What Are You Passionate About?

2008-05-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

Dream Big - Have your dreams ever not worked out just the way that you planned? Yeah, mine too. About two years, I quit my job at the pinnacle of my career to go to work for a small nonprofit ministry to pursue a dream. Our dreams for the ministry were big, but financial circumstances have prevented us thus far from achieving our dream in exactly the way that we envisioned it. The ministry can no longer really afford my salary so I will be doing something else for a paycheck next month. Honestly, it has been a little discouraging.

Last week a friend of mine showed me a copy of a newspaper ad for Apple (see above) that had inspired him years ago. Last week it inspried me. (Thanks Bret!) This is what it says.

If there were ever a time to dare, to make a difference, to embark on something worth doing, it is now. Not for any grand cause, necessarily - but for something that tugs at your heart, something that's your aspiration, something that's your dream.

You owe it to yourself to make your days here count. Have fun. Dig deep. Stretch.

Dream Big

Know, though that things worth doing seldom come easy. There will be good days. And there will be bad days. There will be times when you want to turn around, pack it up, and call it quits. Those times tell you that you are pushing yourself, that you are not afraid to learn by trying.

Persist.

Because with an idea, determination, and the right tools, you can do great things. Let your instincts, your intellect, and your heart guide you.

Trust.

Believe in the incredible power of the human mind. Of doing something that makes a difference. Of working hard. Of laughing and hoping. Of lazy afternoons. Of lasting friends. Of all the things that cross your path this year.

The start of something new brings the hope of something great. Anything is possible. There is only one you. And you will only pass this way once. Do it right.

Sometimes, I think God tests us to see if we believe in something enough that we would continue to work toward it - in the evenings. On the weekends. With no compensation. And so, next week I start a new and great job. And I will continue to help the ministry pursue it's mission when I can with no compensation. And I will continue to dream big.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-10-02T12:49:00.000-07:00

Vote - We have a big election coming up in Tulsa next week. Voters are being asked to approve a sales tax increase for improvements to the Arkansas River which runs through Tulsa. The rhetoric between the two sides has been vigorous and for us onlookers it has been an interesting discussion.

Proponents claim that the $282 million plan will create 10,000 jobs and inject $3.5 billion into the local economy by 2014. These advocates claim that by raising the county sales tax, there will be increased retail development along the river as well as increased recreational opportunities including white water rafting, kayaking, sail boating, and rowing.

Last week the City of Tulsa closed on a deal to purchase arguably the most technologically advanced building in the city, One Technology Center, for $52 million for their new city hall. The city will occupy only a portion of the 750,000 sq ft glass tower and will need to rent out the rest of the building for it to be viable.

Recently Tulsa County voted a sales tax increase for Vision 2025 which among other things financed the construction of a 55,000 sq. ft, 18,000 seat arena in downtown Tulsa. The arena is scheduled to be completed in 2008. One of the goals of Vision 2025 was to lure a Boeing assembly plant to Tulsa which has never materialized.

Now I have to tell you that as someone who regularly takes advantage of Tulsa’s River Parks and a rabid basketball fan, I probably stand to benefit as much as most people from the river development and construction of the new arena. But I have a concern. A recent assessment of Tulsa’s city streets graded them at a “D” and headed for “F” without a change in the way Tulsa maintains them. At the time the mayor said, “She has no specific plan for the streets.” The city has since identified a $600 million backlog of street repairs. Our County Assessor says that Tulsa County already has the highest total tax burden of any county in Oklahoma and a higher tax burden than even New York City. Tulsa’s crime rate is almost double the national average.

Am I the only one that has a problem with spending money on showy, new buildings and parks when the streets look like a literal war zone and our crime fighting efforts are under-funded? The mayor has responded to such concerns by saying there is no reason that Tulsa can’t have both improved streets and the other development. This argument reminds of a conversation I might have with my teenage son. “Son, you haven’t done your chores and your homework over the past month like we agreed so I am not letting you go out tonight.” If my son replied, “Dad there is no reason, I can’t do a month’s worth of homework, finish my chores from the last month, and go out tonight,” I believe that I would probably tell him “that is too little, too late.”

Sometimes when we as individuals are pursuing our goals and passions, we are like the City of Tulsa or my teenage son. We want to spend money and time on the glitzy, showy things, but we don’t want to spend time and money on the foundational things that are essential to our success. We may buy flashy business cards, expensive suits, and the European sedan or fleet of new trucks, but we aren’t willing to do the grunt work. Kevin Carroll calls it “being willing to do the lonely work - those unglamorous tasks that no one asks you to do and that others may never notice.”

I want an amazing river development in Tulsa that includes new recreational and retail development. I want a shiny new arena that might attract NCAA basketball tournament games. But mostly I want the city to take care of the foundational things first like streets so that I won’t ruin the struts on my car. Make sure that as you pursue your passions that you are building a solid foundation by prioritizing the tasks that you SHOULD do before you attempt the more glamorous things that you only WANT to do.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-09-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

What are you doing about it? Since I started posting on this site in 2005, there have been two sentences that have appeared in every single post. What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it? I believe those two questions sum up the reasons that so many people do not pursue their dream and even fewer reach the specific goals associated with their dream.

What are you passionate about? A surprising number of people do not really know which things in life they care about most. It is a simple question but one that a lot of people have difficulty answering. If you knew you were going to die, would you spend today differently? Would your to-do list more closely reflect your long-term priorities? Not to be morbid, but here is a news flash. You are going to die. Everyone reading this article is one day closer to death than you were yesterday. An exercise occasionally employed to encourage us to think about our dreams, goals, and long-term priorities is to visualize what you want said about you at your funeral. Do you want people to say that “you spent more time in front of the television watching sports than anyone they ever knew?” How about, “She shopped like a mad woman and was inducted into the MasterCard Hall of Fame for keeping her charge card maxed out for 30 years?” Maybe your mourners will admire your score playing Halo 3.

It is important to consciously sit down and list your priorities. It is said that the two things that provide the best evidence of our priorities are our Day-Timer/calendar and our check book. That is, how we spend our time and our money reflects our priorities more accurately than anything we can say. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, “What you are doing speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying.”

It is important to list out your dreams and priorities. If you don’t begin without the end in mind, there is little chance you will get there. Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland wrote, “If you don’t know where you are going any road will take you there.” It is important to know where the finish line is. You may have heard the story of Florence Chadwick. Florence was the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. In 1952 Chadwick stepped into the Pacific Ocean from Catalina Island surrounded by thick fog. She was determined to swim the 22 miles from Catalina Island to the California coast. She swam for 15 hours before begging to be pulled from the foggy Pacific Ocean. When she was pulled onto the boat she realized that the California coast was less than one-half mile away. At a news conference the next day Chadwick lamented, “All I could see was the fog…. I think if I could have seen the shore I would have made it.” Too many of us are like Chadwick. We fail to reach our goals because we cannot see the finish line. Make sure that you are not hampered by not having a clear vision of your goals.

What are your doing about it? The second deterrent to reaching our goals, which probably occurs even more frequently than the first is not having a specific plan. By definition, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is a daunting task. It is essential that we break up our dreams and goals into achievable, short-term, steps. How do you eat and elephant? One bite at a time. Getting that degree may seem unachievable. But if you just schedule out which classes you need to take and the order you need to take them, knocking them out one or two classes at a time make the goal more achievable. Owning your own business may seem like something that is just too far out of reach. But you can learn more about the industry, gradually save your investment, learn from others who are in that business, and your dream of owning your own business may be closer than you think. A dream without a plan is only wishful thinking.

For too many people, their “plan” to reach their dreams is to win the lottery or have a big night at the casino. They think that their own personal fairy god mother is going to come around and turn them into a princess. People with this mindset tend to get involved with every get-rich-quick scheme that comes along. Christians with no plan, may pray fervently for God to deliver them to their own personal promised land. Yet they don’t take responsibility for their own actions. Don’t get me wrong. I am a praying man myself. But I believe we have a responsibility. In the film, Facing the Giants, a local prayer warrior told the beleaguered coach, “Two men desperately needed rain for their fields and prayed to God. But only one man prepared his field. Which man do you think was most faithful?”

Philip Yancey in his book Prayer wrote, “Although we may ask God to intervene directly, it should not surprise us if God responds in a more hidden way in cooperation with a person’s own choice. An alcoholic prays, ‘Lord, keep me away from drink today.’ The answer to that prayer will likely come from the inside, from a stiffening resolve or a cry of help to a loyal friend, rather than from some marvel like the magical disappearance of liquor bottles from the cabinet…. Sometimes like the boy who asks his parents to solve a math problem while he plays video games, we ask God for things we should be doing ourselves.” I heard a speaker say once that if one is going around a curve at 80 MPH and the posted speed limit is 25 MPH, then something bad is probably going to happen, even if we are listening to Christian radio, have a statue of Jesus on the dash, and a fish bumper sticker.

There is nothing wrong with praying for a miracle. A God worthy of our worship is certainly capable of miracles even today. But if you are praying for rain, make sure you have prepared your field – and don’t be surprised if God answers your prayers through people and circumstances that allow him to remain anonymous. Like Thomas Jefferson, “I am strong believer in luck and I find that the harder I work, the more I have.” Success lies at the intersection of opportunity and preparation. The opportunities will do us little good if we are not prepared when they come.

Make sure you have a plan. There are a multitude of personal planning resources on the Internet and at your local book store. Most any of them will be more effective than what many of us are doing now, which is almost no planning at all. Need I say it again?

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-09-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

Max Lucado reads my mail – I am not sure how he does it. When I get home from work, the envelopes in my mailbox have apparently all been carefully resealed. I don’t know how Max gets back home to San Antonio from Tulsa each weekend in time to be in the pulpit on Sunday. But there is no doubt he is reading my mail. How else can I explain it? The guy writes his books TO me.

A few weeks ago you read my whining post in this blog about my daughter moving out of the house to go to college. Those of you who are empty-nesters had no sympathy for me. But it was a pretty emotional time for a guy who was losing his first child and only daughter to the cold, cruel world. My daughter struggled with the transition too. Her college soccer coach’s old-school, break-‘em down and then build-‘em-back-up approach was a big change for my daughter. After ten years of being told what a great soccer player she is, she was now hardly worthy of her scholarship according to her coach.

Being the loving dad that I am, I went to find my daughter some little gift to encourage her at school. I picked up a copy of Max’s Every Day Deserves A Chance. I thought that its positive theme and bright yellow dust cover might raise the spirits of the most important soccer player in our family. Back at home, I decided to skim the book. After all, I was feeling a little melancholy myself so maybe Max’s words of wisdom could give me a boost.

I made it all the way to page 3 when I read, “This is the day [that the Lord has made] includes every day. Divorce days, final-exam days, surgery days, tax days, Sending your first-born off to college days. [emphasis mine] That last one sucked the starch out of my shirt. Surprisingly so. We packed Jenna’s stuff, loaded up her car, and left life as we had known if for 18 years. A chapter was closing. One less plate on the table, voice in the house, and child beneath the roof. The day was necessary. The day was planned. But the day undid me.

I was a mess. I drove away from the gas station with the nozzle still in my tank, yanking the hose right off the pump. Got lost in a one-intersection town. We drove; I moped. We unpacked; I swallowed throat lumps. We filled the dorm room; I plotted to kidnap my daughter and take her home where she belongs. Did someone store dry ice in my chest? Then I saw the verse. Some angel had tacked it to a dormitory bulletin board. This is day that the Lord has made. We will be glad and rejoice in it.

