Harry Tucker - Musings-in-a-Minute

You’ve Learned To Say No – How About Yes?

2011-07-10T10:47:00.001-07:00

There is an old adage that says that you become what you focus on.

As I contemplate that insight, I think about the many messages that we are bombarded with that insist we say “no” to.

Say “no” to drugs.

Say “no” to bullies.

Say “no” to the oppression of others.

Say “no” to ………..

I wonder sometimes if we have focused on saying “no” to so many things that we have forgotten how to say “yes” to much any more - that we have become conditioned to lean towards “no” when faced with a decision.

“No” seems so safe, doesn’t it? In a world of uncertainty, many people believe that while a “yes” may put them at high risk, the worst that a “no” can do is leave them where they were before with nothing gained BUT nothing lost either.

It is true that the ability to say “no” can be an important skill to have; for example if you are contemplating whether or not you should walk down that dark alley alone, invest in a company that claims to have perfected eternal life or jump out of a plane with a sleeping bag on your back instead of a parachute.

Perhaps the ability may be of some use when deciding if you really need that new car, the house that is twice is large as you really need or that second piece of cheese cake.

Yes, “no” can come in handy. :-)

However, sometimes, the Universe / God / karma / whatever will put things in front of us because we need to say “yes”.

Perhaps we need to say “yes” to better enable us for the next big step in our life.

Maybe we need to say “yes” to better enable us to serve others.

It is possible that we need to say “yes” to allow us to find a solution to a challenge.

Perhaps we need to say “yes” to create or experience collaboration, healing or love.

If we constantly use the word “no” every time an opportunity manifests, for whatever reason, then perhaps we are denying ourselves and others a chance to reach our fullest potential.

Learning to say “yes” more is not easy. The inability to say “yes” is rooted in many things, but I think the most common reasons are excess ego and fear.

Excess ego tells me that there is not enough in it for me, I can do it better myself or that the only one who can be trusted to get it done is myself.

Fear tells me that perhaps I am incapable of rising to the occasion of “yes”, that I may screw it up once I get engaged in the opportunity or that I am unworthy of the opportunity.

So “no’ slips out of our mouth or manifests in our actions much easier – there is a lot less to contemplate. After all, “no” doesn’t set us back (so we think) while “yes” often has to run the gauntlet of internal struggle, before eventually acquiescing to a “no” or the equally dangerous “maybe” that is presented as a potential “yes” but is actually meant to be a disguised “no”.

We can look at every experience that is placed in front of us, say “no” to everything (thinking we are playing it safe) and live our lives, oblivious to the potential we are denying in ourselves and others.

Playing it safe …….. yeah …… right.

I shared on a previous blog (“The Importance of Conversation”) how I happened to be in a situation a few years ago where a woman in my presence was contemplating suicide (I didn’t know it at the time). Something told me that something was wrong and I initially fought off the urge to say or do anything.

I wanted to say “no” to the feeling for a variety of reasons, but eventually I gave in to the feeling. I said “yes” to the Universe and engaged in conversation with a complete stranger.

In turn, she could have said “no”, discouraged my help and then completed the deed she had intended for herself.

However, she also said “yes”.

We both said “yes” and that made all the difference.

Perhaps if we explored “yes” a little more often we might find that Life is a lot more rewarding for ourselves and others.

I’m not suggesting that we be reckless about how we say “yes”.

However, to say “yes” more often is no more reckless than to say “no” more than we should.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

The detailed blog entry for “You’ve Learned To Say No – How About Yes?” is the same as this one and can be found here.

Seeing It Again For the First Time

2011-07-08T13:30:00.001-07:00

I was making a turn at an intersection today when I noticed, for the first time, that if I look between two buildings across the street, that I can see the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

I’ve made this turn a gazillion times.

I’ve seen those buildings a gazillion times.

Therefore, I have to have seen the Rocky Mountains between them a gazillion times.

But today is the first time I was aware of them.

A minor event that was occurring across the street as I was making the turn caused me to see them

As I completed my turn and drove on, I got to thinking about how often this happens in life.

Perhaps a similar situation exists in:

…. a relationship that is at an impasse because no one can see a way to heal it.

…. a business challenge that seems impossible to solve because it appears to be too complex.

…. a personal obstacle that one strains to overcome but stress levels or mental baggage prevent an objective evaluation of it.

…. an unexpected event that comes out of nowhere but threatens to delay a personal or professional project in play.

…. a global issue that threatens everyone but contains no obvious solution as people put posturing before solutions since posturing seems like the only way out.

Many times, the answer to the challenge that threatens to undermine the parties involved is right in front of them, literally staring back at them.

However, they have spent so long staring at the answer that they don’t actually see it.

Maybe, sometimes, we need to allow an external influence to help us to really SEE.

The external influence may be a seemingly random, insignificant event that distracts us for the brief moment that allows us to see things differently.

Perhaps it is something as simple as intentionally looking at something else for a short while (not recommended while driving).

Perhaps the external influence may be a fresh set of eyes who haven’t grown weary staring at the same thing that appears to have numbed our ability to see the obvious.

Perhaps …

Here’s an interesting experiment to try.

If you have a phone book (printed, electronic, whatever) look for your name or the name of someone you know who will be in the phonebook.

Scan down through the list until you find the person you are looking for and then scan across and look at their phone number.

Now …. close the book.

And with the book closed, identify the name of the person that appeared two names before the person you were looking for.

Most people cannot. You saw the name, you processed it for the moment and then you discarded it from your memory as no longer being essential, having served its purpose.

Some things are like that – essential for the moment but not important from the standpoint of being analyzed and remembered.

However, many things are important and yet we still don’t see them or make cognitive note of them.

When an external event, an objective observer or other influence causes you to “stop and see”, make a note of what you are experiencing. The message contained in what you see may be more important than you realize.

When I sit in quiet contemplation, seeking guidance to challenges and obstacles in front of me, I don’t pray for quick solutions or easy bailouts.

I quietly ask for guidance to help me to see.

What are you observing today?

More importantly, what do you SEE?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS. Maybe when we stop to “see”, we might also discover the beauty that exists in what we previously perceived as “the mundane”. :-)

My detailed entry for “Seeing It Again For the First Time”, is the same as this one and can be found here.

Sowing the Seeds of Hope

2011-07-07T15:10:00.001-07:00

As a strategy guy, I look upon the world some days with great concern. In fact, if I evaluate the world using the same lens and filters that I use when working with Fortune 25 companies, I am alarmed about where we are heading and how we are getting there.

However, every once in a while, I am reminded that we have reasons for hope.

Today I happened to overhear a performance review in a local Starbucks.

It was a very positive review for the Starbucks partner, which in itself is nothing new to any organization that values its processes and its staff.

However, listening to this review, I was deeply touched by the interaction.

The young partner is a wonderful example of the gifts that EVERYONE brings to the table in the journey we call Life.

She exemplifies the notion that EVERYONE on this planet has potential to make a huge difference to those around them.

She is an example of how EVERYONE deserves an opportunity to allow their gifts to shine.

She is also an example of someone who powerfully demonstrates that sometimes, if a person may not feel like they have equal opportunity to bring their gifts to the table, that ANYONE can accomplish what they put their mind to when we all work together to bring out the best in each other.

This young partner has Down’s Syndrome.

So what?

She is a powerful reminder that we must never dismiss someone just because we might perceive they are not as capable of others.

Because in truth, that is merely a perception and a poor, inaccurate one at that – nothing could be further from the truth.

And as I listen to this exchange built upon respect, love and encouragement, I am reminded of something else.

That as long as exchanges like this occur around the world, the seeds of hope are still being planted.

Seeds that have the potential to blossom into a world of incredible potential and beauty.

We are called every day to help plant seeds of hope whenever we can.

Have you planted your seeds today?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed version of “Sowing the Seeds of Hope” is the same as this one and can be found here.

The Blame Game – Less Fun Than Monopoly ….

2011-07-06T10:05:00.001-07:00

…. and not as productive either.

Recently, as an intellectual exercise and in the midst of all the hacking going on with large organizations, I explored some companies in the oil and gas sector in Canada in a non-intrusive way to see how secure their infrastructure was.

If I saw holes in their security, I sent the CTO / CIO / CEO (in that preference order, depending on who I found on their website) an email outlining the concern and how to fix it. The email also clearly stated I was providing this information as a complimentary service and was NOT a solicitation for business (the email contents is on my detailed blog here).

I know that such an email might be received with a little skepticism, as people who have an interest in helping while expecting nothing in return may be viewed with suspicion.

However, an email response I received this morning deserves special mention.

According to the email, one of the companies that I had contacted was in fact hacked over the weekend and some information was lifted from the servers and the CEO was holding me partially responsible.

To quote the gentleman from his email:

“I hold you partially responsible, Mr. Tucker. If you had worked harder at convincing me that you weren’t soliciting me and that your email wasn’t a prank, I would have taken the appropriate action that would have prevented this from happening.”.

Ah yes, the blame game. A one-minute test by his IT team would have determined that my email was quite authentic, both in diagnosis and recommendation for correction.

This was one minute he was unwilling to spend.

However, it took him more time to write the email to me than it would have taken to authenticate the message that I sent to him. The downstream ramifications of the intrusion are also unknown, depending on what information was lifted and who lifted it.

The universe is filled with messages, some containing opportunity and some containing warnings.

Oftentimes, we are so busy or we are so filled with ego, that we don’t hear these important messages.

Unfortunately, if we miss these messages and pay some type of penalty as a result, it seems pretty easy to find the time to explain why others are responsible for us not hearing the message.

I know for the many mistakes I have made in my Life, I could, at the time, find many people to blame.

Innocence feels pretty good, doesn’t it?

Yes, it is easy to blame others.

But if we do so, we hurt others unnecessarily and miss the opportunity for personal growth.

And if we insist on blaming others while missing the learning opportunity ….

…. the lesson will repeat itself

….. perhaps with increasing pain and pressure

….. until we finally get it.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a few messages to listen to from the Universe.

How about you?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “The Blame Game – Less Fun Than Monopoly ….” can be found here.

“I’m Lost”

2011-07-04T13:44:00.001-07:00

Allegedly you will never hear these words come out of the mouth of the average male driver. Apparently, we of the male gender would rather get lost in the middle of nowhere and die of hunger or thirst rather than admit that we don’t know where we are.

I wonder sometimes if this is true of many government or business leaders as well.

Perhaps it is true of many of us in general.

As a strategy guy, measurable outcomes are everything for me. My thought is that if you don’t know where you are going, you will never set out in the right direction, you will never know how close you are to your destination and you will never actually know when you arrive (if you do at all).

I often hear people say “we are tracking towards our objective”, “we are halfway there”, “we are almost there”, etc. and when I ask if they can actually define what the destination looks like, they haven’t the foggiest idea.

So my question then becomes …..

How do you know?

This question makes many people uncomfortable. They would rather live in a fantasy world where knowing is less important than just having a gut instinct that they will know what it looks like when they get there or where excessive ego assures them that they have it all under control and don’t need anyone else’s help to get there.

If they get there.

Lewis Carroll, with his brilliance in many areas, captured this conundrum perfectly with this insightful quote from “Alice in Wonderland”:

“ One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter. ”

So whether you have a personal or professional destination in mind, make it a point to know where you are going and having determined this, know the path you intend to take. You may not know what every inch of the path looks like in advance but choosing a path is still critical.

Because if you don’t know where you are going, any path will do.

The only problem with this is that the likelihood of you reaching your intended destination, having selected a path at random or allowing a path to be selected on your behalf, is relatively slim and for many people, almost non-existent.

Some people enjoy the journey, ignoring the destination. For those people, the path is probably irrelevant.

However, if the destination is important for you or for others who are depending on you, know what the destination looks like and have some idea how you are getting there.

Otherwise, at some point, there is a good chance that you may find yourself uttering the dreaded words:

“I’m lost”

Or even worse ….

… someone else, through their words or actions, may be telling you:

“You’re lost”

“We are all lost, thanks to you”.

Each of us is far too amazing a miracle to allow our gifts and talents to be hidden, misdirected or untapped because we didn’t know where we were going ….

…. or where we were being called to be, in fulfillment of our purpose and unlimited potential.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

This entry is the same as my detailed blog entry for “I’m Lost”, which can be found here.

If You Wait Until It’s Really Painful ….

2011-06-29T12:19:00.001-07:00

…. it may be too late.

I had the privilege last night to speak to Steve Nicander. Steve is an amazing man, having reduced his weight from around 650 pounds to 270 pounds and he is not done yet. The story of his courageous journey can be found here.

As I listened to the story of his incredible journey, I had to ask him, “What motivated you to change?”.

His answer was blunt and authentic. “I was in so much excruciating pain that I didn’t know how much longer I could continue”.

When I asked him what would have happened if he had pushed through the pain without making changes in his life, his reply was equally authentic, “I would have been dead in less than a year”.

Many times when organizations come to me for help, they are in a similar position. They have deferred or avoided important decisions, each decision seemingly insignificant at the moment but each one contributing a little more towards an inevitable, painful future.

The reasons for avoiding the decisions are common across many situations but the end-results are also … sadly … very similar.

They eventually find themselves in a very painful position, where decisions need to be made quickly, where the actions that must be taken may be extremely difficult or expensive, where the ego that says “I still have it under control” must be set aside and yet, if they delay much longer, they won’t have anything to fight for.

The life of their project or organization hangs in the balance.

Just as Steve’s life hung in the balance.

Unfortunately, many organizations and human beings don’t realize that every choice they make or fail to make takes them closer to or further away from a future filled with unlimited potential or painful disaster.

When we don’t appreciate the importance of every choice, we have a better chance of creating a future of reduced potential then we do of creating an empowered future. Unfortunately, the little bit of pain that we add with each poor choice is not noticeable until often it is too late.

While we think the choices that we have to make today are difficult, it is better to face them today then face life-or-death choices tomorrow.

Steve waited until he was forced to make a choice. Fortunately for Steve and for the many who will be inspired by his journey, it still wasn’t too late to make the right choice.

Not every person or organization will be so lucky when they reach the point where they are blinded by “pain” and don’t know whether to stop and get help or push through the pain.

They may be closer to finality then they realize.

When decision points are placed before us, we must always choose to step up and make the best choice we can.

We must choose to make them as if our Life depends on them.

Because it does.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “If You Wait Until It’s Really Painful ….” is the same as this one and can be found here.

Yellow Shirt Day – The Importance of Tradition

2011-06-28T08:27:00.001-07:00

Today is “Yellow Shirt Day” for me. I try to wear a yellow shirt every Tuesday if the opportunity allows.

Sounds pretty silly, doesn’t it?

About 11 years or so ago, I happened to wear a yellow shirt to work on a sunny Tuesday morning. One of the guys who worked with me, Narender Nath, also happened to wear a yellow shirt and we joked that no one else in the office had gotten the “Yellow Shirt Memo” and nothing else was made of it.

The following Tuesday, I thought of the laugh we had had and so I wore a yellow shirt to work just for fun.

As people arrived in the office that morning, I noticed something interesting.

Everybody was wearing a yellow shirt. Even people who didn’t own a yellow shirt had gone out and purchased one for that day. People saw the fun we were having the previous week and wanted to be part of it.

We thought it was so funny that we went out as a team for lunch and made a point of complimenting every random stranger who was wearing a yellow shirt on “Yellow Shirt Day”.

It was New York City – nobody thought we were weird.

“Yellow Shirt Day” became a part of our culture and we tried to wear a yellow shirt every Tuesday after that.

Now it is 11 years later, almost 10 years since Narender was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and I am still wearing a yellow shirt on Tuesday.

In the busy world we live in, we often overlook the importance of tradition.

It has a way of bringing people together and keeping them together, in spirit if not in body.

It can be a source of comfort.

It can give us something that unifies us, giving us a sense of commonality or camaraderie with others.

It can provide a link back through time, providing great memories.

It can be a source of inspiration, especially if the tradition is around giving or sharing.

And sometimes, as in this case, traditions provide “an inside joke” that create a sense of levity at the moment, something needed in the busy world that we live in.

Given all of this and at a time when the world can be a challenging place to live, I think traditions are more important than ever.

Traditions, whether at work, at home or amongst a group of friends, can be a powerful force that build upon friendship and love, creating memories that will be with you forever and potentially impacting people in unanticipated ways.

Traditions are important.

If you don’t have any traditions, look for ways to create them or be open to experiencing them. If you have them, cherish them and work hard to preserve and build upon them.

But don’t be surprised if many of the best traditions you may experience are the ones that start by accident.

And whether or not anybody else thinks they are cool, relevant or even make sense, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that the tradition matters to you.

And that’s all that matters ……

…… like ‘Yellow Shirt Day”.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “Yellow Shirt Day – The Importance of Tradition” is the same as this one and can be found here.

The Elusive Miracle

2011-06-24T10:55:00.001-07:00

I took a little time this morning to reorganize a gazillion projects that are going on at the same time, to prioritize my tasks and to drop a few things that were taking up too much of my brain.

I noticed at one point that I was surrounded by a LOT of newborns and I was struck by the contrast ….

…. of a new generation that is just coming into this world, with no knowledge of who they are or who they will be versus those of us whose lives are filled with responsibilities, opportunities, desires, dreams, successes, failures and everything in between.

… empty plates filled with potential versus full plates filled with expectations and responsibilities.

As I thought about how we are transformed from the moment of birth to the point where we are cognizant of our world and begin to make choices that affect our world and the world of those around us, I couldn’t help but stop and reflect on the miracle that this is.

Then it occurred to me.

I wonder if our perception of what a miracle is is perhaps flawed.

We tend to see miracles as some external event or influence that many of us hope to manifest to “save the day”.

I wonder what would happen if we turned the definition of miracle around and instead of perceiving it as an external event, we perceived it as something we are living within - not something we are hoping will happen.

Every day … in everything we experience.

Maybe … just maybe …. we need to stop praying for, wishing for, hoping for or dreaming of miracles.

Perhaps if we recognized and were open to the fact that we are already living in the middle of a miracle every moment, then we might change how we choose to manifest the future that we desire and perhaps might even change the results of our actions.

And as we recognize this, perhaps we need to acknowledge that the inability to say a resounding “yes” to the offerings of the Universe can be just as debilitating as the inability to say a resounding “no” to that which we don’t like.

Maybe the miracles we seek aren’t so elusive – maybe they’re all around us and within us. We just need to be open to accepting them.

We are all living miracles – it’s time we started living as them.

The next generation is counting on it.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

The detailed blog entry for “The Elusive Miracle” can be found here.

Strategy and Monty Python’s Dead Parrot Sketch

2011-06-23T09:44:00.001-07:00

I was in a meeting with an organization and their PR firm a couple of days ago to attempt to save a company that had flat lined when all of a sudden I felt like I had been written into Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot Sketch”.

For those who are not familiar with the sketch, John Cleese plays the role of a guy who bought a parrot at a pet shop but the parrot that had been sold to him was dead from the start. When he returns it to the store, the store owner does everything he can to prove that the bird is not really dead but is resting. If you are interested in the clip, I have a link to it at the end of this blog entry.

The organization I was speaking to was in real trouble, hemorrhaging money for years and with no semblance of any type of strategic plan or tactical roadmap in any area including corporate, finance, product development, competitive analysis, sales, etc.

The reason they had no strategy was because the PR firm in question had challenged the need for strategy some years before. Apparently they had reasoned then that it was better to craft a strong branding strategy than it was to set strategy around things that might be impossible to attain. Plus, it seems that the financials for this organization looked pretty bad a couple of years ago and it was more fun to dream about pretty promotions than stark realities. “You’ve got to think positive” was the mantra of the PR guy.

As I listened to this, I couldn’t help but think of the “Dead Parrot Sketch”. While John Cleese was describing how his parrot was dead, the pet shop owner, ever the spin master, was complimenting the bird on it’s beautiful plumage. When Cleese pointed out that the bird never moved, the pet shop owner indicated that it was resting after a long squawk. Finally, Cleese said that the only reason the bird was sitting on its perch was because it had been nailed there, to which the pet shop owner indicated that if he didn’t nail the bird to the perch, it would have “muscled its way through the bars”.

Fortunately or unfortunately, reality is not always pretty or fun and spinning it to look like that which it is not is not helpful or useful. It therefore makes sense that the process of strategic planning must be grounded in reality (even when the reality is not pretty), otherwise the results of the organization will be haphazard at best and probably fatal in the long run.

Casting a bright, empowered future is fun and exhilarating.

However, if we don’t accept reality in assessing our as-is situation or we choose to spin it to look like something else, then we have no hope of getting to the desired outcome that we dream about.

In fact, we may have a dead parrot on our hands.

Beautiful plumage … but still dead.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “Strategy and Monty Python’s Dead Parrot Sketch” is the same as this one and can be found here.

Here is the clip – warning – strong language in parts.

As You Sow …..

2011-06-21T09:59:00.001-07:00

… so shall you reap.

So goes the expression.

Financial institutions, government organizations and other corporations have found themselves to be hacked at-will in recent weeks by a couple of different hacker groups. The organizations who have been hacked claim to be victims of “Internet bullies”, citing they are doing all that they can to prevent loss of data, customer privacy and consumer confidence.

And so I wasn’t really surprised when a household name in the US banking industry posted a position last week in some of the major job search engines, looking for a senior security expert, someone who would help them architect a stronger, more hack-proof system for their infrastructure.

However, I was really surprised to see the minimum qualifications:

Must have graduated high school
Should (not “must”) have two years experience in IT

Meanwhile, a retail giant and household name brand (in sports apparel and clothing verticals amongst others) in Canada seeks a corporate strategy advisor to lay the roadmap for the entire organization’s strategy as they make their way through the challenges the world currently faces.

While they require more education than high school, they also preferred a minimum of two years experience.

Billions of dollars and thousands of jobs on the line, in a world that is complex to navigate …. all hanging in the balance with someone who should have at least two years experience.

As someone who spends his day helping people navigate the complex world of strategy and tactics, when I see these organizations making such choices, I realize that it is time to short their stock.

Why? Because the outcome is extremely predictable and unfortunately for many innocent people, it won’t be pretty. As the leaders of these organizations sow, so shall their customers and staff reap.

And that is the most unfortunate part of all.

