brush of humility.

Free yourself from your limiting self-talk by recognizing the reason for what you are doing.

Discredit the L.I.Es (limited ideas entertained) about what is and is not possible.

Your purpose will help in generating the motivation you need to take action.

Now, even though you haven’t said a single word, you’ve probably done the two most important things for persuading someone.

A FEW U’S FOR YOU

Okay, the actual nuts and bolts of persuasion.

This is not a way to convince someone to do something they don’t want to do. This is a way for you to consolidate your vision into a sentence or two and then express it in a clear and scalable manner.

This is the way to bond and connect with another person’s needs instead of just your own uninteresting wants.

I believe you can reference this for pitching a product or idea, on a date, with your children, on your spouse, whatever.

I’ll take an uncommon example.  Many use simple examples like UBER – a slam dunk and an easy pitch.  What about pest control services…

Urgency

People say you must create urgency.  Untrue.  The urgency is always there, you simply must create the awareness (and feeling) of what happens  when no action is taken soon.

Example: “Can you imagine what the backyard will be like this summer once all the mosquito eggs hatch?”

Unique

Uniqueness is not measured in miles, only inches.  You need only to be 1% better (or perceived to be) than everyone else.

Example:  “Our 360° applied model guarantees a clean environment with every service.  No one else does this.”

Useful

Why is your solution useful to the lives of the people you plan on selling to or deliver your message to:

Example:  “We help you keep your promise to your tenants by having clean, pest-free home”.

Ultra-Specific

This shows there is no fluff and eliminates any interpretation of value:

Example:  “Our ap provides a complete summary of your pest rate condition. Your credit card is pre-loaded. If you have an issue, you hit a button and a technician shows up the same day.”

User-friendly

In other words, make it as easy as possible for someone to say “Yes”. Like a money back guarantee, for instance. Award status. Testimonials from sources you both know.

Unquestionable Proof

This can be in the form of profits. Or some measurable statistic. Or testimonials. Or a good wing-man. Whatever it takes.

DESIRE

As much as we would like to think otherwise, people primarily act out of self-interest.

The less they know you, the more they will act of self-interest because to do otherwise could potentially put them in danger. We all know that kids shouldn’t take candy from strangers.

In any persuasive situation, someone is the kid, what you are asking is the candy, and you are the stranger. So their gut reflex, unless you make the candy super-sweet, is to say “no”.

So make sure you make your candy sweeter by sprinkling in their desires.

And what are their desires?

• recognition

• rejuvenation

• relaxation

• relief

• religion

• remuneration

• results

• revenge

• romance

If you are unaware of the desires or “pain” from the person you are looking to persuade.  Stop, you are at a severe disadvantage.  Back up.  Ask more questions.

NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME

I would prefer not to make these ideas about tactics.  However, some of areas of successful persuasion require an appreciation that getting what you want is not about who gains and who “gives up”.

A lot of people go into persuasive “mode” thinking they have to be pushy or play games.

Like purposely being late to meetings (dumb) in order to assert their dominance and play from a place of perceived power.

Such tactics might work to a limited degree, but I believe they come from a misguided perspective.

Negotiations, when done correctly, are an incredibly empathetic, mutual conversation that happens.

It’s negotiation of two sides with individualistic interests that are brought together in a way that feels constructive for everybody.

Make sure the result brings you and others life and love.

Tomorrow is 100% based on the negotiations you do today.

With great power comes great responsibility” – Stan Lee, Spiderman.

Most people don’t have the power of persuasion.  They mess up on many of the points I’ve outlined above. I would suggest I mess up more often than I should.

It takes practice and hard work.

But this is not just about persuasion. It’s about connection.

It’s about two people, who are probably strangers, reaching through physical and mental space and trying to understand each other and reach common ground.

It’s not about money. It’s not about the idea. It’s not about yes or no.

It’s about the dance.  It’s about two people finding love.