“A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on. A book that does nothing to you is dead. A baby, whether it does anything to you, represents life. If a bad fire should break out in this house and I had my choice of saving the library or the babies, I would save what is alive. Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn baby. The finest of our precision watches, the most super-colossal of our supercargo plants, don’t compare with a newborn baby in the number and ingenuity of coils and springs, in the flow and change of chemical solutions, in timing devices and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable. A baby is very modern. Yet it is also the oldest of the ancients. A baby doesn’t know he is a hoary and venerable antique — but he is. Before man learned how to make an alphabet, how to make a wheel, how to make a fire, he knew how to make a baby — with the great help of woman, and his God and Maker.”
(Carl Sandburg)
PS Today, my wife and I became grandparents for the very first time. We welcome our grandson, Everett, into our world. We appreciate your prayers as he requires surgery within the next week.
President Harry S Truman was famous for many things. A plain-spoken man. He made the terribly weighty and controversial decision to drop two nuclear bombs on the Empire of Japan, no doubt hastening the end of World War II.
But he is perhaps best known by a little sign he kept on his desk (see image above). He was the chief executive officer of the United States and Commander-In-Chief of our armed forces. He made choices that affected history and lives.
“The buck stops here.”
Buck-passing is currently in vogue now and has been for some time. But it has never served anyone who has participated in it. President Truman used this maxim to communicate one thing: I am ultimately responsible. See the picture.
Some time ago, I heard someone say, “The moment in which you grow up is when you take complete responsibility for your life.”
Complete.Responsibility.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, owning up to my position in life. I’ve done my share of buck-passing, blame-shifting and the like. What I have found, however, is that as I have embraced full responsibility for my life—where things went bad, where I fell short of some objective, where life ended up being the pits—I feel strangely liberated. Like a young man who moves out on his own for the first time and assumes the responsibility that had been his parents’.
As a leader, you will grow rapidly as you wrestle with this challenge and not permit yourself to be seduced by the siren song of the culture. No more will you say “I can’t” about a thing when you know inside that you can. It will just cost more. Longer work. More exercise. Loss of a friendship because you tell the truth in love.
I am responsible for being out of shape. I chose to eat poorly and not exercise. Now I’m trying to eat better and am exercising and weight training regularly.
I am responsible for my career advancement or lack of. I chose to stay in an unfulfilling job when the time came to go. I chose not to pound the pavement and send out résumés. I chose not to further my education in one way or another. I spend my weeks furthering my learning, polishing my skills and gifts. On my own time. Without monetary pay. There’s more than one form of remuneration, after all.
I am responsible for inferior relationships. I chose not to cultivate friendships or to repair those that have taken a beating in the rough and tumble of life. I’ve recently reconnected with old classmates. It’s an important step.
Challenge: Take a long and honest look at your life and see if there’s a time you ducked responsibility. Evaluate it. And own it. Then craft a plan to do things differently the next time you are thus challenged. You will feel empowered immediately.
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’”
Fall 1994. I hired on as an apprentice carpenter for a company that built staircases and hung trim. Thus began, for me, a lifelong enjoyment for working with wood, especially hardwoods like red oak and poplar. I was privileged to learn how to build curved staircases and these now fill quite a few houses in lower Michigan, where we lived at the time and have since migrated back to.
A carpenter learns very quickly that it is critical to keep his tools in good repair in order to do fine woodwork. Chiefly, this means sharpening cutting implements regularly. You may be surprised to find that dull tools—saws, chisels, router bits, etc.—not only do inferior work, marring the wood, but they are also dangerous. You risk injury using chisels with dull blades. A sharp saw does the work quickly, effectively, and safely.
In life, we have tools that we use to mold our lives and become effective and reach our potential. Like planes and gouges, they must be kept sharp to be effective. Here are a few:
Vocational Skills – What talents and acuities do you have that you can sharpen now and in the days ahead? I work in Information Technology and am a musician. I try to read up on the latest technological innovations as well as become more proficient with the software apps I use in my work. And with my instruments, I practice and learn new stuff. Do you have a plan for skills development?
