My Grandmother Never Sent a Tweet

As I was registering online for a free program this morning I thought it was clever that the organization required that I send a tweet as a part of the registration process.  First of all let me admit right here that the program I registered for is Oprah Winfrey’s Life Class.   I figured I might as well get that out of the way and it can’t hurt to give Oprah a shameless plug on my blog.  What Oprah and her team have long ago figured out is the real power of social media to advance a program, product, or an idea.  That alone was powerful for me.  But somehow right after completing my registration and hoping I would win the sweepstakes prize of attending the live show (I plan to give the prize to my Mom and Mother-In-Law if I win) I began to think of my maternal grandmother.  My first thought was that even though she died in the fall of 1989 she never had an email address.  That was not so unusual in 1989 but I wonder if she were alive today would she have one.

My grandmother was a writer.  She never had her words published but she wrote poetry and stories.  She reached the status in the church I grew up in to be considered a Mother of the church which is a position of status given to older members that were faithful and spiritual.  As a Mother she had many opportunities to speak before the church.  Every time I heard her speak at church she would recite or read one of her poems or stories.  I don’t know if she ever saved her writings and if she did I don’t know what became of them after her death.  Her poems always rhymed and her stories almost always shared an important life lesson and biblical advice.  She loved to share these writings with the public and she referred to them as “pieces.”  She even wrote pieces for me as a child and therein provided my earliest opportunities to speak in public as my pieces were written for me to memorize and read in front of the church on special occasions or during children’s programs.  I learned to speak in the church and I learned the power of story there too.

In addition to writing stories and poems my grandmother wrote letters.  I first became the beneficiary of her letters during my early years in the military.  Later, when I moved away from Philadelphia for work she wrote much more frequently.  I also wrote letters to her.  In fact each year I would buy the best stationary I could find for her so that she could write her letters on “good” paper which was important to her.  She liked to make a good impression on people.  

When I read my grandmother’s letters I always hear her voice.  I have become convinced over the years that her purpose in writing was to pass along lessons and advice that would endure beyond her lifetime.  If that was her purpose she was right as I have read her letters during some of my difficult as well as happy times in my life.  Letters have an enduring power somewhat like the power of a favorite book.  You go back to them to re-read to find a nugget of information, advice or to reinforce something you learned long ago.  

So I have already said that my grandmother did not have an email address and of course she never sent a tweet.  In fact I can imagine that she would have considered the idea to be weird to tweet the sometimes personal details of our lives to complete strangers.  Plus, I don’t think my grandmother would have done well with the 140 character limitation of a tweet.   Although I get a laugh when I imagine grandma writing “Just finished watching General Hospital LMFAO.”  Of course she was a lady that would never have used the term LMFAO but just the thought brought back images for me.  

Today so many of us tweet our thoughts, post intimate details of our lives on Face Book,  blog about our success, failures, thoughts and ideas.  Yet, I wonder how often we just take the time to write a letter.  My experience over these past thirty years is that letters have an enduring power.  Maybe someday we will read email messages posted 30 years ago but somehow I doubt it.  I can’t imagine someone outside of the government keeping an archive of our tweets and saving them for posterity.  I fear my blog post someday will fade into an archive after I die that can’t be accessed without my password thus causing them to be lost forever.  But letters, these won’t just fade away.  When we write a letter I imagine that the reader will save it.  Perhaps they will take the time to read it again and again.  Letters, provide an opportunity for clarity that you can’t have in a tweet, or most email messages.  Letters take far more time than other means of communication.  You write, read, and rewrite to make sure the points are made perfectly.  Some people even hand write their letters then rewrite the handwritten version to make it perfect.  There is something about this process that gives greater depth to a letter.  Our letters will usually be saved and we know that so we try to give our best efforts when we write one.

Next week is my mother’s 75th birthday.  I will call her on her birthday, but today I am going to write a letter to her.  I plan to ask my sons to do the same.  While my mom has a preference for birthday cards I want her to read and to hear the words that we say.  I want her to be able to retain the thoughts so that she can read them years from now.  I want her to hear our separate voices and I want her to connect with the fact that this took time and attention which reflects that we love her.  