I stopped, stared and let the words sink in. God made this day, ordained this hard hour, designed the details of this wrenching moment. He isn’t on holiday. He still holds the conductor’s baton, sits in the cockpit, and occupies the universe’s only throne. Each day emerges from God’s drawing room including this one.”

I don’t know if an angel actually put that verse on the bulletin board for Max or not. But I am sure that Max is reading my mail. I have no other explanation for why this story would be in the one book that I selected for my daughter. By the way, my daughter never got the book. I couldn’t give her that copy because I had highlighted all over it. Besides, I think a couple of salty drops had dripped from my cheek to the page.

Throughout Max’s book, he lists several “Daylifters;” i.e. things one can do to give every day a chance. One of those that resonated with me is to consider, “If today were the last day of our lives, would we do what we’re doing?” Or would we love more, give more, forgive more? Max concludes that we need to know that we are all one day closer to death than we were yesterday. Max’s advice is to forgive and give like it is our last opportunity. Love like there’s no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes, love again.

Now that is an idea that I can get passionate about. Max, thanks for the reminder. And by the way, stay out of my mailbox.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-08-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

Let me introduce you to ..... - In my first job out of college, I worked for a regional retail chain in Tulsa, OK called OTASCO as the credit manager. About a year after I started to work there I was assigned to report to a vice-president named Carl. Carl didn’t select me. I was assigned to Carl by the company CFO who for some reason had been impressed with some unknown thing I had done over the course of my first year at OTASCO.

Carl was a colorful guy. In stature, he was a small, wiry, sixty-ish looking guy with thinning gray hair. Legend has it that Carl was a very good athlete back in the day. I had heard that when Carl was in the service that his tour of duty consisted of playing on the Army basketball team. Carl liked golf and he loved the Chicago Cubs. In demeanor, he was like Walter Matthau’s Coach Buttermaker in the Bad News Bears. Carl smoked almost non-stop. The rusty ashtray on his desk was generally overflowing with butts.

Almost every sentence Carl spoke contained a cuss word. Carl couldn’t say that “the store managers don’t follow the credit policies” unless he said, “The F*-ing store managers don’t follow the d@mn credit policies.” Now I am a guy that does not appreciate the unnecessary use of cuss words. But there was something almost benign about the way Carl wielded profanity. After awhile, it got so we didn’t even notice when Carl remarked that the "F*-ing Cubs had lost another d@mn game." Yet Carl was intimidating. He was a bottom-line, cut-the-BS kind of guy. If someone started exaggerating or even embellishing the truth, Carl would call them on it in a heartbeat. If you stated something as fact to Carl, you had better be able to prove it.

After I had worked for Carl for a couple of months, he invited me to his daughter’s wedding. The invitation caught me by surprise. I had never met his daughter and I was pretty sure that Carl wasn’t too impressed with this wet-behind-the-ears credit manager that had been dumped on him by the CFO. At the time, my wife was pregnant with our first child and we were involved in a legal dispute with the company who had built our first home. So I didn’t really have extra cash for a wedding present. But I went – probably out of a feeling of obligation and concern of what Carl would think if I turned down the invitation.

After the wedding, as I was going through the receiving line to congratulate the newlyweds who had no idea who I was, Carl walked up and put his arm around me. He proceeded to introduce me to his daughter and her husband, “Meet my dear friend, Toby Joplin.”

I was suddenly oblivious to the newly wedded couple. I was shocked that this gruff, crusty guy who intimidated the heck out of me would introduce me as anything other than his lowly subordinate. I remember standing there shaking hands with the bride while my head was turned 90 degrees to the left staring at Carl in shock. I don’t recall for certain, but there is a very good chance that my mouth was hanging open. I simply couldn’t believe that this grizzled veteran of the credit wars would actually consider me a friend.

A few months later, on November 4, 1988, I would find out just what a good friend Carl really was. OTASCO filed bankruptcy and laid off about 1,600 of the 1,800 employees. They filed bankruptcy on Sunday because Monday was a pay day and OTASCO would have had to give all the employees one last paycheck. The Friday before the bankruptcy filing, there was a secret, offsite meeting for the 30 or so employees from headquarters who would be kept on payroll during the bankruptcy. Carl was invited to the offsite meeting. I was not. OTASCO’s credit manager with the pregnant wife and the legal expenses on his house, was to be out of a job.

That Friday, I had not seen much of Carl. Then my office phone rang and Carl explained the above developments to me in a very hushed tone. He went on to explain that he had told the CEO that he was out of F*-ing mind if he thought Carl was going to try to administer the credit function through d@mn bankruptcy without my help. Carl told them if I wasn’t on the survivors list, that they could just fire him too. Talk about your brass cajones. The list of survivors was then expanded to 31. Toby had a job, albeit a temporary one. However, Carl had bought me enough time to develop an exit strategy.

I vowed then and there, that if I ever had a coworker or other acquaintance who was also a friend, I would never, ever introduce them as anything less than my “dear friend.” So if you drop by our offices, I will not introduce you to our receptionist Alisha, or our sales guy, Shane, or our Production Manager, Jason. I would however be proud to introduce you to my dear friends Alisha, Shane, and Jason.

As we pursue our passions, it is impossible to reach our goals by ourselves. We need the help of dear friends, like Carl, Alisha, Shane, and Jason. Don’t insult them by referring to them as anything else.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-08-09T09:16:00.000-07:00

Parting is such sweet sorrow – Billy Shakespeare summed it up pretty well. I spent yesterday moving my daughter out of our house and into her apartment at college. It was a surprisingly bittersweet experience. Yesterday marked the culmination of what my wife and I have been preparing our daughter for, for the last 18 years. All those years of helping her study to make good grades, teaching her the tenets of our faith, and hauling her around the country to soccer tournaments have resulted in an athletic scholarship that will help offset the cost of preparing her for a career. My daughter now has a great apartment almost in the shadow of the university library. She shares her apartment with three new friends and teammates hailing from Houston, Conway, AR, and Oklahoma City. New friends, new horizons, new opportunities! This is a day of celebration…….. right?

My daughter’s dad was completely unprepared for the emotional impact of his baby girl moving out of the house. This is the same little girl that caused me to weep for joy 18 years ago when she was born. This is the same little girl that I taught to ride a bicycle and the proper way to shoot free throws. This is the same little girl who wore a cardboard tea kettle and sang, “I’m a little teapot” in her preschool program. Oh sure, she will be home on school breaks for a week or two at a time. But she will never, ever again really live with her mother and me for an extended time. As I drove away alone from the university yesterday, I had a lump the size of an orange in my throat. Excuse me while I dab my eyes. It must be my darn allergies. [Sniff, sniff.]

For the past 18 years, my goals and passions have been tightly entwined with those of my daughter. But now her road and mine diverge. As time goes on, her aspirations will have less and less to do with me. It is the changing of a season of life. It is normal and natural if somewhat melancholy.

As we pursue our life goals and passions, people will be brought into our lives for a time to aid in the pursuit of those goals; to share in the struggles and joys. Sharing the intimacy of a foxhole in these pursuits often creates a strong bond. So when others decide their goals then lie in a different direction, we are sometimes disappointed or hurt. But this is as natural as my daughter leaving for college. People will join our crusade for a season and then many, if not most, may leave. Their leaving doesn’t invalidate their contribution, nor the goal, nor their calling for that season.

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived wrote:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, and time to plant and a time to harvest, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

I have been thinking a lot this week about what Solomon and Shakespeare each wrote and the application that their words have for my daughter and me. As you pursue, your goals and passions, and as people join and leave that pursuit, maybe their words have some application for you as well.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-07-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

Got a case of the Mondays? I was flipping through the TV channels the other day and ran across the movie Office Space. This was the PG version with the breast exam and the F* bombs edited out so I settled back to watch it even though I had seen it a couple of times over the years.

You probably know the story. Set in a Dallas suburb, Peter Gibbons is trapped in a software job that he hates. Peter, and his coworkers, Michael Bolton (not THE Michael Bolton), and Samir Nagheenanajar lament their plight of being caught in a job that oscillates between boring them to death and driving them crazy. The silver lining is that they have little job security as evidenced by the fact that their employer (Initech) brings in some efficiency experts to “streamline operations.” Peter points out to the efficiency experts that he has eight different bosses and each and everyone points out each time that he makes a mistake like forgetting the cover sheets on his TPS reports.

As Peter and his two buddies do some peer-to-peer counseling over a cup of coffee, an overly-caffeined waiter comments that it looks like Peter “has a case of the Mondays.” The implication is that Peter seems to be dragging through life like some workers struggle through the first day of each week. After seeing an occupational hypno-therapist at his girlfriend’s request, Peter develops a much more mellow, “Que Sera Sera” attitude. He explains to his new love interest, played by Jennifer Anniston, that he is simply not going to go to work any more. He isn’t going to quit his job. He just isn’t going to go to work anymore. When Anniston’s character asks Peter what he is going to do about paying bills, Peter responds, that “ he has never really liked paying bills and he doesn’t think he is going to pay bills any more either.

According to Harris Interactive, 41% of workers are dissatisfied with their jobs. 33% of workers feel like they are at a dead-end in the current jobs. Less than half (44%) of workers are glad that they work for their current employer. 87% of workers responded that they don’t believe they have found their optimal job. 80% of workers don’t feel like their talents are fully being utilized. Those are some pretty dismal statistics. Why do so many people continue to work at jobs that apparently make them miserable? In a recent About.com poll, when asked what gives the most job satisfaction and given choices like money, respect, etc., the number one response was “Doing what I love.”

I would suggest that there is another option other than drifting through life with a case of the Mondays and simply not going to work. The better option is to find a job that you actually love. Every person was created with specific talents and interests that point toward what they were made to do. Those activities where your interests and talents overlap with those things that others would pay you to do, represent your “sweet spot.” Everyone has one. Max Lucado in his book Cure for the Common Life, encourages people to find their sweet spot by looking backwards at their life to recall which types of activities they have loved and at which they have been successful.

If you feel like you have a case of the Monday’s, you might want to pick up a copy of Lucado’s Cure for the Common Life. Think back through your life about the things that you have loved to do. What things have you been successful at? Where those two groups overlap, which of those activities will others pay you to do? The choice is yours. In the meantime, make sure you put a cover sheet on those TPS reports.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-07-01T16:09:00.000-07:00

Gordon Gekko or Mother Theresa? – Since I have started writing for What Are You Passionate About? I have seldom if ever written about what I am NOT passionate about. I have generally not been very passionate about helping people who are less fortunate than me. Historically, I have not been the most empathetic person. My personality is more similar to Gordon Gekko’s than Mother Theresa’s. Lately though, I have been more and more convicted by the fact that I don’t do much for the poor.

Perhaps like you it has been easy for me to justify my attitude. As I drive by the local “will work for food” guy, I think to myself, “The guy is probably scamming! He looks able-bodied to me.” I have often rationalized that a lot of these people seem to bring their problems on themselves. After all, I don’t want to give a guy $10 that he is probably going to turn around and spend at the liquor store. Heck, even the bible, a virtual Idiot’s Guide to Empathy, says that the poor will always be among us. So what is the point in trying to help a guy who probably caused his own troubles, who may be scamming me, and is probably going to turn the cash into a “high” of one type or another?

Lately, a little voice inside my head has been giving me a recurring nudge. As time went on, the nudge got more vigorous. It is hard to concentrate on work or even my golf swing when that small quiet voice has a megaphone telling me how self-centered I am. Like a lot of you, I have read, that the “second most important thing” I can do is to love my neighbors as I love myself.

