A Year of Purpose

As we stand at the end of another year and look ahead to the new one the biggest emotion I’m feeling today is thanks. I’m grateful we’ve made it this far and so many of us are still here together, and I’m grateful for all that those who have passed on have taught us and the role that they played in our lives, however short it may have been. I can remember back in 2019 looking ahead to 2020 (and feeling really sick while doing it!) and having absolutely no clue how much would go on in those few short years and the challenges we would face as a nation and a world, but really hoping for something better than the “challenging” couple of years before 2019. I didn’t get my hope for those years, but we certainly have learned a lot about our world, each other and ourselves since 2020 and this decade began. So no, I don’t have insider knowledge about what the new year ahead holds, and I’m not planning a word for the year ahead (at this time), but as I was reading a devotional which spoke to the new year ahead I was reminded that one of the best things we can do in the new year (or anytime) is to live with purpose.

What does that mean? First I think it means that we should live, period. Yes, there will be rejections and failures and you won’t get to do everything or be everything for everyone, but I think it’s time that maybe we think less about the issues and make fewer complaints and instead start working in the situations we have and go from there. In other words (to use a recent example), just because there’s a pandemic happening, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still have adventures, learn new things, do fun things, or meet new people, you just have to get creative about how you do it and exactly what those things look like.

Second, living with purpose has to do with making lots of decisions. I know, cue the groans, but in all seriousness, the more intentional you are with your decision making (which means you proactively decide things and don’t just let them slide hoping they’ll magically take care of themselves or a better answer might fall into your lap), the more likely you are to be happy with your life and the more likely you are to have a life that fulfills you and let you do what you want. When you’re active with your decision making you are the one with the power and you get to choose many more of the twists and turns that your life takes, and you’ll have more power even during those moments that are really hard or when there are many unknowns because you’re used to making decisions and have gotten really good at finding and evaluating information and understanding and trusting your gut.

Finally, I think it means that you get to know yourself really well and accept yourself for who you are. Accepting yourself doesn’t mean that you don’t make changes or that you don’t have any growing to do, because often what you come to accept is that you’re really imperfect and have lots to work on and will do so at the pace that works for you (a snail’s pace isn’t an option). Choosing to live with purpose is about making decisions that are right for you and who you are and not about what’s cool or trendy or what insert name here thinks you should do because they think you’re ruining your life living as you are (and no one else agrees with them). And a hard part of accepting ourselves sometimes is in accepting that we’re adults and have to make decisions or things will go downhill (often faster than we can imagine). So we can either choose to do it how it works for us, or we can choose to miss out on a lot of awesome life that is out there for us to live.

I’m not saying I’m hoping for a good year (of course I would love that) but I am saying I haven’t given up yet on what the year ahead could be, maybe even because of how we’ve worked through the past few years. I hope you’ll join me for a new year of decision making, being an adult, doing good in the world, and living with purpose.

Pandemic: Strength Builder or Bedtime Story?

This month I read a book on everyone’s favorite topic: the pandemic. Stronger Through Adversity by Joseph A. Michelli tapped into the lessons that over 140 leaders around the US and world learned and applied during the pandemic. Some of these leaders were new to the business they were leading when the pandemic started, some had been in leadership of a business for years before the pandemic started, some of the leaders work with new companies, and some of the leaders work with companies that have been around for decades. We’ll tap into the thing I found most interesting and the question we really have to answer about the pandemic second, and first I want to talk about a couple of the lessons the book shared.

Some of the key insights shared in the book were:
“Only the truth sounds like the truth.” (Michelli)
-“Transparency, honesty, kindness, good stewardship, even humor, work in business at all times.” John Gerzema
-The digital format that everyone switched to enabled leaders to “drop in” more consistently and easily to meetings and groups, not for the purpose of pushing or directing, but to be visible and to be available to help and assist in any way they could to make things easier for their/that team.
-Things like culture, mission, vision and purpose helped leaders and teams stay focused during the heart of the pandemic and helped motivate them and help keep them from burnout when things began to even out too.
-One of the greatest treasures of the pandemic was the proliferation of simple, honest, human connection.

So the interesting part about the book was how much of what was shared I felt I had already heard. Why is this interesting? Because it speaks to how willingly leaders were speaking out throughout the pandemic doing the best they could to be visible and vocal. So more than anything most of the book felt like a review of all that happened and how leaders led during the first year of the pandemic. In some ways I appreciated that there wasn’t anything really new because it meant that consistently, across the board, this is how leaders were leading and what we saw and heard then was exactly how it looks in review.