Relationships – “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” (Jim Rohn) What kinds of relationships do you cultivate to 1) add value to others and 2) help in your own development? If you walk with wise and ambitious people, you fuel your passion to grow and develop. But if you make a practice of hanging with people who are pessimistic and complacent, like it or not, it will affect you. Enthusiasm is contagious. So is discouragement and criticism. Choose wisely.
Reading – That readers are leaders is axiomatic. And you are called to lead. What kinds of books do you plan on reading or listening over the next year? Here’s a good place to start: The Magic of Thinking Big (David J. Schwartz); How To Read A Book (Mortimer Adler & Charles Van Doren); Spiritual Leadership (J. Oswald Sanders); Emotional Intelligence (Daniel Goleman); Talent Is Overrated (Geoff Colvin). Possibilities are endless, but whatever you do, develop a reading plan for the next year.
Physical Fitness – Your effectiveness is charged or limited by your physical fitness—or lack of it. Regular cardiovascular exercise 1) improves your focus, 2) makes you feel better because of endorphins and 3) increases your longevity. Also, there are numerous other benefits to staying fit, fighting the national epidemic of obesity. Your career and its growth are one of these. As some have said, “Your shape will shape your future.”
Now go sharpen your tools and build. You will be astounded at what they produce.
“Honesty is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue. Honesty is hardly ever heard. But mostly what I need from you….”
(Billy Joel)
Life thrives on health. And healthy relationships thrive on honesty, on commitment to truth, whatever pains may ensue. This is the same for all human interactions—with spouse, children, parents, colleagues, friends–even with God. But most of all, with oneself.
I’m learning that in order to be honest with others, I must first be honest with myself. I have to summon the moral courage to take a good look at where I’m at, what I like and dislike, where I’m going and with whom I’m going.
My wife has been the truest friend I’ve ever had largely because she sees me and tells me the truth, rarely with anything other than love. She has helped me be courageous in asking myself tough questions about life and answering with the antidote of truth, even though it hurts. One of my goals is the practice of radical honesty, primarily with myself. This will help me be more authentic with others because I’m a unity, rather than a potpourri of different selves adapting to the moment.
Go get alone, maybe with a journal and a cup of coffee or glass of wine, whatever, and ask yourself these tough questions and answer honestly:
Am I being true to my professed values, both in the public eye as well as out of line of sight? There is inherent tension that visits us when we profess one thing and live another.
In my life of faith, do I really believe what I mouth as creed or simply parrot something I’ve been taught? Be ruthless on this one. Nobody gets a free pass. Someday, you will stand and account for your time here. It will not be good enough to say “I did this because [insert name] told me this was the right thing to do.”
Have I come to terms with the fact that I drove my own car to the place I’m at and to go further in my journey, I’ll have to drive there? Devil didn’t make you do it, the economy either, nor your parents. Did they influence? Of course. But we either acted or chose not to act. A tough sell but own this.
If money were no option, what would I do for a career? See yesterday’s post. You have a sacred obligation to provide for your own, even if digging ditches. But don’t stop there. Work towards your dream occupation. President Kennedy was fond of quoting the Greek maxim: “Happiness consists in the full use of one’s faculties along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope.”
Am I continuing to nurture relationships that are hurting me? A mantra on this blog but you have to choose your circle of peeps carefully. Do they spur you on or deflate you? And can you goad them in the direction of their best selves?
Honesty is therapy. You will ultimately be a much happier person as you really start to tell yourself the way it is this year. There may be pain at the outset but that will be replaced with more peace, if only because you’re finally authentic.
Jim Rohn is one of my favorite self-development teachers. I’ve been mentored by him over the past few years through his writings and recorded seminars. I have never met him. He died in 2009 after a full life.