This week I volunteered to help an organization called Filling the Void (FTV) for the first time. FTV is a nonprofit organization that feeds homeless people every Wed. at noon in downtown Tulsa. I have to say that it was an interesting and humbling experience. Most of the people seeking our sack lunches were very different from the crowds that I run in. Their clothes didn’t match and they were usually dirty. They smelled…. well…… bad! Many wore crude bandages. Several stared into space as if focused on nothing in particular or something that none of the rest of us could see. Oddly, some weren’t that different from me. Some were pudgy middle-aged guys that although looking a bit disheveled could just as easily been accountants.

Jesus said, “I tell you the solemn truth, whenever you did one of these things to someone who was overlooked or ignored, that was me – you did it to me. Then he will turn to the goats, the ones on his left and say, Get out worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because I was hungry and you gave me no meal. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was homeless and you gave me no bed. I was shivering and you gave me no clothes. Sick and in prison, and you never visited.”

Something odd happened to me this week. I suddenly wanted to help these people – even those that might be scamming us or may have used their own food money on something to catch a buzz. And I have to tell you. My newfound charity wasn’t only because I thought Jesus might be masquerading as one of these smelly street people. Although when the guy in the ragged, dirty Sooner t-shirt winked at me, it made me wonder……

I think sometimes our passions may change over time. Sometimes, as in my case, the change may occur later than it should have.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-06-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

Rest and Relaxation and Rules of the Red Rubber Ball – I spent the last week in New Mexico with the family enjoying a little "R and R." Nothing like a little change of scenery and the lack of a schedule for a week to recharge the batteries. I think it is important for people to schedule regular times away from “the grind.” I don’t think it is an accident that our Creator told us to keep the Sabbath and that throughout history we have learned that leaving the ground fallow for a period would result in a greater harvest later.

With an entire week away from work, I was able to read a couple of books and take in a movie on opening day. I want to share with you a key take-away from one of the books and the movie and then drill down into a little more detail about the other book.

The Most Important Little Boy in the World - This book by Dean Briggs, brings to life the idea that greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends. The Most Important Little Boy in the World is a “ripped from the headlines” type novel that describes a dramatic bioterrorism plot. It is well worth the read. The story is a thinly veiled allegory of the crucifixion story. The average person will probably embrace the story all the more because of that. However, if you have an allergic reaction to proselytizing, be forewarned. Take away – "What have you done lately for someone else?"

Evan Almighty – I had high hopes for Evan Almighty since it had a production budget of $175 million and a total budget including marketing of around $250 million. Knowing it would likely be the most expensive comedy ever made, I think caused me to set my sights too high. Don’t get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. The CGI at the finale was great. Frankly, my favorite part was the closing credits. I think that director Tom Shadyac would hope that we walk away knowing the importance of Acts of Random Kindness (ARK). But my most important take away was “Do the dance!” Evan Baxter, played by Steve Carell, occasionally throughout the film would celebrate small victories by spontaneously breaking into a little jig and telling those around him to “Do the dance!” During the closing credits we are treated to multiple clips of the cast and crew “Doing the dance!” In order to remind myself to be thankful of the blessings I so often take for granted, my mantra for the remainder of the summer is likely to be “Do the dance!”

Rules of the Red Rubber Ball – I had read Kevin Carroll’s creative and simple little book last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. Something last week caused me to pick up the book and reread it. I think part of the reason is that Carroll’s book epitomizes what this site is all about. Carroll uses the metaphor of a red rubber ball to describe the thing a person is most passionate about. He sums up the entire book in a quote by James Michener.

"The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both."

Thanks Jimmy M. for writing so well what I have been trying to communicate via What are you passionate about? Carroll goes on in his book to suggest seven rules to keep people focused on their own “red rubber ball.”

- Commit to your own red rubber ball and it will fuel decisions about what you study, where you work, how you live, whom you befriend, and how you act.

- Build and nurture relationships, and others will help you pursue your red rubber ball.

- Be creative and you will discover new opportunities.

- Do the lonely work – those unglamorous tasks that no one asks you to do and that others may never notice – and you will surpass expectations.

- Speak up and challenge boundaries and you’ll overcome them.

- Expect and respect the unexpected, and you’ll achieve your goals sooner.

- If you maximize each moment and focus on the present, you’ll create the future you desire.

As we approach the midpoint of summer, I hope that you will find some time for some "R and R." I hope that if you haven’t yet, you will discover your own "red rubber ball." When you do find that thing about which you are passionate, others will not be able to tell whether you are at work or at play. What an incredible feeling that is! Makes one want to “Do the dance!

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-06-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

Fathers Day – At the risk of stating the obvious, I LOVE being a dad! Like most parents I am extremely passionate about my kids. With Father’s Day coming up this week, I have been more reflective than usual about how fortunate I am to be a parent.

I have been blessed with two amazing and very different children. Heather, my first born, is the hardest working kid I have ever seen. Sports have always come naturally to Heather. Shortly after learning to ride a bike she was riding it down the street standing on the seat, like it was the most natural thing in the world. She graduated from high school this year and after entertaining offers from several universities, signed a letter of intent to play soccer for in the fall for Rogers State University. Jeremy, a high school sophomore next fall, is our resident computer whiz and percussionist. He runs Linux on his laptop, is taking a C++ programming class (online of course) this summer, and for his Spanish class project designed a business website entirely in Spanish. When Jeremy isn’t banging on his laptop keyboard he is banging on his trap set.

Let me be clear. My kids have their faults like everyone and they test my patience from time to time. But they are so much more than I could ever deserve. I think I appreciate them all the time but with Father’s Day looming on the horizon, I am especially cognizant of my good fortune.

I received a disturbing email from my good friend Reece today. His email was to let me know that his 18 month old daughter Rachel passed away yesterday. Reece’s email literally took my breath away and broke my heart. This crusty, middle-aged accountant’s eyes welled-up as I empathized with the loss Reece and his family are experiencing. I cannot fathom the pain that they must be experiencing and will not understand this side of heaven why such a tragedy has occurred.

There is something unnatural about a parent burying a child. I was reminded of this recently when I watched the movie, The Ultimate Gift again. (If you haven’t seen this film, you should. After 3+ months, it is still showing in a limited number of theaters. It will be released on DVD 8/21/07) In the film the Red Stevens, portrayed in the film by James Garner, who buried his own son many years ago, explains to his grandson the heartache of having a child precede the parent in death. As if to emphasize that point, 12-year old Emily, portrayed by Acadamey Award nominee Abigail Breslin, dies later in the film. If you can watch this movie without dabbing away the tears, you may have something in common with the Wizard of Oz's Tinman. I pray that you and I never personally know the experience of burying a child.

If you are as nuts about your kids as I am about mine, the week of Fathers Day is the perfect time to tell them. Take time out from all the hustle and bustle of work and summertime vacations to spend personal time with your children. Tell them you love them. Hug them. Thank God for them. And take a minute to say a little prayer for my friend Reece and his family.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-05-09T14:34:00.000-07:00

Driving Lessons – In an odd twist of fate, both my son and I are now taking “driving lessons” at the very same time.

My son, who recently turned fifteen, has taken the wheel with his white knuckled Dad sitting next to him. Each Sunday afternoon, after the parking lot has cleared at our church, we utilize the empty parking lot for Jeremy to begin to prepare for real, on-the-road driving. Jeremy carefully navigates the imaginary avenues of the parking lot, carefully signaling at each make-believe intersection. Despite being at the disadvantage of being coached by his Dad, Jeremy is making steady improvement.

My “driving” is of a different nature. At mid-life, I have hesitantly decided to take up golf. I say hesitantly, because my schedule cannot really absorb any new hobbies. When I briefly explored golf twenty years, frankly I was not good. Since I was younger and in better shape twenty-years ago, I preferred to spend my recreational time playing basketball which I have always loved. With addition of two active kids and their steady stream of activities, it was easy for me to quickly drop golf from my itinerary. However, recently I have more frequently missed out on good networking and social opportunities because I didn’t play golf. So I ordered some clubs online and scheduled some lessons with Josh, the pro at the golf club down the street. John Paul Newport in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “Taking up Golf at Midlife,” wrote “Normally, I advise against it. You don't have enough time, I tell them, and it's a hard game for grown-ups to learn.” I wish I had read Newport’s advice before I shelled out the money for new golf clubs.

As Jeremy and I have both worked through our respective “driving lessons” I have noticed an interesting similarity. Both 15-year old teenage boys and middle-aged guys, don’t always like to admit they don’t have a handle on what they are doing and don’t like to be told what to do. Even at my advanced age I can remember as a teenager that hearing my parents’ corrections were like fingernails on a chalkboard to me no matter how right they were. Jeremy is a great kid but I sense his irritation and even empathize with him as I repeatedly tell him to “slow down, use his signal light, and check his mirrors.”

I understand even better how Jeremy feels when I am taking my golf lesson. My patient pro, Josh, reminds me, “Keep your head down. Keep your elbow straight. Narrow your stance. Don’t over-swing.” Uuugh! Shouldn’t I be too old to be having my numerous shortcomings pointed out in this manner? After all, I have been interviewed by Time Magazine. I have had my projects written about by Forbes and BusinessWeek. I have helped close a studio movie deal. You would think I could swing a stinking golf club without having all my flaws highlighted in such a belittling way. After all Josh wasn’t even born the first time I swung a club twenty-five years ago. Jeremy, I feel your pain.

But you know what? I do need Josh’s help. The funny thing is that when I keep my head down, keep my elbow straight, narrow my stance, and don’t over-swing, I can hit a decent golf shot. Don’t get me wrong. Tiger’s position atop of the leader board is secure. But when I follow Josh’s instructions, for the most part, innocent bystanders are safe from being hit by one of my shanked drives. Frankly, I haven’t practiced enough yet to consistently do all these things right without some intermittent coaching. My hope is that Jeremy too will eventually need my nagging driving instructions less and less as he practices.

The thing that Jeremy’s and my shared “driving lessons” have reminded me is that we need to never grow too old or too proud to accept instruction. For most all of us, there will always be someone who knows more about a topic than we do and could help us improve if we would only be open to a little coaching. My friend Tim Redmond used to remind us “to never discount the messenger or the method” when we are given feedback. Sometimes very useful coaching comes from unlikely people and may not be packaged or formatted in such a way that it is easy for us to receive. But we hurt only ourselves if we ignore much needed coaching, because it comes from someone we don’t really respect or is presented in a way that might hurt our pride. As you pursue your passion, be open to coaching; even if you think you shouldn’t need it at this point or it is being given from someone or in a manner that makes it hard to take. Yes Jeremy, that advice may even come from your Dad…… or from a golf pro half your age.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-05-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

It’s Not Too Late - “With the first pick of the 2007 NFL draft, the Oakland Raiders select, from Louisiana State University, JaMarcus Russell.” I was watching the NFL draft last week and to nobodies’ surprise, none of the NFL teams spent a draft pick on me despite my illustrious flag football career which culminated in a NFFL (National Flag Football League) Oklahoma state championship about 25 years ago. “With the 255th pick of the 2007 NFL draft, the Detroit Lions select, from the University of Alabama, Ramzee Robinson.” Wow! 255 picks and I didn’t even receive a single inquiring phone call from a NFL team. Maybe it is because I didn’t hire an agent and represented myself. Perhaps none of the NFL teams needs a paunchy, middle-aged guy who used to be adept at pulling flags.