We must do better – we owe it to the generations that follow ours if we are to remain a society of strength and opportunity moving forward.

Don’t we all want the best for our children and the next generation?

I thought so – then it’s time to demand the best from ourselves and others.

For as we sow, surely we will reap.

And I’m not entirely convinced the current harvest is the best we are capable of.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “As You Sow ….” is the same as this one and can be found here.

I’m Getting Nothing Done Today …. Or Maybe …

2011-05-10T13:09:00.001-07:00

I started the day with a lot of great intentions , many of which I am making my way through but not quite the way I had hoped. I’m usually fairly disciplined about how I approach my day and goodness knows that I have a full task list of high priority items these days.

So what’s slowing my day down today?

Interruptions …. by people who have always wanted to say hi to me but didn’t previously, by people intrigued by a book in front of me, by people who just wanted to stop by to say “hi”, etc.

Ordinarily, I have no issue saying “no” to people.

However, today, despite the pressure of my workload, I didn’t say “no”. In fact, every time someone stopped by to chat, a quiet voice said “Be still and listen”.

And I did.

And by doing so, I was blessed, honored and privileged to share some time with people who, like all of us, are on a journey filled with wonder, excitement, complexity, difficulty and challenge.

Journeys that invite us to be the best we can be while challenging us to overcome obstacles that we may sometimes feel cannot be overcome.

Many times on such journeys, it is beneficial or essential to stop, to rest, to recharge or just to exchange a thought with someone else on their own journey.

And so today, different people on their respective journeys took a moment and provided me with the privilege of exchange, inviting me into their journey while asking me about mine.

These little moments may seem like coincidental moments, fleeting, random connections that have no impact.

But everything we do in Life has impact.

Sometimes we may not see it or believe it.

But the impact is there if we embrace the moment and allow the seed of potential to be planted.

And as I think about this seed of potential, I wonder what our encounters may have created today.

Maybe such encounters will have an impact far more profound than finishing my to-do list ever would have.

Which causes me to think that maybe I actually achieved a lot more today than I could have ever hoped to accomplish by myself.

Or rather … perhaps WE achieved a lot more today than WE set out to accomplish.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “I’m Getting Nothing Done Today …. Or Maybe ….” is the same as this one and can be found here.

Time to Wake Up and Smell the …

2011-05-04T08:59:00.001-07:00

Some interesting headlines in the news this morning ……

1 in 7 Americans are now using food stamps or some other type of assistance (source). I guess it is good to see that the economic recovery is well underway in America and that the average citizen has nothing to worry about. Maybe the lawmakers are so far removed from this that in absence of pain on their part, they assume all is going well.
US military used the name Geronimo as the code name for bin Laden, proudly announcing they had killed “Geronimo” when the task was completed (source). No disrespect intended to our indigenous people, right? Yeah …… sure.
President Obama plans to use a Ground Zero speech to propel his personal political future (source). Because there’s nothing better than leveraging the loss of thousands of innocent people for personal gain, is there. Bin Laden is dead … but this changes little for many people who would rather have their loved ones home, alive and well.

While I am usually tremendously optimistic about the future of America, the possibility of such a future doesn’t just happen because America is a great country, because it has positive momentum towards unlimited potential and because it’s leadership is solely focused on the great citizens of America and not on their own personal gain.

It’s because the wonderful people of the great country that is the United States of America have always been known for doing the right thing and not just following the rhetoric being dished up to them by anyone, home or abroad.

But when I see headlines like the ones I note above, I can’t help but wonder if those wonderful people aren’t paying attention, since I don’t hear the public outcry demanding that things improve.

Or maybe these wonderful people are so crushed just trying to survive that they are unable to worry about these types of headlines. After all, isn’t it easier to be consumed by the features in the next “smart phone du jour” than the future of one’s country?

If only such priorities improved the potential of the country.

The fact of the matter is that until we find the strength, courage and desire to hold our leaders accountable for providing accurate, transparent, authentic, respectful information and leadership, then we are not assured of being able to make the best decisions possible in our lives.

And when this happens, the opportunity to create continued growth and optimism is limited or delayed, creating additional difficulty for the millions of great Americans who are good, honest, hard-working people trying to create a better world for themselves, their families and their country.

So when the rhetoric or misinformation flies, it is indeed time to “wake up and smell the coffee” and to call it the way we see it, demanding better of our leaders just as better is demanded of us by them.

Otherwise it may not be coffee we are smelling … and that’s not helpful for anybody.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog for “Time to Wake Up and Smell the ….” contains the same entry and can be found here.

Random Connections … Or Are They?

2011-04-29T14:02:00.001-07:00

It’s a quiet afternoon at Starbucks store #4853, in a community within Calgary, Alberta known as Copperfield.

It’s rarely this quiet, although I savor the moment and reflect on the time I have spent here, Starbucks being my office away from the office when I am not with clients.

I am reflecting on the Life stories of everyone here, whether it be the GREAT staff or the customers who come and go in a steady stream.

I find it fascinating to see how the Life stories of people are brought together randomly in places like this, sometimes for a brief, temporary moment and sometimes planting a seed for a lifelong relationship.

These connections are random, aren’t they? What value would there be in assuming they are anything but accidental, meaningless interactions?

Assuming they are merely a collection of chance encounters, wouldn’t it be a tremendous waste of time to bother attempting to create anything from them?

Perhaps.

But imagine, just for a moment, that none of them are random, accidental encounters.

Imagine if we were privy to the secret that every random encounter was a gift, a chance for us to create something of unlimited potential between two or more individuals.

I can’t help but think that if we looked at every chance encounter as a gift of unlimited potential, we might look at every encounter a little differently.

I’m not suggesting that we start passing out business cards to every stranger that we meet.

However, if we were more open to hearing the “quiet voice” as we go through our busy lives, we might allow ourselves to be open to the fact that every person who crosses our path has done so for a reason.

We may not know the reason right away. It is possible that we will never learn the reason at all.

But to acknowledge the gift of connections opens us to new possibilities that we may have closed the door on before.

When we have an opportunity to look back through our memories, every connection seems to be anything but random.

Recognizing this should remind us of the potential gift in every connection that we make.

Such a gift only matters if we accept this gift with gratitude and do something to proactively acknowledge and nurture it.

Otherwise, we may be saying “no thank you” to the most profound potential imaginable in our lives.

And who wants to do this?

So if I see you in a Starbucks (or anywhere else), please forgive me if I say “hello” and strike up a conversation.

By doing so, I am simply acknowledging and exploring the miracle of our seemingly random connection.

And the miracle of our unlimited potential.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “Random Connections … Or Are They?” can be found here.

If My Question Offends You ….

2011-04-21T12:00:00.001-07:00

As a long-time strategy and global technology adoption architect, my opinion is often solicited, whether it be by a start-up, a not-for-profit, a Fortune 25 company or anything in-between.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) for the people who solicit my help, I am known as the “asker of audacious questions”.

People come to me expecting to ask a lot of questions, get a lot of answers and move on.

However, many are surprised that I often have more questions for them than they have for me and if they are unprepared or have weak egos, they will be offended by them.

There is a little secret about why I ask so many questions.

It’s not an attempt to assert one person’s intelligence over another. We are all gifted in intelligence in different forms.

It’s not an attempt to embarrass them, create a contest of wills or play ego-Olympics. What a waste of time and energy that is.

Frankly, I find everyone’s ideas fascinating. I am curious to know if you find your own story as compelling and based on reality as you would like me to believe it is.

However, the most important reason I ask so many questions is because I believe, as I learned from Gerald Weinberg’s writings many years ago, that when people come seeking advice or a solution to a problem, often they as the subject matter expert actually have within their mind the very solution they hope to obtain from someone else’s mind.

Mr. Weinberg posited that if one listens carefully, the owner of a problem will actually state the answer in the first five minutes of dialog. Mr. Weinberg named this rule …. gasp … wait for it … The 5 Minute Rule. It is brilliant in its simplicity.

Of course, the owner of the problem is so buried with mental baggage that they can’t see the answer. The people they approach for help are often so focused on proving that they are the “right person for the job” that they don’t hear it either, since in an effort to demonstrate intelligence or qualifications their own voice drowns out the person asking for help.

However, if the right questions are asked, probing the mind of the person with the problem and one listens carefully to the answers, the solution often presents itself.

People like me don’t just help others find a solution. Often times they had it within themselves – they just needed a little help finding it, bringing it out and expressing it.

Asking appropriate questions provide an opportunity to explore within another, the strength of an idea, the thoroughness of the foundation that converts the idea into a result and the willingness of an individual to collaborate in making the idea into a reality.

It is also an opportunity to assess how strongly someone feels about their willingness to do whatever it takes to make their dream come true.

If they get offended by a question, there is a good chance that they prefer not to deal with realities or that their ego doesn’t want to acknowledge that they may need some help.

For those people, being offended by simple questions should sound an alert that they are either not prepared for success or hungry enough for it.

And so if my question offends you, forgive me if I tell you that I won’t apologize to you.

If you are offended, you, me or both of us may have been saved from a disaster.

Maybe ……. unless you choose to go somewhere else where you hear what you want to hear and not what you need to hear.

Unfortunately in those situations, reality is a persistent beast. It tells us what we need to hear repeatedly until we get it.

Or … if we ignore it too long … it gets us.

But then, you already knew that … didn’t you? :-)

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “If My Question Offends You ….” is the same as this one and can be found here.

An Army of One

2011-04-12T14:13:00.001-07:00

“Be An Army of One” was a short-lived slogan used by the US Army in the mid 2000’s. The vision of a single individual, bravely fighting off the hoards was thought to be an admirable vision to promote.

The great challenge with an army of one is that no matter how romantic the notion of the valiant solider holding off the masses in Rambo-like fashion is, eventually the army of one runs out of energy, resources and luck and is overrun.

The same is true in Life. There are times when we must be the army of one, bravely standing up for what needs to be stood up for, striving for a vision that is important or courageously fighting off the hoards until the cavalry arrives.

Many times a situation calls for a leader to step forward whose vision, insight, knowledge, strengths and charisma inspire us and lead us towards whatever we define as victory.

However, once the leader has identified “the hill to be taken”, does the leader charge up the hill without support?

Not at all – because an army of one quickly becomes an army of none.

I am in the process of watching two not-for-profits and three for-profit companies die, taking tens of millions of dollars with them, because their leaders have decided to take the hill on their own.

Meanwhile, the talented, enabled, empowered members of their team who would help them take the hill are waiting for their orders or have been ordered to stand down until needed. Some have gone AWOL with the hope of finding a better leader.

Perhaps the leaders of these organizations have plans to name the hill after themselves when they take it. Owning the credit is something their ego-based existence dreams of, even as they deny it to themselves and others.

The thing that these leaders miss is that if they really want to plant the flag at the top of the hill, then they need to take the hill as a team.

Every one of their team members bring strengths, insights, talents and knowledge to the table that will help the team take the hill together.

Leaders who don’t effectively use their teams to be all they can be in taking the hill together soon discover an interesting lesson.

When it’s you against the world, the safest bet is on the world.

Leaders have a choice – they can plant the flag on top of the hill when the team succeeds together.

Or they can choose to be buried at the bottom of it.

The choice seems pretty obvious if the focus is on the ultimate result rather than the promotion of someone’s ego.

But then again, if it were so obvious, I wouldn’t be watching these leaders storm the hill by themselves right now, would I?

Be an army of one when you need to be – but know when the cavalry is needed to carry the day.

The result will be something to celebrate together.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “An Army of One” is the same as this one and can be found here.

I Met a Man On a Journey

2011-04-10T13:30:00.001-07:00

As I sat in Mass this morning, I happened to catch sight of a middle-aged Asian gentleman with a slight limp.

The origin of his limp, which he plays down, includes a complex voyage that started in an Asian nation in turmoil in the 60’s, hiding from troops from both sides of the conflict, coming to Canada as a boat person in the 70’s and devoting himself to service to others in the 21st century.

He has been on quite a journey up to now, but you will never hear any stories from him. His humility prevents him from sharing his story and so you must hear his story from others.

As I thought about his journey, I couldn’t help but think of the journey that everyone in that church was on and the stories they could tell.

Stories of overcoming difficulty, of sharing with others in need, of receiving help when needed most, of laughter and loss, of victory and defeat.

Some of these stories are almost too incredible to believe; stories that if presented as a Hollywood movie would invite many to scoff at the impossibility of such perceived fiction.

And yet these stories happened.

Stories that could make the most hardened person laugh in delight ….

… the thickest-skinned weep …

… the most down-trodden see hope …

… the most negative person see potential …

… the most proud feel humbled …

… the most humble feel exalted.

Every day, billions of people set about creating stories and participating in them, each collection of stories appearing to be its own unique collection.

Despite our differences of genetics, culture, race, religion, creed, careers and social status, it is our Life stories that define who we are and create the potential for what we can be.

In our busy Life, it is easy to forget the journey that others are on. Our own journey either overloads us with amazing joy or threatens to overwhelm us with its crushing challenges.

It is easy to forget others in need when our world is filled with plenty. Conversely, it is easy to feel alone when we perceive the rest of the world as having moved on without us or not pausing to lend us a hand.

However, as we go through Life creating new stories (or reliving old ones), there is an important thing we shouldn’t forget.

Our stories are actually not individualized collections of stories at all.

They are in fact one very large story with many perceived insights into the same story. Everything we think, say and do in the process of creating our perceived individual stories contributes to the story of others, including many people we will never meet.

And by the same token, their experiences of triumph, challenge, victory, defeat and love influence our Life Story, even if we are not aware of it.

Such is the Story of Our Journey.

I met a man on a journey.

It wasn’t his journey to share with me.

Nor was it mine to share with him.

It was ours to create together.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “I Met a Man On a Journey” is the same is this one and can be found here.

Passion is Great … Most Times

2011-04-06T14:45:00.001-07:00

I have been watching the Canadian election unfold on Facebook, Twitter and other media and frankly, the process that is evolving is somewhat disappointing.

The passion that both candidates and voters are exhibiting is quite cool. Having a passion for what one does and believes in is an essential part of Life. In some parts of Canada, such as my native Newfoundland and Labrador, politics is right up there with religion as a way of Life.

However, once one gets past the passion in search of the facts that can make a voter an informed one, things become a little murky.

I have asked different people in various forums to explain how a policy by insert federal leader name here would be paid for or is better than an opponent’s idea and in over 90% of the cases the result is the same.

No matter whose policy I name, the people defending that person deliver a litany of personal remarks against the followers of any of the other leaders.

But alas, very rarely does anyone just answer the question in a fact-based way.

This suggests that the rabid followers of the different political parties don’t know the facts (either that or the facts are so secret that the rest of us aren’t privy to them).

It has often been said that people who don’t know the facts or run out of facts or justification for an opinion often resort to personal attacks or insults with the hope of bullying their opponent into submission.

This happens in business, politics and Life itself – a sad, unfortunate truth that prevents us from reaching our ultimate potential in so many aspects of society. Many times, the loudest person carries the day over the smartest one.

The great challenge is that when we use passion alone to steamroll over people instead of choosing to be informed and using this knowledge to convince others, there’s a good chance we turn many people away whom we may have convinced to become a partner or collaborator with us.

When this happens, the result we are trying to bully others into creating for us becomes even more elusive.

And instead of creating a desired result, we may end up creating the very result that we complained so hard about needing to avoid in the first place.

Ahhhhhhh …. I really am a dreamer, am I not … to be trapped in the belief of a utopian world where:

We seek knowledge to be informed and educated …
We use logic and facts to respectfully make a point or to convince an opponent …
We value the opinions of others, even when we disagree with them …
We embrace the notion that no matter what happens, we are all in this together, to make our world a better one for all of us …
We find a way to wrap passion around all of this so that we push ourselves and others to be the best we can be without wasting our potential by crushing each other.

I guess I am more an idealist than I thought. :-)

As a Canadian who has lived abroad for a long time, the one thing I worry about is the level of disrespect I see between Canadians who are passionately promoting their choice while using their passion to trash the opposition.

Facts are often absent or seem irrelevant – steamrolling others seems to carry more weight.

Canadians often espouse their passion but also their humility, pointing at their neighbors to the south and saying “thank goodness we don’t act like them at election time”. Hmmmmm …. are we sure about that?

I believe that the longer one stays uninformed about the workings of the world, the greater the chance the world will move in a direction that we may not be happy with. By not choosing to understand it, our ability to influence it diminishes over time.

And this above all, worries me.

How about you?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “Passion is Great … Most Times” is the same as this blog entry and can be found here.

Quarantine Area - Fragile Ego Present

2011-03-30T14:22:00.001-07:00

I have noted with interest and concern in recent years, a sharp increase in a terrible disease that can destroy individuals, projects and even corporations.

No one is exempt from this dastardly scourge and many of us have witnessed it’s deadly impact or been adversely impacted by it.

It is also highly contagious and we must be wary lest we become infected, caught up in its deadly embrace.

The disease is known as egofragilis, better known as fragile ego.

We all know about ego, the oft-explored, well-documented element of our psyche that provides us with the confidence to do what needs to be done and the cockiness to destroy it all in the process.

When we embrace and direct our ego appropriately, we create the opportunity for our unlimited skills, talents, strengths and abilities to create things that stagger the imagination.

When we allow our ego to control and direct us in turn, we nullify our opportunity to create these amazing things, limiting our results and the results of others to a small fraction of it’s ultimate potential.

If we allow our ego to be crushed altogether, we become a doormat to the world and feel like we have little of value to contribute.

The symptoms are many and are described in my detailed blog entry for “Quarantine Area – Fragile Ego Present”.

The worst part of this terrible affliction is that while it is easy to diagnose it in others, it is not always easy to self-diagnose it in ourselves.

And that fact alone makes such a disease so dangerous, that we could become afflicted with something that could be destroying the potential of others as well as our own potential and we wouldn’t be aware that it is happening.

Never be afraid to stand up to ego when one sees it steamrolling over others.

But more importantly, be open to the suggestion that one’s own ego may be doing the steamrolling.

We can’t always improve the behavior of others.

However, we are accountable and responsible for our own behavior –it is something within our power to improve.

And since we are responsible for such improvement, we have an obligation to strive every day to be a better person ….

… including eradicating the terrible affliction of egofragilis.

Sometimes it takes a cranial defibrillator to fully get rid of egofragilis – but it’s worth it. :-)

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “Quarantine Area – Fragile Ego Present” can be found here.

An Entrepreneur’s Checklist

2011-03-29T21:33:00.001-07:00

Over the course of the years, I have been blessed to be approached by many self-professed entrepreneurs who have great ideas they would like me to partner on.

While the ideas are often great, my primary interest is in the person behind the idea. After all, there are many great ideas out there waiting for the right collaboration of minds to execute.

The right minds that can create success from such collaboration are rare.

And with that, I was musing about an entrepreneur evaluation checklist that would include but not be limited to the following criteria.

Be …	Don’t Be …

Humble	Filled with low self esteem

Audacious	Arrogant

Aggressive	Reckless

A collaborator	A one-man-band

Patient when needed	Complacent

Transparent	Mysterious

A visionary	A dreamer

Strategic	Paralyzed by excessive analysis

Tactical	Chaotic

Someone who perseveres	Someone who doesn’t know when to change direction or stop altogether

Proud	Too proud

Data / fact-based	Wishful thinking-based

Outcome-based	Luck-based

A communicator	Vague

Someone who understands one’s strengths	Someone who doesn’t understand or accept their weaknesses

Someone who will do what it takes	Someone who doesn’t know when to pull back

An educated risk-taker	A misinformed one

Confident	Uncertain

Focused	Random or all-over-the-map

Innovative	Regressive

Direct	Evasive

Passionate	Wide-eyed and scary

Proactive	Passive

Respectful	Wimpy

Flexible when required	Too flexible or inflexible

Stalwart	Cocky

Values / character-based	Wishy-washy or unpredictable

Authentic	What everyone else wants you to be

Gracious with accolades	Needing all the credit

Yes, these are obvious, common sense concepts. However, I wonder why they are not commonly held by entrepreneurs given the fact that they are such common sense.

A great idea is obviously critical to a successful venture.

Equally critical to a successful venture is the nature of the minds behind the idea.

It is because of this simple fact that so many brilliant ideas that should have been successful have failed while some seemingly innocuous ideas have propelled to greatness.

Knowing the nature of the minds behind the ideas will help identify the difference between failure, success or entertainment for others.

Understanding the mind of the entrepreneur will also help you to know whether you are about to make a leap towards success for yourself and others or you are about to waste your time, energy, talent and possibly money.

Be audacious in your evaluation – you’re worth it.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “An Entrepreneur’s Checklist” is the same as this one and can be found here.

Addendum – March 30, 2011

Maybe this is not just an entrepreneur’s checklist. As I absorb the emails being sent to me about this blog, I wonder if this is a checklist for how to engage with and collaborate with others.

Maybe ……………………

I have also received a lot of comments about the importance of faith. I deliberately didn’t mention it here as faith is a very personal choice. I will say that for those who make their faith an important part of their Life (as I do), may they use it to find wisdom, strength, courage and insight and not use it as a hammer to wield power over others or as an excuse to execute poorly with the belief that “Someone Else” will bail them out constantly from their own ignorance, stupidity or slothfulness.

The Quest for Authenticity

2011-03-29T11:19:00.001-07:00

I live in a professional world that has, as one of its core foundational components, the importance of secrecy and confidentiality. It is an interesting and complicated world, a world where the decisions that are made have the potential to create or destroy the dreams and aspirations of many people who will never know who I am, who my colleagues are or who the organizations are that we serve. It is also a world that cannot be shared.

And as I acknowledge the impact that many of us have, I realize something else that is also an underlying part of the role that I play.

For many people whom I will never meet, the role I and others in my space play in their lives seems almost “God-like” – having the power to create and destroy at will. Many who are affected by the decisions we make will never know where the miracle or disaster originated from.

Acknowledging this creates an interesting structural tension within me as I contemplate the ramifications of this and as I do so, I think about the “Quest for Authenticity Tour” that myself and my wonderful friend Leonard Szymcazk (author of “The Roadmap Home: Your GPS to Inner Peace”) have discussed for a couple of years.