If this post impresses you at all would you also write a letter this weekend?  Maybe you have a friend that has not heard from you in a while and a letter would be a welcome surprise.  Perhaps a letter of apology to a damaged relationship or a letter of encouragement to someone that is struggling will make all the difference.  You could also write a love letter this weekend as surely there is someone in the world you love.  It does not need to be very long or even elegant, but you can not beat the power of your words put on paper for just one person to see.  That is probably why my grandmother never sent a tweet.

Push The Green Button

We live in a world where we are exposed to new technology almost daily.  Many of us wait with great expectation (sometimes in long lines that include the Mayor of Philadelphia sitting in a lawn chair) to be among the first to possess that next thing that is going to dramatically change our lives and solve all of our problems that are right now keeping us from getting things done.  After shelling out hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars we finally have that shiny new and ever smaller device in our hands.  This is a very cool moment and yet it is also the moment when your overall productivity just plummeted. 

Have you ever noticed that most devices that we buy today don’t come with an owners manual in the packaging?  Actually, there usually is something of a set of User instructions but of course those are accessible on the internet (which by the way you can’t get to because you don’t know how to configure your new device to get you there).  So instead you just jump in and try to figure out the device.  I mean just how hard can this be?  You have owned other phones, tablets or computers, how different is this?  Actually, you make it through this stage and ultimately (OK many hours later) you have your new device configured, you can access your email and your other files and if you are very lucky someone helped you synchronize your information from your last device and you my friend are back in business.  Here lies the problem.  You acquired this device to make you more productive.  It has all of these new features that you thought were going to be great and this is so much better than anything you have ever had before.  Except you don’t really know how to use the device.

I was recently working with a colleague and helping him to make a few configuration changes to his smartphone.  This was not a new device and in fact because it had been around for a while he was having a couple of problems and most importantly he could not gain access to our company email system.   The IT people told him he had an unsupported device (this really means we don’t know how to work that one).  I was happy to help so while we were together at a three day meeting we got together one night after dinner.  I was able to make a few changes to his phone, get his email working and solved the problem he was having with moving his trackpad.  This took less than half an hour and I was really happy to do that.  But I did not realize until well after the fact that I was actually quite tired when I set his phone up and I made a mistake in one of the configurations.  The next morning he begins using his newly configured phone and he realizes that there is a problem in that I had configured his email to reflect that the sender was named Password.  All of his email messages that he sent out reflected to the recipient that they had just received an email from an unknown source.  Imagine the inconvenience in a world where we are suspicious of odd email messages and the potential for viruses.  I felt terribly when he sent an email to me telling me about the problem and to make matters worse I was about to catch a plane for a 4 hour flight and would be unable to correct the mistake I made in his email.  As a quick fix I shot off an email with instructions to fix the problem at least in case he had to solve that before I got on the ground again.  In his message to me he mentioned another problem.  He said that when he attempted to dial his phone all he got were letters instead of numbers for every button he pushed.  That one stumped me.  I had configured his phone to use several keyboard shortcuts but did not recall doing anything there that would have turned his phone dialer into gibberish.  I thought for a moment and realized that in my haste the night before I told him that after the changes I made that to make phone calls he had to push the green button then dial as normal.  My colleague and new friend now was stranded and could make phone calls only to those people in his address book. 

As I was boarding my aircraft I realized that the phone dialing problem was a minor one and that he had likely forgotten to push the green button prior to initiating a telephone call.  I sent a quick text message reminding him of those instructions and expected that this would solve his problem.  

When my plane landed and I had a free moment I gave my colleague a call.  He said that he had looked and looked but could not find the green button that I wrote about and therefore still had the dialing problem.  I pointed out that this button was literally on the lower left hand corner of his telephone.  From his uttered response I know that at that moment he felt a bit foolish.  However, what I realized at that moment was that prior to the changes I made in his telephone he had likely never had a reason use that green button and he was expecting something special and as a result this rather ordinary button had become invisible to him.

My friend’s challenges are not unlike what many of us face when we really don’t know how to use the technology we purchase or that is provided to us.  While we so often appreciate the cool factor of having something new, most of us don’t take the time to learn how to use our tools.  While this is fine if you just like cool stuff, it is not acceptable for those of us that need and use the devices to help us become more productive at work.  Our technology often rules us or at least confuses the heck out of us.  Or as I am so often reminded by the words of Stephen Covey “Technology and tools are helpful and useful when they are your servant and not your master.” 