For those of us staring middle-age in the eye, should we give up on our dreams? Somehow it seemed easier to dream and to pursue far-fetched possibilities when we were twenty-something. When our life is still nearly a clean slate, it is so much easier to visualize greatness. But what about when the clock is running down in the game of life? What about when we have strung together several decades of unnotable accomplishments garnished with some significant mistakes? Ralph Ellison in his book The Invisible Man wrote, “The ability to dream has been beaten out of me by this experience called life.”

Has life beaten the ability to dream out of you? If so, let me offer up the story of Jim Morris. Jim Morris was a high school science teacher and baseball coach in Big Lake, Texas. Big Lake is not exactly known as a place where people go for their dreams to come true. Jim’s baseball team was struggling. In an attempt to inspire the team, he made an offhand comment that he would try out for a major league baseball team if the team reached the district playoffs. The team performed well, forcing Jim to keep up his end of the bargain. So at 35 years old, Jim Morris attended a local try-out for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. 35 years old may not sound old to some of us that have seen our 35th birthday come and go. But in major league baseball, being 35 is like being Methuselah. At an age when most professional players are pondering retirement, if they have even managed to last that long, Jim Morris was trying to resume a career that had ended with a shoulder injury 12 years years earlier.

To everyone’s surprise Jim threw a 98 MPH fastball at the tryout and was offered a chance to play with the Devil Rays’ AA farm club. After only a few appearances, he was promoted to the AAA Durham Bulls. Then on September 18, 1999, this middle-aged high school science teacher made his major league debut striking out the Texas Rangers’ Royce Clayton on four pitches. Morris pitched in the majors for two years and Disney eventually made a film about his experience called The Rookie.

Morris recounts his favorite major league memory, “One night I was in right field during batting practice, in shouting distance of the bleacher creatures," recalls Morris. "They figured out who I was…. ‘Morris!!! You suck! It’s a great story but you suck!’ That was pretty cool," laughs Morris.” But his favorite baseball moment occurred as he was entering the Yankee Stadium visitors clubhouse for what turned out to be the last time: "I heard a loud voice from behind me," remembers Morris. ‘Hey, Morris! Can I have your autograph?’ I turned around and it was a big policeman. He said, ‘You give guys like us a fighting chance.’"

There are numerous other stories of people whose dreams no longer seemed plausible, who eventually went on to live those dreams because of their passion and perseverance. Passion and perseverance gives guys and gals like you and me and Jim Morris a fighting chance. Maybe you are one of us middle aged guys (or gals) and none your previous accomplishments seem to be much to be excited about. It is entirely possible that the best is yet to come if you understand your passion and channel it toward a specific goal. In the meantime, if there are any scouts out there reading this, with enough ibuprofen, I can still bring my "A-game!" Think about it.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-04-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

Not Your Type? – I can relate to Angela Martin on the NBC television series, The Office. Angela Kinsey plays the role of Angela Martin on the hit TV series. Angela is the tightly wound head of Accounting with relatively conservative values. What is to not like about Angela? I am not exactly sure why some viewers see some comic elements in her character’s quirks. I think that other than Jim, Angela is about the only character with both oars in the water.

I have a confession. I am a stereotypical Type-A, choleric-melancholy personality. I have managed various organizations for the past twenty years and I consistently surrounded myself with people who think like I do. Frankly it worked out real well.

About five years ago, I went to work for Intuit. Part of Intuit’s training was to test each employee’s personality and teach them about the strengths and weaknesses of their personality type as well as the strengths and weaknesses of other personality types. The folks at Intuit would assign a color for each dominant personality type; Blue = people that value creativity, Yellow = people that tended to value “people,” Green = people that valued process, and Red = people that value results or action. According to the personality testing at Intuit, most folks have two dominant “colors” (although one is generally stronger than the other). I tested as “Red-Green” (Results-Action/Process) with the emphasis on Red (Results/Action). That turns out to be pretty accurate. I want results. And if I can’t see the results, I sure the heck better be able to see the plan and a lot of action. Sure, I don’t want anyone to get hurt in the process. But results are more important than ruffling a few feathers. – Right?

Well about a year ago, I went to work for an organization that produces films. As you might imagine it is chock full of Blue (Creative) and Yellow (People-focused) individuals. As well it should be. Frankly, if I was responsible for the creative elements of the films (which I am not), the films would suck (which they do not). But now that my personality type is in the minority, I have all whole new appreciation for the Blue and Yellow personality types that used to suffer through working for me. For a choleric-melancholy personality, working in a Blue/Yellow organization is akin to herding cats. I send out requests for Project Leaders to update their project statuses, and those requests go largely ignored. We may never finish a project on time or on budget, but we never miss celebrating an employee’s (and even some contractors’) birthday. Receipts for Expense Reports? Those are optional, right? My Blue/Yellow (Innovation/People) counterparts tend to forecast the best possible outcomes for every project. When I suggest we should consider important details, I am deemed to be one of those glass-half-empty guys.

It is pretty humbling to be in the minority; to have the values that have made you successful for twenty years to be only lightly valued. I feel a little like Micaiah. Maybe you have never heard of Micaiah. He was a prophet for a fellow named Ahab. Ahab didn’t like Micaiah much because Micaiah didn’t just tell Ahab whatever he wanted to hear. I guess Ahab thought that Micaiah was one of those glass-half-empty guys too. Ahab’s disregard for Micaiah’s advice finally caught up with him though. Ahab wanted to go to war with Ramoth-Gilead. Ahab’s 400 “yes-men” said, “Heck, yeah! Go for it Ahab!” (My translation) But Micaiah warned Ahab not to attempt it. If you know the story of Ahab, then you know that Ahab disregarded Micaiah’s advice and was killed. Angela and I probably would have told Ahab the same thing. Darn us, glass-half-empty guys….

The moral of the story is not that choleric-melancholy personalities are right more than other personalities. As much as I would like that to be true, it is not. Perhaps the most important thing I learned at Intuit and have become painfully aware of in my role at my current organization is that regardless of our personality type, we have inherent strengths and weaknesses associated with our personalities. It is perhaps more important to be aware of the weaknesses of our respective personality type than it is to know our strengths. If we know our blind spots we can rely on those with other personality types to protect us from those blind spots. As you pursue your passions, be aware of the blind spots prone to your personality type. Seek out those with different personality types to help you make the best possible decisions.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-04-24T17:10:00.000-07:00

Joy – How often do you truly feel joy? I don’t mean happiness. I mean pure, unadulterated joy.

I remember being so full of joy as a child, that I would spontaneously start skipping. I have to admit that I don’t skip as often as I used to. The dictionary defines joy as an intense and especially ecstatic or exultant happiness. If one really pays attention to descriptions of joy he finds that joy does not come from external circumstances like possessions or job promotions. Rather, true joy comes from within us. William Shakespeare reinforced this when he wrote “Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.”

This begs the question, can we create joy from inside us or must this internally born feeling happen spontaneously? Is “joy” a fire that we can create or is it lightning? A recent article in Motto magazine called Rituals for a Better Life describes something called “joy rituals.” According to the article, a joy ritual is an action, thought, or belief that you purposely and mindfully add to your day. These are little moments and pauses in the day where you can relax, reconnect to what’s important, tap into your inner wisdom, and re-energize with positive, life-giving, creative energy. Dr. Christine Northrup believes that “joy rituals” are a big part of living an abundant and fully engaged life.

According to the Motto article some of the most popular “joy rituals” include:

* Reading inspirational books and magazines
* Hugging your kids
* Visualizing positive outcomes
* Writing a gratitude list
* Meditation
* Exercising
* Praying
* Listening to a favorite song or Play List
* Taking time to write in a journal or reflect upon life
* Long hot showers, or baths
* Stopping work on the computer to simply gaze out the window
* Text-messaging your child to let them know you love them.

I would add one other ritual to the list and that would be doing something selfless for another person.

It was interesting to me that I consciously engage in several of the above rituals on a regular basis for the express purpose of increasing my serenity and purposely managing my attitude. I try to get in some distance running 4-5 times each week. Although I don’t always make it happen, I try to start each day with some bible reading, prayer & quiet time. Part of my quiet time involves recording my prayers in a journal. I am sure that many people have seen my head bobbing as I later drive to work with music from my personal mix CD cranked-up. And you know what? It helps. I can’t tell you that any one of these rituals works every time. But done regularly, in combination, these acts help me have more, for lack of a better word, joy!

I would suggest to you that there is one other “joy ritual” that should be on the list if not at the top of the list. That ritual would be doing whatever it is that you are passionate about. Sir Winfred Grenfell once said that, “Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile.” If your passion happens to overlap with a truly worthwhile endeavor, all the better. George Barnard Shaw said, This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I pray that you will experience true, unbridled joy this week. I hope that joy comes from being worn out for a purpose before you are thrown on the scrap heap. Remember that joy may often be lightning, but sometimes you can create the fire with a “joy ritual.” Your best bet is to do something that you are truly passionate about that benefits another person.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-04-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

Stranger Than Fiction – I think from time to time, my own life seems stranger than fiction. Perhaps you can relate. I recently watched the Will Farrell movie, Stranger than Fiction and it caused me to pause and reflect. Perhaps you are one of the few people who saw Stranger than Fiction in the theater when it was released late in 2006. It was the #75 box office film of 2006 so apparently movie watchers stayed away in droves. I would suggest to you that although the movie may lack somewhat in pure entertainment value, it is worthy of an hour and half of your time for the philosophical questions it may cause you to ask yourself. At $5 to rent the DVD and your own snacks prepared at home, it an evening well spent.

Just in case you don’t know the story, let me give you a brief synopsis. Will Farrell plays IRS agent Howard Crick. Howard’s vanilla life is the very picture of mundane. Seemingly ruled by his watch, he gets up at the same time each day, ties his tie in a half Windsor to save time, takes the same route to the bus stop where he catches the same bus to his job where he does the same thing over and over each day. About the time that Howard is assigned to audit the tax return of a pretty young baker played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, he begins to hear a voice in his head. Amazingly, the voice in Howard’s head seems to be narrating his life. This could be maddening enough, but then the narrator in Howard’s head says, "Little did he [Howard] know that this simple seeming innocuous task would result in his imminent death.” This of course causes some angst for Howard especially in light of his new personal love interest in his most recent tax audit client.

Although any story about someone facing their own mortality causes self-reflection, perhaps the most thought provoking scene in Stranger than Fiction occurs between Howard Crick and Professor Jules Hilbert, played by Dustin Hoffman. Howard sought out Professor Hilbert in an attempt to help him figure out who is narrating Howard’s life; the idea being that if Howard knows who the narrator (played by Emma Thompson) is, he can contact her and ask her to change the ending.

Professor Hilbert – “This narrator might very well kill you so I humbly suggest that you just forget all this and go and live your life.”

Harold – “Go live my life? I am living my life. I’d like to continue to live my life.”

Professor Hilbert – “I know. Of course! I mean ALL of it! However long you have left. Howard, you could use it to have an adventure, or invent something, or just finish reading Crime and Punishment. Hell Howard, you could just eat nothing but pancakes if you want.”

Harold – “What’s wrong with you!?! I don’t want to eat nothing but pancakes! I want to live! Who in their right mind given the choice between living and pancakes would choose pancakes?

Professor Hilbert – “Howard, if you pause to think, I believe that you would realize that answer is inextricably contingent on the type of life being lived and of course the quality of the pancakes. You don’t understand what I’m saying?

