Category: Motivation

Some folks say the biggest fear people have is giving a speech. Others claim it’s being buried alive. A few believe it’s being buried alive while giving a speech. Of course, the most likely biggest fear is… change.

Think about some of the big changes in your life. Going to a new school in junior high? Unsettling. Starting your first full-time job? Scary. Watching your 16-year-old drive away in the car alone? Frightening.

Change just doesn’t feel as comfortable as that old pair of shoes, as familiar as that drive you take to work every day, as tasty as that dessert at your favorite restaurant. Yet shoes wear out, roads get rerouted and restaurants revise their menus.

Rather than fear change, perhaps the magic comes when you approach it as an opportunity to experience something for the first time. To lean in and anticipate the possibilities. After all, what’s the fun in going through life without ever standing in front of an audience and giving it your best shot?

“You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

“By perseverance the snail reached the ark.” ~ Charles H. Spurgeon

“Believe you can and you are halfway there.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Those are three of my favorite quotes about sticking with a goal. For often, just when someone is thisclose to achieving what they set out to do, that old adversary impatience – and its buddies frustration and pain – shows up and causes a person to quit.

To keep those bad boys from derailing his efforts, one of my friends uses the analogy of ‘one more swing of the axe to fell the tree’ to keep him focused. Another reminds herself of the familiar ‘eat that elephant one bite at a time.’ I think about my swimming workout.

When I get in the indoor pool – which is not warm this time of the year – and think about what’s ahead, finishing 2,000 yards seems so hard and so long… and I fight thoughts of ‘do I really need to do this again today?’ To overcome those self-inflicted disrupters, I break the next 40 minutes into smaller chunks: 2x 200 / 150 / 100 / 50 and reverse.

While it may be a mind trick, I quit thinking ‘still another 1,000 yards to go’ and focus on ‘two more laps to finish this set.’ If it’s a tough day, I pull out another of my favorite quotes – by Vince Lombardi: “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.”

One of my friends shared with me this month the approach he’s taking to be more empathetic toward others. He switched from a ‘me first’ attitude to a ‘you first’ style.

A few months ago he began looking at how he relates to others by focusing on ‘Free from / Free for’. Allowing himself to be free from things that are important to him so he can be free for listening more closely to the person right in front of him.

“I went to a meeting,” he told me, “and there was a person who I needed to get answers from. I started to approach him to ask questions, caught myself and instead said hello and kept my mouth shut. That person then shared something that was important to him. Had I followed my natural tendency – jump right in to solve my concern – I would have missed the chance to help him.”

‘Free from (myself) to be free for (others)’ opens up a lot of possibilities. It also works in other areas of life…

Free from (watching the Super Bowl) to be free for (spending time with my family)
Free from (checking Twitter) to be free for (reading a business article)
Free from (parking near the entry) to be free for (getting exercise walking)

Part II of II

Looking back on the final year of the decade, here are five more Lessons Learned during 2019:

Small Step – One of the best books I read in 2019 is “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Using the analogy of breaking down everything to its smallest part, when it comes to improving yourself, it’s important to not make each step along the way too big of a leap. Thus, if you want to run a marathon, the first thing you do is walk to the end of your block, not try to run five miles. If you want to lose weight, don’t diet, just use a smaller plate and avoid seconds. If you want to memorize a poem, focus today on the first stanza. Seems like an excellent approach… and fitting during this 50th anniversary of the Moon Shot and Neil Armstrong’s famous words.

Quickly Forgotten – A lot of my travel is to work with leaders to create a culture of safety within their high-risk facilities. Thus, I try to live what I teach. Of course, we’re most likely to forget about working safely when under a time crunch or when our thoughts are elsewhere. On Sunday, as our oldest helped me wrap Christmas lights around two pine trees, I set the staple gun on the top step of a ladder before climbing down. Then I said, “Let’s move the ladder over here.” When I picked it up, the staple gun fell five feet… hitting me in the clavicle. A couple of inches to the right and I might have had a head injury.

