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.  

I Love You But We Need to See Less of Each Other

I admit to having had an on again and off again love affair with coffee for over 35 years.  The cabinets and closets in our home reflect the many devices or methods that have gone in and out of vogue that have allowed me to enjoy my morning coffee.  So of course today it was not really unusual to begin the morning preparing my daily cup.  Except I became fully aware today about a shift that has been happening for the better part of this year.

At the beginning of this year I began doing research about the ways in which we do things that reduce our overall effectiveness.  This of course led to my becoming aware of the many legal ways we effectively damage our bodies and our brains.  We all know about many of these things such as smoking, alcohol abuse bad foods, too much sun, and yes even too much caffeine.  Yet, honestly so many of us still do many of these things despite evidence of the damage they can cause.  My new understanding of the damage done by the things I was doing in due course led me to work to further improve what I perceived to be a fairly healthy diet and lifestyle.  I reduced my sugar intake even further, tried and failed to reduce my potato chip consumption (still a real problem for me) and even worked harder to consistently get 7 hours of sleep each night.  I went back and forth about caffeine for a few months even experiencing a brief period when I swore off the drink completely.  My daily habits have changed and will continue to get better as I remain focused on these things.  But coffee still maintains a fairly central role in my daily routine.

This week as I began my re-entry to my work routine following our vacation a couple of things about Europe have continued to stay with me.  Most people know about the experience of sitting in a cafe in France, or Italy.  Usually when you speak to people that have spent time there almost everyone will talk about the wonderful experience of sitting in a cafe having their favorite beverage.  Like most people I too visited a number of cafes during our trip.  When I was able to do that in the morning I would have my morning coffee which of course meant an espresso.  In fact most mornings it actually meant having two or perhaps three espressos.  Today it struck me that perhaps I have had this whole thing wrong.  I simply took my American habits overseas with me.  While my home routine typically involves having enough coffee (meaning at least one large cup) to accompany my breakfast, what I saw in Europe was many people having just one espresso (with bread at times) and then going on their way.

For many years when I made coffee I made a pot.  This despite the fact that I am the only person in my home that drinks coffee.  Over time I have reduced this to smaller amounts for my personal consumption but usually I have made no less than four cups (as measured by the coffee maker meaning 32 ounces) even though more often than not I have thrown much of this away.  This year I moved back to making coffee in my Bialetti (remember I have all sorts of coffee making devices).  This is a simple coffee making device used in Italy to make coffee in relatively small amounts.  Still, my own Bialetti is large enough to make about one 12 ounces of coffee at once.  The coffee is quite strong when made in the Bialetti since the device is actually designed to make espresso.  I found myself sometimes pouring more than half of my cup away each day.  

Now I get it.  I think that people in some parts of the world have learned that sometimes we enjoy something best when we enjoy less of that thing.  Espresso cups are small not just because they are cute or sophisticated, but they are small because the suggestion is that you don’t need a lot of espresso (OK sometimes I admit to being slow).  Having two cups in the morning is perhaps more than you need and if you really do need more than one cup it suggests that what you really need is more sleep not more coffee.  

So as my ever evolving relationship with coffee continues we are now at a place where It will be just one espresso for me each morning (I love you coffee but I think we need to see less of each other).  I know that my body will function better with this reduced amount and perhaps I will grow to really enjoy that brief morning interlude.  After all, I do recall that sometimes the briefest of encounters are often times the greatest.  And so it goes for me and my morning drink.  Now if I could just balance out the rest of my day in this manner but I guess that is for yet another post.

Living The Dream

I have a client who when asked how he is doing always responds “I am living the dream.”  This has become a popular response and I hear it often particularly in business circles.  Often times I hear the response a bit sarcastically.  However, I know that this client really means it when he says that he is living the dream.  At least from all outward appearances he is successful financially and has a good family life and healthy productive children.  For most of us I believe that would qualify as living the dream. 

As I was thinking of this phrase this morning I found myself responding to a different client with my client’s response.  When asked how I was doing I responded, “I am living the dream.”  My client laughed and I could tell from their laugh that they thought I was responding in the sarcastic manner I hear so often.  However, the reality is that I was serious.  I really am “Living The Dream.”