Which brings us to the issue and question, something that has been a concern I have and something many companies and employees have struggled with since everyone started trying to figure out what life would look as we navigate this stage of the pandemic and what comes next: is what happened during the pandemic just something we tuck into our playbooks for the next crisis and we pack it away until then, or will we use what we learned to improve the present as well as prepare for the future crises that will happen? If we think it’s just to be used for the next crisis, why is “everyone wins” OK only during a pandemic or similar crisis? Yes, I know that for some companies the pandemic has just moved things along several years and brought them to a point of progress they were working towards anyway, and they’re working to keep the progress and innovations that have been made during the pandemic as a permanent aspect of their company. But what about the rest of the companies and leaders who want to put everything about the pandemic on a shelf and return to life as it was before the pandemic? I think some will get away with it, but I keep coming back to the point of how successfully things did run and work for so many people. It wasn’t perfect, but I think that has to do with the implementation/preparation time (nothing) as much as anything else. I don’t think this is a chapter we write and call good, I think we should integrate as much as we can from what worked during the pandemic into our lives and businesses going forward.

What did you learn from the pandemic and are you applying those lessons to your business going forward, why or why not?

Celebrations of Love

As a romantic I believe that there’s at least one partner out there for each of us. Maybe we’ll meet ‘the one’ when we’re young, have many good years together and then they’ll die and we’ll just enjoy the rest of our life with family and friends. Maybe we’ll meet ‘the one’ when we’re young, they’ll die and we’ll meet another ‘one’ and spend our last few years enjoying that relationship along with our family and friends. Maybe we’ll go most of our life alone with family and friends and meet ‘the one’ when we’re getting older and enjoy the last decade or two of our lives with them. And maybe we’ll meet ‘the one’ when we’re young, but it won’t work out between us and we’ll never marry, and then months or years down the road we’ll meet someone else and they’ll end up being ‘the one’ we spend the rest of our life with in happy love.

I know not all relationships end in death, some end in divorce, and that’s OK, and I believe those relationships happened for a reason and we learned something because of them. Hopefully they helped us grow in some way and prepared us for the next stage of our life journey, maybe even to meet our ‘one.’

In some ways I think Disney and the fairy tale stories have it right, because few partnerships exist without a challenge or two to overcome. Maybe we wouldn’t define those challenges as “adventures” or “exciting” but as much as we enjoy the good moments, we wouldn’t grow individually or grow stronger as a couple in the same way without those challenges. Sure we can choose challenges like taking on a new skill or learning new recipes but it’s not the same as navigating major surgery or challenging job changes. With give and take, a mutual commitment to sacrifice for the good of the relationship, the partnership becomes stronger and you feel more confident not only about your own life but about the partnership as well.

Sacrifices aren’t always easy to accept or navigate, sometimes it can take weeks or months for everyone to get on the same page and feel like things are doable. Which is OK because there’s no rule that says you have to fight proverbial dragons in the same way or on the same timetable as another couple. What matters is your commitment to the relationship, to the health and happiness of both of you (and any kids you have), your willingness to work through every situation and sacrifice together, and your commitment to find at least one day in the year to celebrate your love and each other. So if Valentine’s Day is the day you celebrate your partnership, that’s great, but if you prefer to celebrate in the middle of the summer or it’s just a random day each year, go for it, because you have to make time for the celebrations to remember that life isn’t just challenges and changes, there are so many great moments worth celebrating too, not to mention all the reasons why you’re together and love each other. What will you celebrate this year?

Who Do You Admire?

Who do your kids admire (or who do you admire for that matter)? Growing up I always was impressed by both historical figures and those who either are still living or lived recently like Sally Ride, Reggie White, Babe Ruth, and even Christopher Reeve (because of course, who doesn’t look up to someone who can bring Superman to life?!). Two of the things I am most thankful for as we live in 2022 are that it isn’t taboo to talk about our mental health struggles or to get help for them, and how much more open and accepting we are of people with disabilities. I mentioned Christopher Reeve, but probably like most people I always thought of him as someone who stood tall and “flew,” not someone who was in a wheelchair, yet he was. Today I was on Google doing some research and they had their daily doodle of Stephen Hawking, who early in his life was diagnosed with ALS, but he didn’t let that diagnosis or the many subsequent physical struggles hold him back from still accomplishing great things with the rest of his life. And while he died at 76 having lived a very long life compared to some others who are diagnosed with ALS, I’m sure there were still things he would have contributed if he lived even longer.