The notion of the tour came as a result of discussion around the fact that a lot of people perceive many things in the world as being inauthentic. Authenticity has become a bit of a buzzword these days and we can all think of examples of authentic and inauthentic things.

However, one of the many things I have learned from Leonard is that we often project onto the world that which we perceive within ourselves.

And as I think about the intentions of the Authenticity Tour, the thoughts I have been reflecting upon and Leonard’s wisdom, I realize that the Authenticity Tour was not born from the need to explore whether things in the world are authentic or not.

It was born from the fact that I was wrestling with my own sense of authenticity.

As I think about this and discuss it with others, I realize that it is a journey that many people are on.

The Quest for Authenticity is not a tour – it is a journey that most of us are on, a journey we share, a journey where we learn from others and others learn from us – but only if we allow it. It is also a journey where we should look within before we judge the authenticity of others.

And when we reach that point where we are not afraid to share unconditionally, to express ourselves unconditionally, to be open to learning from others unconditionally and to love unconditionally, at that point we will be as close to authenticity as we can get.

It will be at that point that our greatest potential will be revealed to ourselves and others.

How goes YOUR journey?

In service and servanthood, a fellow traveler on the quest for authenticity.

Harry

For my detailed blog entry about “The Quest for Authenticity”, please click here.

The Parallels of Chess and Life

2011-03-22T11:56:00.001-07:00

I’m in the process of playing a game of correspondence chess with my dear friend Roberto L. – two friends from opposite sides of “the pond”, brought together in New York City many years ago and now living on opposite sides of “the pond” again and still bound in friendship.

People who follow me on Facebook have been watching the game’s progress on my wall. Nathan L., one of my FB friends, made some observations about the game that prompted me to think about the parallels between chess and Life.

As with Life, the game always begins with the same characteristics, namely:

Unlimited potential for every participant
The danger of encountering as-yet unknown traps, challenges and pitfalls
The possibility of overcoming these challenges and creating victory
The opportunity to create a friendship out of an acquaintance or to strengthen an existing friendship
The possibility of learning from the experience and growing as a result.

As the game progress, it sometimes goes exactly as planned while at other times, intentions and hopes are turned upside down or dashed and we are left wondering what happened.

The game of chess begins with the classical opening, with each player using time-tested scenarios to position themselves for a stronger game. The game of Life also has it’s “opening book”, a collection of education and life experiences, that position us for a stronger “game” in the future.

Both games then move on to the middle game, where each player seeks to obtain an advantage through the use of strategy, tactics and knowledge. It requires patience (especially with one’s self), foresight, perseverance, persistence and the ability to create opportunities for success while at the same time, defending one’s self against the pressure from others.

Finally, the games of chess and Life move on to the end game, where we are either hopefully poised to complete our quest towards a successful outcome or we find ourselves unfortunately in a position where the best we can do is to lose gracefully, learn from the experience and hope to do better the next time.

Life, like chess, is a game that improves based on how much effort we put into it. If we truly want to succeed in the game of Life, we must strive to learn as much as we can about it’s rules, subtleties, nuances, challenges, opportunities and potential. Both games have been deeply analyzed and therefore a copious amount of knowledge exists for us to learn from if we are humble enough to recognize that we don’t know everything.

In either game, sometimes we win and as winners, we must be gracious, helping others to improve their game.

Sometimes we don’t perform or finish as strongly as we could have but if we don’t analyze where we made our errors or are not humble in acknowledging why we lost, we are bound to repeat the mistakes that derailed us previously.

In Life, as in chess, we start with a clean slate, with equal opportunity and unlimited potential to achieve the desired outcome.

While there will be many events that will catch us by surprise, for the most part our ability to be successful with our intention will depend on how much effort we put into our intention, how much we learn, how gracious we are in victory, how much we persevere when the odds are staggeringly against us, how humble we are when we are defeated or shown a better way and how well we bounce back when things don’t go as planned.

And in Life, as in chess, if things don’t go as well as we planned, we can usually reset the board and start again …..

… with unlimited potential to do better the next time.

As another one of my FB friends, Geoff M., noted:

“Every move, every game, is what you make it."

He’s right.

It’s your move – make it count.

Act as if your life depends on it – because it does.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

The same entry for this blog exists on my detailed blog and can be found here.

Hope–Alive and Well

2011-03-19T23:16:00.001-07:00

As a long-time corporate strategy advisor, I often view the world through the same lenses and filters that I view the corporate world with.

When one takes such an analytical view of the world, it is easy to find reasons to be worried or even totally dismayed. Many of the challenges of the world seem totally preventable or at least could have been much smaller in scope and impact had people made choices that weren’t based on excessive greed, incompetence or indifference. If the world were viewed as a business, it might even be difficult to see any hope of long term viability at all.

But once in a while, we are blessed with an opportunity to witness an event that restores our faith in the potential and future of humanity, an event that restores our ability to see hope for the future.

Today I was blessed to witness such an event.

I attended a check presentation ceremony today at the office of the Community Kitchen Program in Calgary, Alberta. The Community Kitchen Program, founded by Marilyn Gunn in her laundry room in 1994 and which has grown to serve tens of thousands of needy annually, has as it’s core belief the vision that no one should go hungry.

Ahhhh … a noble, lofty vision than many people have. Dreams are always important to have, aren’t they?

But this vision seems different. Marilyn, her passionate, compassionate team, and the organizations they partner with are actually making a huge positive impact on the needy of Calgary through the many programs they offer.

For Some Visionaries, Enough is Never Enough

Is this enough for Marilyn Gunn?

Not at all. She and many like-minded, compassionate people such as Bill Locke of Capacity Builders and others have embraced something much larger.

They are bringing together more than 25 city agencies in Calgary who serve the needy in addition to partnering with food producers, wholesalers, industry associations, governments at all levels and corporations to create a program they call Food ‘n’ More. This brilliant idea helps the various organizations and groups serving the needy in Calgary to reduce their cost of buying food by 20-30%, thus enabling each dollar they have to go that much further. By centralizing and warehousing food on behalf of all these agencies, Food ‘n’ More will take advantage of the power of buying in significant bulk as opposed to smaller orders or just-in-time orders that many of the smaller organizations currently make based on their financial capacity and warehouse availability.

Today I was privileged to meet many of the people who are so engaged in this effort; people who put their heart and soul into serving those in need - needs that many of us take for granted as we live our lives of unlimited comfort.

The Honorable Lindsay Blackett, Minister of Culture and Community Spirit for the Government of Alberta was also in attendance today with a gift.

It was a gift of over $750,000 to help seed this program, a number that astonished everyone in the room as they realized that with such generosity, this program was moving from vision to reality.

Even the ever-passionate Marilyn Gunn was almost speechless.

The Power of Love and Hope

As I witnessed this incredible sharing of passion for others, of commitment to help those who need help the most and the incredible generosity of donations such as the one Minister Blackett made today, I was reminded of something.

I was reminded that for all the things we can find wrong in the world, there is an incredible amount of “stuff” that is right with the world and there are amazing, passionate, compassionate people turning this “stuff” into reality for the benefit of others.

Sure, the press doesn’t seem to latch on to these things since they prefer to present stories of catastrophe, war and disaster. These stories wear us down and cause us to wonder if there is any hope left at all.

But observing what I saw today was a reminder that human beings still stand for the right things.

Compassion for the needy and the downtrodden …..

Passion for making a difference …..

And most importantly, love for humanity.

This is the type of story that needs to be shared. Stories that prove to us that despite the many things we must endure and overcome, the basic human fundamentals of love for one another and for creating hope where hope is difficult to find still thrive.

Marilyn said something today that I thought was profound. She said:

It only takes one to make a difference ... but it takes many to make a change.

What I saw today were a group of people intent on making a change.

A necessary change.

A change that offers hope to many who so desperately need it.

And in a world where chaos, hatred, tragedy and indifference are constantly packaged and presented to us via what we call “news”, the message of love and hope for a better future for everyone is a better one to hold onto and to be part of.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

This entry is the same blog entry as is posted on my detailed blog, which can be found here.

Note: This blog entry is not an endorsement of intention, activities, performance or results of any of the afore-named parties on a go-forward basis.

Stand Up For Something, Will Ya?

2011-03-13T13:19:00.001-07:00

I have introduced a new rule on my Facebook page regarding content that is posted that has drawn some interesting private messages to me, some in support and some in protest.

I have decided that people who contribute to posts on my wall, whether written by me or by others, should strive to remain relatively close to topic, otherwise risk being unfriended.

This decision came as a result of some people surfing in and filling my wall with meaningless, off-topic messages that seemed funny or valuable to them but not to the many people who were subscribing to my wall content.

I can’t believe I have finally embraced a form of censorship on my wall. What events transpired that changed my mind?

I have always been vehemently against censorship since I recognize the slippery slope that censorship implies. Proponents of censorship claim that once we censor some things, there is no limit to what may be censored until eventually no one will be allowed to have an opinion on anything.

Yes – this may be true and was always something I worried about.

However, consider this case.

Back in 2010, an author in the US published a book defending what he described as the beauty of pedophilia and how it could be lovingly nurtured between an adult and a child (details can be found here).

Sounds pretty disgusting to me but there were many people I know who aggressively and incessantly defended his right to voice his opinion even if they disagreed with the subject matter.

I finally got tired of the debate and asked them what they would have thought about this author’s right to such an opinion had they been dropping their children off with an adult babysitter and saw a copy of the book on the coffee table.

Suddenly and without any further debate they all agreed with me that such a book should not be printed.

They needed to see a different perspective.

And I needed to be able to put the subject in a context that resonated with them. I needed to put myself in their shoes (Stephen Covey’s 5th Habit – “Seek first to understand and then to be understood”) so that they understood why I was expressing such an opinion.

When we stand for something and express it in a way that allows them to make up their own mind (instead of being forced to agree with us), we enhance the value of human knowledge exchange and hopefully we each grow as a result.

This is Not a Censorship Rant

This is not a musing about censorship. However, it is a reminder that each of us have things in our Life that we must defend, even when it seems unpopular for the moment.

We all have something that we feel must be defended or championed at all cost – something that we are passionate about.

However, many people are unwilling to let the voice of their inner champion to be heard aloud. They are willing to die with their song still inside them instead of sharing the song with others.

But if we TRULY want what is important for us to manifest in our world, keeping it a secret will not allow it to develop, to blossom, to inspire others or to change the world in anyway.

People will not always agree with you. Some people will hate you and will do anything to crush what you wish to share.

But many will respect you for what you believe in if you stand up for something in a manner that is done passionately, intelligently and respectfully. And some of this group of people will step forward to help you make your thoughts a reality.

To dare to risk everything, to stand up for what you believe in and to do it with conviction and respect will take us a LOT further in Life than apathy, indifference, waiting for someone else to fix something, steamrolling people or avoiding something because it’s a “hot potato”.

Three quotes come to mind:

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself. - Soren Kierkegaard

Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at. ~Author Unknown

The fear of being laughed at makes cowards of us all. ~Mignon McLaughlin, “The Neurotic's Notebook”

Do you dare to lose your footing?

Are you willing to be laughed at because you are so passionate about something that you are willing to do whatever it takes, even if it seems silly, unpopular or potentially loaded with personal / career destroying potential?

Do you dare to be audacious, to bravely expose your big dreams to the nurturing warmth of daylight?

Are you prepared to stand for something when no one else wants to, when they don’t want you to or when everyone is waiting for another brave soul to step up first?

Good – because the world needs people like you to make a difference – a difference that is needed more than ever.

Or as Howard Thurman wrote:

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

WHAT are you waiting for?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my detailed blog entry entitled “Stand Up For Something, Will Ya?”, please click here.

Selfishness–A “Necessary Evil”

2011-03-07T12:24:00.001-08:00

Selfishness is defined in one dictionary as “a stinginess resulting from a concern for your own welfare and a disregard for others”.

It sounds like a pretty negative judgment of someone, doesn’t it? If someone were to refer to us as selfish, most of us would feel compelled to defend ourselves against what we perceive as an attack on our character.

It is for this reason that we can easily see why many people rarely take time for themselves. Most of us have been taught from an early age that to do this is to be wrong or greedy, bringing negative connotations to mind that we would rather not be associated with.

But sometimes we have to be selfish. For example, we are told by airlines that if the oxygen masks drop and someone beside us needs assistance putting one on, we should put ours on first and then help the other one.

In such a situation, a momentary act of perceived selfishness saves both our Life and the Life of the person sitting next to us. If, on the other hand, we decide to do the perceived unselfish act of helping the other person first and we pass out while in the act, there’s a strong possibility that putting the other person’s needs first may cause the death of both people.

This is not to suggest that we have a license to be selfish most of the time. However, a balanced individual understands when a little personal selfishness helps more people in the long run.

Calendar Management – Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Recently, I violated one of my own rules of calendar management – to “own my calendar, otherwise it owns me”. I not only had a full plate, in fact I needed multiple plates to manage the obligations I had created personally and professionally.

I not only “didn’t put my own oxygen mask on first”, I was walking the length of the plane to make sure that everyone else on the plane had put theirs on correctly first.

This serves no one well in the long run, including myself.

One of the things I have noticed in recent weeks is that my wish to keep as many people as happy as possible filled my plate to overflowing with not all of it being “productive” or “useful”. Yes, it is very humbling to be in such demand and it is a noble gesture to try to live up to the expectations of so many. However, while I constantly encourage others to never allow this to happen to them, my own “plate-loading” was so gradual that I didn’t notice what I was doing.

Dealing With Full-Plate-Syndrome

Once one finds one’s self in such a situation, only one of two options are available:

1. Take control of the situation

2. Melt

Option 2 for many people is the easiest. In fact, no action is required on the part of the person whose plate is full. Just keep doing what one is doing and eventually the mind and/or body will collapse. Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? The impact and pain resulting from such a decision is not felt until later and so it seems to be an easier option at the moment.

To take control of the situation, on the other hand, brings immediate pain and tension and therefore is often avoided. The person who is overloaded must do things that the rest of the world may not want to hear or accept.

For example, I shut down my Facebook account in the first week of February and I’m not certain when I will return until I decide how I figure out how to use it more effectively. In addition to a very busy Facebook wall, Facebook generates 7,000 emails per month to me, with people asking my opinion on a variety of things.

That doesn’t sound so bad, one might say – it’s great for the ego and you don’t have to read them if there are too many. Well, if one doesn’t read them, that generates follow-ups (“in case you didn’t see the previous message”, “why wouldn’t you answer this message if you answered so-and-so”, etc.) that generate so much noise at some point that the load becomes unresolvable and removes my sense of perceived value from the various exchanges.

In fact, I took a month off from my social media persona completely. I was serving the needs of so many people that I had neglected the needs of a very important person in my Life.

Me.

When we neglect the importance of taking care of our own needs in addition to the needs of others, our ability to help others is of reduced duration and diminished impact. We can only carry so many people so far before we need to set them down in order to rest and recharge.

And besides, few of us are THAT important that the world can’t live without us for a little while.

Courage and Humility

When we use our strengths and talents, we have an opportunity to have a huge, positive impact on the world.

If we get overloaded trying to do too much for too many, we discover that the world will get along just fine without us.

It takes a mix of courage and humility to recognize this.

It takes courage to be able to put up one’s hand and call for silence so that one can take the time to clear one’s plate. Sometimes this also means saying “no” to people, perhaps more often than we are accustomed to.

It takes humility to recognize that none of us are so important that we can’t take a little time off to restructure our own plate, to re-enable and strengthen our execution and our results.

Can You Do It?

When you feel that your plate is too full, do you have the courage to ask the world for a “30-second timeout” or do you just push through it, not wanting to disappoint others or allow the world to discover that it can exist without you for a little while.

If you feel the need to take some “selfish time”, I encourage you to go for it. The strength you regain and the results you produce will more than compensate for the time you took off.

If you don’t have the courage or the will to do so, don’t worry. You will eventually have an opportunity to clear your plate anyway. However, it probably won’t be under your own terms and will probably be a lot more painful for you and others.

It’s ok to be selfish once in a while.

The world will be better for it.

And so will you.

In service and servanthood, with a hint of occasional selfishness. :-)

Harry

The same entry exists on my detailed blog and can be found here.

Self-confidence – Me Versus We

2011-01-26T08:59:00.001-08:00

After a couple of interesting incidents over the last couple of weeks, I have been reminded that hubris is alive and well in business.

It is true that self-confidence is essential to success - there aren’t many people who are “doormats” who have managed to become wildly successful in their field. Doormats aren’t great at showing the self-confidence, vision and leadership necessary to get “stuff” done nor do they inspire others to do the same.

However, there is always some point in the execution of a company where help is needed.

And that’s where the self-confidence needs to change, from one of “I have everything I need” to one of “we have everything we need”.

The transition from “I” to “we” is essential in the internal dialog, starting before a collaboration is first suggested and being consistently present through to the completion of the collaboration.

Of the many companies I have been privileged to work with over the years, I have had a few organizations approach me for help with the following common scenario:

1. They have little or no strategy and their poor execution have led them to a very precarious position.

2. They have waited until the last minute to ask for help (and needed a miracle by the time they asked) and were now demanding immediate remedies.

3. Their self-confidence level is off the charts with no results to validate it.

4. They believe they can set the terms for what happens next and proceed to make a “my way or the highway” offer that heavily favors the people who created the problems in the first place.

One company owner, just before losing over 25 million dollars in a complete corporate collapse (a good bit of it being taxpayer money), said to me “Of course I can set the terms – this company was my idea and I deserve to harvest the majority of the rewards”.

Maybe so – but I know that if I am in trouble, the last thing I want to do when asking for help is to tell the world what it owes me.

It reminds me of one night back in the 1980’s when my car broke down while I was driving in the area of Gatineau Park in Quebec. It was late at night, in a remote area, minus 40 degrees with the wind chill and before the days when everyone had a cell phone.

I was in trouble.

When the two Quebec police officers happened to come upon me by chance, did I say “I can’t believe you don’t have any coffee in your cruiser. What kind of rescue is this?”.

No – I was profusely grateful for the help.

I was reminded then as I have been many times since that, despite our belief in our abilities to get stuff done, there are always times when we need others.

Some moments call for an “I can do it”.

Others call for a “we can do it”.

Successful people know when each is appropriate.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

The same entry was posted on my detailed blog and can be found here.

Creating Relationships–Offer Before Asking

2011-01-23T11:59:00.001-08:00

I’m always amazed how many people out there still forget a golden rule when it comes to creating new relationships – the golden rule of asking “How may I serve your needs?” instead of overwhelming someone with a list of demands before a relationship has even been created.

I had someone reach out to me recently because they had a strong interest in a particular slice of my network. The person, whom I did not know but who had found me via social media, politely described her intention and need. She wanted to solicit my network to increase the business of her company and in order to accomplish this, wanted me to pass on to her the names and contact information of everyone that would be of value to her. There was nothing in it for me (not that there always has to be) but the fact that the request was so one-sided in benefit stood out starkly.

My offer to explore the opportunity in more detail, with an attempt to allay my concerns about her intentions for my network, to understand why I should throw my network to her unquestioned and how we all might benefit from a collaboration was politely declined.

The dialog highlighted something interesting. When one attempts to create a new relationship, one shouldn’t open with a message that says “I don’t care about you, I have a need that looks like this”. This is the surest way to turn someone off and guarantee a failure to engage with that person.

This polite young lady forgot that the best way to engage with a new relationship is to find out what is important for the person just contacted, especially in the areas of values, projects, intentions, execution styles and other things important to that individual. Having determined this, the first step in a relationship should be to offer help to this person in an area important to them, bringing value to their Life, those whom they serve and in areas that are important to them.

Good people, feeling that what is important to them is important to you also, will respond in kind with an offer for assistance for something important to you.

Everyone wins.

If you don’t take the time to find out what is important to them, then they feel that they don’t matter or they are being used.

And they are probably right – not a great way to create a new relationship or strengthen an existing one. It is in fact a way to kill a relationship that otherwise may have born fruit for everyone involved.

Many people think this is too much work. If you think it is, then you weren’t in it for a mutual collaboration in the first place, were you? Maybe the objectives you are trying to achieve for yourself are not important enough that you would be willing to invest in someone else first in order to achieve them.

However, if you strive to understand what matters to them and how you can help them, then you are ready to reach out and make an offer to them.

Not an ask.

You are ready to say “Hi, my name is so-and-so, you have an interest in such-and-such and I believe my gift / talent in the area of such-and-such can help you. Would you be interested in hearing more about how I can help you?”

Conversely, nothing kills a dialog faster than receiving a message from someone seeking help that implies “I’d like to care about you and your interests but I don’t - I am more important”.

I would think that creating relationships is a lot more fun and impactful than killing them.

Don’t you?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “Creating Relationships – Offer Before Asking” can be found here.

Wanted: Leaders For Immediate Hire

2011-01-16T12:18:00.001-08:00

As I read the news, I have this thought running through my head about a classified ad that we need to run in papers around the world. It looks something like this:

Skimming over some headlines reveals some alarming trends in regards to some of our leadership.

In Canada this week, the CRTC (the body that regulates the broadcast industry in Canada), banned the Dire Straits song “Money For Nothing” because it used the word “faggot” three times. They banned the song based on the complaint of one individual who felt the song was demeaning to gay people.

Meanwhile, the song “Grenade” by Bruno Mars is soaring high in the charts with graphic lyrics about someone who is willing to do anything for someone, including:

I'd catch a grenade for ya
Throw my head on a blade for ya
I'd jump in front of a train for ya
You know I'd do anything for ya
I would go through all this pain
Take a bullet straight through my brain

The singer indicates they would do anything for this person, even though this person claimed that the other person beat them:

Black, black, black and blue, beat me 'til I'm numb

With all the violence in the world today, especially with suicide being one of the top killers of young people, the continued high occurrence of domestic violence and the shooting incident in Tucson, Arizona last week, these lyrics are not entertaining.

But where is the outcry?

Speaking of Tucson, Arizona, it is disappointing to see leaders of the NRA and other pro-weapons organizations step forward to champion the right for every American to own any type of gun, including people-killers such as glocks and such. One pro-weapons advocate in Arizona even said it is human nature to be armed. Legislators are also VERY quick to continue to champion the need for people to possess these weapons.