Last night I read something that I wrote six years ago on April 20, 2005.  I found the document under a pile of magazines that I was filing.  I was writing about the need to understand who we are and who we want to be.  What I wrote then was that I wanted to be a person that read more, listened to others, and continually practiced self-examination.  I also wrote that I wanted to learn more so that I could positively impact the lives of others.  Finally, I wrote that I recognized that I was not “finished yet” and that I could see myself as a work in progress.  That was what I imagined six years ago and that is what I was dreaming I would become.  Last week as I worked with of small group of just under 20 people I recognized that I was impacting the lives of people almost every day.  The thought caused me to write the following as my revised mission statement:  To give to those whose lives I touch the best that I can be.  This is the shortest version of my personal mission statement that I have written in about seventeen years.  Yet, it really reflects what I was dreaming about six years ago. 

Living the dream for me is not a financial measure.  Neither is it a measure of business success.  Rather, it reflects that every day I have the chance to do something that really does impact the lives of the people closest to me, and that impacts the lives of my colleagues and clients.  It reflects that I have the opportunity to learn new things constantly, and I am learning to really listen to people.  While this last one has not been mastered just yet, I am getting better and I can see that in my interactions. 

What I am learning is that living the dream is by no means easy.  Yet, those that are doing just that are living fulfilled lives.  They are vibrant, they work hard, and they are happy.  One example is another colleague that yesterday completed the Boston Marathon.  He is 46 years old, a lifetime runner and he had a goal to qualify for and complete the Boston Marathon.  He is living the dream.  My colleague will not earn any sponsorship as a result of his performance yesterday.  He won’t make any more money at work as a result of the race, and today he is likely quite sore.  But I can bet with a high degree of certainty that yesterday he managed a smile and perhaps even a sigh of relief as he accomplished something that he hoped for and that a relative few will ever do.  I think this is really what living the dream is all about.  It is about doing what you dream of.  It is about accomplishing goals that you set in your life and doing what really matters. 

So many of us have dreams that we are waiting to begin.  We tell ourselves that we will do it when the time is right.  The fact is that now is the right time.  In fact there may never be a better time.  We need to start living the dream not tomorrow, but we need to start today.  My colleague that ran Boston yesterday began living the dream long before he ran in Boston.  He likely began living the dream before he ran his Boston qualifying time last fall.  I believe that every day that my colleague got up to go out for a run he was living the dream.  When he spent time talking to his son he was living the dream.  While he was doing his job each day he was living the dream.  I am willing to bet that my colleague has been living the dream perhaps even longer than he knows.

If we are waiting to start living the dream we run a tremendous risk.  We risk reaching the day when we look back at our lives and we say we did not do the things that were important to us.  Or we wish that we had done things differently, like take more time for those we love, or pursue a dream that we had when we were younger. 

Commit today to start living the dream.  You will need to say no to some things that have been standing in your way.  You may even need to say no to some of the things that impact those closest to you.  But in saying no you will be saying yes to your dreams.  Start now I mean literally right now.  Put this down and start living your dream.  If you don’t do it now you may some day have to say, “I wish I had lived my dream.”

Traveling Without Moving

In the 1984 Sci-Fi classic movie Dune a planet is at war over the “Spice.” The Spice enables a person to “Travel Without Moving.” I have always had trouble just getting my head around that concept and I find myself thinking of it often. Seems like a really cool idea. Well today I get to experience something pretty close. I am traveling to Atlanta later today and with my crutches moving is challenging. I could really use the Spice right now.

I am by any definition a frequent traveler. Marie (BTW she prefers her other name, FL) says I am a High Roller. I have all the perks that come with a job like mine including premium status on airlines and with hotels. These perks are really quite nice and they make travel a bit less stressful as you stand in shorter lines, board planes first, get the best seats, and preferred rooms. But none of these really matter much when you have trouble walking. No matter how short the line standing on one foot is a challenge. Today is going to be interesting. While I am a very good planner, this trip is going to challenge those skills. While I am admittedly anxious, a part of me welcomes the challenge.