In seeing this graphic and thinking about this new year that we’re just a week into, it just reminded me how important it is to remember that anyone can become anyone and anything they want in this life, regardless of skin color, age, physical disabilities, or even location. Of course there are still limitations to this as well as challenges we all have to face and overcome, but Stephen Hawking is just one example of someone who didn’t let their disability hold them back from doing incredible things with their life. Another person who comes to mind is Joni Eareckson Tada who had a swimming accident at 17 that left her mostly paralyzed and she could have let her life be over at that point, but instead she found the courage to be a well-known artist, author and speaker.

Yes, let your kids be impressed by the popular sports stars like Tom Brady and Hope Solo, entertainment stars like Dwayne Johnson and Tyra Banks, or people from whatever industry fascinates them most whether it’s animals or nature or entrepreneurship or science or the military. But also encourage them to explore the lives and successes of people who were born with a disorder like Autism or have a disability they were either born with or happened later in life, people who may look or live a lot like them, because there are more people who choose courage and don’t let their struggles or disabilities hold them back than some of us would think. It’s an encouragement, opportunity, challenge and inspiration, that if we put our minds to it, we can make a great life, regardless of what challenges we face, and that every life is worth celebrating. Who are some of the people that you and/or your kids admire who have overcome some big challenges in their lives?

The Choice of Resilience

The word I want to talk about today is resilience. It’s a word that everyone seems to like, and gives you a good feeling when you use it in a sentence, but no one really wants to have to use it. It’s a word that we’re becoming intimately familiar with after how the last year and a half has gone, and right now it’s used more in questions than in statements. In case you’re not familiar with it or curious, resilience is defined as “the ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes, etc.”

Resilience only exists because we have challenges and changes we face in our lives. If we didn’t experience challenges and changes in our lives there would be no need to discuss resilience because there would be no recovery or adjustment parts of our life journey. But the challenges and changes are part of our lives, sometimes in bigger ways than others, so we do have to decide if we are going to be resilient or if the challenges and changes are going to get the best of us. Sometimes it’s overwhelming and we have to call it a wash and move on to the next stage of our life journey. But more often than not with the right attitude and at least a little support, we’re able to choose a path that allows us to not only make it through the challenge or change successfully, but do it in a way that sets us up for an even better future.

Sometimes you are really challenged, which is how some of us feel after the last year and a half. Some of us were feeling beaten-down going into 2020 and then the pandemic came along and made everything worse. The hope is that we’re finally heading out of the challenges we’ve been working through, so we’re now at the point where we have to decide how we’re going to adjust and recover from this situation and any others we’ve faced in our lives. Sometimes change and challenges mean that that adjustment means accepting some losses and having to chart a new path forward. And that’s OK because it often gives us the space to make changes that we thought about or might have wanted to make if the opportunity had presented itself. So while we would have rather worked with positive momentum rather than recovery, recovery often does mean a fresher, cleaner slate to build (or rebuild) on.

What it comes down to is that like many other things, resilience is a choice. Do you choose to work into the future with a positive attitude and looking for ways that you can make things better than they were or prevent the changes you just experienced from happening again? Or do you just focus on surviving and don’t think about or look into ways that you could be thriving? I encourage you to choose resilience as we navigate the months ahead because you’ll feel more confident in yourself and your future and provide yourself with more opportunities for health, growth and success. Not to mention that your choice of resilience now may mean the difference between survival and thriving for generations in the future as they use how we lived as an example for their lives.

Mother’s Day Joy

For well over a year now a large percentage of what we’ve talked about and lived has been serious. Yes, it’s appropriate and necessary because of all the challenges and unknown we have been facing. We’ve been learning some hard lessons over the past year, lessons we’re still working through, and as a result of those lessons many of us have made hard decisions about where we’re working, where we’re living, who we’re with, how we’re spending our time, and plans we have for our futures. It’s also been a stressful year for families because we’ve spent more time together in the past year than we’ve done in several generations. But even with all that stress and all the challenges of trying to figure out space for everyone, most of us are thankful for the how much time we’ve gotten to spend together, and many of us are saying we want to do more of that going forward, especially as we can add more of our family and friends to that circle.

Over the last week I’ve been thinking about some of the challenges that moms face, including the challenges of not being able to get pregnant or carry a baby to term or complete an adoption, as well as struggling with mental health. I don’t think that it’s necessary to have a child in your life all the time to consider yourself a mom. There are lots of women who are mother figures to children of relatives, children where they work, children at their churches, and other children in their communities. You can be a mom in heart even if you’re not physically a mother. But being a mom isn’t all sunshine and roses, there are so many ups and downs both for the women personally, not to mention the challenges that come with being responsible for other people and helping to raise them.