I wonder how Congresswoman Giffords, a pro-weapons advocate herself, will feel when she has recovered and discovers that a 9-year-old girl was killed as a result of Ms. Giffords being targeted.

Despite this, the annual gun show in Tucson this weekend (one week after the shooting) is expecting record sales of weapons.

Meanwhile, people who need access to mental health care struggle to make their way through the red tape, cost and excessive wait times so that they can receive the treatment they need. These people deal with the pain they are enduring and the stigma that unfortunately accompanies mental health concerns while it takes forever for legislators to find solutions.

President Obama said in his speech “We can do better”.

I should be inspired by such a statement but I am not, especially since the people who are in government today have the authority to create a better result but choose not to.

The guy who buys the gun, then buys his ammo at Wal-Mart and proceeds to kill people is only half the picture.

Enabling him with the right to purchase such weapons indicts the people who embrace the laws that provide him with this right.

Which causes me to think …..

We all own the inconsistency of leadership that we see around us.

We like to lament about how government, or certain corporations or other leaders aren’t getting the job done.

The truth is that they will get it done when we demand it – not before.

We know that such inspiring, intelligent, transparent, values-based leaders are out there. If they weren’t, the world would be in much worse shape.

We see many examples of inspiring leaders throughout history, including many today.

However, we need more of them – a LOT more of them.

The world is on the cusp – balanced precariously between a future of difficulty and pain and one of amazing potential.

Given this, consider that the classified ad above has been posted.

Will you or someone you know answer the call?

Will you encourage others to answer the call?

I hope so.

The world is ready for the next generation of leaders who will make a positive difference.

It doesn’t need people who assume power under the guise of “we can fix things in the future”.

It needs people who demonstrate that “we are fixing things now”.

And it needs such people NOW.

As Plato once said (substituting the word “leadership” where he used the word “politics”):

"The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in leadership is to be governed by men worse than themselves."

In service and servanthood,

Harry

This is the same entry as contained in my detailed blog, which can be found here.

We Are The Masters of Our Domain–Aren’t We?

2011-01-09T11:15:00.001-08:00

As I sit here this morning, many of the roads all around the city are closed because of blowing snow and whiteout conditions.

The temperature with wind chill is a delightful MINUS 29 degrees Celsius.

Hundreds of vehicles are stranded on highways outside the city as their owners wait for fuel, food and water and maybe a tow truck to lift them out of the ditch.

It sure sounds like we are masters of our domain alright.

What do you think?

I’d say Mother Nature has the high hand today and I for one know that if someone were to bet on me versus Mother Nature, not many bets would be on me.

Not even my own! :-)

There are many people out there in our personal and professional lives who believe that they are masters of their domain.

They believe that they have such control over their lives, that they truly believe that they and they alone can manifest whatever they need without anyone’s help.

They choose one-man-band syndrome over collaboration.

They choose intimidation over consideration.

They choose greed over sharing.

They prefer to take credit instead of sharing it or giving it away, except when something goes wrong. They happily give this credit to others.

I have a prospect on the verge of total collapse who is trying to dictate the terms of engagement to me using a bully-like approach as his ship sinks, failing to acknowledge that the water is up to the rails. For this gentleman, now is not the time to be asserting that he is the master of his domain with heavy-handed techniques.

People like this may accept help when they are down but when they get back up, they tell a great story about how they saved themselves through a stroke of genius. Unfortunately, many of them are then too busy to help others in turn.

What is predictable to everyone around them is that success will elude many of them or will be short-lived at best.

We Are Stewards – Not Masters

When I think of our stay on Earth, I find it interesting that we like to praise ourselves for our understanding of its systems and our knowledge around saving and preserving it (even as we destroy it).

The funny thing is that the Earth was around long before we showed up and if we don’t get things right, will be around long after we are gone.

Masters of our domain indeed.

We are stewards of the Earth, charged with taking care of it while we are here.

By the same token, we are stewards of each other, charged with helping each other to overcome adversity, grow each others knowledge and understanding, share our skills, knowledge and talents and to help make each of us, our society and the Earth itself a better place.

How we accomplish this comes in an infinite number of forms. Not all of them will be gentle or easy but what matters is that we do it.

We need each other to amplify our respective talents, knowledge and strengths.

And when we understand this, our Life gets easier.

I don’t have the right to tell you what to do.

You don’t have the right to tell me what to do.

But we do have the responsibility to do the best we can to help each other do what we need to do so that each person has the opportunity to fulfill their Life purpose.

And maybe then we will have mastered something after all ………

… the art of serving and helping each other.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

The same entry for “We Are The Masters of Our Domain – Aren’t We"? can be found on my regular blog here.

What Do You Stand For?

2011-01-07T23:01:00.001-08:00

Deep within our heart and soul, many of us have something that we believe in or dream about when it comes to our potential and Life purpose. We tell compelling, riveting stories to our friends over a coffee about how “someday I’m going to ……..”.

I’ll bet you have one of these compelling stories.

Are you living your story?

Does your story stand up to public scrutiny?

Do you even have the courage to expose it to scrutiny and to live it with all your might?

The challenge is that the longer someone waits to live their story, the lesser the chance that their story will ever see the light of day.

…. the lesser the chance that they will be able to live their Life in congruence with their perceived purpose or to even know what their purpose is.

…. the lesser the chance that their story will have an opportunity to impact the world or to inspire others.

It’s not easy, is it?

Oftentimes, being authentic is difficult or seemingly impossible to achieve consistently.

Many times we can justify why it is safer or easier to not be authentic.

The Danger of Inauthenticity

The problem is that every time we are not authentic with ourselves or others, we weaken our belief in our dreams and therefore weaken our potential. Eventually we may believe we have no potential or purpose at all.

Try this: Ask someone WHY they think they exist on this planet or what their purpose is. Most people cannot answer this question at all. Can you?

At some point, we invent another persona that has unlimited potential. After all, we reason, “who I am is of no interest or value to others, so let me see what the populace-at-large likes and I will promote and become that person”.

And when this happens, OUR story dies within us as does our sense of purpose.

New Year’s Resolutions

This is the season for New Year’s Resolutions.

This is the time of year when most people resolve to accomplish the same list of things they resolved to accomplish last year, the year before, etc.

The primary reason most of these resolutions fall flat is that they are not hooked into what inspires the person making them and for this reason, they lose their sizzle and the person eventually falls back into the same old routine.

Perhaps if we realized that our story, as big or small as we think it is, could serve as an inspiration to others, we might be more inclined to resolve to do whatever it takes to make our story a reality.

Perhaps if we decided to embrace ourselves and our story instead of being someone else with a story designed to make other people happy or to impress them, then we would have some real things to work towards.

Maybe then we would discover our true purpose – the answer to the questions “Why am I here?” and “Why do I matter?”.

Maybe then we would have real, inspiring things to work towards that matter to ourselves at the deepest level of who we are. Maybe then we could make tangible resolutions that would help us move towards our true self; a self that inspires others and that leaves a positive impact on others.

Now there’s a resolution worth keeping.

I know you would keep such resolutions.

So what are you waiting for?

Resolve to be true to yourself – it is the greatest gift to yourself and to others.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my detailed blog “What Do You Stand For?”, please click here.

Bringing Value to Your Social Media Network

2010-12-21T14:09:00.001-08:00

Have you ever taken a moment to assess how much value you bring to your social media network?

Equally as important, have you ever taken a moment to assess how much value your social media network brings to you?

A strong social media network is a prized possession. When people collaborate, they create opportunities to learn, to share and to change the world.

But a strong social media network is like a classic automobile. When taken care of and nurtured, it is a source of pride and enjoyment. It brings a sense of purpose, fulfillment and joy to your life and to the lives of others and therefore provides value.

If it is not nurtured with effective, proactive maintenance, it eventually turns into something that takes too much of your time and appears to be of little value. It may even become something you come to resent as you seek to find the value that you know should be there but is difficult to see. It’s the classic automobile that has potential but which is buried in a pile of junk in an old barn out back, waiting for its potential to be rediscovered.

If there is no value in some relationships, why invest in them?

When you are on your way to work, to the mall or wherever, do you stop and chat for 30 minutes with every random stranger you meet with intent of building a lifelong relationship?

Of course not – if you did, you would never get anything done.

So I wonder why people would do the same thing with certain slices of their social media network; spending too much time trying to incubate all the relationships instead of focusing on the relationships that really bring value to each participant in the relationship (or third-parties who will benefit from their collaboration).

Many spend too much time with their “broad-side-of-the-barn” approach, get very little for their unfocused activity and then complain that they aren’t producing the results they would prefer to produce. Many who spend a lot of time doing this lament that they are run off their feet because they are so busy.

Yet when their effectiveness (and sometimes happiness) are actually measured, the results are embarrassing. They have confused activity with productivity and action with traction (completely different from the story of success that they claim exists).

I would suggest that growing a network of immense size and unknown value that takes a small staff to maintain is not the right approach. If people selected the members of their social media network more effectively, they might find that the relationships bring greater quality to their personal and professional lives and the lives of others.

I know that some people will cry foul with this observation. It is true that there are people who use their networks VERY effectively. Others can learn from how they contribute to and participate in their social media network.

However, when many people complain of poor results or the fact that they have no time to get anything done, you realize that these people still haven’t figured out how to use social media effectively.

In fact, I don’t think they are using social media at all. I think it is using them.

As with all technology, control the use of social media effectively otherwise it will control you.

In 2011, I have decided to eliminate 80% of the connections in my social media network. My network is quite large and has reached a point where maintaining the network is becoming a full time job (for example, my LinkedIn 3rd degree network has almost 16 million people in it and drives a lot of traffic in my direction that I have no interest in and where I can offer no value in return).

I did this last year and it greatly reduced the amount of noise in my life. It is time for a second pass.

Feelings will be hurt. Some people will be offended. That is unfortunate but if we live a life doing everything that everyone else expects of us for their own gain, we would have no time to live our own lives.

My Life, the time I have remaining on this Earth and my unlimited potential to make a difference are too important to waste.

I believe yours is too important to waste also.

So why waste it?

To you and yours, I wish an amazing abundance of health, wealth and happiness in 2011.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Christmas Tradition–Appreciating Our Blessings

2010-12-08T08:22:00.001-08:00

Some years ago when my oldest son was very young, I had pulled into a Toys R Us parking lot in New Jersey on Christmas Eve to buy him more "stuff". For my son to have so much stuff that he rivaled Toys R Us in inventory still didn't seem enough for some reason.

Just before I stepped out of my vehicle, a story came on my favorite National Public Radio station (WNYC in New York to be exact) and something about it caught my ear.

For the next 10 minutes, I sat in silence and listened to the story. When the story was over, I started the truck and drove out of the parking lot in silence.

I had received an important message about Christmas when I needed to hear it.

The teacher always appears when the student is ready and our Christmases have never been the same since.

Of the many traditions we have in our family at Christmas, there are two that we find important.

1. We always listen to this story at least once.

2. We always share it at least once.

The story we listen to can be found here. Click on the "Real Media" or “Windows” links under the title "John Henry Faulk's Christmas Story" to hear the story.

Besides my family and Life itself, I consider myself blessed to have so many incredible friends and colleagues.

With that, I thank YOU for what you do - for the light and love you bring to so many.

In an uncertain world, every day we are alive is still an incredible gift.

In a world that experiences difficult moments, there are still miracles being created.

In a world that experiences war and hostility, there are still many examples of love and generosity.

In a world that experiences adversity and challenge, there exists unlimited opportunity and potential.

In a world that may seem to embrace greed, there are examples of incredible generosity.

We have many reminders that we still live in a beautiful world.

As you celebrate this Holiday Season, please remember those who are not as fortunate. There is more than enough love to go around – we just need to make the effort to share it unconditionally.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy EID or Merry Yule. However you celebrate these days, cherish them.

In service and servanthood, love and gratitude.

Harry

For those who can’t find the links on the NPR website to hear the story, they can be found here:

Windows Media Player

Real Media Player

When Ego and Common Sense Collide ….

2010-11-25T13:51:00.001-08:00

…. or ….

“The noise in your car will go away if you turn the radio up loud enough”.

This thought came to mind today as I spoke to a good friend and Wall St. client as we exchanged Thanksgiving pleasantries.

My friend, whom I will name “Frank”, is working on a project of considerable cost and complexity that, after starting and being cancelled three times mid-project, was now starting to gain traction for a fourth go-around.

As a strategy guy, I was intrigued by this and asked him what was different about this version of the project versus the previous incarnations that had gone down in flames. After determining that nothing was fundamentally different between this attempt and the previous ones, we explored why they were about to repeat a process that seemed doomed to failure.

Ego Overrules Common Sense

It turns out that the ego of the team, particularly within the leadership of the project, is shouting so loudly that it is preventing them from seeing that they are repeating history – a very expensive history.

The killer for me was when I asked Frank, if he knew that what they were doing was wrong, then why he didn’t just find somewhere else to work.

His answer summed it up:

Do you know how much I would give up in stock and perks if I walk away from my employer?

His personal values, common sense and life experience, which told him that what they were doing was wrong, had been compromised by the extrinsic motivator of money.

The life experiences of the team’s leaders and how they viewed the knowledge of the team members were being compromised by their ego.

Common sense, like Elvis, had left the building.

I realized as we spoke that many of our corporate leaders still don’t get it, despite assurances to the public, to shareholders, etc. that bailouts, regulatory changes, a few rah-rah team building exercises and other things have produced a different way of doing business.

Key Element of Leadership – Influence and Values

They miss a key element of leadership.

The demonstrated values of the leadership at the top of the organization grow and amplify as they move down through the rank and file.

Leaders influence their entire organization through their actions and behaviors and that as they demonstrate their personal values on a daily basis, so will the people within the organization embrace and emulate those same values.

This is the power of strong leadership, good and bad.

And so when I see poor actions taking place within the bowels of a large organization, I don’t think that the core of the problem, the “thing” that needs to be fixed, is at that specific level of the organization.

Instead, I look at the leadership of the organization, the behavior of the leaders and the values that they demonstrate.

And when I do that, I can tell exactly what type of “bread” their organization will bake throughout the different levels of the organization.

Avoiding the Negative Impact of Excessive Ego

Many leaders use their ego to brazen and bully their way through many situations, ignoring or covering up issues that are all around them.

So will the people who follow them.

The problem is that, as with a car that is making a bad noise , “turning up the radio” can provide you with an opportunity to ignore the problem.

But sooner or later, you end up broken down in the middle of nowhere – just as we were in the spring and summer of 2008.

The only way to avoid breaking down is to turn down the radio and honestly assess the problem.

With a focus on ego-less collaboration, acknowledging the respective skills, knowledge, talents and life experiences of others in a respect—filled, trust-filled environment.

Otherwise, the organization may be about to experience a significant problem.

It’s like car brakes that make a very loud screech when you apply them.

You can always turn up the radio.

And that makes everything ok.

Doesn’t it?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog on “When Ego and Common Sense Collide”, including a reference to the Bread Recipe Rule, please click here.

To Influence the Mind of Others ….

2010-11-17T12:38:00.001-08:00

… you MUST touch their heart.

In order to touch the heart, you must KNOW the individual you wish to influence. You must know what turns them on and equally important, what turns them off.

And despite this, many people seek to influence others in a somewhat random way and are often disappointed with the results.

One of the things I learned in my many years on Wall St. is the importance of knowing who I am dealing with.

When I have a need to establish a relationship for the purpose of collaborating, I immediately research the other person to understand:

what they like and what they don’t like
what ignites their passion and what throws cold water on it
where they believe their sense of purpose is
how they prefer to execute
who their organization serves
what their organization does and how it does it
what my organization does and how it does it
what I bring to the table to enable the person whom I am establishing the relationship with
how the intersection of all of these areas produces the sweet spot for success for everyone involved.

People talk about establishing win/win relationships and yet they don’t know the person they are dealing with.

If someone doesn’t know what motivates another, how can one expect to influence them?

One may get lucky, but then again, who wants to rely on luck?

So, before attempting to influence someone else ask yourself two questions:

1. What do I REALLY know about the person I wish to influence and collaborate with?

2. Having learned as much as I can about them, how can I serve the needs of that person, in a manner that resonates with their own beliefs, values and execution style?

This is the age of knowledge, knowledge equally accessible by all.

Use it to your benefit and to the benefit of those whom you serve and collaborate with.

Some people think this is a lot of work. Yes it is. However, if you really want to produce positive results consistently, you will discover that it is definitely worth it.

Also, as you do this you will discover that in spending so much time learning about the other person that you are in fact making an investment in a very long-term relationship; the kind that produces true win/wins for many years to come.

Then again, you could rely on luck.

Which would you prefer?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

Answering the Call of Your Holy Discontent

2010-11-10T09:09:00.001-08:00

I receive hundreds of emails a day with questions covering a broad spectrum of subjects, ranging from corporate strategy, technology architecture, leadership and everything in between.

However, one email this morning made me stop and think.

While it was quite lengthy, the person I will only identify as John in New York City asked me this:

Why do you do what you do and why do you do it with such passion and conviction?

John was referring to my passion for tackling things that needed to be addressed in the world instead of taking the safe, quiet road that many prefer to travel. After all, he notes:

… with your strong belief in the unlimited good in the world, isn’t it more rewarding and easier to simply write about the good stuff than to be always be contemplating the stuff that needs to be fixed.

I agree with John that it is VERY important that we embrace the great things we see in the world and to promote the great people, results and events we see all around us. By doing so, we take comfort in knowing that the world is a much more positive, inspiring place than the media would have us believe.

However, despite all of the great things going on in the world:

many of the hungry remain hungry
many of the corporations in need of stronger leadership continue to produce less than optimal results
society continues to not embrace technology as effectively as it should for the betterment of all
governments continue to lose sight of the fact that they exist for the people and not the other way around

We all pay the price for this, which is why we need to own the solutions. With this in mind, I believe that we need to:

passionately ask intelligent questions
challenge ideas that have room for improvement and growth
collaborate aggressively
share unconditionally.

We need to move forward with passion and conviction to make the greatest difference we can with the time we have remaining.

And remember this:

EVERYTHING WE DO MATTERS

The results of everything we do become our ultimate legacy.

There is a quote incorrectly attributed to Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. patent office in the 19th century where he is alleged to have said "Everything that can be invented has been invented."

If we believe that everything that can be done to improve the world has been done, then we should stop trying to make a difference now.

However, I don't believe this is the case.

Do you?

In service and servanthood, passionately.

Harry

To see my detailed blog “Answering Your Holy Discontent”, please click here.

Leaders Serve Others–Not Themselves

2010-11-03T08:38:00.001-07:00

Another mid-term election has come and gone in the US and amongst all the celebration, lamentations over losses and talk of change, there is another dialogue that is less exciting to hear.

It is the dialogue focused around “We the insert party name here Party will focus on the next two years in preparation for the next election”.

They are focused on future events that are critical to their personal needs instead of focusing on the important tasks at hand that are key to the futures of those whom they serve.

Leaders, whether they be within corporations, governments or any other institution, exist to serve others and to exert appropriate levels of influence in the course of serving others. They serve others in order to maximize the potential of their organization and the team members within the organization and in turn, to maximize the product or service that their organization provides. They also exist to represent the needs of others. In the case of the US, 330 million people cannot fit into the Capitol Building.

When a leader is more focused on the leadership position itself and not on the people they serve, then they are merely self-serving individuals who seek the position for their own gain at the detriment of others.

If a leader’s focus becomes entirely centered around the needs of the leader; attaining power, keeping it or getting it back if lost, then we need to find new leaders.

When it comes to attaining and retaining the title of “leader”, we must let their time in office be based on their actions on behalf of those whom they serve and not allow them to be focused on actions solely focused on retaining the title.

Let their actions speak so loudly that we cannot hear what they are saying.

When this happens and they truly serve others, they win and so do we.

And so we support them as we should ….

…. as long as we see them serve the needs of those whom they exist to serve.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my detailed blog entry about “Leaders Serve Others – Not Themselves” including observations about the Democrat and Republican Parties, please click here.

The Power of Trusting Your Instinct

2010-11-01T10:34:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop and I happened to notice a presentation that a gentleman was working on.

This was a guy who was a regular in this coffee shop. No matter what time I stopped by, he was always there, sitting in the same seat, working on various presentations. Lots of people write presentations in coffee shops. However, his presentation was different.

In his PowerPoint presentation, he was writing about how non-Muslims are cattle and don’t deserve to live. He also wrote a number of other things about how to solve the problem of so much “cattle”. I was intrigued and concerned so I made it my business to keep peeking over his shoulder to see what he was doing.

What he wrote is not important here although it was clearly disturbing. It was also clearly not an academic paper or a piece of fiction – this man was filled with a lot of anger and was capturing it in a manner to be shared with others, to encourage anger in them as well.

Their intention and their desired outcome was not good at all.

I reflected on this as the events transpired – what should I do?

After all, we are taught that everyone has the right to freedom of expression.

We are taught that everyone has the right to privacy.

We are taught to not make an invalid assumption that could hurt someone.

We are taught to mind our own business.

However, as I watched what he was writing, I realized something else.

He was against our right to the various freedoms we enjoy in the western world.

And he was willing to commit or encourage acts of violence to impose his will over mine or someone else’s.

That was when my instinct told me what I needed to do and I contacted local police authorities. I shared what I observed and left it at that.

Within a few days, he stopped showing up a the coffee shop.

Was he arrested?

Was he tipped off?

Did he decide to go to another coffee shop for specific reasons?

Or was it all coincidence?

I’ll probably never know.

However, I do know that my instinct was alerting me to the high probability that what I was witnessing wasn’t right.

It was calling me to take action, even if I didn’t know what the right action was.

So I followed my instinct and took action.

Many times in our personal or professional lives, we are often faced with opportunities to make difficult decisions and many times, we get tied up in over-analyzing what we should do.

When we over-analyze what we need to do, we often talk ourselves out of taking any action or we spend so much time analyzing the situation that irrevocable things happen while we are still deciding what we should do.

When this happens, events transpire that may cause us grief or regret that we didn’t take action sooner (or that we hadn’t taken any action at all).

However, when we learn to trust our instinct, we discover that it is a greater gift than we realize.

And who knows – maybe some day, following your instinct may save a project, a relationship or even a company.

It may even save a life.

You just have to give your instinct a chance to cultivate.