When you are dependent on crutches you cannot walk through the screening device at the airport. The TSA personnel require that you put your crutches through the scanner which in my case will render me helpless. The result is that I am going to get my first ride in a wheel chair today. This also means holding a conversation with a complete stranger to whom I will probably have to explain my situation. You likely know just how much I am looking forward to that. I do think that there is a short line for wheel chair bound travelers so I guess that for me that part will be familiar. However, that is the least of my concerns. I typically travel with carryon luggage. It is rare for me to check a bag as the risks of losing your luggage are great and I have calculated that checked luggage adds at least an hour each way. This accounts for the time it takes to check the bag and to get it back from baggage claim. Last year I flew over 150 segments. If I had to check a bag each time I would be giving up nearly a week of my life to baggage. Additionally, checking luggage significantly shortens the life expectancy of your suitcase. I anticipate that when my foot heals I will also require a new bag. This whole broken foot thing is getting expensive.

The boot I am wearing is likely to qualify me for my first pat down by the TSA. This thought reminds me of a Friends episode where Chandler talks about the Tailor that “Makes an adjustment for you as he measures your trouser inseam.” You would have to have seen that one to get my point here. Let’s just say that I am not looking forward to “getting the adjustment” from some guy at the airport.

The cool news is that I have arranged for a car service to pick me up in Atlanta. Mostafa will meet me at baggage claim and that means that someone will actually get my bag for me. I can’t imagine how else I could move my bag. Even catching a cab requires that you get your bag out to the curb and I can’t manage that with the crutches. I spent some time thinking about this expense and it seems like it is not significantly greater than renting a car. I am going to have to start collecting information about this for all my trips.

I am flying to Atlanta through Charlotte. Both airports are huge. There are multiple escalators, moving walkways and great distances to travel. I am hoping to catch a ride on one of those annoying carts where the driver is doing their best to run over people as they attempt to navigate a strange place while pulling or carrying too much luggage and their frappuccino. I think I am going to get a different view of airports today.

I am asked constantly how I broke my foot. The story is boring. I was just running on a treadmill one morning. I have now concocted a new story. When asked how I broke my foot my new answer is as follows: “I think that discretion is quite important so let me just say that at a certain hotel recently I managed one morning to do something amazing that I had never done before. The experience left me soaking wet and with a broken foot. It will be six weeks before the doctors will permit me to try it again but I can’t wait.” I do hope you like the new version. But let me know if it needs improvement.

This is Day 5 of 42. There is so much more to come.

It Only Hurts When I Walk

At 5:30 in the morning in many hotel gyms the silence is wonderful. Occasionally, there might be one other ambitious traveler getting their morning workout in at this time of day but more often than not it is just me. Like most mornings I put on my earphones, started my playlist and began what I thought was going to be a 4 mile run. Despite my schedule of late I wanted to keep pace with my plan to run about 25 miles this week and I was already behind. The impact of snow and flight cancellations was also setting my running behind. I have a meeting beginning at 8:00 and I will need to arrive by 7:45 to get ready so I don’t have much time. I think I will kick up the pace a notch as this is a short run.

About 2.5 miles in to the run I hear an audible pop or snap sound. I can hear it through my earphones but it sounds like it was far away. That is until the pain arrives. Suddenly I can’t run. I get off the treadmill and try to walk but I can’t do that either. The pain is getting worse. I immediately think I have broken my foot and all I can think about is that I may not be able to run for a while. Seems strange that this is my first thought. There are many other things that should occur to me at this moment. First of all I am in Rochester, NY and this is not home. I am alone and may need help to get to my hotel room. I need to drive the car home and this will take at least 5 hours, and finally, I have a meeting with a client that we have been working for months to arrange. Yet, despite this, at the moment I am thinking of running. I realize in this instant just how important running has become in my life and I am experiencing fear of not being able to do it soon or perhaps ever again.