Some time ago, I heard him dispense this nugget, worthy of wrapping one’s head around:
“Make rest a necessity, not an objective.”
Now that’s a new and powerful way of highlighting the importance of working hard.
Rest is something we earn. This sounds foreign to American ears. We are used to the “standard” of a forty-hour work week. But forty hours of labor over a seven-day period—as enough to get ahead–is distinctly Western and recent. Our grandparents didn’t think like this.
I’ve heard it said that if you’re only working forty hours a week, it’s not likely you’ll get ahead–certainly not as far ahead as your dreams, goals, and ambitions.
Even God worked six days out of seven when He created the cosmos. He wasn’t done on Friday afternoon at 5:00.
I have family members who are doctors, attorneys, investment bankers, hedge fund managers, Federal officials, and much more. They’ve all gotten where they’re at the old-fashioned way: They worked their tails off. Nobody handed any of them anything.
Here are just a few benefits that will return to you with greater effort and longer hours, as you create a life:
You will certainly grow in your chosen fields of vocation and avocation.
Your sense of accomplishment will increase as you tackle and master more skills and meet goals.
You will run far ahead of the pack simply because many, if not most, are content to put their expected time in, satisfied with “working their forty hours.”
Your earning potential will undoubtedly increase, especially if the extra effort is focused and you strive for greater levels of excellence at all to which you put your hands to.
This is not to praise workaholism, far from it. But in a culture that lives for the weekend, for partying, for good times and leisure, one tends to get an unrealistic picture of what it takes to win at life and realize your full potential. It’s simply a matter of adjusting your perspective to accord with reality.
My advice is this: See work and labor not as a curse, but as a blessing. Some of the most successful people in recent memory got that way, in sizeable measure, because they love working: Sumner Redstone, Howard Schultz, Charlie Munger, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. Even Kate Upton (see the photo). Look for lots of increases in lots of different places as you likewise work harder toward fulfilling your destiny.
And, when you have striven and exerted and are tired, then rest.
The world was stunned on July 4, 1976 at the news of the incredible rescue of over one hundred Israeli hostages by members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe, Uganda.
The hostages, mostly Israelis and therefore Jewish, had been traveling from Tel Aviv to Athens aboard an Air France jetliner when their plane was hijacked by terrorists. The flight was then diverted to Uganda where the terrorists were given haven by dictator Idi Amin.
A plan was put into action immediately in Israel to bring the hostages home safely. At the head of the team to lead this effort was a 30-year-old soldier, Lt. Col. Jonathan Netanyahu, “Yoni” to family and friends.
A mockup of the Entebbe airport was assembled in the desert based on Mossad intelligence. The raid—dubbed “Operation Thunderbolt”—was practiced over and over and over. The clock was ticking. And time was not on the side of the hostages.
In the IDF, the motto for military leaders is “After me!” Leaders are the first to lead the way into danger and put themselves in harm’s way. It was no different for the raid at Entebbe.
The operation was a resounding military success. The terrorists holding the Israelis were killed and all but four of the 102 hostages survived.
But there was one other casualty. Col. Netanyahu died leading the raid. He took fire during the rescue. This was not wholly unexpected. He had at other times put himself in the jaws of death to care for his men and his people. Netanyahu’s story is eloquently recounted in the book Self-Portrait of a Hero.
It is the nature of a leader that at times he (or she) will face danger. Will stand alone. Will lose approval or popularity. But a leader does this because human beings matter and the stakes are very high, even eternal. A leader doesn’t wait to have someone point the way. He is the beacon, the true north. The bedrock that people can stand on.
Stand up and lead. More people are counting on you than you can possibly imagine.
A few years back, I read something from renowned editor and author Sol Stein in his excellent book, Stein on Writing. He wrote that the correct intention for a writer was “to provide the reader with an experience that is superior to the experiences the reader encounters in everyday life.” I was really struck by that because, like many others who write and enjoy it, I do so “because I have something to say” or “need to get something off my chest” or “have a passion for this or that.” Stein’s point is that the focus of our writing is to enhance and ennoble the life of the reader. It’s not about me.