And give yourself a chance to trust it and to follow what it tells you.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my detailed blog entry about “The Power of Trusting Your Instinct”, please click here.

Hold On – Help is on the Way

2010-10-25T15:32:00.001-07:00

I was reminded this past weekend of the tenuous hold we have on Life.

I was also reminded how important every minute is with the people that matter to us.

As I write this today, I am grateful that my oldest son is alive – 48 hours ago, this mightn’t have been the case.

And as I sit here and wait for healthcare professionals to plan through next steps, I am grateful that his long term prognosis appears to be good.

48 hours ago, I wasn’t filled with gratitude.

I was filled with fear.

I was filled with grief.

I was filled with anxiety.

I was filled with anger.

My head was exploding with emotion.

But that wasn’t helping anyone, in particular my son.

It wasn’t helping me either.

In fact, it wasn’t doing anything positive for anyone.

In our personal and professional lives, we often find ourselves overwhelmed as we face decisions that impact ourselves and others or the need to understand “why” when we feel we are being crushed by the events around us.

And during those moments, we may find ourselves overwhelmed with many emotions, some that help us to survive and some that drag us down like a millstone around our neck.

Even during those moments, it is important to realize one thing.

As long as you are breathing, there is opportunity for hope.

There is opportunity for solutions.

There is opportunity for miracles.

And when you come to this realization as I did, you realize, as strange as it sounds, that you have something to be grateful for even as your world seems to be closing in around you.

Gratitude … an often overused word and yet a feeling that can provide the firm footing you need while you quiet the noise around you, giving you time to regroup.

Sometimes it is hard to find the things to be grateful for, especially in times of loss or pain.

But sometimes as the tempests blow around you, being grateful for the smallest thing can give you the glimmer of hope, the tiny seed of strength you need as you wait for the cavalry to arrive, bringing love, support and hope.

After all, if we don’t have hope that things can get better when they appear to be at their worst, what do we have at all?

If you feel pressured by the events of your Life, hold on – help is on the way.

And if you’re the cavalry, it’s time to mount up. Someone needs your help today.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my detailed blog entry for “Hold On – Help is on the Way”, please click here.

Juan Williams and NPR

2010-10-21T11:15:00.001-07:00

I rarely comment on politically-charged events in the media.

However, the firing of Juan Williams from NPR for his comments is disrupting me. Click here for a description of why his comments about seeing Muslims on aircraft and how they make him nervous got him fired.

It is important that we NOT assume every Muslim is out to kill people. There are radical Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists and everything else. Craziness doesn’t have a preferred creed.

HOWEVER ...

The media keeps drilling us that Muslims are the key problem (whether accurate or not).

Public transit (subways, trains, ferries, airlines, etc.) have signs plastered everywhere reminding us to be aware of suspicious activity and to report it immediately.

Intelligence sources keep telling us of things that have been averted but can't tell us what for national security reasons.
We are constantly reminded that the next big event is a "when" and not an "if".

So we are called to keep our diligence high but are left in the dark about what we should be diligent about.

So when Williams says how he looks out for trouble, in essence what his best interpretation is of all of this information, he is fired.

If we can be punished for guessing based on the enormous crush of innuendo and vague information, then PLEASE help us to help you by telling us:

WHAT TROUBLE DO WE LOOK FOR?

WHO DO WE LOOK FOR IT IN?

Don't make people guess and then punish them for expressing how they do it based on the heavy crush of vague, fear-spreading information that flows daily.

And don’t punish people for exercising their right to free speech. Isn’t this a foundational element of the great United States of America?

Otherwise, this just keeps everyone off balance.

But then again maybe that's the intention.

The question would then be ….

Why?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed version about “Juan Williams and NPR”, please click here.

If I Wanted Your Opinion ….

2010-10-21T08:04:00.001-07:00

… I’d give it to you.

So goes the phrase, often expressed and laughed over.

The only problem is … it’s not funny anymore.

I’ve found myself in a few interesting debates as of late, discussing some heated subjects with others.

What I have found interesting is that in many of these debates, there were a couple of things prevalent:

1. There was anger on the part of the other person (sometimes a lot more than the subject warranted)

2. There weren’t a whole lot of facts being used to defend the other person’s position, just the afore mentioned emotion.

I found this intriguing and puzzling (and frustrating, to be honest) to observe until one person finally enlightened me yesterday when he said:

You have no right to say this.

It finally hit me.

We weren’t taking opposite sides in the debate I thought I was participating in.

I was in fact, defending my right to have a contrary opinion at all.

I just didn’t realize it and hence I had brought the wrong facts to the table.

Many cultures in the world have developed and flourished because of the open exchange of ideas. Such exchanges are often passionate and sometimes anger filled as people agree and disagree. However, we have always embraced the right to the exchange and we grow as a result of it.

When we lose the ability to explore all sides of something, when a particular side is automatically right “just because”, then one of the foundational elements of our culture is lost.

And as with any structure, when the foundation falls, the structure won’t stand for long.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi once told Americans that if they disagreed with national healthcare then they were un-American.

President Obama recently told a number of college students to stop paying attention to social media as the opinions being circulated around were creating too much confusion.

That is their opinion.

However, the truth is that your opinion matters also.

So does mine.

And when we embrace this belief, we embrace making something better.

Any idea that is properly debated will be stronger as a result of the vetting and exploration process.

I would rather my idea be made stronger through such a process or proven that it is a bad idea, so that I can abandon it before I waste too much of my time or someone else’s.

What do you think - do you agree or disagree?

Or do you think I’m not entitled to my opinion at all? :-)

In service and servanthood.

Harry

To see my detailed version of “If I Wanted Your Opinion ….”, please click here.

Truth Welcome Here

2010-10-15T09:14:00.001-07:00

As I walked into my favorite coffee shop today, my eyes fell upon a sign that is common in many establishments.

It said “Welcome here” and showed symbols of all of the primary credit cards that have become commonly known around the world.

If we as a species hung a “Welcome here” sign welcoming visitors to Earth, what types of things would we say are welcome?

Would truth be one of them?

We live in a world where we claim to cherish truth as a primary value but often it seems that it is only a primary value when it is convenient; when being truthful doesn’t conflict with some other intention or need.

It also seems more and more these days that truth, especially when it comes to realities that may be painful to accept, are viewed as pessimism. In these situations, unless we can spin something into a positive light, we often feel like we are better off not saying anything at all for fear of being criticized as not being a positive person or being afraid (as politicians think) that people wouldn’t be able to handle the truth.

“Stuff” that needs to be addressed doesn’t fix itself in the meantime.

The great trouble with truth, whether it be on a political level, a corporate level, a societal level, an ecological level, etc. is that it has this nasty way of reminding us of our responsibilities to ourselves, to others and to the planet – of reminding us that there are still some things that need fixing in this world and that WE own the problem and the solution.

A former client of mine and a wonderful human being sent me a note the other day where he used an expression that really struck me. He said he was a “tactical pessimist and a strategic optimist”. I refer to this as a realist with an optimistic outlook – people who acknowledge that while significant challenges exist, our potential to overcome them is even greater.

There will always be challenges – in business, in government, in relationships, in our health and in the world at large. The best way to tackle them is to acknowledge they are there.

When we acknowledge they are there, we have an opportunity to collaborate towards proactive solutions.

Being truthful to ourselves and others is often painful.

When we choose to not be truthful, we know that the truth always comes out eventually.

When it comes out on our own terms, it is often much less painful than if allowed to eventually make its way to the surface.

Easier said than done … but an important goal to strive towards nonetheless.

To be truthful, our world is counting on it.

Can it count on you?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

To see my detailed blog “Truth Welcome Here”, please click here.

Changing Your Perspective

2010-10-08T08:44:00.001-07:00

I’m sitting in a coffee shop this morning where a food drive is under way to help the local food bank. They are accepting whatever one chooses to give – non-perishables, money, etc.

As I observe the customers frequenting the coffee shop, there appears to be very few people contributing to either the food bin or the money container. In our busy world, it is easy to overlook those who ask for help. Sometimes we rationalize that too many people are asking for our help and it is time for someone else to carry the load.

It is important for all of us to know that for as abundant as our Life may be, the truth is that we are never far from being the one who needs help. Life teaches us humbling lessons – not when we want them or are ready for them but when we need them.

I know – I’ve been there. Most honest people will admit that they have been there also.

I noticed something else this morning. When I change my viewpoint from one of not many people contributing to one of many people giving generously, I noticed that many more are giving to the person collecting.

Some people would say that visualizing more generous people actually creates a future of generous people.

Others would say that we see what we choose to see and so by changing my lens, I perceive what I wish to see – more people giving from their heart.

Others would say it is luck or coincidence. Unfortunately for them, I don’t believe in either.

I believe everything happens with purpose.

And while many things feed your purpose (vision, mission, goals, beliefs, networks, knowledge, skills, talents, opportunities, courage, wisdom, etc), I am reminded this morning that one of the key things that is essential to what you experience is your perspective.

You have the power of choice – use your ability to choose your perspective to your advantage and to the advantage of others. Act as if your personal and professional Life depends on it because it does.

What you choose to see today is what you create for yourself and others.

What do you see right now?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

My detailed musing of “Changing Your Perspective” can be found here.

Creating a Great Day

2010-09-21T09:57:00.001-07:00

Many people comment on my tagline at the bottom of my email and in the signoff in my voicemail.

Take care and create a great day.

I’ve noticed with great delight that many in my network have now adopted some variance of this within their own parlance.

When it comes to wishing that someone have a great day, it seems as much wishful thinking, as if to say “I hope a great day happens to come your way and you are able to latch onto it”.

In my mind, this seems to place too much randomness on the day you are having, that you would:

1. Be lucky enough to have good stuff come your way.

2. That you would be alert enough to see it.

3. That you would have the insight to take a hold of it.

4. That you would have the courage (if required) in order to grasp it.

5. That you would have the strength to hang on to it if the challenge gets difficult.

That’s a lot of stuff going on and with enough permutations that it may be as much miss as hit when it comes to reaching your maximum potential for the day.

However, when you set out to create a great day, you take ownership of the day. You set out to create the greatest chance for success (however you define it) for yourself, your family, your friends, your co-workers, the people you lead, the people you serve and the complete strangers that you will never meet but which you influence every day.

This doesn’t provide any guarantees in Life. While we would appreciate such guarantees, some of the best things in our Lives occur because of unexpected events.

However, setting out to create the best you can provides far greater opportunity for achieving a great day than sitting back and hoping that everything aligns perfectly.

In addition, when you feel you are creating something, you have a better sense of control over your day, moving you forward with purpose and removing the sense of helplessness many people feel as they wait for Life to happen to them.

We live in a world that the media would convince you is a crazy one filled with violence, hate, corruption, war, disease and gloom and doom.

Yes – these things are present in more quantity than we would prefer.

However, the world is also one filled with love, inspiration, beauty, miracles and examples of our ability to do great things when we are inspired to do so.

When you allow Life to happen to you, you will likely be influenced by the negativity in the world.

When you set out to create your Life, you will likely focus on the unlimited beauty and potential in the world.

Would you rather own your Life to the best of your ability or allow your Life to be owned by accidental or intentional events imposed on you by others?

I think I know what your answer is.

George Bernard Shaw once said:

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

What are you waiting for?

Create a great day!

In service and servanthood.

Harry

My detailed blog entry for “Creating a Great Day” is the same as the Musings-in-a-Minute version and can be found here.

The Importance of Conversation

2010-09-13T13:25:00.001-07:00

I was recently reminded of how seemingly unimportant conversations touch others as I sat in a Starbucks in a small town in western Canada and read the handwritten message on the plastic cup that held my iced venti latte.

The message read:

Lethbridge will miss you! – SBUX #4628

For those of you who don’t know me well, I do some of my best work in coffee shops across North America. They give me an opportunity to stay energized on caffeine, an opportunity to concentrate in a place where my anonymity allows me to focus, a chance to get to know the city or town I am in (all the good and bad news of a city flows through the local coffee shop) and an opportunity to interact with amazing people. I become a bit of a local fixture -- the mysterious stranger who engages in passionate conversation about any subject before disappearing as suddenly as he appeared.

I am the type of person who engages in conversation with everybody … sitting beside me on the plane, standing in the line at the supermarket, attending to my table in a restaurant and yes, hanging out at the coffee shop. Some of my greatest friendships have started this way.

When I interact with people like this, I am given an opportunity to gain insight into what makes people happy, sad, angry, perplexed and the whole menagerie of other things we all experience daily.

I also have an opportunity to see that people today, despite all of our connectivity through texting, Facebook, Twitter and other forms of communication, still really appreciate a good ol’ honest-to-goodness face-to-face conversation.

I would almost suggest that we hunger for them more than ever.

Our world is becoming one of instant, quick, often sterile exchanges of information. Sure we insert abbreviations like LOL (laughing out loud), ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) and the like, but nothing beats real laughter shared in person.

I am also made aware of how many people out there hunger for someone to listen to them; someone who reaches out to a stranger and says a kind word that suggests that if they need someone to listen to, then the “ear” has just arrived. This is not an “ear” that will judge but rather, an “ear” of a new friend who cares and who is genuinely interesting in hearing their story.

For many who need that “ear”, they are not necessarily looking for a solution. However, sharing a burden oftentimes can help lighten someone’s load. To know one is not alone is a powerful aid to overcoming many of today’s challenges.

For a powerful example of the importance of such spontaneous, often short-lived conversations, please click here to read my detailed blog. In it, I tell the story of how two strangers come together for less than five minutes and produce a result that changed the lives of both people forever.

Every conversation has the opportunity to change a life forever.

Perhaps it is someone else’s.

Perhaps it is yours.

As for the wonderful folks at the Starbucks in Lethbridge, I’ll stop in again soon to say hi. The same goes for the great people at Coffee Matters in Paradise, Newfoundland, Canada and my favorite little places in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Ottawa and everywhere else I have parked myself to muse upon the workings of the world.

And when I get there, perhaps I will be blessed to have a conversation with you. If you’re shy, that’s not a problem. I will say hi first to get us started. :-)

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog, “The Importance of Conversation”, please click here.

You’re Not Worth Much, Are You?

2010-09-03T13:28:00.001-07:00

It must be difficult being you.

You have no gifts to share with others.

You have no talents, insights or strengths that others want.

Few opportunities come your way that have real potential to change your life.

Your time and your life in general are of so little value that it doesn’t matter if you squander them.

Your career is not bringing a sense of purpose any more. Maybe it never did.

You are not loving yourself and others to your fullest ability.

You are living a good life, you exclaim. I know nothing of your life and so you question where I get the audacity to make such claims. You are right where you want to be and I have no right to say such things. I should mind my own business.

Heated words are exchanged as you defend yourself, as your ego attempts to assert itself over mine.

I am glad that you are defending yourself.

Because everything I said about you is NOT true.

However, if an objective observer were to evaluate you on your actions and not your words, they might come to the same conclusion as I just did. They might say the same things about me also.

If someone offered you more of what you need right now; better health, fewer bills, more fulfilling career, etc., most would accept it immediately.

So your hopes and dreams are alive. :-)

Thank goodness!

It’s up to you to do something about converting your hopes and dreams into beliefs, which fuel action, which creates results.

You are more than worth it.

So what are you waiting for?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog “You’re Not Worth Much, Are You?”, please click here.

Is Optimism Killing Us?

2010-08-26T11:01:00.001-07:00

I’ve noticed an interesting trend lately in many circles, especially in the corporate and government worlds.

If you point out a problem or even acknowledge that a problem exists, then you are a pessimist.

Meanwhile, the things we want to pretend aren’t happening continue to grow in frequency and intensity.

For examples, please see my detailed blog here.

Equally insidious are the people who are trying to convince their management, peers and minions that everything is under control so people shouldn’t ask questions.

When people like me come along, insatiably curious about everything, we are a threat to their peace of mind. After all, people who don’t accept with blind faith that everything is perfectly under control are a danger to the myth they are trying to impart upon others and a threat to their ego.

That being said, optimism and hope are critical attributes to have. Without them, it is easy to feel overwhelmed, that we have no chance of surviving that which we are facing. If we feel overwhelmed, we give up hope and lie down in defeat.

We must always have hope that great, wonderful things are before us.

But until we acknowledge that oftentimes there really are difficult and challenging obstacles that must be overcome first, we will still be smiling with the deer-in-the-headlights look when the thing we pretended wasn’t there runs right over us, whether it be a personal failure, a corporate blunder or a government collapse.

Being a pessimist is not productive on many levels and can be extremely crippling to you and those around you.

Being an uber-optimist is not much better.

I think it is better to be a realist with an optimistic outlook – that it is ok to acknowledge that we have challenges before us but that through intelligent, proactive action, we will overcome it together.

Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel may actually be a train. If I deny it’s a train, it will run right over me.

But if I acknowledge it is a train, then I can work to solve the problem and convert the light at the end of the tunnel into a ray of hope.

And that is where optimism and positive thinking work best – as the fuel to help us believe that we WILL overcome our challenges …..

…. whatever they are ……

…. together.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog about “Is Optimism Killing Us?”, please click here.

How Easily Intimidated Are You?

2010-08-24T13:24:00.001-07:00

How easily intimidated are you when interacting with other people whom you consider to be “empowered” or “superior” in some way?

Many of us have had an opportunity to interact with someone who feels intimidating to be around. This perception of intimidation produces in some people’s minds, a wrestling match between their ego and the other person’s (even though the other person is unaware of it). The wrestling match produces one of three outcomes from the perspective of the observer:

1. My ego is ok with this and we can find things to collaborate around.

2. My ego feels it is not worthy and I don’t understand why he would bother with me, therefore I will not participate for fear of not living up to his expectations.

3. My ego feels it is threatened, that his ego will exert influence over me or have knowledge that I don’t (thus making me look bad) and so I will avoid the opportunity to collaborate.

For those in categories 2 or 3, when they discover that the “intimidating” person really wants a true win-win collaboration, this throws their ego off even more and suggests to them that the other person must have an ulterior motive on top of an inflated ego. This deepens their reasoning that their ego must be protected from embarrassment and ridicule at all cost and so a collaboration must be avoided.

Meanwhile, those in category 1 know that the only difference between arrogance and confidence in the one they observe is usually just perspective - notice I said usually :-).

People may be surprised to know how many people there are in categories 2 and 3 who are in high positions of power; whether in government, business or other institutions. I believe that categories 2 and 3 make up a significant percentage of people in positions of leadership.

What a Waste of Potential

We waste so many opportunities to collaborate and to create positive results for the greater good when we fail to realize that we all bring incredible gifts, talents and strengths to the table.

With such gifts, there is no need for ego-wrestling. We all need each other.

The threatened observer, while perceiving a large ego in the observed ….

is merely observing the gap in egos between the observer and the observed and not the ego of the observed.

In other words, it’s not that the observed person has too great an ego ….

it’s that the observer may have too small an ego.

A More Insidious Intimidation

While we choose to work with people (or not) based on this ego gap, there is another type of intimidation going on in the world that we accept but I believe is potentially more crippling or debilitating in our lives.

I call this intimidation “information or intellectual intimidation”, the use of facts, figures, credentials or a majority opinion to force people into a desired action even when the facts are nebulous, inaccurate or downright wrong.

One could write thousands of pages, citing many examples (I include some examples in my detailed blog here). There are many challenges that trouble people privately and professionally and yet they are kept quiet for fear of losing their job, their friends, their family, etc.

The “emperor is not wearing any clothing” but for a variety of reasons, we stay quiet or look the other way. Meanwhile, our challenges grow – we just don’t discuss them publicly.

This seems to be to be the ultimate intimidation. and given the potential impact, a very dangerous one.

We Need To Decide What is Really Important

So our ego works to protect us from what it perceives as immediate threats against itself when we engage in one-on-one interactions, when many of those interactions may have produced results far greater than anything we could ever have accomplished by ourselves.

Meanwhile, greater threats to our prosperity and well-being are at play every day and yet we don’t see them or we are afraid to have an opinion about them, for a variety of reasons.

I wonder if our egos need to choose our battles more intelligently.

On the one side, our ego rises to protect us without having any facts to justify its behavior.

On the other side, it accepts things from certain people with specific titles, again without having any facts. However, many of us make the mistake of assuming that having a title makes some people superior in intention, morals or values and so facts aren’t important in these situations.

When we strip the titles off those people, they are all just people and so our ego should hold them accountable to the same set of rules.

As Neale Donald Walsch wrote:

Be aware

Be honest

Be responsible

Let’s apply our ego consistently across the board – to collaborate, to question, to see the gifts in ourselves and others and to make a difference for ourselves and the greater good.

Better yet, don’t let your ego do the talking or thinking for you. What does your spirit or instinct tell you?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog “How Easily Intimidated Are You?”, please click here.

Making a Difference or Just Pleasing Yourself

2010-08-01T19:25:00.001-07:00

(This is slightly longer than my typical “Musings-in-a-Minute”. I didn’t want to remove any detail from my most recent blog …. read on)!

I've been disrupted this evening by two quotes. The first, by Leo Rosten, is:

"The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all."

I'll get to the second one a little later in this post.

As with many pearls of wisdom, we read them, absorb them and then move on with our busy lives.

But this time, I happened across these two quotes while looking into the eyes of a young child in an online campaign designed to raise funds for children in developing nations. The child was sickly and starving - someone who lived in a world without hope, without dreams... wondering if anyone out there cared at all.

Wondering if this is all there is.

And when this sequence of events coalesced at the same moment this evening, it made me stop and think "How much do we REALLY do for others"?

Yes, we talk a lot about doing the right things and many of us do the token, obligatory acts of giving that don’t require a lot of effort and then we clap ourselves on the shoulder, congratulate ourselves regarding our benevolence and we move on with our lives.

How much do we REALLY think of people like this child?

I recently went through a pretty serious house-cleaning where I got rid of hundreds of promotional t-shirts, pens, pins and other stuff designed to help me think of the companies that gave them to me.

The promotional industry calls this stuff swag. As I got rid of it, to me it wasn't swag - it was junk.

Junk that occupied valuable space in my home, costs me money to move if I keep it, is negatively impactful on the environment to create, is wasteful to distribute and will be a detriment to the environment if not disposed of properly. Meanwhile, I am not using any of it for the purpose it was designed.