In life things change very quickly. The first change begins as I hobble back to my room. My foot hurts, I am sweating more than usual and it is too early to call anyone. Besides, what do I say? I am in Rochester and there isn’t anyone that is going to be able to come and help. I also need to get to my meeting. I shower and shave and conclude that the best thing I can do is to get my shoes on, tie them tightly, and get going so that is what I do. My foot feels pretty good once I actually get my shoe on so I drive to the client and I am only a few minutes later than I had planned. I encounter my first obstacle when I enter the building. The meeting is on the second floor of an older building and I am not aware of an elevator to get there. I am carrying my briefcase which weighs a ton and I am now learning that limping while carrying heavy objects is really hard to do. I make it to the board room where we will meet and I see the pleasant face of my colleague Tom. After I say hello I tell him that I think my foot is broken.

Our meeting requires a bit of facilitation, and presentation. I am wondering how much time I can stand on my feet. My colleague recognizes this without a word exchanged and he fills in as much as possible. I gamely limp to stand when necessary to make a point, or write a note on the flip chart. All in all the day goes very well but my brain is gradually giving in to pain and I am distracted. I will learn later that night that my foot is broken but for now the unknown and level of pain as I move about is making me just pray for the day to end. It does at around 3:00. Now I need to get down that flight of stairs to get to my car. Seven hours ago getting up the stairs was challenging. Now, getting down is excruciating and a difficult combination of balance and strength while reassuring my host that all is well. All is not well. I limp to the car, get inside and feel a rush of emotion. Not tears but a sense of fear. I need to get home and I need to do this without delay.

It is amazing how focused you can become when you are in pain. I make the drive home only stopping once for gas, protein bars and getting food from a drive through. I over buy but I don’t plan to stop again. Tonyia has made an appointment for me to have my foot looked at but I need to get there before 8:00 to be seen tonight. I need to get there because I need to know what I might be facing. I make it to the Doctor's by 7:40.

It does not take long at the Doctor’s to confirm with an x-ray that I have a stress fracture of the second metatarsal (my vocabulary is growing as I learn about my foot). The prognosis which is confirmed by the Orthopedic Doctor the next morning is 6 weeks no weight on the foot and an air cast. I can’t drive, I need crutches and I am now totally dependent on others for things I took for granted. I need doors opened for me, I can’t carry food and I take my messenger bag with me everywhere as my third pair of hands to hold things. I even need trousers that fit my current waist size with pant legs wide enough to go over the boot. I really am not in to the whole Pirate look of tucking my pants in to the boot and besides I think that would be uncomfortable. A shopping trip to the mall is required on the way home.

Yesterday I considered myself fit. At least with both my feet working well moving around the mall was never given a second thought. Now, I have to navigate the mall with crutches and I realize just how far it is to Banana Republic where I want to go to buy Khaki pants. I pass J. Crew and consider going in there but I just can’t imagine paying their prices for trousers. I forge ahead stopping to rest a couple of times and feeling awkward as people are staring at the guy with the crutches who is actually in the way. Yesterday I was just like them so I don’t get angry but I make a mental note to be more patient with people in the future. You just don’t know what they might be experiencing. I buy two pairs of trousers and begin planning my work wardrobe around my new casual look. You can’t really be fashionable when wearing a huge gray boot on your right foot. People tend to notice. I also decide that I need to wear a running shoe on my good foot after slipping a couple of times in my shoes. There goes a Harvey Young maxim. I used to say I only wear sneakers when I exercise. A lot of what I used to do is going to have to change.

Today is only day two of my 42 day journey. I have to fly to Atlanta on Monday and I expect that many lessons will be learned as I depend on porters and bellmen to move my luggage, face my first TSA pat down at the airport, and travel through the airport in a wheelchair since I can’t imagine making it through that distance on the crutches. Alex said that at least now you get on the plane first. I was actually grateful for that since I do not move quickly. I wonder can you get down the airplane isle with crutches.