Harold – “Yes I do. But you have to understand that this isn’t a philosophy, or literary theory, or a story to me. It’s my life.”

Professor Hilbert – “Absolutely! So just go and make it the one you’ve always wanted!”

This short exchange between Harold and Professor Hilbert raises a few thoughts we should all consider.

If you knew you were going to die, would you live your life differently? News flash – you are going to die. The way you spend minutes determines the quality of your hours. The way you spend your hours, determines the quality of your days. They way you live your days, determines the quality of your life.

Are you living ALL of your life? Too often we are waiting for “someday” to start living. Or we compartmentalize our lives and live for the weekend or for vacation. I would encourage you to live ALL your life and that starts right now. It includes when you are at work or in the store, or commuting. Live ALL of your life to the maximum. As Professor Hilbert points out, you could have an adventure, invent something or even just finish a good book.

How does your life compare to a really good meal. If a stack of really good pancakes seems more attractive than living your life, it is definitely time to make some changes. Given the choice between your life and a mouth watering meal, the choice may in fact be inextricably contingent on the type of life being lived. How appetizing is your life?

This is your life. It isn’t philosophy, or literary theory. This is your one shot. Why not just go and make it the life that you’ve always wanted?

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-04-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

Cardiac Thoracic Surgery - Nothing like a little cardiac thoracic surgery to get one focused on what is really important in life.

It was only a few weeks ago that my brother Marty found out that he had a suspicious mass in the vicinity of his heart/lungs. The weeks that followed included scans and tests for Marty and much more frequent conversations between us than were the norm. If there was a silver lining in all of the tension hanging over our family, it was that it caused us to speak much more honestly and intimately about life issues than perhaps we had in the last forty years.

So after a trip to Plano, TX on the weekend to honor a preexisting Easter commitment there, I headed north to Columbia Missouri for a very long day at Boone Hospital Center. Marty was originally scheduled for surgery at 6:30 a.m. However, he was bumped for another patient with a more urgent heart issue. Finally, at around 11:30 a.m. they took him back to shave his chest and hook him to some IV’s.

According to his wife, Marty asked if I could come back before the surgery which I then did. Now this is only remarkable if you know Marty’s and my relationship. We have kind of picked at each other over the years – more so before we left home, but even regularly since then. (Okay, so once as a kid, I threw a claw hammer and hit him in the back from 15 yards away. Is he going to hold that against me forever? He was bugging me at the time!) Funny how having your chest sliced open and a guy cutting on a tumor next to your heart makes the pettiness fall to the wayside. It is almost as effective when that is happening to your brother instead of yourself.

The surgeon estimated that the surgery would take three hours. He wasn’t far off. By the time, one adds the pre-op preparation, and recovery time, that eats up almost a full day. We prayed - a lot! We prayed aloud together. We prayed silently amongst ourselves. We knew from emails and phone calls that others all across the United States were praying for Marty too. We sat in the waiting room with his amazing friends from Kirksville, MO who had trekked an hour and half to support Marty. Not just a couple of people came, but enough to fill the starting roster on an entire baseball team with a DH. (I was always an American League guy.)

We quickly became friends while my brother, their friend and pastor, lay on a cold table with tubes running out of his chest and surgery team working to remove a lemon sized tumor. There was something terribly odd about making small talk over trivia and minutia while Marty was down the hall in what we hoped would be routine cardiac thoracic surgery. (Now there is an oxymoron. If someone is cutting my chest open to remove a tumor next to my heart, there would be nothing routine about it.).

The hospital chaplain came by the Intensive Care waiting area and quipped that "the waiting area in the ICU in was equipped with clocks that ran remarkably slower than any other clocks in the world. However, in one of the great unexplained mysteries the ICU clocks would be back in sync with the rest of the world when we left." It certainly seemed that way. I would check the clock after what must have been thirty minutes and the minute hand had moved only from the one to the two. I fiddled with my Treo and tried to respond to some work issues - more for the distraction than because of the urgency of the work issues. Another thirty minutes and again the hands on the clock moved only a couple of ticks.

When the surgeon finally summoned the family for the post-op consultation, we all held our breath. Given the fact that we knew Marty had a tumor that was located next to his heart and lungs, the results could not have been much better. They got all of the tumor. The tumor was benign. The schwannoma tumor was attached to a nerve and not to the heart or lungs. So Marty is going to hurt like hell for a week or so and be out of work for probably a month. He will have a numb stripe on his left chest where they removed the nerve. But otherwise, he will be back to normal.

I sat there in the hospital waiting room, having a seemingly surreal out of body experience, listening to golf stories, and work stories, and kid stories – while wondering if my brother would come back to tease me ever again. I was struck by how much time, we had wasted – Marty had wasted time. I had wasted time. All the things we should have done or done differntly. I was reminded of the sports cliché, “Life is short. Play hard.” Fortunately, Marty and I get another chance to “play hard.”

What about you? God forbid, if you should die next week, what things would you most regret not having done? What are you going to do to make sure when your life ends that you do not have those regrets? Don’t wait for cardiac thoracic surgery to examine your life, your goals, your passions. Make an appointment with yourself to do that this week.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

PS - Hey Marty, sorry about the whole claw hammer thing!

2007-03-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

The Secret - I’ve got a secret about The Secret. It’s not really a secret. If you have been living in a cave for the past year, it is possible that you have not heard about The Secret. But otherwise, it would be a little hard to miss. Larry King, Ellen DeGeneres, and Oprah all fawned over The Secret. The Secret has sold over half a million DVD’s. The theory behind The Secret, called the Law of Attraction, basically says that your thoughts dictate what you attract.

I am a little surprised about all the hoopla around The Secret. The flawed thinking behind The Secret isn’t even new. In 2004, author Rhonda Byrne, on whose book the DVD is based was given a copy of a book called The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. This book was first published in 1906. This may have been the genesis of Byrne’s book, but it is another verse in a very old song.

James Allen wrote As A Man Thinketh in 1902 four years before Wattles’ book was published. One description of Allen’s book sounds eerily like Byrne’s new revelation. “Your thoughts and your dreams determine what you are and what you will be. This little book is meant to stimulate men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that they themselves are makers of themselves, by virtue of the thoughts which they choose and encourage. Contents include: Effect of Thought on Circumstances; Effect of Thought on Health and Body; Thought and Purpose; Thought Factor in Achievement; Vision and Ideals; Serenity.” Ironically, despite Allen’s recipe for success, he died a largely unrecognized author.

The Secret, The Science of Getting Rich, and As A Man Thinketh, are all different flavors of the “name it and claim it” Kool-Aid that some people have been drinking for centuries. It resurfaces every few years by a different name but the tenets are basically the same – if you can think it, you can have it. If you are a Christian you can even find versions slanted toward your own religious beliefs. Joel Osteen’s book, Your Best Life Now offers up the same type of “health & wealth” prosperity thinking.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not against positive thinking. In fact I am huge believer in positive thinking. As a person who encourages others to pursue their passions, I know that it is important that we have positive mental attitudes in order to be successful. But speaking something does not make it so. One of the all-time great positive thinkers, Zig Ziglar, has been known to say, he is so positive that he would go fishing for Moby Dick in a row boat and take the tartar sauce with him. But even Zig tells us, “We cannot not do anything simply because we have a positive attitude. However we can do everything better with a positive attitude than we can with a negative attitude.” The difference is subtle but important. Zig, who started out so unsuccessful that when his first child was born, he had to go door to door selling pots & pans to be able to afford to get her out of the hospital, would tell you that he made substantial changes in not only his thoughts be also drastic changes in his actions.

Let me be clear. People who have made bad decisions cannot change the consequences of those decisions, simply by thinking happy thoughts. Christian speaker, Mark Gungor has an analogy that I think underscores this idea. Mark says that, “If you are driving your car 90 mph around a curve with a posted speed limit of 30 mph, something bad is probably going to happen – even if you are listening to Christian radio and you have a statue of Jesus on your dash.” Similarly, I would tell you that if you are making good decisions, you will over time largely experience good outcomes. If you are making bad decisions, you will over time generally experience bad outcomes – even if you are thinking positive thoughts.

Frankly sometimes bad things happen to people who have made good decision and we may not know why this side of eternity. Take the story of Job, whom the bible says was blameless and upright. In the course of three chapters, Job lost all his livestock, all his sons and daughters were killed, Job himself was afflicted with painful sores from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, and his wife suggested that Job’s best response might be to simply curse God and die. Almost every day in the news, we hear of good people to whom horrible things happen.

Lest you break out the Prozac, let me encourage you. Being positive will help you get through those tough times that we all walk through. Being positive will also allow you to be more creative and see opportunities that you would miss had you seen the glass as half empty. Author and artist, Gordon Mackenzie, in his book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball, talks about visiting elementary schools to talk to children about art. Beginning with the youngest grades, he asks each class how many of the students are artists. In the kindergarten class, almost every hand goes up. But a funny thing happens. In each successive grade with progressively older students, fewer and fewer hands go up. Either all the artists are dropping out of school before they reach middle school, or the students begin to believe that they cannot create art. Ralph Ellison, in his book, The Invisible Man said, “The ability to dream has been beaten out of me by this experience called life.” Life can sap of us our positive attitude if we let it. We should fight against that because it is important to stay positive even knowing that alone does not assure success. We need to learn to count it ALL joy.

I pray that you never lose your ability to dream. God gave you a dream. While you may not be able to simply speak that dream and make it come true, through hard work, focus, and smart decisions, your passions and dreams can come true.

What you passionate about. What are you doing about it?

2007-03-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

Clutter – We moved to a new house a few weeks ago and I was amazed at all the junk that we had accumulated. With two kids ages 15 and 17 one does tend to keep a lot of junk because we think it has sentimental value (Oops! My wife corrected me by pointing out it DOES have sentimental value.) I am as guilty as anyone else in the family. About 25 years ago I started collecting newspapers with notable headlines; you know all the usuals – “Kennedy Assassinated, Man Lands on the Moon, Oklahoma City Bombing, Columbine, 9/11 Tragedy” etc. (Funny how the newspapers seldom put good news in three-inch type face. But that is a topic for another day.)

I am also a bibliophile. I have books coming out of my wazoo [insert your own mental picture here]. My wife says that we could have retired by now if I hadn’t bought so many books. I have books stored in nearly every room of our house (including the “throne room” for obvious reasons). As I have mentioned in a previous post, I also love BBQ. I have a huge box full of menu’s souvenirs, and recipes from all the BBQ mecca’s that I have visited over the past twenty-five years. Bottom line, is that we have a lot of junk that we don’t really need. And one really becomes aware of that fact when you are loading it all in the back of U-haul truck.

In a recent Reuters news article Barry Izsak, head of the National Association of Professional Organizers, said "The average person feels negatively affected by disorganization in many ways: increased stress, missed deadlines, lost opportunities, that sinking, drowning feeling," Izsak said. "For the average person, disorganization and chaos simply doesn't feel good." The NAPO also argues that disorganization is costly, citing research showing that a company employing 1,000 knowledge workers, who primarily handle information, wastes $48,000 per week, or nearly $2.5 million per year, due to an inability to locate and retrieve information.