It is worth the investment in time and sometimes money to really understand how you can rule your technology.  I have spent countless hours personally learning to master the tools I have all around me.  While this serves my friends and neighbors well, most importantly it has served me well as I can use my technology to make my life simpler, my work faster, and reduce technology overload.  While it might sound trivial to have trouble finding the green button, think about the frustration, loss of energy and loss of productivity that my friend experienced and that you experience when you can’t do something with your new phone, tablet, or computer.  It is time folks to really understand exactly what that little button does when you hit it.

What Do You Do

While listening to an interview recently with actor and singer Harry Connick Jr. the interviewer asked him why he took some of the risks that he took. He said that he took those risks to do different things to serve his art. His specific comment was "I am an artist." Connick has gained fame with his live and recorded music, his appearances in movies and on stage in Broadway plays. He has considerable range and easily could choose to be called an actor or a singer or a musician. When asked though he calls himself an artist and he relates what he does to serving his art.

I have noticed that when asked the question "What do you do?" most people give a long answer. Few seem to be satisfied (this could be the person asking or the person responding) with simple roles such as I am a Dad, or Mom. Even those with significant titles in the corporate world don't just respond by saying I am an executive or a C.O.O. Rather they go on to tell you what type of executive or the name of their company and what the company does. It is almost as though the one word answer is never enough and that perhaps it does not cause them to seem significant.

I also find it interesting that this question of what do you do comes up frequently in social settings where it appears, at least to me, that what you do does not really matter at the time. While attending a picnic this past weekend at the home of a friend I was asked several times by people that I had just met what I did. I decided to try out a number of different answers to see how they would go over. To one person I said I am Max and Alex's dad. To another person while holding a fishing rod in my hand I was very tempted to say "I fish" but felt that the answer would seem like I was being a jerk. This particular person really wanted to know what my job was and in particular I realized that he really wanted to know what I did for the host of the party as many people there were employees of my friend's company. I finally answered his question by saying that I am a consultant. I quickly added that I was a consultant for FranklinCovey which caused him to have a knowing look on his face and he responded as do so many "oh so you work for the planner people." This conversation became even more interesting when he asked my wife what she did. There was a moment of awkwardness until I responded "she is in transition." This answer was accurate from my viewpoint as I believe that Tonyia is at the stage in life where she is transitioning from being a stay at home mother to our twin sons, to a place where she once again finds her independent place in the world doing something that matters to her.

Going back to the Harry Connick interview, at one point Connick was asked what he thought about one of the characters from the reality television show Jersey Shore.  He was asking about Snookie. Connick replied with the question "What does she do?" The interviewer was stumped. After fumbling for a while he replied that she "makes a spectacle of herself." Connick pressed further and asked but what does she do? The point he was making was that sometimes people gain fame and even fortune for essentially doing nothing. Harry Connick said that to perform his art he works very hard, studies and rehearses to perfect the art. He seemed to be wondering while admitting that he does not know Snookie, whether or not she had to work at making a spectacle of herself. He was wondering whether or not getting drunk and into fights required rehearsing. I began to think in that moment that the question what do you do is far more important than we have ever thought.

The answer to the question what do you do is intended to define you. While I admit that often times it is used to rank people and determine your status I would like to think that the answer is more important to you than it is to the person asking. What do you do? The answer permits us to tell others about what matters most in our lives. What do you do? The answer tells me what I am willing to sacrifice for, commit to, and to dedicate my finest energies to achieving.

There is a wonderful opportunity when someone asks us what we do. We should take the time to really know what we do because in knowing what we do we know what matters to us. The answer to what you do is the answer to who you really are. Perhaps the answer requires more than one word. Or maybe your answer is that you are "in transition."

You know as I think about it I think I know what Snookie does. She is Snookie.

If Time Were No Obstacle

We have moments in our lives when we think of things we want to do or wish that we had done.  These moments sometimes come to us after major events.  I experienced one of these moments yesterday after a busy but otherwise normal day my flight home took off down the runway as usual.  However, after gaining speed and just prior to take-off the pilot aborted and quickly brought the plane to a stop.  Apparently there were problems with the instruments and he believed it was prudent to abort the flight.  As the event was happening I really did not think about all of the possible scenarios and ways that this seemingly small event could have played out.  But later as I sat in my seat on the plane we were moved to it occurred to me that this was really a close call.  My gratitude at that moment was overwhelming and remains so even now.  