But as we think about Mother’s Day here in the US tomorrow, what I wanted to encourage us to think about is all the joy that often comes with kids, and what a blessing it is if you’re able to be part of why a child is so happy or how they’re able to be happy. This past week I met a young boy who was all smiles, joy, play and energy, as a bonus he seemed remarkably well behaved. It always says a lot to me about the parents and the home life if the children are positive and joyful. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any problems or challenges or that life is perfect, but that there is lots of love, personality is encouraged, play happens regularly, and whatever challenges show up are met with positive can-do attitudes. As you celebrate Mother’s Day tomorrow I encourage you to make more good, happy memories, and spend time thinking about and sharing the good ones you may have.

Who Are You?

This week is Holy Week for Christian circles, with Palm Sunday (this past Sunday), Good Friday (today) and Easter Sunday (this coming Sunday) as the big events. The events of this week answer the question that so many people asked Jesus while He was alive: who are you? This week reveals the answer that He had been trying to tell them, and has been trying to tell people ever since: He’s God’s son and here to save the world from their sins and give them an awesome eternity to look forward to.

I had a conversation recently with a child who asked me what I wanted to be when I was their age when I grew up. Like many people I wanted to be a nurse because it seemed so cool and professional or a teacher because at some point I think everyone likes to be in charge of education like that. I certainly didn’t end up in the medical field, and while I do some teaching, it’s almost never in a classroom or on the traditional school subjects. I know some people are lucky enough to figure out their place in the work world a young age, but most of us do a whole bunch of things throughout our lives, hopefully getting to know ourselves better and be happier and more fulfilled with each career change.

But like many things, the question “who are you?” can be answered in many ways. We can say that we’re a parent or sibling or traveler or baseball lover or painter or someone who sews masks for those in need, or any of a dozen different ways of describing how we fill our time. And we can absolutely be honest in each of those answers about who we are. But one of the hardest things to do is remain committed to making the best impact on the world that you can. Sure we can raise the next generation up to be people in the medical field, electrical/plumbing fields and accountants because those fields are always in demand, but is that something that will make your child’s heart sing and they would feel fulfilled spending their time that way? Is that something that would be them making the best and biggest contribution to life that they can? Life doesn’t come with too many guarantees, and it’s too short and precious to be lived miserably dedicated to a job you absolutely hate, or to be putting up walls between you and those you love because you’re trying to control their lives or aren’t willing to let them live the life they are choosing to live.

Every life comes with challenges. Some lives are much more challenged and even tragic than others: not everyone will lead a team into battle, lead a country, die for their faith, raise the children their sibling and their partner left behind when they were killed by a drunk driver, or die on a cross. But every life has the potential to make an incredible impact on someone else just by being who they were born to be. So in addition to the Easter baskets you may be giving out this weekend, the best gift you may be able to give someone is to believe in who they are, the abilities they have, what they’re passionate about, the difference they’re trying to make in the world, and ask them who they are trying to be in this world.

The Many (Challenging) Layers of Business

Earlier this week I remembered I had to pick out the book I am going to read for next month (next Wednesday I’ll be sharing my thoughts about the book I’ve been reading this month), and as I was going through choices I found, I had to remind myself from time to time to not just look at the books I would definitely be interested in but books that can speak to different layers and aspects of the businesses we run. This is one of the reasons why even today with all the technology we have, it can be very beneficial to go into business with one or more other people, so that you deal less with the stuff that doesn’t interest you and vice versa.

I think that’s one of the biggest reasons why businesses fail: because people aren’t able (or choose not) to give every aspect sufficient attention. In a small business there are thousands of little details to be attended to, and that number just multiplies with larger businesses, so it’s very easy to see why a detail could not be fixed or why things get put on the back burner. It’s why so many businesses struggle with their finances, because not everyone finds numbers and account to be easy, so they put off the hard stuff until the last minute and then it doesn’t get done well, or done in a way that could actually support them. It’s why so many businesses struggle with turnover, because they know it can take work to bring everyone into a community culture, they don’t want to take the tough steps of weeding out the people who bring down morale, and/or they aren’t as people-minded as they need to be as the leader of the business.