So from my perspective, it IS junk. It is of no benefit to me at all.

A lot of time goes into selecting the right items, deciding who gets them and when it is appropriate to deliver them.

More thought and money goes into the swag (junk) industry than is going into helping others.

Thankfully, not all companies and individuals think this way.

Some companies actually prefer a different approach. One such company, Henge Production and Consulting, buys goats on behalf of its clients instead of providing the clients with the usual t-shirts, pens, mouse pads and other useless paraphernalia. These goats allegedly make their way to destitute families in developing nations, helping to lift these families out of the dire situations that they are in.

However, this raises a question.

When such a gift is made, do the goats actually make it to these families or is this just another scam to help us feel good about helping others while not accomplishing anything measurable or useful for those in need?

Clients of Henge challenged Henge with this very question and the owners of Henge paused and realized:

"We actually don't know the answer - do our ethical gifts actually make a difference?"

So Henge set out to discover if their act of ethical gifting actually delivers goats to families in developing nations and if so, do these goats make a difference to the recipients?

Their incredible journey has been documented in a soon-to-be-released documentary entitled "Where's My Goat?". In the film, Christopher Richardson, a producer at Henge, sets out on a journey that takes him halfway around the world in his quest to find his goats and to understand what, if any, impact they have.

Do his goats exist? Does anyone benefit from such a gift or is it truly a feel-good Western ideal (or worse, is it a scam that produces nothing of value except to the scammer)?

You'll have to watch the film to find out. You can find out more on their Facebook page - http://tinyurl.com/3xunzs4.

As you watch the film, you will be moved by the passion of a man as he seeks the answer to the question

"Are my intentions of making a difference in the world REALLY making a difference"?

If you have an opportunity to watch the film, be prepared to be disrupted and then ask yourself this question:

"Am I REALLY doing enough for others?"

Your heart will know the answer.

Follow your heart - it will take you places that will surprise you and will impact others for a lifetime.

As for the second of the two quotes I mentioned earlier, it was written by Daniel Berrigan and goes like this:

"Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even."

Mr. Richardson's film is, I believe, a call to look into the eyes of someone who needs help.

When you do so, I'll bet you won't be able to resist helping them to the best of your ability.

And what's wrong with that?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

Silence is Golden

2010-07-25T19:11:00.001-07:00

I’m on vacation.

It’s nothing elaborate.

I haven’t gone off to some ritzy vacation resort where all the family members are overwhelmed with stuff to do.

I haven’t gone to a remote place that requires a PhD to plan how to get a family there and back again without losing someone along the way.

The thought of such a vacation exhausts me just thinking about it. I thought vacations were created to help us rest, not run us down further.

What I have done is unplugged from my day-to-day regimen and taken some time to recharge in the middle of a cross-country move.

No client emails or voicemails …. no meetings.

Almost (yes, almost) no social media interaction. Yep .. almost no Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any of the other services I am a member of. Surprisingly and contrary to popular opinion, you can cut back significantly and still do quite well mentally.

Very few people know where we are.

It’s just me, my family (all but my oldest son), some good books that I’ve been meaning to finish for a year or more and practically no agenda.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh … silence is truly golden.

As the ocean breeze gently blows in through my open window this evening, something occurs to me.

Many of us are afraid to slow down because we all want to believe the world will shrivel up and die without us.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Only our ego could dream up such a thing.

So given that the world will merrily continue to function quite well without us, what would it hurt us to occasionally put our hand up and say “Stop – I need a minute to think”.

I just did …. and I must tell you that the result was delicious, invigorating and revitalizing. It is providing me with greater insight and clarity into upcoming projects.

We are happy to spend thousands on the latest gimmick du jour to help us improve our productivity.

Sometimes the greatest thing we can do is nothing at all … just for a little while.

Are you ready to give it a try?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed musing on “Silence is Golden”, please click here.

Wanted For Hire: Not Too Smart or Too Stupid

2010-06-26T10:08:00.001-07:00

I was recently helping someone move from Europe to Canada and despite an impeccable academic background, attitude and outlook, he came up empty-handed and so he moved on to another part of the world.

He should have been a shoe-in for a job but he couldn’t find one. What held him back?

It seems that in the marketplace he had targeted, there were additional criteria that he couldn’t meet; a secret, fuzzy criteria that was impossible to study for or anticipate.

The people he had approached didn’t want him to be too smart. In essence, they didn’t want him to be smarter than they are (by their own definition and judgment) because it left their ego with a sense of being threatened.

So my response to them was “so you need this person to be not as smart as you” to which the response was “well, we won’t invest in him if he is too stupid either”.

So the final criteria for this enterprising individual was that he had to be less intelligent than the hiring person but not too stupid either – a nebulous range that would vary from one hiring individual to another and a range that would be impossible to anticipate on an interview-by-interview basis.

True leaders want and need to find people who are as smart or preferably, smarter than they are. True leaders know they are tasked with leading individuals and groups to produce exceptional results and in the process, create leaders who are more knowledgeable than they are.

When leaders can adjust their ego such that they have enough to be confident but not so much that they forget their purpose, to create results as well as the leaders of tomorrow, then we will finally be on the road to a balanced, exceptional future – in business, in government, in institutions and in society.

Strong leadership and strong ego are both accelerants – one accelerates results and growth for everyone and one accelerates the demise of everyone.

When you are hiring, are you looking to create a legacy of results and strong leadership in your teams or are you hiring to fuel your own ego?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

To read my detailed blog “Wanted For Hire: Not Too Smart or Too Stupid”, please click here.

Don’t Invest in Maybe

2010-06-07T08:06:00.001-07:00

I’ve had some opportunity recently to revisit my BHAG, what Jim Collins in “Good to Great” describes as your “big hairy audacious goal”.

The BHAG is that which drives you to move forward towards a specific objective in life. It is a goal that is not easy to achieve; something that stretches you (maybe painfully) in a number of ways and establishes a reason for existence that relentlessly calls you to do whatever it takes in order for you to get there.

It provides the filter that you apply against every significant decision and action in your life since everything you think, say and do takes you closer to or further away from your life goals and purpose.

Many people have hopes, wishes, dreams and aspirations but they do not have a BHAG that they move towards with focus and intention. They wander aimlessly around hoping to hit on their purpose; wasting their time and the time of those around them.

For people who waste our time, it is easy to be frustrated with others as we think “I can’t believe so-and-so did such-and-such”.

It’s not their fault.

It’s ours.

When someone enters our space, it is OUR choice that determines whether they stay there and what they do while they are there.

We are best equipped to do this when we find our BHAG and are aggressive about controlling what contributes to it, detracts from it and what defines how clear or cloudy it is.

If someone else enters your space and the reasons for collaboration are not immediately clear, politely and respectfully protect your space.

Have the courage to say “no” once in a while and stick to it.

It is YOUR Life after all.

Have a say in how you live it, what feeds into it, what influences it, what consumes your time and what results you produce.

YOU are worth it.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed musing about “Don’t Invest in Maybe”, please click here.

Where’s the Beef?

2010-05-10T06:46:00.001-07:00

In 1984, the Wendy’s restaurant chain ran a smart commercial about an elderly lady who walked into a competitor’s hamburger restaurant, ordered their “Big Bun hamburger” and was greatly disappointed with what she was presented with. As she looked over the sandwich that was all bun and no burger, she yelled out the famous phrase “Where’s the beef?”.

As a strategy guy looking over many of the challenges facing us today, the same question comes to mind. Think of the challenges that are swirling around us these days and assurances from political, military and business leaders to “trust us” as the challenges continue to grow.

Lately as these and other assurances fall flat, I think of the old Wendy’s commercial and have to ask:

“Where’s the beef?”

Whenever anyone challenges the message of “Trust us” in these or other areas, we are met with a number of reasons (or excuses) why trust is all we have to go on.

Here are some of the ones we are given:

National security – sharing what we know will compromise your safety.
Confidentiality – sharing what we know will jeopardize corporate confidentiality.
Complexity – the problems and solutions are simply too complicated to explain to everyone.
Timing – we don’t have time to stop and explain this; we’re off to tackle the next “thing” of an urgent nature. Other timing related excuses include things such as “if we delay execution too long, a corporation will suffer or a military opponent will gain the upper hand and you don’t want that on your hands, do you?”.
Over-estimation of risk – we know there is less risk than you think there is, so there is no need to stop and engage in a pointless dialog about a problem that is not as bad as people think it is.
Intelligence – we are experts at this, you are not, so whose opinion matters more?

What some of these leaders need to remember is that the electorate and people at large are a lot smarter than they realize.

Fortunately for these leaders, many people are crushed with the weight of keeping their families above water on a daily basis and so they can’t take the time to stop and say to today’s leaders:

“Where’s the beef?”

Some people who do ask the question are easily intimidated into silence using a variety of techniques.

I think if we could finally get many of these leaders to be totally accountable and transparent around their challenges and intentions, then we would truly see the real risks (or lack of) with many of the things that face us.

When we all have knowledge of the challenges before us, we tap into a much larger group of people who can contribute to solutions.

And then, maybe then, we will truly move closer to our phenomenal potential on this planet.

Have you asked a leader lately “Where’s the beef?”.

If you have and you didn’t like the answer, keep asking.

If you haven’t asked the question, why haven’t you?

Regardless of how proactive each of us is in contributing to the world, we all reap the harvest, good and bad, together.

Let’s make it a bountiful, sustainable harvest.

We can choose to correct our behaviors or we can choose to do nothing and eventually, our behaviors will be corrected for us in a process that I refer to as the Great Correction.

I’d rather own the process than be owned by it.

How about you?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog “Where’s the Beef?”, please click here.

Ego Versus Spirit

2010-05-06T07:51:00.001-07:00

Being a servant leader is one of the most challenging and rewarding endeavors that one can embrace.

For some, the concept of leadership invites thoughts of power; the notion that “I have earned this dominion over others so that I may direct them as I feel they need to be directed.” Others believe that with their talents and life experiences, the awarding of the title, “leader,” is an entitlement; some type of reward they are owed based on what they have accomplished.

The true servant leader sees leadership as the opportunity to serve others, to influence the team and surrounding environment to produce long-lasting, impactful results and to encourage development of similar leadership traits in others.

With any of these beliefs, leaders often find themselves confronted by something that is both one of the greatest gifts AND one of the single largest enemies of leadership. This combination of gift and enemy within one entity can be confusing and beguiling. We need this gift in small doses in order to move forward with confidence. In these situations, it is a necessary companion on our Life journey. However, when it grows sufficiently, it passes the point of empowering us and instead, destroys us and everything around us.

What is this “thing” that is both an empowering, enlightening gift and a disempowering, destructive foe?

It is our ego.

Our ego, in the correct amount, provides us with the self-confidence that propels us to use our gifts appropriately in the service of others. It enables us with the oomph to keep moving when times are challenging. As ego helps us move forward, the Universe often rewards us by manifesting blessings in many ways.

However, many times our ego, which has been our healthy and enabling companion, takes a look at this manifestation and thinks, “Hmmm … I must be pretty good to manifest this. I wonder what else I can manifest if I put my mind to it?”

The ego, having forgotten that the “royal we” produced the abundance together, begins to assert itself as the master of its domain. It takes actions assuming that only it knows the right way to do things; that only it has the knowledge needed and, in the end, it can only count on itself to gets things done. It embraces the belief that “if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.”

What further exacerbates the situation is that ego has, as part of its self-defense mechanism, the belief that everyone else has an ego that is intentionally conspiring to knock it down from its lofty perch. To protect itself, it proactively attempts to weaken the ego of others with thoughts of distrust, hurtful words, action to disable others, and other non-collaborative efforts.

This results in leaders and the teams they serve dissolving into a tense, combative, exhausting conflict of wills, and a struggle to establish who is smartest, most able, most capable, or most whatever. However, what the ego most fears is our Spirit, the part of us we can’t see but we know is there.

The Spirit recognizes our gifts and allows us to recognize the gifts of others. It allows us to embrace the belief we are all in this together, and the best way to make a difference and exert impactful influence is by bringing our gifts together.

Just as a leader who leads with ego finds egos responding in kind, the leader who leads with Spirit finds the Spirit of others responding in return.

The Spirit that says, “I honor the gifts within you as I know you honor the gifts within me.”
The Spirit that is built upon love, trust, collaboration, learning and sharing.
The Spirit that is built upon serving others, not ruling them.

If you have too little ego, you become the world’s doormat. If you have too much, you think the world is your doormat. Neither extreme is healthy and the servant leader seeks to find a balance between the two extremes. As a servant leader, have enough ego to propel yourself to action, but let your Spirit be that which takes action.

My many years of consulting on Wall Street have helped me to ascertain, in a matter of minutes, the level of success enjoyed by a leader and their team. How do I know? It’s simple really. In the first five minutes, I can sense whether the Spirit on the other side of the table wants to hug me in welcome or the ego wants to choke me in an effort to control me.

Our ego says, “I am perfect.” Our Spirit says. “We are perfect.”

When I am sitting across the table from you, does your Spirit or your ego do the talking? How do you know?

In service and servanthood.

Harry Tucker

This blog was also posted on Northfork Center For Servant Leadership on May 6th, 2010.

While my Musings-in-a-Minute versions of my detailed blogs are usually an abbreviated version of the original blog, my Musings-in-a-Minute version of my detailed blog for “Ego versus Spirit” is the same given the short nature of this entry.

Can You Ask For Help?

2010-04-27T09:36:00.001-07:00

A former schoolmate of mine was buried yesterday.

As we get older, we know that death is part of life and we come to accept it as a natural part of living that we will face someday.

However, what made her end-of-days so tragic in my mind was that she died by her own hand at an early age (under 50 years of age).

She was significant to me in junior high and high school. While I am 6’3” now, back then I was much smaller and was a regular target of bullies. My friend would step in often and would chase the bullies off, telling them to leave me alone. She was my hero when I needed help.

But many of us didn’t know that she was crying for help and by the time we discovered it, it was too late.

We as inhabitants of this beautiful planet carry a two-fold responsibility as part of the “rent” we pay for occupying space here.

The first responsibility is that when we see opportunities to help others personally, professionally, ecologically or in any other way, I think it is ok to stick our nose in to offer help. If our help is turned down, we should assess how important the situation is before saying “ok” and walking away.

The second responsibility and the one that is far more difficult to live up to is for each of us to not be afraid to ask for help.

Let’s be more aggressive in offering help to others.

More importantly, let’s not be afraid of asking for help.

A person or organization’s life may depend on it.

It may be yours or someone close to you.

Can you ask for help?

Do you have the courage to ask for it when you need it?

Do you have the sense of obligation to answer the call when it comes on behalf of others?

As for my friend, my prayers are with her family. We didn’t hear her cry for help.

Let’s not let the cries for help go unnoticed, unheeded and unanswered, including our own.

That is, after all, an important part of our responsibility while we are here. Our responsibility to others also includes the fact that asking for help is much more difficult than offering it, so let’s be more cognizant of the needs of others.

We can’t save everybody and everything.

But I think we can do much better.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

To see my more detailed blog “Can You Ask For Help?”, please click here.

Traveling Medicine Shows in the 21st Century

2010-04-20T13:46:00.001-07:00

Many of us have seen movies, read books or are aware of other references to what years ago was referred to as the traveling medicine show.

In the late 1800’s in the US, people hawking magical elixirs and powders would do so using a fast-paced, pressure-filled sales pitch that was accompanied by performing artists.

In the 21st century, such shows still exist. The only difference is that now they are on-demand, appearing within your own home whenever you feel like watching them.

Take this video by Jeremy Bennett, (note on April 24/ 2010: Mr. Bennett has removed the video) for example, where he claims that by loving your anxiety, you can cure it. In the video, he claims anxiety actually loves hate and because we allegedly hate anxiety, we fuel it with our hate and so simply by loving anxiety, it will fade away.

Ahhhhhh ….. if it were only that easy.

I have no issue with people promoting unusual thoughts out there – it is a free world where the exchange of knowledge must be allowed to flow freely.

However, when I watched this video by Mr. Bennett today, I challenged him by posting some comments under the video; comments along the lines of how some of his facts are incorrect and some of them are not based on any research or accepted theories. I also expressed my thought that this video wasn’t very authentic for a number of reasons.

His response was to delete my messages and then to block me from writing any more comments.

I believe that when someone has an interesting theory or idea to share, it should stand up to close scrutiny and questioning. After all, if the promoter truly believes their material to be true, won’t they be happy to defend their ideas?

When people are afraid to answer questions and they don’t want others to see the questions either, then I question whether they have anything real at all.

Maybe …. just maybe ….. they are just selling another elixir.

When I was a kid, we used to be amazed at the stuff we could buy for 25 cents from a comic book: things like genuine x-ray glasses, wrist bracelets that gave you the strength to “karate-chop” a thick piece of wood and books that promised insight into the ancient wisdom of the universe.

While today’s technology is far more advanced, when it comes to being gullible, sometimes I wonder how much we have progressed.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

PS On his website, Mr. Bennett claims to have trained members of the White House. Perhaps his theories on curing anxiety are part of the new Health Care bill. I hope not.

April 21/2010 – I noticed that since my blog was published, Mr. Bennett has renamed his video to “Jeremy Bennett's 1st Two Steps To What Helped Him Manage His Anxiety” from the originally named “Unorthodox Cure For Anxiety”.

April 22/2010 - I noticed that Mr. Bennett just added a blue banner to his video citing "ALWAYS seek professional help as soon as possible. There are trained professionals that could change your life."

This is a good banner - I am glad that my blog and the comments and urgings of others are bringing a level of authenticity to his presentation. It's content is still questionable in my opinion but at least people are reminded to seek professional help and this is important.

April 23/2010 – Mr. Bennett has removed references from his bio regarding being an advisor to the White House and working with the stars of the movie “What The Bleep”.

April 24/2010 – Mr. Bennett removed the video (the link I have now shows a “Video has been removed by the user” message. I guess the video did not stand up to public scrutiny.

To see my detailed blog “Traveling Medicine Shows in the 21st Century”, please click here.

Be the Salt

2010-04-19T12:21:00.001-07:00

In Matthew 5:13, Matthew writes:

"You are the salt of the earth,but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” (ESV)

There are many people around us who are “the salt”; those people who bring collaboration, sharing, creativity and a new dimension of “getting things done” to everything they do and they do so with a passion that frightens others.

Those who are “the salt” in our society know that it is not easy being “the salt”.

There are many egos who feel threatened by “the salt” and will do whatever it takes to thwart the efforts of “the salt”.

When the owners of ego see “the salt” arrive, they get nervous. After all, their ego needs recognition and control above all else and arrival of “the salt” challenges this need.

”The salt” on the other hand seeks to live by values such as Stephen Covey’s 4 L’s – to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy.

Ego doesn’t understand this, because ego can only attack and take.

We Need Salt

Salt is necessary - without salt, we die.

Without those who are “the salt” in our culture; political, professional, economic, religious, educational, ecological, societal, etc., our culture dies.

Ego fights for recognition and survival from the ego’s standpoint while “the salt” fights to do the right thing for others. The fight is a fruitless waste of time but the ego knows no other way.

Sometimes “the salt” will give up the fight and ego thinks it has won. It hasn’t. “The salt” realized that it was wasting its time and energy and has moved on to where its time, talent and treasure can play a larger, more impactful role with the gifts that it has.

Ego delights in its “victory”, not realizing that it hasn’t won anything for anyone. No one benefits when ego carries the day.

The prize that ego fights for is small, private, meaningless and selfish. The prize that “the salt” fights for is large, impactful and loving.

Are you ego-focused or are you “the salt”?

How do you know?

What would others say?

Be “the salt”. Associate with others who are “the salt”. The world needs it.

Without it, we all die.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

Addendum: In a conversation I was having with a Facebook friend tonight (thanks, Jeannette), it occurred to me that salt is a fascinating and interesting dichotomy. It is both a source of nourishment and a source of irritation, depending on the circumstance. I found this to be very interesting as “the salt” is necessary in society but is often a source of irritation to the egos of others.

For my detailed blog “Be the Salt”, please click here.

Taking Action … or Just Musing About It

2010-03-26T11:00:00.001-07:00

Bill Hybels in his wonderful book “Holy Discontent” talks about the things that we observe in the world that burn in our soul so strongly that we feel we MUST do something about them or be consumed by this inner fire.

I’ve been struggling with a holy discontent of my own these days.

I have received a lot of advice from people indicating that others will take care of the things that need to be fixed in the world, the things in the world aren’t as bad as people think, we just need to pray about the problems and they will go away, I should mind my own business, I should respect the processes in places (which are not producing any result), etc.

With deepest respect to all of these well-intentioned folks, I disagree with all of this and have often been criticized for standing up to excuses for not getting stuff done.

In looking for the best way to describe why I disagree with them, I couldn’t explain it any better than Henri Nouwen and his co-authors in the book “Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life” and so I share it with you.

“Honest, direct confrontation is a true expression of compassion. As Christians, we are in the world without being of it. It is precisely this position that renders confrontation both possible and necessary. The illusion of power must be unmasked, idolatry must be undone, oppression and exploitation must be fought. This is compassion.

We cannot suffer with the poor when we are unwilling to confront those persons and systems that cause poverty. We cannot set the captives free when we do not want to confront those who carry the keys. We cannot profess solidarity with those who are oppressed when we are unwilling to confront the oppressor. Compassion without confrontation fades quickly into fruitless sentimental commiseration.

But if confrontation is to be an expression of patient action it must be humble. Our constant temptation is to fall into self-righteous revenge or self-serving condemnation. The danger here is that our own witness can blind us. When confrontation is blinded by desire for attention, need for revenge or greed for power, it can easily become self-serving and cease to be compassionate.”

So.

We all have a holy discontent that burns within us.

Are we willing to do what it takes, to collaborate as much as it takes and to take action with every fiber of our being to address our holy discontent?

How strong is our will to see our vision and our personal mission come to fruition and to help others realize the same within their own lives?

The answer to that question not only impacts the sense of purpose in our own lives but in fact, impacts the level of positive results that are achieved in the world.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

To read my detailed musing about “Taking Action …. or Just Musing About It” please go here.

Eastern Health – Leadership in Crisis

2010-03-17T09:49:00.001-07:00

I almost NEVER post my political thoughts on the web.