I will blog about my experiences over these next 42 days. By the way, I am not writing to garner any sympathy, but I just think it will be helpful to share my experiences. I close today with a few notes to those of you in good health. If you are not exercising, despite my injury please begin immediately. I don’t think I could manage all of this if my balance was off, if I did not have good upper body strength, and if I were not aerobically fit. Despite all of that this is still very hard. For my friends my own age I also recommend you take your vitamins especially vitamin D and Calcium.

My final thought is a line I heard from Wille Jolley years ago “A setback is just a setup for a comeback.”

Ending the Pursuit of Busyness

I spend a considerable amount of my time thinking about the subject of productivity. Much of this has to do with the work I do with my clients but even on a personal level I think often about this subject. What I have come to believe is that rather than trying to be productive, many of us are lost in the pursuit of busyness. We have allowed digital tools to allow us to be busier than ever before. Just think about it. If you have a laptop, smartphone, instant messaging service and at least one social networking login (perhaps like the one that led you to this article) you could be totally busy all day but it is doubtful that at the end of the day you would find yourself to be truly productive. Yet, by all outward indications you would certainly appear to be busy as you check email, respond to text/instant messages, tweet, post, check-in and yammer all day. Now before you see this as a rant against technology and tools, let me admit that right now on my desk I have within easy reach a BlackBerry Torch, an iPhone 4 and an iPad, and believe it or not an old school notebook which is a ruled Moleskine. I looked at Twitter this morning, posted on Yammer, and have read and written a number of email messages. I think that all of these tools are wonderful when they are placed in the proper perspective and when we apply disciplines that lead to productive habits.

I was listening to a podcast yesterday where the founders of Twitter were being interviewed. One of them said that while he looks at Twitter throughout the day he only tweets about twice daily. I thought to myself, now that is cool. It reminded me of the Stephen Covey quote I so often find myself sharing with others “Technology and tools are helpful and useful when they are your servant and not your master.” The technology and the tools are not what gets in the way of our becoming more productive. Rather, as the old Walt Kelly Pogo cartoon reminds us “We have met the enemy and he is us.” While this might be very old advice written in a book dating back to 1951 and coming from a possum talking to an alligator and an owl, this is perhaps even more relevant today than ever. We are the reason that we are not productive. It is not our job, it is not our tools, it is not our boss. We are responsible for deploying the principles, tools, and disciplines that we need to be and to become more productive. We are the answer to winning the war against our reactionary nature and what has become a reactionary workflow that gets less done and takes more time than ever before.

I have already admitted that I am by no means a minimalist especially when it comes to technology. I greatly admire those that have such discipline. I admit to owning and using multiple digital tools, social networking sites, cloud storage, a host of blogs and podcasts. While I can attribute some of this to my work (I am a consultant that helps organizations create a culture that is Productive and Executes) it is also true that these are things that I enjoy. What I have learned in my work and on a more personal level is that in order to be truly productive and to ultimately be happy and less stressed we must make a number of choices and employ a set of disciplines that actually help us to execute with the minimal amount of distraction and with the greatest level of efficiency. In the end we must spend our time doing what is truly most important to us.

I think of this in the way I think of hiring a craftsman to work in my home. The really good ones have far more tools in their bag than they are likely to use when in my home. Yet, when they need a particular tool to do a particular job not only do they have the right tool, but they are expert in its use. I meet many professionals that have many of the same tools that I have but few actually have considered how their tools work together and even fewer still have any real idea about the capacity of their tools. While this has greatly increased the work of my consulting practice, I believe that what I get paid to do would also be beneficial for those that might not have an opportunity to work with me. What follows are my thoughts about ways that you can integrate your tools to combat reactionary work flow and develop effective productivity systems. For this article I will focus on just one of my systems but it is important to understand that there are really four vital systems that can improve work flow.

Most of us have multiple email accounts, and some sort of calendar system and to do or task list. In addition we likely attend meetings (the greatest loss of productivity of all time, but I digress) and have both face to face and telephone conversations during the day. I describe this often as places to be, things to do, and things to keep track of. Add to this the people you know and you can imagine the complications we all face in just managing information. In order to filter these most effectively I see these as fitting into one of four integral systems. These systems are our Capture Systems, our Processing Systems, our Synchronization System and our Storage System. For now let us explore the first of these which I call the Capture System.