Getting Faster – Next week marks 21 years in our home, so it was built before technology became a major focus. We’ve upgraded here and there; however, our WiFi speed always seemed slow. So when AT&T offered an upgrade to more bandwith at about the same monthly cost, we jumped. When the installer finished, he asked why we did it. I told him to make things faster, and he said, “I don’t think this is going to solve that.” Wait, what? “You need a WiFi net to increase speed.” One month, lots of research, and $200 later, I installed an Orbi Tri-band system in about 30 minutes… and our speeds doubled.

Solution Rediscovered – The best quote I saw for the first time this year is attributed to the 17th century French mathematician and scientist Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Seems especially relevant in today’s continually connected, always engaged, checking email, texts and Twitter society.

Gift Giving – If you’re looking for an end-of-year goodwill gesture, please consider contributing to an organization based in the Dominican Republic, where 20 percent live in extreme poverty. Puente – “bridge” in Spanish – utilizes mobile data technology to survey locals and pinpoint where needs exist, then identifies solutions and finds partners to deliver them. For example, Puente distributes water filters, constructs bathrooms and floors, and organizes short-term medical brigades. The son of our lifelong friends left his career 18 months ago to move there and co-found Puente, which has helped more than 180 families during the past six months.

I’ll conclude with this quote from an unknown source: “May you never be too grown up to search the skies on Christmas Eve.”

Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. Seasons Greetings. May 2020 bring clear vision for you… and continued success in all things.

Part I of II

Continuing the tradition I started more than a decade ago while reflecting on the year, here are some of the biggest lessons I learned during the past 12 months:

Gen Why – ‘OK, Boomer’ became a thing this year… and I have to admit – much like mansplaining – it’s real. So often those of us of a certain age think we have all the answers…and are quick to share them with those who haven’t lived as long. While I doubt this is any different than how past generations passed along wisdom, we should realize ‘kids’ today are smart whippersnappers and don’t need our constant input. (Note: I would have used ‘meme’ instead of ‘thing’ in the first sentence except many born between 1946 and 1964 wouldn’t know what it means.)

Travelin’ Man – During my sports television days, I spent a lot of weekends on the road: more than 30 the last year I worked in that industry. Then as the kids entered ‘busy’ years, I changed careers twice and stayed home most of the time to help out with sports and other activities. That held true my first decade as a coach; however, recently I’ve been away a lot more. This year, the number of nights not spent in my own bed was 90. When I told Kathy how much I appreciate her understanding my time away, she said: “Now that the kids are grown, I’m fine with it.”

Big Apple – In my twenties, I twice turned down opportunities to relocate to further my television career. I couldn’t pull the trigger on moving away from my Texas family and friends. Meanwhile… our youngest, a senior in college, just finished a semester with an internship and taking classes in New York City. A decade ago, our oldest spent a summer studying in France. Our son is 25 and lives in Nashville. While it may not hold true for every family, in our house, the next generation is more mobile, flexible and confident than I was at that age.

Bowled Over – On New Year’s night, my beloved Texas Longhorns upset Georgia in the Sugar Bowl – and in the postgame celebration, quarterback Sam Ellinger said, ‘We’re baaack,’ as an exclamation point that nine years of mediocrity was over. Well… Texas went 7-5 this season and it seems the only thing ‘baaack’ is continuing underachievement for the nation’s wealthiest collegiate athletic department. Be careful what you say, and remember success is fleeting, so don’t ever consider things settled.

Free Stylin’ – A few years ago I made a commitment to post to this blog three times each month – and I try hard to honor it. Recently, one of my clients asked what book I’m going to write at age 70… which arrives in 2030. I don’t have the answer; however, I keep sitting down at the keyboard and working on improving my skills. Jerry Seinfeld is credited with the ‘Don’t Break the Chain’ theory about his dedication to writing comedy every single day. That’s a good philosophy to adopt around focusing on all your personal and business goals.

Tomorrow: Atomic Habits