I began extrapolating this important reality. What one does in writing one can do in daily life. You can position yourself in such a way that every encounter people have with you makes their day far better than it would have been.
So I had to ask myself, “How do people experience my presence in their lives?” Being honest I’d have to admit that at times my involvements in the lives of the people I live and work with have energized them. Other times I’ve drained them. Usually the drain part comes when I make the encounter all about me. The energizing quality, however, comes when I forget me and seek to “provide [insert name] with an experience that is superior to the experience he or she encounters in everyday life.”
Be honest. How do people experience you?
The world, especially the technical world, both praises and misses the late Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers. When Steve passed away, I was reading Leander Kahney’s excellent book Inside Steve’s Brain. The one thing that emerged very quickly from my reading was that the experience of the user was one of the absolute core values of Steve Jobs and Apple. Still is. Millions of dollars and countless thousands of work hours were and are spent to provide Apple customers with a superior experience in their interaction with modern technology. Jobs examined every aspect of the experience of an Apple customer and, with his outstanding team, honed it endlessly to ensure that the complex was simplified and that the experience of the buyer—even down to the opening and assembly of a new computer—was superior to anything else out there. Jobs’ solution to the problem of pirating of music (through illegal downloading) was to provide such a superior experience for one visiting the iTunes Store, that one would be willing to pay for the tunes and files they wanted, rather than pirate them. A superior experience as a curative for a moral and economic problem. Brilliant.
Challenge for the day: Ask yourself how people experience your presence in daily life. Be honest and willing to make adjustments, shifts in thinking, learn new stuff, whatever. You may be surprised how people jump out of the woodwork when they see how their lives are enhanced just by being with you—a superior experience.
Goals. How do you hit them? How do you place them within sane and profitable range? How do you avoid the extremes of setting the bar too low—being unchallenged and bored—and shooting unrealistically high (and being discouraged and defeated)? Where is that happy in-between where you can reach the cookie jar by standing on your tiptoes?
A few years back, a colleague and I were discussing the importance of setting goals that were challenging yet attainable. My friend told me that when he was an insurance salesman, he and his fellow agents would huddle in the mornings and lay out their sales goals for that particular day. His buddies would generally shoot for the moon: “I’m gonna sell ten policies today.” He would set more modest but sufficiently difficult targets: “I’m going to sell two of this policy and one of that package.” And he would usually hit the mark, while his co-workers failed to meet theirs and were thus discouraged.
There’s an old adage that says “slow and steady wins the race.” This, of course, is a nod to Aesop’s famous story of “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Through patient plodding, the much slower and ungainly tortoise won the race over the faster but cocky hare. If you persevere, you win.
This is not to discourage the practice of giving yourself a worthy but difficult task. But it is important to keep a healthy balance between mediocrity and insanity. Those who avoid the shoals on either side generally sail on to success.
What are your goals for 1) continuing education—whether at a learning institution or through self-education via reading, listening and viewing, 2) physical fitness and weight loss, 3) strengthening your relationships, 4) improving your vocational skills? Have you written them down, which is critical to their fulfillment, having engaged your conscious and subconscious mind by doing so? Do you have a process, broken down into manageable bites, so you can meet these targets?
Here are some of the benefits one derives from setting goals and then hitting them:
You get the benefit of meeting the goal itself. If you lose that portly thirty pounds, you feel better about yourself and have become healthier. If you learn a new skill, you can use that to help others, elevate your station and earn more.
You receive a boost in self-confidence and self-respect rooted in genuine accomplishment, rather than fantasies.
You strengthen your goal-attainment muscles because you are encouraged that, yes, you can do this!
Set goals. Set them high enough to stretch you. Write them down, with concrete dates and metrics indicating you’ve met them. Then hit them!
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”
The Upside 