Did you catch the really important phrase I used in the first paragraph? I said that even with a partner or good team around you, you still can’t totally avoid everything that challenges you about your business. Part of choosing to run a business, to be a leader, is dealing with the tough stuff and making decisions not only for you but for the best of everyone involved in the business. In order to make the most educated decisions possible, you have to be aware of the finances, your people, and how things are functioning. Yes, you can be informed through reports and meetings and not have to do more than listen, but even then you still have to be able to understand what your team is telling you in order to make good decisions with their information.

Over the last year we’ve made lots of hard decisions, so maybe it won’t seem so bad when you finally step up to the plate and take a look at the things you’ve been avoiding in your business. I often find that it’s not as bad as I thought it would be going in, I just needed to step up and get it done. What are you going to work on this week that you’ve been avoiding but is essential to your business?

The Dark Side of the Christmas Stories

It has always fascinated me that the Christmas stories include so much struggle and not-good stuff in them. Who really wants to talk about it being too dark to see to deliver gifts or that it’s entirely possible coal will be what’s delivered to your stocking? Shouldn’t it be a much better and easier journey for the Holy Son of God Jesus to enter the world rather than having Joseph not want to be part of the journey, having to journey far from home at the time of birth and giving birth in a less-than-ideal location? None of that brings light to my eyes, or the eyes of any kid. Instead, it makes people scared that Christmas might not happen.

I’m all about a good story, and I understand that most hero stories have some challenge in them as well as an awesome ending, which is true for the large percentage of Christmas stories (except for those who actually receive coal of course). So yes, it’s absolutely normal and how stories usually go, but with something this important, it just sometimes feels like it shouldn’t have had to go that way. And that’s where we arrived countless times with this year: do we really have to go through all of this challenge and what is the chance on getting a miracle and really awesome ending? I’m sure many of us would accept a lackluster or abrupt ending to this story as long as it was a definite ending at this point.

Yet, the Christmas stories are those that keep giving. The more I reflected on how frustrating it was that neither story is all magic, the more I appreciated how much easier it made it to believe in and relate to them, especially in this year, not to mention that we’ve been able to relate every year since they were first shared/happened. If even the most magical happenings and stories include some serious challenges and struggles, it’s not so hard to believe that our normal lives would include them as well. That doesn’t mean I necessarily want or invite in more challenges, I’d definitely take a Christmas miracle, especially this year.

Again, none of this makes up for or helps change the challenges and dissatisfaction we have with how this holiday season will go for many of us, but I hope it gives us and our kids the courage to keep going. And maybe we can find a little of Santa’s creative spirit that led him to Rudolph to apply to our lives and situation this year.

Kids and Questions

I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to be a young kid in all of this craziness that is 2020 so far. There’s a lot of responsibility when it comes to being a parent or caretaker of children, including the responsibility to explain some of the more difficult things in life to them. We get to (try to) explain things like Heaven and hell and faith, getting old, dying young, cancer, grades, money, and where the whole chicken-and-egg debate came from (and what the answer is).

And we get asked big questions about all we see/hear in the news like guns killing people or why it is wrong to call people by certain terms or why there are refugees. Using the gun/killing question, while the mechanics of how guns kill people or even some of the hard and cold facts of why people kill people (money, anger, accidents etc.), are things you can more or less explain to kids, it’s a lot harder to explain the heart or mind behind it, especially if we don’t understand (or it isn’t able to be explained).

And now we’re faced with a new challenge of trying to explain why we can’t touch each other, can’t go out and do our usual activities like go to school and get our hair cut and play on the playground, after doing exactly that for many generations. Maybe kids who have very ill family members can understand better, but thankfully most people aren’t in that situation, so most can’t understand or explain why a touch or activity that used to be OK is now not.

There have been some exercises videoed to show how easy it is to pass this virus along, using an old pre-pandemic example, think about that commercial with the dad with the light that reveals the “invisible” orange dust from fellow family members including the cat that he didn’t know they had who have eaten all of his snacks. So yes, on one level we can explain how it works, but there’s a whole lot about it that no one really knows yet, and we may never have all the answers. It’s hard to say that in this day and age with the internet and so many things being explainable or able to be captured on camera/audio that you just don’t know and no one really does.

In some ways, being faced with this virus and all the lack of knowledge is a good exercise in humility and keeping us humble. In this world where it seems like it’s possible to be good at just about anything with a little effort, research and/or money, it’s important to remember from time to time that we’re all still very human. Personally I look forward to getting back to trying to explain unicorns and how the color of the sky got the name it has. How are you helping kids navigate this time?