Capture Systems are the tools you use to capture information. Generally these come down to electronic information (think email) or non-electronic (think meetings and conversations). Your capture system must contemplate capturing information when you are at your desk and when you are mobile if this applies to your work flow. The key to having an effective capture system is to make sure that the system does not place you in a reactionary workflow position. Reactionary workflow happens when we allow our systems to interrupt us at will. These constant interruptions are distracting and result in a loss of productivity. Studies have shown that as we experience these interruptions we lose between two and six minutes of productivity. When we multiply the number of interruptions we might experience in a particular day we can quickly imagine that the loss of productivity could quickly add up to several hours each day. So the solution is that we must combat this sense of reactionary workflow. Here are a couple of tips to accomplish this.

Turn off all notifications – Notifications are anything that makes you aware of incoming information at the moment it arrives. This can include anything from a pop-up window on your email to a buzz, beep or even a flashing light on your Smartphone. While it might seem radical for many to contemplate turning off these notifications, the productivity impact of increasing your focused attention is dramatic. I also recognize that many will argue that they are unable due to the nature of their work to turn off such notifications. However, it is my belief that this is just a point of view that requires a bit of examination. Perhaps just a personal examination will suffice. However, if there are issues of culture in your workplace a much larger examination is in order. Perhaps there is a need to establish operating guidelines as to expectations for responding to email, SMS, instant messaging, and voicemail. Once the expectations are clear everyone can then work more effectively. I think that with some examination we might find that instantaneous response is not required, necessary, or even expected. This is really a matter of culture and when an increase in productivity is desired adjustments can and must be made to the organizational culture. The result will be apparent as productivity goes up when interruptions go down.

Decide how you will capture information – Make a decision about how you intend to work. As I sit at my desk I have within easy reach both of my cell phones and an external monitor with which I can choose to see my email server. Yet, for the time that I am writing this article I have turned off the ringer on my cell phones (the flashing light was turned off over a year ago) and minimized the screen showing my email. I want to focus on the completion of this work and I know that being distracted by any of my capture systems would result in less not more productivity as I don’t imagine that any of my colleagues or friends will be sending timely advice or information for this article. In deciding how you will work you create disciplines around how you will capture information at your desk and how you will capture information when mobile. As an example when at my desk Outlook is my preferred method for receiving and responding to work email. For my personal email and for many mobile functions I use Gmail. When I am away from my desk I prefer my BlackBerry Torch with its combined qwerty keyboard and touch screen for managing and processing email (I will write another article about Processing Systems). Each of these enables me to read messages and to respond fully. I don’t make a distinction between mobile email and desktop email in terms of reading responding. In fact I try to make email transparent to the recipient (there is not message indicating that my response is coming from my BlackBerry). For information that comes to me by way of direct interaction either in the form of a conversation or a meeting I keep all of my notes in my Moleskine (I even find myself pasting a post-it onto a page if I captured information when my book was not handy which is rare but does happen). I have a simple dating, numbering and indexing system that helps me to keep notes chronologically, sequentially, and makes them searchable. The key discipline here is to write down everything without filtering and to keep it in one place. Finally, I capture my thoughts, ideas or just ramblings in my notebook usually on the left side of the page. I add to these the use of Voice Notes on my BlackBerry to capture ideas when driving or otherwise engaged and I use Evernote to capture pictures and video or ideas that I want to work on electronically. I arrived at these processes through what I heard someone refer to as “enlightened trial and error” and I am certain that they will evolve as technology and tools evolve.

I recommend that you think about the tools you use to capture information. Make adjustments that allow you to reduce the number of distractions you experience during the day. Develop your own set of disciplines with regard to response times or at least have a conversation within your organization about the culture and expectations for responses.

I have benefited from the wisdom and experiences of a number of thoughtful and innovative colleagues over the years. It is my hope in writing this that it provides a source of ideas and perhaps stimulates discussion for you and your organization. If you would like more information please don’t hesitate to contact me at harveywyoung@gmail.com.