I believe that clutter can sometimes be a huge deterrent to our pursuing our passions. To be focused requires that we are literally considering only a few things. My friend Tim Redmond likes to use the analogy of the lion tamer. We have all seen the caricature of the lion tamer holding a whip in one hand and a chair in the other. Tim explains that lion tamers use a chair because the four legs of the chair confuse the lion by not giving it a single point to strike. Because the lion has to deal with the four chair legs, it becomes more tentative. We, like the lion, become tentative in pursuing our passions when we try to consider too many things at once.

If you are going to pursue your passions, you need to have a laser-like focus on what those passions are. You can’t be involved in every single activity that comes along and still be effective in pursuing your passion. Author Jim Collins says that it may be more important to create a “stop doing list” than to create a “to-do” list. That means you will have to say “no” to some very worthy causes. My friend Tim who I mentioned above also likes to joke about “the four-thousand, three-hundred and seventy-five steps to simplify your life.” That kind of sums up what many of us are dealing with. Take some time to think about the few things that you are truly passionate about. Then quit doing as many of the other activities as you can. You won’t be able to quit all activities that you aren’t passionate about. For example, I am not passionate about taking out the trash. But darn it, the house smells bad, when I quit doing that. But you will still be amazed how many low priority activities you can quit if you try. Give it a shot.

What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-03-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

You have a purpose – I believe that you have a calling on your life. You were uniquely made for a special purpose. There is nobody quite like you. You may not believe it but it is true.

I was reading the story of Samuel today. You may recall that Samuel’s mother Hannah had previously been unable to have children. Overcome with the grief of being barren, Hannah wept and prayed to God saying, If God would give her a son that she would devote that son to the Lord. God heard Hannah’s prayer and gave her a son which she named Samuel. As soon as he was weaned, Samuel went to work in the temple for Eli.

One night when Eli and Samuel had gone to bed, God spoke to Samuel. But Samuel, unable to imagine that God was speaking to him, mistakenly thought he was being called by Eli. Samuel ran to Eli’s room responding, “Here I am.” Eli dismissed Samuel saying, “I did not call. Go back and lie down.” Again, God called Samuel and again Samuel ran to Eli’s room and said, “Here I am. You called me.” Once again, the perplexed Eli said, “I did not call you go back and lie down.” God called Samuel a third time and once again Samuel ran to Eli. Eli may be slow but by now he had figured out that it was God who was calling Samuel. Eli instructed Samuel to go back to bed and if he should hear the voice again to answer, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” The next time God called Samuel, Samuel responded as instructed by Eli and God communicated His plan very clearly to Samuel.

I think a lot of times, we are like Samuel. God is calling us to a special purpose and yet like Samuel, we are unable to imagine that God has a unique purpose for us. Our inability to imagine that God really has a plan for us blocks our ability to hear Him. As I have said many times, I believe that our individual purpose lies at the intersection of 1) our talents, 2) our passions, and 3) the needs of others. God is calling us to our purpose but too often like Samuel, we mistakenly run off after other pursuits. God calls and we run off after a job or career that is outside of our purpose. God calls and we run off after social or recreational activities. God calls and we spend a disproportionate amount of time on kids’ activities. God calls and too often we chase after meaningless distractions. Where is God calling you? I believe that he is calling you to a purpose that lies at the crossroads of your talents, your passions, and the needs of others. What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-03-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

Gideon - I was thinking about Gideon today and how sometimes my life feels like his. Gideon’s story appears in the bible in the book of Judges. By most accounts Gideon came from an otherwise unnotable tribe of Manasseh. God chose Gideon to free the people of Israel and to condemn their worship of idols. However, Gideon was unsure of himself and of God’s purpose in his life so he asked for proof in the form of a miracle.

Do you ever want God to give you proof of his purpose for your life? I do. In Gideon’s case he laid some wool on the ground and he asked God to make the wool wet in the morning but for the surrounding ground to be dry. God made it happen. Not satisfied with that miracle, Gideon then placed more wool on the ground and asked God to make the ground around it wet but to allow the wool to remain dry. Bingo! God did it again.

God wasn’t through. So that there would be no question who won the battle, he told Gideon to send home 22,000 of his 32,000 fighting men. Still not satisfied that Israel would recognize that the victory came from God, God told Gideon to send home all but 300 fighting men. When Gideon attacked the Midianite camp, the Midiantes became confused and attacked one another.

There are two things about Gideon’s story that ring familiar with me. Sometimes I am not convinced of God’s purpose for my life and I want proof. Sometimes, God provides unmistakable direction for me. Other times, I fall back on what I believe to be true. That is that God’s purpose for all of our lives, lies at the intersection of 1) our talents, 2) our passions, and 3) the needs of others.

The second thing about Gideon’s story that gives me a sense of déjà vu is that sometimes God needs to take away all our support, whether that be financial security, family, or whatever other crutches we have, so that when we are victorious, we know that we could not have possibly done it on our own without His help. When I first answered the call to join my current employer, as an organization, we were not in great financial shape. In fact over the past year, we missed a couple of payrolls and I funded a couple of others temporarily out of my meager savings account. It seems like every door we knocked on was closed. Frankly, it was not obvious to me how we were going to survive. Then late in 2006, after a divine appointment of our own, we signed a three year deal with The Weinstein Company (TWC). Under this agreement TWC would like us to produce 4-6 theatrical films per year. Yes, these are the same Weinsteins, who at Miramax produced films such as The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, and Good Will Hunting. We already have two movies in preproduction based on books by Max Lucado and Joyce Meyer. God had a purpose for us all along. I suspect he just needed us to be clear that any success we have is because of Him and not because of anything we did.

Do you need proof of God’s purpose for your life? Ask Him. You just might get a specific answer. But if you don’t, consider the activities that leverage your talents, bring out your passion, and serve the needs of others. Let me ask you – “What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?”

2007-03-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

Divine Appointments - Alex, a pastor friend of mine, told a story a few weeks ago that I can’t get out of my mind. At the end of our regular church service he asked a woman named Renee who is a member of our church to come forward so we could pray for her. Alex explained that she has an aneurism on her optic nerve. Alex then took a side bar before we prayed to tell us a related story. It is that related story that I can’t turn loose of.

Alex recounted how he had been invited to speak at a youth conference last summer. He is a highly sought speaker, so it did not surprise me or probably anyone else who has heard him speak that Alex would be asked to speak four or five times at a weeklong conference. Alex described how only a few weeks before the conference, the organizer called him to “tell him” the specific topics on which they wanted Alex to speak. My understanding is that usually in circumstances like this, the invited speaker gets to pick his own topics. But the organizer would not relent so Alex was faced with preparing five new messages on top of his already busy schedule.

Three days before the conference, the organizer called Alex again with additional less-than-great news. It seems that they had run out of hotel rooms so they were asking Alex to share a room with another pastor who he did not know. Alex countered saying that he would pay for his own hotel room because he would need quiet time to prepare for his five new and never-before-presented messages. The organizer explained that there were no hotel rooms available within 80 miles of the conference. Alex was forced to relent and bunk with a stranger and to work his schedule around his roommate’s to prepare his messages each day of the conference. Not ideal circumstances.

The good news is that the week went well and Alex found a new friend in his previously unwanted roommate. In the words of Paul Harvey, now for the rest of the story.

Back to Renee. Alex went on to explain that Renee has no health insurance. The best place to have her surgery done is at Baylor Medical Center. The staff at Baylor estimate that if her surgery goes well it will cost $100,000. That is $100,000 that she does not have.

The coincidence is that Alex’s previously undesired roommate from last summer’s conference is on the board at Baylor Medical Center that makes decisions regarding benevolence of those patients who cannot otherwise afford treatment. Alex, upon hearing of Renee’s plight, of course called his new friend from Baylor Medical Center. There was no doubt in Alex’s mind nor the minds of any of us hearing the story that Alex’s forced-cohabitation of last summer was a “divine appointment.”

This begs the question. How many divine appointments are we currently fighting because they are not convenient? The thought I can’t get out of my head is “What if EVERY single person with whom we come into contact is actually a divine appointment?” Perhaps they are not all as dramatic as the story that Alex told. But I now have this mental image of every person in the world holding in one hand a puzzle that is missing a few pieces. Those missing puzzle pieces can only be supplied by others around us. In the other hand I picture puzzle pieces that others need to complete their puzzles.

How much differently would we live life if we viewed those around us in that way? Would we be as short-tempered with the guy at work who has nothing to do and seems to want to do it in our office? Would we be as judgmental of the pushy “little league parents” on our children’s sports teams? Would we cross to the other side of the walkway at the mall to avoid those undesirables who are different from us and take us out of our comfort zone? Would we be too busy, to help with that Habitat for Humanity project or to go on that mission trip? Would we be quite as reluctant to write that check to help feed the homeless?

Are you aware of your divine appointments? I can tell you that my interactions with others over the past two weeks have been completely different now that I view them ALL as potential divine appointments. I have a little more passion and COMpassion toward helping others who in the past may have taxed my patience. It is something to think about. While you are at it, say a little prayer for Renee. Maybe you too have a divine appointment to intercede on her behalf.

Until next time - What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2007-02-02T06:50:00.000-08:00

Over the past few months, fighting the battles involved in pursuing my passion has prevented me from updating this blog as I would have liked. Expect more musings soon.

This week my daughter's teacher at school did something unusual. She assigned homework to the parents of the students in her high school senior English class who are studying Hamlet. If you have read Hamlet, then you know that in one of the scenes, a father sends his son off into the world and shares some last words of advice and blessing. In the same way, our sons and daughters will soon be off to college or career, my daughter's teacher felt sure we parents would have some final words to share. The assignment called for the parents to write a letter to our senior students who will be leaving the nest soon.

Because so much of the things I would tell my children overlaps with what I have been telling visitors to this site, I have decided to include a copy of that letter to my daughter here.

February 1, 2007

Heather,

I cannot believe that in a few short months that you will be leaving for college. It seems like not that long ago that your mom and I welcomed you into the world with tears of joy streaming down our faces – a joy so intense you will never be able to fully grasp it until you have a child of your own.

We thank God every day for his giving you to us and pray for you to have wisdom, safety, and joy! God has gifted you in so many ways. God made you so tender-hearted that your heart breaks when any living thing suffers. He gave you athletic ability that allows you to excel in virtually any athletic endeavor that you attempt. God gave you the gift of perseverance. I have often said that, “Heather is the hardest working girl that I have ever seen.” You have been blessed with success in virtually every aspect of your life. Be aware however, just like the rest of us, your greatest talents, will sometimes be your most painful weaknesses. You must be aware of this and prepare for those instances.

Your fragile, tender heart will occasionally be wounded when the offender meant no harm. Because you have seldom struggled on the athletic field you may expect such endeavors to always to come easily – they will not. Because you have always been willing to work as hard as it takes to accomplish any goal, you must measure the cost against the respective reward. Not every single goal will be worth the price that would be required of you. Pick your battles wisely. Because you have so seldom failed and are so easily hurt, your spirit may be crushed when you do fall short. And all of us fail at some time. When that time comes, you must learn from your failures and persevere if the goal is indeed worthy.

Therein lies the paradox – how does one know when to persevere when the goal justifies supreme effort and also balance that by not trying to win every battle? The answer lies in knowing God’s purpose for your life. Discovering that purpose will be a journey and not necessarily a destination. God will continue to reveal that purpose to you as one would peel back the petals on a rose. God may seldom be early but He is never late. He will reveal as much as you need to know, when He needs you to know it.