However, in the case of watching Eastern Health (in Newfoundland, Canada) melt down over shortcomings in leadership, I couldn’t help but write this letter to the key stakeholders within the government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

If you want additional specifics, feel free to Google them. The details are too complex to summarize in my blog but a number of people wanted to see this letter and for this reason, I have posted this on my blog.

My letter follows – comments are welcome.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday – March 15, 2010

Good day, Honorable Premier, Honorable Minister of Health, Ms. Jones and Ms. Michael.

As a strategy advisor and leadership incubator on Wall St. for many years, I find the current series of events at Eastern Health interesting and disturbing.

Ms. Kaminski’s claims of ignorance or helplessness regarding the things that are going on in Eastern Health may appear to her to give her a free pass; that all of this is happening without her knowledge and is beyond her control. Her recent public statements which are more suggestive of a bully and not a leader are not helpful either.

Most leaders know that to admit things are happening without their knowledge or beyond their control is not just symptomatic of problems lower down in the organization. It is in fact, symptomatic of issues within the leadership itself. In these situations, there is no limit to how high up the chain one must go in order to find and correct these issues.

The constant cover-ups, misrepresentations, he said / she said accusations, resignations that are stated to be for one reason and then are found to not be related, etc., suggests an organization in crisis and of leadership in crisis.

In addition, the current manner in which this is being debated in public is horrific, unprofessional, unproductive and if anything, continues to erode the confidence of the people.

What makes matters of greater concern is that the devil is not in what we know – it’s in what we don’t know.

I would suspect that if so many leaks in the “Eastern Health boat” have come to light, there is a good chance that there is much more amiss inside the Eastern Health ship that we cannot see.

Just as the dangerous part of an iceberg is mostly out of sight, I wonder if there are many more challenges within Eastern Health that are out of sight, waiting for an inopportune moment to manifest and potentially take the lives of people unnecessarily.

What we see being demonstrated in public could hardly convince us otherwise.

You are all leaders of strong background and high intelligence with a history of service to the people of the Province and a commitment to do the right things for the Province.

Please work together to bring your intelligence, your passion to do the right thing and your commitment for excellence to bear to bring this back under control – not only what we see but what we don’t see also.

To do anything else is to not serve the people of the Province.

Yours most respectfully,

Harry Tucker

Addendum – March 19th, 2010:

Some folks may be interested in this earlier blog entry that referenced Eastern Health.

Stewardship – Do Unto Others…..

2010-03-15T06:24:00.001-07:00

Almost every one of us can think of a moment in our lives when we really needed help and the right person arrived at the right moment. Maybe that person was a teacher who took extra time for us when we struggled. Maybe it was someone at work who took the time to teach us a new skill or who gave us a break when we really needed it. Perhaps it was a compliment that gave us the self confidence to complete a task. It might have been something as simple as the complete stranger who gave us a smile in the middle of a bad day. Perhaps it wasn’t something done to us directly but a story that was shared with us that inspired us to do something for someone else.

We have many people to be grateful for for all that we have in Life. Think of where we would be without them.

There are many people out there right now who are in need of the same gifts that we have received. While we acknowledge this, we all struggle with the complexities of life, with so many things competing for our time, our talent and our treasure that perhaps prevent us from giving as much as we would like to others.

The truth is that, as in our own lives, oftentimes the most profound and impactful gifts we can give are the simplest and easiest to give. These are the gifts that show others that they are important, that they matter and that others care about them. Often this knowledge alone can have a profound impact on others, an impact that they in turn pass on to others. As it is written in 1 Peter 4:10 - "As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace."

Bob Pierce defined the term "The Great Compassion" as meaning "Let my heart be broken by that which breaks the heart of God".

What things in the world do you believe break the heart of God? These are the areas where He calls you to help. It is not the size of the act that matters. What matters is whether you take action or leave it as an intention.

We all perform acts of stewardship every day. However, there is always room for more.

Where would you be if someone had chosen to be too busy rather than to help?

Someone is waiting for you. How would you like to help?

"Finally, all of you, be of one mind, sympathetic, loving toward one another, compassionate, humble. " - 1 Peter 3:8

In service and servanthood.

Harry

My detailed musing is the same entry for this blog but if you would like to see my detailed musings, please go here.

If You Don’t Know Where You Are Going …

2010-03-04T06:41:00.001-08:00

… any road will take you there.

So Lewis Carroll wrote in Through the Looking Glass.

Many know him as an enlightened author but I wonder if he was in fact, a brilliant strategist.

Many things in life are not measurable and there isn’t a magical, guaranteed plan that, when put into play, guarantees a successful outcome every time.

Many paths that we choose (or allow others to choose on our behalf) are benign and when we realize we are on the wrong path, we can retrace our steps and choose a better one. Hopefully we are better for the experience anyway, we reason.

However, many paths are VERY long, VERY expensive to travel and many have road mines that when tripped, impact our ability to continue down ANY path.

A Better Way

There seems to be a great need to return to respectful dialog using all the information at our disposal.

We loudly trumpet how we have more information now than ever.

That’s wonderful. However, it is only truly valuable when it is used.

The choices we make as a result of sharper, focused dialogue and enhanced accountability may not guarantee the desired result, but it will give us a better chance of avoiding the stuff that sets us back further and further.

The economic, corporate, societal and ecological states of the world do not have much room left for continued random execution with the hope of accidentally finding something that works.

We don’t have much room for turning a blind eye towards personal agendas either.

We need to encourage people to be more responsible and accountable about how they choose the road that they travel. Remember that we all travel these roads together. The road they choose is the one that we end up on.

Do you think we are travelling down the best road?

How do you know?

What are you going to do about it?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

To read my detailed blog about “If You Don’t Know Where You Are Going …” please click here.

Hubris and Humility – Finding a Balance

2010-02-03T08:58:00.001-08:00

One of the things I have noticed in the last five to ten years is that we have either discovered a LOT more experts in the world than we thought existed or that current world dynamics encourage people to proclaim themselves as experts even when they are not.

Given the number of challenges that remain unsolved in the world, my bet would be that the latter is a more accurate assessment.

I wonder if we have forgotten the importance of humility in how we relate to others or even how we relate to ourselves. Many of us have spent so much time overhyping our experience, our expertise or our strengths that we now believe it ourselves – our hype has transformed from self-promotion to core belief.

Frankly, we amaze ourselves with our brilliance. We’re just waiting for the world to finally “get it” – to catch up to our brilliant mind.

Feels good, doesn’t it?

Or does it?

Strong leaders need confidence. Without confidence and a passion for moving towards our purpose, leaders lack the ability to inspire others, to motivate them and to push through when challenges and obstacles are significant.

That being said, confidence must always be tempered with humility.

The humility that accepts that we don’t have all the answers. We may not even know all the questions.

We need humility that acknowledges that we need each other.

This is not the humility that calls us to be the doormat to the world. If we do that, we discover that many in the world are content to wipe their feet off on us as they proceed on their own quest.

We each bring a unique combination of knowledge, talents, strengths, insights and life experiences. This unique combination of gifts means that we are called to bring these gifts to bear in collaboration with others.

When we realize this and humbly acknowledge that we need everyone and that others need us in return, then we allow ourselves to temper our hubris with humility.

I have been as guilty as the next person for believing my own “shtick”. That’s why I am grateful for the reminders that bring me back to reality.

Some reminders have been gently and privately delivered. Some have not been so gently or privately delivered, which is why I am reminded that confidence empowers while hubris kills.

Which do you embrace?

How do you know?

More importantly, would others agree with you?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my detailed blog about “Hubris and Humility”, please click here.

My Values Are Important …. Most of the Time

2010-01-08T09:45:00.001-08:00

In August of 2009, I mused in my blog “Consistent Messages – The True Source of Inconsistency” about whether or not the messages we broadcast to the world are in resonance with our values and actions.

One of the things I discussed was in regards to a national supermarket chain and their inconsistent message around plastic bags, announcing that they did not want their customers to use them. The reason was because the environment was important to them and this was one way they were demonstrating their commitment. To accomplish this, they would begin charging 5 cents per bag moving forward.

The reason they selected 5 cents was that in fact they only wanted to lightly discourage people from buying them without offending anyone. They didn’t in fact want you to stop as the signs in the supermarket suggested and I thought the inconsistency between message and intention was amusing.

I was listening to a spokesperson on the radio this morning from the same supermarket chain describing why the chain offered the bags free of charge to customers during the holiday season and had extended the free bag offer for the time being.

As she explained all the reasons why they did this, despite their promotion of commitment to the environment, she mentioned one thing repeatedly:

Customers are going to the other supermarket that offers the bags free of charge all the time.

The spokesperson then summed it all up with a choice of words that I found interesting. This is a direct quote:

“In the end, it comes down to the business.”

As a business person myself, I agree that bottom-line financials are important.

However, when one promotes through advertising, in-store signs, etc., that they are committed to the environment, perhaps they should change the message to read:

We will do our best to be committed to the environment by keeping plastic bags out of landfill but if you don’t like that, that’s ok with us also. We don’t want to offend you and lose your business.

Or, to put it another way:

Our values are negotiable.

Are your values negotiable?

If you say they are not, how do you know?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

To read my detailed blog “My Values Are Important … Most of the Time”, please click here.

Addendum: In March of 2010, the same supermarket chain announced that they would offer customers plastic bags free of charge for the foreseeable future. The reason given? The competitor was doing it. Their values are for sale.

The Most Important Question of All

2010-01-06T07:07:00.001-08:00

In all of my years of consulting, there is one question that I ask my clients.

About 20% attempt to answer it. Of that 20%, 20% of that group does a good job of answering it well. The rest do their best and I commend them for trying.

The other 80% either say “because” (which is a non-answer), get frustrated by the question or simply don’t try to answer it at all.

It is a complex question after all, although deceptively simple in appearance.

If you can’t answer this question in regards to your personal and professional life, then little alarm bells should be going off in your mind.

If your organization cannot answer the question, then the organization is in trouble. You may not see it yet but it is coming.

The question is:

Why?

Seems like a simple question and yet when I put my strategy hat on and guide clients, it seems that this question gives them the most difficulty.

Consider these sample questions:

Why do you or your organization do what you do?

Why do you believe you are the best at it?

Why do you or your organization find areas of challenge and yet human or corporate ego doesn’t allow a simple request for help to be made?

Why don’t you REALLY do what needs to be done to achieve personal, professional or organizational success?

Can you answer the question of “Why”?

When you find that your personal or professional life or perhaps the life of your organization seems to be stuck in a quagmire, can you honestly answer the question?

Do your answers stand up to close scrutiny?

If they do, good for you – you are on your way to eventually wrestling your challenges to the ground. It may not be easy, but your eye is “on the prize” and this will keep you focused and moving forward.

If your answers do not stand up to scrutiny, take some time to explore this space. Preferably allow someone to objectively guide you through this exploration. This keeps your exploration honest and authentic and has the best hope of producing a better result.

If you can’t answer this question, you are only pretending to be moving closer to your personal, professional or organizational goals.

You will indeed get somewhere – it just may not be what you hoped for.

Why would you want this to happen?

Why would you allow this to happen?

Why indeed?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog about “The Most Important Question of All”, please click here.

Authenticity – The Emperor Is Naked

2010-01-04T06:43:00.001-08:00

Do you remember the story of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes”? It is a story of an Emperor who is duped by shysters who convince him to wear clothing that has so many wonderful powers that the clothing is invisible to people who lack the intelligence and insight to see it. Of course we know that there was no invisible clothing and the Emperor goes sauntering down the street completely naked.

Everyone witnessing the parade, not wanting to look like an idiot, marvels out loud about how beautiful the clothing is.

It takes the innocence of a child, someone who doesn’t feel the pressure to tell people what they want to hear, who calls it as it is and thus alerts everyone else to the truth. The Emperor is in fact naked.

I wonder if we face many situations where we are afraid to exclaim that the “Emperor is not wearing any clothing” for fear of how people will receive the message and for fear of what the repercussions could be.

Many people tell their others exactly what they want to hear and not what they need to hear.

Conversely, some people ask questions expecting or demanding the answer they want to hear and not what they need to hear.

In either situation, no one is doing anyone else any favors. In fact, they are just adding to the wardrobe of invisible clothing while telling the world that the world would be an idiot if they didn’t see the beautiful patterns and materials that the invisible clothing is made of.

In other words, they are sending more and more people into the world totally naked.

Perhaps that person is themselves.

Perhaps that person is you.

If you are asking others for information, demand better from those offering advice to you.

If you provide guidance to someone else, insist that you be allowed to call it as you see it instead of providing something that the other person wants to hear.

To not demand and expect authenticity in information exchange is to not empower people to make appropriate decisions in a timely, effective fashion.

Receivers of poor information find that their life gets complicated after awhile as their poor choices are a reflection of the poor information.

Providers of poor information find that they eventually are not in demand either as people see them as providers of information to people who failed.

Failure, like success, is a process that takes time to develop.

Do your best to demand authenticity in every exchange you have.

Otherwise, you may find yourself parading around your sphere of influence totally naked.

In a metaphoric way, of course.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

To read my detailed blog entry about “Authenticity – The Emperor is Naked”, please click here.

PS There is a wonderful book, “The Ugly Duckling Goes to Work” by Mette Norgaard, that readers of this blog may find quite interesting and thought provocative.

When I first read this book, I could tell by its opening line that I was in for a wonderful voyage.

Work can bring us alive, but it can also kill us.

Thus opens a fascinating book that evokes a fascinating structural tension in the reader – the nostalgia of revisiting childhood storybook favorites versus the A-HA moments of enlightenment one receives when discovering fascinating insight into our personal or professional lives.

Taking six of Andersen’s stories, including “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, the author, Mette Norgaard, shows how a story enjoyed by children has deep insight into the life we live as adults.

I highly recommend this book to everyone and have given many clients a copy as a gift.

Goals for the New Year? How About Your Legacy?

2009-12-30T11:57:00.001-08:00

I’ve spent some time with my grandmother this week as she lies dying in hospital.

My grandmother doesn’t react to many of the things that I say to her but she appears to enjoy hearing me read from Scripture.

As she rests, I take out my journal and think about her life. She brought 12 children into the world. She lived in a small rural town that has seen it’s boom and bust cycle now settle into the steady decline so unfortunately common in remote, rural places. She never had much but she made do with what she had.

Now here she is – alone and in her final days. She doesn’t have time to change anything even if she wanted to. Everything she can create has been created.

Her legacy lives on in her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

How is your legacy coming along?

Do you ever factor your legacy into your plans as you come up with your list of New Year’s resolutions and promises to yourself and others?

If you don’t, the odds of you achieving your resolutions have been proven to be staggeringly not in your favor.

So as you go through the typical year-end gyrations for what the New Year brings, ask yourself these questions:

How can I live a life with purpose? Better yet, do I know what my purpose is?
Who can I love more and in an unconditional manner? How can I welcome more love?
What can I learn in 2010 that will make me a better person? Once I have learned it, who can I share it with?
What legacy am I leaving behind? How will I be remembered? Am I happy with this?

Our end-0f-days draws closer for each of us with each passing day.

As you establish your resolutions, dreams and aspirations for 2010, keep the big picture of your life and your legacy in mind.

Your life, your gifts and your talents are too valuable to settle for anything less.

I raise a toast to your legacy. May it be everything you wish it to be and more.

I wish you all a blessed 2010 filled with abundance of life, love, learning and sharing.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

To read my detailed version of “Goals for the New Year? How About Your Legacy?”, please click here.

A Christmas Tradition From My Family to Yours

2009-12-18T04:56:00.001-08:00

Dear friends,

Some years ago when my oldest son was very young, we had pulled into a Toys R Us parking lot in New Jersey on Christmas Eve to buy our son even more "stuff". After all we mused, for our son to have so much stuff that he rivaled Toys R Us in inventory still didn't seem enough.

Just before we stepped out of our vehicle, a story came on our National Public Radio station (WNYC in New York to be exact) and something about it caught my ear.

For the next 10 minutes, we sat in silence and listened to the story. When the story was over, I started the truck and we drove out of the parking lot in silence.

I had received an important message about Christmas when I needed to hear it.

The teacher always appears when the student is ready and our Christmases have never been the same since.

Of the many traditions we have in our family at Christmas, there are two that we find important.

1. We always listen to this story at least once.

2. We always share it at least once.

The story we listened to can be found here - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5028755. Click on the "LISTEN" link right under the title "John Henry Faulk's Christmas Story".

Besides my family and life itself, I consider myself blessed to have so many incredible friends.

With that, I thank YOU for what you do - for the light and love you bring to so many.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy EID or Merry Yule. However you celebrate these days, cherish them. In an uncertain world, these days are still an incredible gift for all of us.

In service and servanthood, love and gratitude.

Harry

The Value of Results - Do We Care Anymore?

2009-12-17T11:23:00.001-08:00

I was recently speaking to someone who has a position of influence within the Canadian Government and he was going on and on about how great Canada's influence is in the world.

“After all”, he said, “Canada was a driving force behind the land mine treaty of the 90s and the Kyoto Accord and we both know how fantastic both of those initiatives were”.

I reminded him that the players who own 97%+ of the landmines in the world never ratified the landmine deal and even Canada has never lived up to the measures outlined in the Kyoto Accord.

"It doesn't matter", he said proudly, "It's the principle behind it that counts.".

Is that true? Do we really believe that results don't matter and that life has become filled with the mantra of "good intentions are good enough"?

As I look back over my professional career, I see some glaring examples that support this theory and so I am reaching out to the readers today to prove me wrong.

I want to be proven wrong for if this is an accurate assessment of where the world is going, then we have greater challenges before us that make our current challenges look pretty tame in comparison.

It seems in a world focused on hype and appearance, that it is possibly better to create images of unlimited potential, secure the funding to deliver it, not deliver it (or deliver a small subset of it), disguise the result and then celebrate it as exceeding our expectations.

Maybe that's ok when it comes to the small stuff in life - the important projects that don't really matter.

Of course for those projects, if they don't really matter, why are we wasting our time on them in the first place?

But if we do it on larger scale projects where health, safety, or fiscal, social or ecological responsibility are on the line, then we need to take a closer look at who is delivering one thing while describing the result as something else. Monty Python's Dead Parrot Sketch comes to mind. Click here if you want to see it (warning - there are some delicate words in it).

After all, If we accept a description of a result that is not accurate, it is not the fault of the person delivering the inaccurate message.

It is ours. They only gave us what we wanted to hear and not what we needed to hear.

Shame on us.

I understand all the reasons people give as to why this phenomena happens.

That’s all well and good.

However, let’s forget about the reasons and look at the results.

Results still matter …. I hope.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

To see my detailed musing on “The Value of Results – Do We Care Anymore”, please click here.

Overcoming Einstein’s Law of Insanity – A Review of “Drive” by Daniel Pink

2009-11-24T11:29:00.001-08:00

We have all heard variations of Einstein’s Law of Insanity – to expect a different result from doing the same thing over and over.

Unfortunate confirmation of the pervasiveness of this law is all around us in the form of people and organizations who keep making the same mistakes over and over, constantly repeating failure or diminished results without appearing to learn from previous efforts.

While such behavior can be fatal and at the very least, demotivating and demoralizing, we continue to do it anyway.

Why?

Creatures of Habit – Breaking the Habit Before it Breaks Us

Being creatures of habit, we often will not follow a different path unless we are forced to or we are offered a significant motivation to change. Surprisingly, fear of failure for many people is not sufficient motivation, since they believe that they will always save themselves right before things collapse completely.

How do we change our motivation model and therefore our results?

If you are a leader, owner or advisor to companies who suffer from the results of Einstein’s Law of Insanity, then you need to apply a cranial defibrillator to the head of the leadership team (or perhaps have someone apply it to you).

Daniel Pink’s latest book, “Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” is such a cranial defibrillator.

I found Mr. Pink’s book to be a blast (not just a breath) of fresh air.

Using a writing style that is engaging, informative and enjoyable, Mr. Pink takes the last 50 years of research in diagnosing and improving motivational behaviors and presents it to the reader in such a way that the reader says “Duh … of course”.

Now That We Know What Motivates and Demotivates

Having come to such obvious conclusions, then the reader is forced to ask themselves these questions.

Why am I not doing this?

Why is my organization not doing this?

How can we change how we motivate ourselves and others?

“Drive” explains what motivates and demotivates us personally and professionally.

The author adeptly describes models commonly used today, including the carrot and stick model, which we use to motivate people but in fact, in most situations, are actually demotivating them instead.

Mr. Pink posits that it is important to understand intrinsic and extrinsic motivators before blindly applying such models. Intrinsic motivators are the things that motivate us from within (based on our purpose, passion and sense of self-fulfillment) while extrinsic motivators are external factors that are offered in an attempt to motivate people or artificially guide results.

Implementing New Models

Many books in this genre tend to end discussions about motivation with fuzzy conclusions, leaving the reader hanging; wondering “ok, you’ve got me all excited but how do I move towards a better model?”.

Mr. Pink doesn’t disappoint. The last part of his book contains a toolkit with practical strategies and ideas to enhance motivational improvement in a number of areas. He offers guidance for individuals, organizations and parents for a variety of scenarios.

He closes his book with a wealth of guidance from experts who “get it”, the likes of Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, Gary Hamel and more.

Without a doubt, I rank this book as one of the top books in its space in terms of addressing how to motivate yourself and others.

The next time you or your organization needs a little ummph added to the team’s level of motivation, forget about people who sell you rah-rah corporate events or tell you that you just need to communicate more effectively.

I blogged recently about how hundreds of us were once flown across the country so that we could literally play “pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey” at a corporate motivation-builder event. I don’t know how you would react, but personally I was offended for my team and I to be treated like 5-years-olds at incredible expense and my client was incensed to hear that we were out of the office for a few days for a truly non-essential event.

Don’t fall into this trap and don’t allow your teams to be further demotivated.

Instead, pick up a copy of Daniel Pink’s book “Drive”, strap on your seatbelt and prepare to be whisked into a new paradigm – a paradigm where we finally embrace a true understanding of what motivates ourselves and others and shows how to use that information to create greater productivity and a sense of fulfillment – both personally and professionally.