For me last night made me wonder about what would happen if the pilot was perhaps lesser skilled and did not effectively manage the abort.  Or worse what if we had actually gotten off of the ground and then experienced a problem.  While I don’t have a fear of flying this event brought to mind a host of possibilities that could have had a significant impact in my life and in the lives of those I love so dearly.

So today after processing all of the the things that happened last night I thought of this question that we once posed to our Time Management program participants.  The question is “If time were no obstacle some day I would..”  The purpose of the question was to get the participants to think about all of the things that they would do someday if they had more time.  I would collect the answers on 3 x 5 cards from the participants as they left for lunch.  At the end of the day I would read the anonymous answers aloud to the class.  I saved quite a few of the answers that I collected from the participants over the years and while many of the answers were things like I would spend less time at the office, many more were poignant and thought provoking.  Looking through those cards today I realized that I have never completed a card answering the question for myself.  So what follows are a few of my answers.

If time were no obstacle someday I would..

Spend a full day talking to each of the people that have touched my life and let them know how much I appreciate their time and attention

Visit with every one of my old friends and offer my apologies were I may have wronged them 

Been kinder to that special friend that really needed me longer than I knew

Listen just a bit longer to hear what my children, my wife, my mother and siblings were really saying to me

Play more often, sleep more than 6 hours per night, and laugh a lot

If time were no obstacle someday I would..

Have spent more time listening to my grandmother tell stories while cooking in the kitchen

Write more letters

Talk to my father about what he thought when he was in his 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and early 60s

Relax my shoulders, loosen my jaw move my head back and smile more

Talk to that person that had the look in their eyes needing some attention

If time were no obstacle someday I would..

Sit with my family, in an electronic free zone learning to just be together

Stand up to the injustices I see rather than walking quickly by trying not to get involved

Give more of my time to those that could use it well and spend less time with those that waste my time

Experience time by watching what is happening around me

Write lots of books because I had read lots of books

Eat really well and live a more balanced and healthy life

Own less, give away more, and experience the present without worrying about the future

If time were no obstacle someday I would..

Be kinder, gentler and more forgiving of myself and others

I would actually make the apologies I need to make for never really having enough time

After reading all of these things I remind myself that time is not and has never been an obstacle in my life.  The only obstacle is and has always been me.  The choices I make about how I spend my time have always been in my control.  In fact we have copious amounts of time given to us just as it is given to everyone.  What we choose to do with that time is really where the power of living well exists.  

Converting Energy

I have often thought that people touch the lives of other people in such a way that when the encounters ensue there is a transference of energy.  This transference can be reflected in emotions we feel in the presence of another.  Often times it comes just by being in proximity to another person, or sometimes it comes when we make physical contact such as a high five, a handshake, hug or a gentle touch.  At times it even comes when people are far apart simply when we think of another.  I believe that once we enter into relationships with people that the transference is always there ebbing and flowing much like currents of electricity.  Make no mistake this transference is not always positive.  There are people that do literally ignite us in positive ways with their presence and of course there are those that promote an equal and opposite response.  I think that it is also true that the same person can give us both positive and negative energy depending on the interaction.  The positive interactions can cause us to do so many wonderful things and aids in creating positive connections among people.  However, those negative interactions and the negative transference of energy that at times may accompany those interactions can be quite destructive.  

I want to focus for this post on the negative transference of energy.  I have seen in many people what can happen when there is a negative transference of energy.  I have seen stress, sleeplessness, agitation and even depression as an outcome of these interactions.  I have also seen first hand how the negative transference can distract, debilitate and even destroy a person.  This causes me to wonder whether or not it is possible to use negative energy for positive purposes.  That is to say could we take the negative and literally convert the current to create something positive from those very same feelings.  