Here is the compass for discovering God’s purpose that I have shared with you many times. As I reminded you above, God has given you special talents. You also know there are some things that you are passionate about; those things that give you joy and that you love to do. Some of the activities that lie of the intersection of your talents and your passions will also be needed by many other people. I believe that God’s purpose for all of us lies at the intersection of our talents, our passions, and the needs of others. Seek that intersection and prepare for the opportunities that God has for you there. My question for you is, “What are you passionate about – and what are you doing about it?”

Find the joy in every single day; no matter how difficult that day is. “This is the day the Lord has made. Be glad and rejoice in it!”

Love everyone. Those that deserve your love the least may need it the most. “These three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Serve others. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for others.”

Remember that your mom and I love you more than life itself and always will.

Love

Dad

2006-11-14T06:53:00.000-08:00

Ringo Starr wrote, "It don't come easy. You know it don't come easy." Lord, isn't that the truth. Sometimes, we think because we are passionate about something that we won't feel the struggles along the journey. Nothing could be further from the truth. After leaving a high paying corporate job eight months ago to pursue my passion, I have thus far had only limited impact on the organization that I joined and the organization continues to struggle financially. Further our organization and gone through a time of famine in terms of our purpose which is reaching a sight and sound generation through film and stage productions. However, it is our passion that allows us to overcome those struggles that otherwise would almost assuredly cause us to quit. That is why it is so important for all of us to pursue our passions. In the pursuit of any other goal when we hit the tough times, we will have little motivation to fight through them without passion.

Many of us know the story of Abraham Lincoln. In 1832 Lincoln lost his job and was defeated for state legislature. In 1833 he failed in business. In 1835 Lincoln's sweetheart died. In 1836 he had nervous breakdown. In 1838 Lincoln was defeated for Speaker. In 1843 he was defeated for nomination for Congress. In 1846 Lincoln was elected to Congress but in 1848 lost the renomination. In 1849 he was rejected for land officer. In 1854 Lincoln was defeated for U.S. Senate. In 1856 he was defeated for nomination for Vice President. In 1858 Lincoln was again defeated for U.S. Senate. In 1860 Lincoln was elected president and of course went on become one of the most beloved presidents in U.S. history.

You may not know the story of Colonel Harland Sanders. When the Colonel was six, his father died. His mother was forced to go to work, and young Harland had to take care of his three-year-old brother and baby sister. This meant doing much of the family cooking. At age 10, he got his first job working on a nearby farm for $2 a month. When he was 12, his mother remarried and he left his home near Henryville, Ind., for a job on a farm in Greenwood, Ind. Sanders drifted from one job to another without much success, first as a 15-year-old streetcar conductor in New Albany, Ind., and then as a 16-year-old private, soldiering for six months in Cuba. He was a railroad fireman, studied law by correspondence, practiced in justice of the peace courts, sold insurance, operated an Ohio River steamboat ferry, sold tires, and operated service stations. When he was 40, the Colonel began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station in Corbin, Ky. He served folks on his own dining table in the living quarters of his service station. As more people started coming just for food, he moved across the street to a motel and restaurant. Over the next nine years, he perfected a secret blend of herbs and spices In the early 1950s a new interstate highway was planned to bypass the town. Seeing an end to his business, the Colonel auctioned off his operations. After paying his bills, he was reduced to living on his $105 Social Security checks. Confident of the quality of his fried chicken, the Colonel devoted himself to the chicken franchising business that he started in 1952. He traveled across the country by car from restaurant to restaurant. By 1964, Colonel Sanders had more than 600 franchised outlets for his chicken in the United States and Canada. That year, he sold his interest in the U.S. company for $2 million to a group of investors. And it all began with a 65-year-old gentleman who used his $105 Social Security check to start a business.

J.C. Penney is a name synonymous with department store. He first launched his chain of "The Golden Rule" stores in 1907. In 1910 his first wife died. Three years later, he incorporated as the J.C. Penney company. In 1923 his second wife died giving birth to his son. In 1929 the stock market crashed and he lost $40 million.By 1932, he had to sell out to satisfy...creditors. This left him virtually broke. ...Crushed in spirit from his loss and his health suddenly failing, Penney wound up in a Battle Creek, Michigan sanitarium. One morning he heard the distant singing of employees who gathered to start the day with God: Be not dismayed, whate'er betide, God will take care of you.... Penney followed the music to its source and slipped into a back row. He left a short time later a changed man, his health and spirit renewed, and ready to start the long climb back at age fifty-six. By 1951 there was a J.C. Penney store in every state, and for the first time sales surpassed $1 billion a year.

Consider Zig Ziglar. Born in southern rural Alabama, Ziglar and family soon moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi. As a child of the depression, Ziglar says he struggled with basic insecurities and small expectations for years. After a discharge from the Navy in 1946 Ziglar briefly attended college. However he soon abandoned his studies and began selling aluminum pots door to door for the Wearever Aluminum Company. But he still struggled: According to Ziglar, “During the first two and a half years all I did was prove they had been right not to hire me in the first place. It was really a question of survival. When our first baby was born, I had to literally go out and sell two sets of cookware in order to get her out of the hospital.” Ziglar’s turnaround came during a regional sales meeting when a Wearever executive pulled him aside and told Ziglar, who was shocked that the executive even knew his name, that he had been wasting his time for the past two and a half years. Although Ziglar thought he was hearing a prelude to a dismissal, the executive told him that if he’d only recognize his ability, he’d become “a great one.” Soon thereafter Ziglar was 2nd of some 7,000 Wearever salesmen. Ziglar has gone on to become arguably the best known motivational speaker in the world.

Our lives are little different than those described above. The question is whether we will pursue our passion as these men ultimately did or whether we will drift though a series of meaningless and passionless pursuits. If we are pursuing our passion, we will fight through the inevitable struggles. If we are not, we may have little motivation to perservere. Fight the good fight. Take hold of the life to which you are called . Press on toward the goal. It won't be easy. But anything else is a waste of time. What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?

2006-04-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

Living for your "purpose" - In an interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren (below), Rick said: People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body--but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain." But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?

Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism?

Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better . God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

2006-03-28T06:55:00.000-08:00

Tiger Woods the educator. Tiger Woods is the kind of athlete who comes along not once in a generation, but perhaps once in the history of a sport. For the last decade, he has dominated professional golf so completely that he has changed the game and come to exemplify the pursuit of excellence. Tiger has been ranked number one in the world longer than any other competitor. He’s the youngest to win 10 major championships. On his good days, Tiger shows us that the boundaries of sport can be pushed to the edge of perfection; that swinging a golf club and making a ball go into a hole can be one of the most dazzling performances ever.

60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley recently spent some time with this purposeful, complicated athlete who fiercely guards his private life. He found a man who, at age 30, is as committed to giving back off the golf course as he is dedicated to his sport. But he also met the man who has come to personify the pure spirit of a champion.

As devoted as Tiger is to the game of golf, he says he gets more satisfaction from another part of his life. At the age of 30, he says he’s ready to make as big an impact off the course, just as his father Earl has predicted for years that he would. This February, he opened the first Tiger Woods Learning Center in Anaheim, Calif., close to where he grew up. The center gives 4th to 12th graders from diverse backgrounds learning experiences they can’t get in their own schools.

"This is so near and dear to my heart. This is more important than any golf shot that I can possibly hit," says Tiger. "But wait a minute. You make a living playing golf. I mean, golf gives you the wherewithal to do all of this," Bradley said. "Golf’s a platform," Tiger replied. "Golf is what I do. It’s definitely not who I am. I hit high draws. I hit high fades. I make putts occasionally. But I don’t get the satisfaction that I get from building this and helping kids and putting a smile on their face and giving them hope."

Tiger can pay for all these centers because he earns so much money playing golf. He’s made more than $70 million on the golf course alone, and his outside income is estimated at $85 million a year. He’s the most recognized athlete in the world. His name and image are a global brand linked to blue-chip companies like American Express. And he’s a promoter’s dream. Television ratings soar when he plays, and that means fatter TV contracts and bigger prize money for the players. Bottom line: Tiger is reported to be on the verge of becoming golf's first billion dollar athlete. But golf is a means to an end.

Tiger Woods is one of the most competitive athletes in the world. But golf does not define who he is. As Woods pointed out that “golf is what he does; not who he is.” Woods is passionate about helping kids get educational opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t be available to them.

Does your job define who you are? Should it? When you understand clearly those things that you are passionate about, you will not be defined by random activities.

What are you passionate about?

What are you doing about it?

2006-03-22T07:31:00.000-08:00

Put up or shut up. For a couple of months now I have been ranting about the importance of understanding those things in life about which you are passionate. I have had a pretty good idea about the things I am passionate about for a long time.

Of course, I love my family and would do anything for them. That is a given. Those that know me well, know that I have a few other passions.

I am passionate about basketball. I was never great at basketball. However, as a kid I was a gym rat. Our house backed up to the park which had a recreation center with a gym and I practically lived there. It was closed on Sunday’s but the folks that worked at the recreation center knew me and would leave the back door unlocked so I could get my Sunday basketball fix. My favorite time of year is right now - March Madness. Nothing could be better!

I am passionate about BBQ. Until the kids got older and their activities started to dominate my schedule, I would use my vacation time to travel to BBQ Meccas like Kansas City and Memphis. I was a card carrying member of the Kansas City BBQ Society (BBQ – It’s not just for Breakfast anymore!) and the American BBQ Association. Every summer, you could find me lounging in famous BBQ eateries such as Gates BBQ in Kansas City, Interstate BBQ in Memphis, or Sonny Bryan’s in Dallas.

I am passionate about blues music. Texas blues, Chicago blues, delta blues; all of it. Fortunately for me, many of the cities that have world famous BBQ are also hotbeds for blues music. Beale Street in Memphis is the birthplace of the blues and home to BB Kings Blues club. Kansas City has a great Blues & Jazz festival. The Grand Emporium in Kansas City is a great place to catch blues acts. I have had my picture taken in front of the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue in Austin and the W.C. Handy statue in Memphis

I am passionate about running. I know, I know, that sounds nuts. Most people, even most who consider themselves athletes, think of running as punishment at worst and an unpleasant discipline at best. But I love to get out and run. When I travel, there is nothing better than finding a new, scenic running course. I have run in Central Park in New York and along the beach in San Diego. I have run among the palms in Orlando FL and up & down the mountains in Ruidoso, NM. I have run a marathon in over the hills of San Francisco and a 5K on a table-top-flat runway at the Tulsa American Airlines facility. Running is my therapy. It clears my head and helps maintain my weight.

I am also passionate about my faith. It wasn’t always that way. For many years, I was a marginal believer. I have always believed in God but I was pretty much a Sunday Christian. A few years ago it dawned on me, that this whole issue of faith was either the most important issue there is or of absolutely of no importance at all. If you think about it, don’t you agree? Either what the bible says is true, being the Word of God, making that truth the most important thing we can know. Or it is a scam of monumental proportions. I believe the former. The number of documented Old Testament prophesies that later came to pass satisfy the actuarial nature of my personality. And frankly, through prayer, meditation, and studying the bible, the Holy Spirit has convinced me of the reliability of God’s Word. Because of this confidence, I believe that our faith is in fact the most important thing in our lives.

In my last post, I talked about the importance of understanding those things in our lives about which we are passionate. I also suggested that when we find those activities, that lie at the intersection, of those things we are good at, those things that we are passionate about, and those things that are valued by others, we will have found our “sweet spot.” That sweet spot is comprised of those activities that I believe God created us to do.