A quick look through some of the famous persons in history suggest that perhaps it is not only possible to change the way the energy is used but it might well be that for more than a few of those persons the negative energy in fact inspired their greatness.  One example I often think of is that of Ernest Hemingway.  It is well known that he was a heavy drinker (that is putting it mildly) yet it is also believed that he did some of his best writing if not the majority of his writing while under the influence of alcohol.  Andy Warhol while incredibly creative also lived what some view as a tortured life.  Vincent van Gogh created some of his greatest masterpieces in his dark period succeeding the death of his father and during periods of intense loneliness.  And finally, Albert Einstein discovered and even worked through some of his most challenging thoughts and ideas while estranged from and corresponding with his soon to be ex-wife.  

Each of these people I believe managed to harness the energy that was negative in their lives and channel that energy to some positive result.  While a closer look at these individuals might also suggest that at some point their behaviors were ultimately destructive, we can perhaps see at least for a period of time that they were able to harness those energies and turn them in to something positive, productive and even beautiful.

It seems to me that perhaps how we experience those negative emotions in our lives is subject to what we choose to do.  We can choose to hold the negative and suffer or use what is pure energy and convert that to something which drives a positive result.  Can we take something that on its face seems not to serve us well and use it to inspire our greatness.  Or, like so many do we take the hurts and pains of life and allow them to drag us down.  In so doing perhaps we also then take our own pain and inflict pain upon others.  I think we can make a choice to use the negative to create the positive.  We can take our own pains and create joy.  We can choose not to suffer and instead share light.  To my thinking this would seem like an ideal way to use something that could be harmful and yet create something wonderful.  Like all things in life I believe that it all comes down to the choices we make.

Choose well.

Choosing the Hard Right

While checking my Facebook page this morning I saw a message from a close friend.  I was pleased to see her taking the time to catch up with me and once again I reminded myself that I too needed to be better at that.  Her note quickly caught me up with the big events going on in her life such as her daughter’s wedding this coming weekend.  She also wrote about a leadership course she had taken recently and how a lesson I taught her quite a few years ago proved useful in that class as she talked about her ability to prioritize the priorities in her life.  She recalled a discussion we had over lunch one day that helped her to understand the importance of choosing to spend time and energy on those things that are most important.  

I remember during that lunch that I did something that many of us do when discussing an idea.  To illustrate a point I grabbed a small paper napkin and began to scribble an illustration containing four boxes.  The boxes were an illustration of something I often teach at FranklinCovey about the four dimensions of our lives.  Those dimensions are the Physical, Social/Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual.  We talked about how important it is to have regular focus in each of these dimensions and even how sometimes people in our lives have a clear role in some or all of those dimensions.  We also talked about how sometimes our choices keep us from really spending time in those dimensions.  That discussion provided a moment of clarity for me and for my friend as we began to understand how sometimes certain choices, roles and even relationships can be placed at a higher priority than the most important roles we play in our own life and in the lives of others.  I now recall that we coined the phrase Choosing the Hard Right as a way of describing what we must do to make the best or right choice.  

The idea here is that in order to make the optimal choices in our lives we must consider at times things that are really hard to choose.  This could be as fundamental as choosing to actually get up when your alarm goes off in the morning rather than snoozing for “just 10 more minutes.”   Or choosing to give your best to a relationship that is struggling rather than surrendering to the many ways and choices we make in modern society to emotionally or physically abandon someone.  In their own way each of these are hard choices and generally we also know which of the choices in each circumstance is likely right for you at the time.  The difficulty is in making the harder choice.

There are several ways that you can use this idea to help you to consistently make more optimal choices in your life.  First it is important to remember that everything starts with a choice.  Even when we fail to choose we are in fact making a choice.  Second, always remember to protect what really matters to you.  Block time to do the things that you perceive as being the most important or having the highest payoff.  Third, start by making optimal choices with the small things such as fruit over pastry or a salad vs “fries with that.”  And finally, try to limit the distracting noises that can compete with your ability to make good choices.  Your brain really can not effectively handle too many things at once.  When choosing remember to put people first then things.  This small piece of advice has served me well over the years.

Newton’s laws of motion are very helpful here.  He said “to every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.  The ideal action is to choose the hard thing that you know to be right.  The equal and opposite reaction will be better health, improved relationships and greater clarity as you free yourself from fear, worry and doubt.  

A final thought:  Sometimes we have already made a choice without really thinking.  Pause for just a moment longer and try to better understand why you made the choice.  In that moment you may find great clarity in ways to make more optimal choices in the future and also to benefit from improved results.