I love basketball but with a 3 inch vertical leap, and a 7 second 40, the Lakers are not looking to draft me. I love BBQ and in my opinion, I smoke a pretty good brisket. But my lifestyle isn’t currently conducive to working nights and weekends smoking suculent pieces of meat.

I love blues music. The bad news is that I can’t carry a tune in a basket. I can’t even play my stereo right, let alone a musical instrument. My singing makes Roseanne’s National Anthem sound like a Grammy nominee.

For the past few years I have been helping an organization called Impact Productions, most recently serving on the board of directors. For some reason, Impact values the things that I have been able to do for them. I believe I do have some experience and skills that have allowed me to help Impact. Impact’s mission is to reach a sight and sound generation with the Gospel message using film, video, and television programming. It is easy for me to get excited about what they are trying to do. I found my sweet spot.

On March 31st, I will be leaving the comfort of a secure job with a software company with more than $2 billion in revenues. I will be leaving a job that allowed me to work on a project that was written up by both Time Magazine and Business Week in the past year. Business Week said the project was one of the Top 50 Uses of the Web. I will be leaving a great job with a great company to do what I believe God has created me to do. I will be joining Impact Productions as the Chief Financial Officer. I have found my sweet spot. I know what I am passionate about.

What is your sweet spot? What are your passionate about? And what are you doing about it? I encourage you to take one step this week, however small it may be, to move toward your sweet spot. You will be glad you did!

2006-03-01T13:49:00.000-08:00

Tumor There are not many, if any, postive contexts in which you can use that word. But I would suggest to you that a tumor can be a catalyst to help you develop a laser like focus on those things about which you are passionate.

In December I hurt my back and received an initial diagnosis of a herniated disk. Not good. That could potentially end my hobby of distance running. "Oh well," I thought to myself. I will rehab and see what happens. Then a few weeks later, after the holidays, I received the complete diagnosis. I had a bulging disk on the left side of my spine, a floating bone fragment on the right side of my spine, and a potential meningioma at L4-L5.

Now if you don't know what a meningioma is, like I didn't; and you haven't had a chance to be debriefed by your physician, like I hadn't; I do not recommend "googling the term. When you google the word meningioma, the first thing that comes up is a paid listing about brain cancer. HELLO!!

Now if one reads the body of information about mengiomas available on the web, you find out that most mengioma's are benign. However, I can tell you after reading the first Google listing about brain cancer and knowing that I wasn't scheduled to talk to my physician for another week, I develped a very clear image of those things that are important in my life.

Three MRI's and multiple doctor visits later, I learned that my tumor is very small and benign. Also, according to my neurosurgeon these types of tumors often grow very slowly; perhaps 1-2 millimeters per year. At that rate it is possible that I will never have a problem with the tumor during my lifetime. That is great news relative to the info that I read in that very first Google listing.

But a funny thing happened during those weeks when there was some uncertainty about what all this would mean for me. I have a great job with a great company. However, I have spent the last 15 years making the world a safer place for accountants via the software that they purchase from my employer. Suddenly, I began to question, "Is that really what I am passionate about?" Awhile back I asked several professional colleagues to write reference letters for me. The consistent theme in all of those references was my ability to build great teams and help others reach their goals in part by leveraging my vast network of business associates. There was little mention of my contributions to the evolution of tax and accounting software.

The intersection of my diagnosis and those references made me realize that I spend the bulk of my waking hours working on things that I am not in fact passionate about. Even though I have been quite successful (my last project was mentioned in both Time and BusinessWeek), the meetings that I formerly took for granted now became like a water torture. I subsequently would leave these meetings thinking to myself, "I can't believe that I just traded two hours of my life to decide whether a particular enhancement was a Level 1 or Level 2 Feature."

Folks, it is time for the WAYPA guy to put his money where his mouth is. Stay tuned for more information. But in the meantime, let me ask you a question. What are you truly passionate about? Is that where you are spending the bulk of your time? If not, don't wait for a potential life threatening diagnosis to align your time commitments with your passion. Life is too short. God created you for a specifc purpose. You may not completely understand what that is today. But if you make a specific effort to understand your purpose, it will become apparent. And it will be at the intersection of your talents, your passions, and the needs of others.

2006-01-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

In 2005 Steve Jobs gave the following commencement address at Stanford University. It is a great reminder of how inportant it is to discover what it is we are passionate about and then to do something about it.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry.

Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

2006-01-14T17:16:00.000-08:00

I am over it now. But it took awhile.

I first started drawing the "3 circles" over 15 years ago. I originally started drawing 3 overlapping circles to explain to employees how they could add the most value. I had employees who focused on one of three different areas. Each of these employees had the opportunity to assist in the other two functional areas on a seasonal basis. Drawing the 3 overlapping circles was my attempt to demonstrate that the employees who were the most valuable were those that were proficient at all three of those work areas. The intersection of those 3 overlapping circles represented those employees who were exceptional at all three of the different areas that needed help.

A little later in the timeline, I had an employee who was very talented several things that were completely unrelated to her job. She was passionate about a couple of those things. You could see her come to life when she was involved in those activities. Unfortunately, those activities weren't things that we did in our department. As a result I utilized the 3 overlapping circles to explain to this young lady that she would be happiest, most productive, and of the most valuable to any employer when she is engaged in activities that she:

Is passionate About
Has talent
Is Valued by her employer

Out of this conversation evolved my theory of the "sweet spot." The sweet spot are those activities represented by the 3 overlapping circles where one circle, represents those activities about which one is passionate, the second circle represents one's most significnat talents, and the third cirlce represents those activities that organizations value. My theory set forth my belief that when one is engaged in those activities that lie in the sweet spot; those activies about which one is passsionate, for which one has talent, and that organizations value - the person will be happiest, more productive, and more richly rewarded.

Now you have to know that I am a huge Jim Collins fan. I got hooked with Jim's book Beyond Entrepreneurship. So when Jim wrote Good to Great in 2001, I couldn't wait to read it. But I was in for a surprise when I got to Chapter 5, The Hedgehog Concept. In that chapter, Jim explained that organizations should focus on those activities that lie at the intersection of three cricles. Those three circles represented:

What you are deeply passionate about
What you can be best in the world at
What drives your economic engine

Sound familiar? Now, as I mentioned, I love Jim. But I was now crushed. He had stolen my theory!

Fastforward to 2005. Max Lucado writes a book called The Cure for the Common Life. On the first page of each chapter of that book are - you guessed it - three circles. Max's explanation of his three circles, although a little different, sounds amazingly similar to the theory that Jim swiped from me.

While reading The Cure for the Common Life, the lighbulb finally came on for me. I finally realized that I didn't invent the power represented by the theory of the three circles any more than Newton invented gravity. The power of the sweet spot that lies at the center of the 3 circles, is simply a natural law just like gravity. Ignoring it won't make it any less true any more than ignoring the law of gravity would allow you float. And I don't own it, never did.

I suggest that you read both Collins' Good to Great and Lucado's The Cure for the Common Life. They are both great, life-changing books. And when you read about the theory of the three circles remember - It's not just a good idea. It's the law.

2006-01-03T14:16:00.000-08:00

Why I am Passionate about Honda

I have been buying Honda cars for over twenty years. Frankly I buy Honda's because of their reliability. They may not be the cheapest car to drive off of the lot. But because they are so darn reliable, I have personally found the long-term cost of ownership to be quite low. Also I just like the fact that as long as I peform the scheduled maintenance, there are few surprises.

On a recent trip over the Christmas holidays, we developed transmission trouble with our Honda van. It is quite unusual to have unscheduled repairs on a Honda based on my experience. However, I was going to get my first taste of how Honda handles unusual problems. Unfortunately, the diagnosis was not good. We would need a new transmission at a cost of $3,500. The irony in the situation was that my 100,000 mile warranty had expired just the week before.

In part because of the frustration of having car trouble on a holiday trip and in part because I was having some significant back pain, I have to admit that I was not the most congenial customer. Frankly, if we played back the tape, I would not be proud of my attitude. Then I met Olivia.

Olivia was the Honda customer service representative assigned to review my issue. I have never been more impressed with how a company has taken a potentially bad customer experience and completely turned it around to create an even more loyal customer.

First of all, Olivia called me back immediately after I contacted Honda. She did all the things customer service professionals are coached to do. She allowed me to vent. She empathized with my situation. But here is where the story is different from most customer service experiences. It was obvious that Olivia had been empowered to satisfy the customer and she proceeded to do that. Also, she did not try to figure out the minimum response that Honda could make and still get me to calm down. Olivia immediately said that Honda would replace my transmission at no charge because I was such a loyal customer and because I was so close to the cut-off for the warranty. She then went on to offer me a free rental car and a hotel room. I did not need a hotel since I was staying with relatives, but I took her up on her offer for a rental car. When I picked up the rental car it was not the usual subcompact (go kart) that one receives when receiving a loaner. It was actually a very nice mid-sized car with only 500 miles.

Since I had my car in the shop anyway I asked them to go ahead and peform some other scheduled maintenance at my expense while it was there. Olivia didn't try to just get me off the phone and hope I never called back. She called me several times to give me updates on my van and ask if there was anything else that she could to help me. Because there wasn't a transmission available in Tulsa, she also had one 'overnighted' to the dealer. My van was ready to pickup within a day and a half of when I dropped it off. When I picked up my van, I was surprised to find out that American Honda had also picked up the tab on my other scheduled maintenance. I would add that although it was scheduled maintenance, the cost would have otherwise been pretty significant to me.

I am not going to tell you that if your Honda needs repairs, that Honda will eat the cost. I will tell you that Honda values loyal customers and that they know satisfied customers are loyal customers. Next summer I am going to be shopping for either a new pickup or SUV. You can bet that when that time comes, I will be buying my sixth Honda. I believe that Honda is passionate about customer service. Because of that, I am passionate about Hondas!

2006-01-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

New Years is traditionally a time of new beginnings. It is the perfect time to take inventory and consider the things about which you are passaionate and reconcile that against how you are spending your time. Too often the way we spend our time in no way reflects the things in life about which we are really passionate. It is too often overlooked that the way we spend each minute determines how we spend each hour. And the way we spend each hour determines how we spend our days. And the way we spend each day determines how we spend our lives.

How much time did you spend this week devoted to activities that really excite you? Did you commit a few hours to changing your life or the lives of others?

One of the worst movies of all time, Joe Versus the Volcano reflects the way many people live their lives. In the movie, Joe Banks (played by Tom Hanks) is a hypochondriac who learns that he is dying of a "brain cloud." This sad sack who goes through life merely biding his time until his inevitable death is representative of many people who go through their lives just going through the motions.

There is a cliche that says, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." What are you going to do differently in 2006 to ensure it is different and better than 2005? Are you doing the same thing over and over and expecting that through some miracle you will move closer to your dreams and goals? Or are you making a specific, measurable commitment to do something different in 2006? The choice is yours; live life under your own personal brain cloud or go out and do something to make a difference.

I have to ask you one more time.............

What are your passionate about?
What are you doing about it?

2005-12-22T08:28:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the "What are you passionate about?" blog. If you got here via www.WhatAreYouPassionateAbout.com then you know what this is all about. If not then let me explain. What Are You Passionate about is a non-profit organization that encourages others to pursue their dreams; i.e. those things about which they are passionate. Our mantra consists of two primary questions.

What are you passionate about?
What are you doing about it?

Accomplishing your dreams requires that you answer those two questions well. First you need to know what you are passionate about. But if you never act on your passion or your dream then you are never going to get there.

Thanks for checking out our blog. We hope that you will come back and visit soon!