It will one of the most refreshing and informative books you will have read for a while.

And it could change your life and the life of your company.

I choose transforming my knowledge, execution and sense of purpose over pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey any day of the week.

How about you?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog on “Overcoming Einstein’s Law of Insanity – A Review of “Drive” by Daniel Pink”, please click here.

Collaboration – Life Lessons From a Sandbox

2009-11-21T12:26:00.001-08:00

Collaboration, teamwork, empowered teams ….

Buzzwords that we like to throw around, brag about, lay claim to and espouse as our personal mantra when telling others the “secret to our success”.

Collaboration was on my mind as I watched a group of kids playing in a sandbox and as I observed their behaviors, it occurred to me that it may be possible to predict tomorrow’s collaborators just by observing these young people.

The kids fell into a variety of different groups.

The “Results and Fun” Group

The kids who were focused on having fun and accomplishing the desired result. They mattered to each other. Ego wasn’t important. They represented human creativity and collaboration at its best.

The “My Way is the Best Way” Group

They struggled with whose idea was best. During the fighting, some would start to cry and leave the group. Some left in anger. Some left in boredom when they realized their contribution didn’t matter.

Some stayed anyway, contributed for a bit and then suddenly kicked the castle down because they never liked it anyway – their idea was much better.

The “My Way is the Only Way” Group of One

One kid was building castles by himself. It didn’t take very long to figure out why. Every time another kid showed up to help, the first kid would say “I want you to do this or that”. When the new child would offer a new idea, it was promptly rejected. Some kids were more stubborn than others in pressing their point of view but eventually, the stubbornness of the one kid was too much and the others left.

The “If I Wanted Your Opinion I’d Give it to You” Group

One kid who struggled with his castle asked others who were successful for help and when they told him what he was doing wrong, he told them they were wrong. The kid went back to his castle, got angry and stomped on it, walking away from it. He was frustrated with failure, not realizing that he was the cause of it.

The “Teamwork in Name Only” Group

One group of interest built a decent little sand castle and the parents were called over to admire it. One kid prattled on and on about “the best castle in the park that he built”. I’m sure the hearts of the other kids sank as they listened to him – the potential for a collaborative spirit being torn out of them by one person seizing the rewards.

The “Non-Creative Way is Safest” Group

This is the group who constantly turned down one kid’s creative contributions with responses like “if we do that, it will fall down anyway so we won’t do it”. The new kid offered a few suggestions as to why that wouldn’t happen and then walked away to play on the swings. The potential for a great castle died because the strongest personality in the group didn’t like the idea.

The “I Don’t Like Any Of Your Ways” Group

This group was the saddest group of all. They in fact were not building anything in the sand. However, they took delight in occasionally running through the sandbox, destroying everyone else’s work.

They had no intention of creating anything. Maybe they felt they couldn’t. I don’t know. All I know is that they didn’t want anyone else to create anything either.

Looking In My Own Sandbox

The sandbox was in fact a microcosm of the world I have been a part of for a long time.

We have all seen failures that fall into one of these groups – the leader who would not share credit but preferred the glory, the leader who delegated all the blame, the bully who crushed creativity and contribution, the leader who only liked their own ideas and nobody else’s or the leader who seemed to exist to take the wind out of the sails of others, crushing their projects and dreams without offering a contribution of his / her own.

The people who failed missed the key ingredient that the first group I described knew all along.

The first group knew that we need each other.

That our collective ideas are stronger than single ideas.

That focusing on our result and not on our ego produces a better result.

That sharing the credit encourages us to continue to work together on new projects and assures us that others will stick around to help us with the next sand castle.

That embracing team creativity takes all of us further than if we chose to follow our own ideas only.

Maybe the next time a team is looking for a consultant to help them solve their collaboration problems, maybe we should pay a bunch of kids $1000 a day to allow us to sit and observe them.

They will not offer us “stuff” to please our ego or to tell us what we want to hear. They will not offer advice influenced by their own life experiences which may be empowering or disempowering.

They will just be themselves and in doing so, place staggeringly profound lessons in front of us.

If we are open to those lessons, it may be the most authentic lessons we will ever learn, lessons that are placed in front of us with no ulterior motive.

Aren’t they the most profound lessons of all?

I wish you well with your own “sand castles”.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog “Collaboration – Life Lessons From a Sandbox”, please click here.

Fellowship

2009-11-11T09:08:00.001-08:00

It is a cool, sunlit day and as I scan the faces of those in attendance at today’s Remembrance Day ceremony, my gaze falls upon one person in particular.

He is not standing with the throngs that have gathered to honor those who serve and who have served. He is elderly, perhaps 80’s or 90’s in age and is in uniform. The sun is behind him and casts him in shadow as he stands on a small hill overlooking the ceremony.

He stands alone.

As I listened to the prayers and speeches being made, I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking.

Was he thinking about the horrors he may have experienced?

Perhaps he was remembering the good times that also manifest in the midst of the nightmare of conflict.

It’s possible he was thinking about his comrades – his brothers-in-arms who went forward together and experienced times of mirth and moments of horror.

His comrades and many other men and women sacrificed much to preserve our freedom. They are part of a fellowship that those of us who have never served will probably never understand or truly appreciate.

When the ceremony was over, I looked in his direction with intent to walk over to him.

He was gone.

Seeing this man and pondering what he might be thinking got me to thinking about fellowship in general and how much we cherish those whom we serve with.

We often take the concept of fellowship and camaraderie for granted. We reach out to people once in a while with a cursory “how’s it going?” and often receive a perfunctory “fine”, “good” or something similar in return. We often respond in the same manner when queried.

When I compare the depth of the fellowship that those who have served have compared to many of us in today’s society, it makes me realize what a gift their fellowship is.

They knew that they could always rely on their comrades. Their comrades also knew that they could always rely on them in return – no matter what the cost.

How many of us can say this about the people within our circles of influence?

How many people can say this about us?

To those who have served, to those who serve, to the ones who have paid the supreme sacrifice and to all of their families, I say “thank you”.

We not only owe them an incredible debt of gratitude for the freedom they earned for us.

They also offer us incredibly powerful lessons in fellowship and camaraderie that would serve us well to understand and learn from.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog about “Fellowship”, please click here.

Legacy – Being Aware of our Impact

2009-10-24T18:25:00.001-07:00

I was thinking about my friend Donna Butler today.

Donna is one of those people who always comes up in conversation whenever people of my graduating class get together.

Earlier this summer, I was reconnected with two friends from high school that I hadn’t seen in 28 years.

Within five minutes of each of our initial conversations, the inevitable question was asked by each of them:

Do you remember Donna?

Both guys went on to describe the impact that Donna had in their lives.

I know all about it – I think about her impact on me all the time.

If you will allow me a moment, I will tell you about Donna.

She was like any other typical kid in many ways. She was smart. She was cute. She seemed up more than she was down. She always had a kind word to say about someone. She spoke of her brothers a lot.

Her life in many ways seemed to be quite normal. She didn’t aspire to be in the limelight and her impact on others seemed to be typical for a kid her age.

Donna did have something that we didn’t have. She had a heart that wasn’t healthy. She died in 1983 at the age of 18 of a congenital heart defect.

While we were stunned and saddened at the time, such things occasionally happen and we moved on in life.

So I thought.

I thought I was the only one that thought about Donna a lot but it seems like a lot of people think about her on a fairly regular basis.

I was thinking about this today and wondering how one who lived such a seemingly ordinary life could have left such an impact on us.

Then it occurred to me.

Donna saw the best in people, regardless of who they were.

She worked hard, not because it brought her public acclaim, but because it seemed the right thing to do.

She spoke words of wisdom without trumpeting them or pushing them down your throat.

She wanted everyone to be happy and did her best to help everyone around her.

If someone spoke harshly to her, she didn’t return the act with venomous words.

She was always smiling.

She did all of this for only one reason – it seemed to be the natural thing to do.

In living a life of unselfish giving and doing it as naturally as you or I breathe, she left an incredible, powerful legacy on those who were lucky enough to have met her.

This got me to thinking about the legacy that we all leave behind. Many times, we work so hard to leave a personal or professional legacy as we would want it defined – wanting to get the legacy just right.

Many times, the legacy that we leave will not result from the things that we tried to create willfully.

Our legacy will come from the things we do naturally, from the things we do when no one is looking, from the things we do when we are significantly challenged and from the things we do because they are simply the right things to do.

That’s what Donna did. While many of us have gone on in life to create personal or professional success, the one that everyone remembers and talks about is Donna.

Thank you, Donna. Twenty six years after you have left us, you are still teaching us.

Which brings me to this question:

How is your legacy doing?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my detailed version of “Legacy – Being Aware of our Impact”, please click here.

O Passion, Where Art Thou?

2009-10-23T08:07:00.001-07:00

I’ve been feeling lately like I have been working double-shifts in the ER.

Many of the patients who have been admitted haven’t been in any type of accident.

They are suffering from what I will define as deficientia passio – passion deficiency syndrome.

As each patient is rolled in, a quick assessment is usually all that is required. I grab the passion defibrillator, yell out CLEAR and zap them with the passion they need to make a difference in the world.

Ah, if it were only that easy.

A lot of wonderful people have come my way lately whose passion is either gone, never manifested in the first place or manifests in destructive ways instead of constructive ones.

The reasons are many, I’m sure. We can can all psychoanalyze the many reasons – fear of this or that, bad life experiences, the stress of living in the 21st century, etc.

All I know is that when it comes to making a real difference in the lives of ourselves and others, when all things are equal; opportunity, networks, intelligence, etc., there are two things that will separate those who can’t or won’t from those who do.

The ones who ultimately get it done exhibit ferocious amounts of passion but do so with an inner humility that allows the passion to be directed in a positive manner.

Whatever we do, we need to make sure our passion is engaged.

Our passion changes our result from good to excellent.

It is contagious. A strong passion brings other people into your circle to help you achieve that which you are striving towards. Lack of passion is equally contagious and can kill projects (and sometimes people).

When Life gets tough as it always does on occasion, passion (with other things) helps us to move forward.

A lot of people are afraid of passion. I’ve been told that my passion is intimidating.

That’s fine – don’t waste your time trying to make them passionate. You will burn yourself out and upset them at the same time.

Find others who are equally or more passionate. This is not always easy. However, when it comes to finding passionate people to engage, remember the law of the 4 SWs.

Some will

Some won’t

So what ….

Someone’s waiting.

St. Augustine wrote:

The fire you wish to enkindle in others must burn in yourself.

Find your purpose. If you don’t know how to do that, send me an email. I’ll help you find it.

Why would I do that?

Because the world needs your passion for success, excellence and contribution. It needs you to share your talents, knowledge and strengths and to do so with as much enthusiasm as you can muster. It needs you to light the fire of passion in others as well.

A world of apathy and indifference is a world that will ultimately collapse. Read your history books – organizations and nations have fallen when leaders either didn’t have passion or their passion was misdirected.

As Earl Nightingale once said:

Creativity is a natural extension of our enthusiasm.

Be passionate.

Associate with passionate people.

Make a difference in your life and the lives of those around you.

Do it with the best of your ability.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to run.

Another patient has been rolled in and it looks like a really bad case of deficientia passio.

<<Ok … I need 10 ccs’ of purpose here, 20 cc’s of legacy definition and 30 cc’s of enthusiasm …. and get that passion defibrillator here … stat. C’mon people, move it – this person’s in trouble.>>

Yours in service and servanthood – passionately.

Harry

For other musings about passion, please check out:

A User’s Guide to Passionate People

Check Your Passion at the Door

For my detailed blog “O Passion, Where Art Thou”, please click here.

“The Catholic Vision For Leading Like Jesus” – A Book Review

2009-10-15T12:23:00.001-07:00

“Each of us is not only called to be a leader, but we are all leaders by default – whether we like it or not.”

Thus opens one of the best books I have ever read on servant leadership and the most powerful book I have ever read on stewardship – the notion of contributing our time, talent and treasure to those who need it.

The author, Dr. Owen Phelps, is the Director of Yeshua Catholic International Leadership Institute. He is a writer, college professor, master catechist and trainer – to say the least. To see his impressive background, please go here.

This book was inspired by the book “Lead Like Jesus”, co-authored by Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges.

First of all, Dr. Phelps explains that leadership is not about power or authority. In fact, he explains this way:

Effective leadership is not about formal power or money. It is about integrity. Leadership begins in the heart.

The book goes on to address four powerful questions that many people find themselves pondering over.

The first three transcend people of all creeds, faiths and beliefs:

Whom do I influence in big or small ways?
How will I be remembered? What is my legacy?
What is the source of influence with others and how can I exert this influence?

The fourth question is one that many Christians who are passionate about service within their faith ask:

How do I fit into Christ’s mission and message for the world?

Dr. Phelps answers these questions by introducing us to the concept of S3 leadership – the concept that we all act as Servant, Steward and Shepherd as we serve our fellow human beings.

Such a model is transformational in concept and implementation and changes the very fundamental of human interaction.

Dr. Phelps uses a quote from Scripture that summarizes the notion of S3 perfectly:

Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

- 1 Peter 3:8 (NAB)

The workbook that is available for this book is the best guide to stewardship that I have seen in my many years of stewardship activities. It’s flexible, insightful structure is an asset to beginning groups who need help with structure and execution and for advanced groups looking for fresh, new ideas to take their efforts to a higher level.

If you are an individual seeking to expand your stewardship activities or you represent a group looking to implement larger stewardship initiatives, this book and the accompanying workbook are a must-read.

If you are not faith-based or are Christian but not necessarily Roman Catholic but you seek to expand your leadership abilities and your ability to influence others, this book is also a must read for you.

Dr. Phelps closes his book with a quote from Scripture that I found to be powerful and made me stop and think before I closed the book:

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

- 2 Corinthians 13:11 (NAB)

The book is available from your traditional book retailers and from the publishing company directly. The publisher can also be found at www.osv.com.

I wish you well on your exploration of servant leadership and your quest to help others.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For the detailed blog of “The Catholic Vision for Leading Like Jesus" – A Book Review”, please click here.

Authenticity – Those Who Live By the Sword …

2009-10-02T09:43:00.001-07:00

This week, the Roman Catholic Church has been rocked by another scandal with a member of its clergy. Bishop Raymond Lahey of Atlantic Canada has been charged with importing and possessing child pornography. Parishioners across Canada have been shocked, angered and saddened by this latest event in the saga of child abuse by a member of the cloth.

It is an unfortunate but poignant example of what happens when a leader chooses to be inauthentic, when s/he chooses to present a persona of themselves that doesn’t represent who they really are.

In the interests of due process, we cannot yet condemn Bishop Lahey. He has not been found guilty despite the number and scope of the allegations against him.

However, it is notable that one man, with the mistakes that he may have made in his life, can rock an organization as large and as rich in history and tradition as the Roman Catholic Church.

When authenticity breaks down, it only takes one person to rock an entire organization and devastate other people for the rest of their lives.

Teach us from the pulpit to be honest, truthful and respectful. Teach us to demand the highest standards from ourselves and others.

And then:

Honor us and embrace us by leading by example and ferreting out those within who struggle with their own inner demons.

Many of you who go to church or once attended church will remember this from Matthew 18:7-11 (NIV):

"Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

We are overdue for large organizations like the Church to cleanse themselves in the same way.

Otherwise, be honest with everyone and stop teaching everyone else to do this.

To not do so is to not be authentic as an organization committed to leading us morally, ethically and spiritually.

When one examines why many churches are losing parishioners, some suggest it is entirely based on a decline of faith in the 21st century.

I would posit that it is a lack of trust – a model of “do as I say and not as I do”.

Many people say it is wrong to ask questions of the Church. I believe the faithful and others have every right to ask questions. Any organization or leader grows stronger as a result of being challenged to learn and improve upon execution.

Trust is based on each of us being totally transparent and authentic with the other.

If dialog is ok ONLY if we don’t touch on the sensitive subjects, then we are not being totally transparent with each other.

If we can’t be transparent, there is no room for trust.

Without trust, each of us is an island unto ourselves.

Who wants to live that way?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

PS Here is an unfortunate example of a disconnect in authenticity. Quoting Bishop Lahey from a couple of years ago:

“Sexual abuse, indeed any abuse, is wrong. It is a crime and it is a serious sin in the eyes of God. I want to assure you that for some time our diocese, like others throughout Canada, have been taking steps to protect children and youth,” Bishop Lahey told a news conference

As with many things, saying and doing are often difficult to reconcile. We are all human, regardless of someone’s expectations to the contrary.

For my detailed blog on “Authenticity – Those Who Live By the Sword …”, please click here.

Entrepreneurs – A Long Distance Dedication

2009-09-30T19:09:00.001-07:00

I have been blessed to have been an entrepreneur for many years and many of my dearest friends are entrepreneurs.

When we get together we laugh, swear and weep over the world that we live in, a world that can only be appreciated by a fellow entrepreneur.

As we used to joke years ago in the software company that I co founded in New York - “Some day we will look back on this day and nervously change the subject” – and then we would laugh.

Many people suggest you should be doing something else – “get a real job”, they say.

Sometimes they almost have you convinced that they are right.

And then you think – would I REALLY want to be doing anything else?

No way. This is where you are meant to be.

This is how your passions come alive. This is an expression and extension of you.

Of course, these things apply to the entrepreneur who eventually made their dream a success.

What about the ones that didn’t?

If you didn’t make your current dream a success, you didn’t fail. You were merely offered an extraordinary set of life lessons.

The key lesson if you didn’t succeed the first time is:

Will you get back up and try again?

Because in the end, that’s the real lesson of entrepreneurship.

Despite everything you will learn about networking, financing, execution, business plan writing, exit strategies, negotiation, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, HR rules, real estate, contracts, pipelines, lead generation, deal closing, reports and everything else, the real question is:

How badly do you want your purpose and passion to be fulfilled?

If I were to write a long distance dedication to entrepreneurs for Kasey Kasem to read, here’s how it would go:

Harry writes:

Dear Kasey.

I am a chronic entrepreneur who is sending words of support to all other entrepreneurs. For the great obstacles they will either step over, around, go under or learn that they need to be doing something else, the world of the entrepreneur is filled with the greatest rewards.

They create friendships that last a lifetime. Friends like RL, CDT, MdC, JP, NN and others will live in my heart forever.

Being an entrepreneur allows your purpose and your passion to manifest – to provide an opportunity for you to have a lasting impact on others. It helps define your legacy – that marker that says “I was here”.

Being an entrepreneur is rarely easy. In fact, many times it will knock you to your knees. But we get back up, learn from our challenges and move forward.

In the end, we always win. Sometimes the victory is obvious. Sometimes, the lessons are not obvious until much later.

So, Kasey, for fantastic entrepreneurs out there, people like MP, AG, BJ, KC, MB, RM, HJ, GP, MC and all the other people who dare allow their purpose and passion to fly, could you please play “Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey?

Most sincerely,

Harry

Ok, Harry, here’s your long distance dedication.

To the entrepreneurs I have served with, I thank you – you have blessed my life tremendously and I owe you a lifetime of gratitude. The lessons we have learned together are deep, broad and rich.

To all entrepreneurs, you are closer to your dreams than you realize.

It all comes down to how badly you want it and what are you willing to do to make your dreams come true?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

PS I would be remiss in my duties if I neglected to write about the importance of family and friends. While you may think that others don’t understand the world of entrepreneurs, they know more than you realize and they care more than you know. One of the greatest lessons I learned despite all of my so-called confidence in my own abilities was the ability to be able to ask for help when I needed it and to be open to receiving help. I have my friend Leonard to thank for this lesson. When all is said and done, humility may carry you further than confidence.

In addition, if you are a person of faith, hold onto it, however you define it. It will be an incredibly powerful, guiding, nurturing light when darkness seems all around you.

For a much more detailed insight into the world of entrepreneurs, I invite you to read my detailed blog “Entrepreneurs – A Long Distance Dedication” by clicking here.

Authentic Leadership – Looking the Part Versus Living It

2009-09-29T09:35:00.001-07:00

It is with a mix of gratitude, amusement, disappointment and sometimes downright anger that many of us look at today’s leaders, whether they be in the community, corporate world, government, church or any other organization of influence.

What appears to attract the most press are the ones who either let us down or infuriate us with stories of how they acted in their own best interests at the expense of someone else.

Today’s leader faces many great challenges – the challenges of the world are broad, deep and complex.

What makes the challenge of today’s leaders even more complex is how we define and establish our leaders.

Think about we seek in a leader. At a minimum, we expect them to be charismatic, passion-filled, visionary, connected, value-rich, idea-abundant, brilliant in statesmanship, powerful in negotiating skills and plentiful in morality and ethics. Some of us expect even more than this.

We expect them to be perfect.

In a world that rewards people who embrace this model and then punishes them when they almost inevitably fail to live up to the expectations of others, who owns responsibility for these leaders?

Is it the fault of the people who erect a facade in order to obscure who they really are or is it the fault of the people who prefer to vote for a facade than someone who is truly authentic and transparent, even if the news is bad?

We all own the responsibility of choosing the type of leaders who attains a position of influence over us.

Perhaps we should be less disappointed in the leaders that the system produces and be more cognizant of the type of system that causes leaders to have to be something other than that which they are.

We need to embrace a dialog built around transparency and authenticity and then perhaps we will find more opportunity to select strong leaders whom we can collaborate with to produce a better result.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For the detailed version of “Authentic Leadership – Looking the Part Versus Living It”, please click here.

“Saving The World at Work” – A Call To Action

2009-09-17T07:55:00.001-07:00

I am a passionate person. Anyone who has met me can attest to my passion – my passion to try to be the best I can be and to encourage others to be the best they can be.

In a beautiful world filled with potential, the need for each of us to be the best that we can be resonates more than ever.

Our world of unlimited beauty, potential and sustenance is being assailed by the challenges of war, hunger, disease, poverty and pollution.

Our phenomenal potential to create a world of unlimited health, peace and prosperity is in need of someone to step up to make that potential a reality.

Who of all of us can save our beautiful planet?

You can.

I can.

We can.

We must.

Perhaps many of us think this is too big. How can one person possibly make a difference in this large, complex world?

As my friend Tim Sanders notes in his powerful book “Saving the World at Work”, one person can indeed have a profound impact on the world.

That person is YOU!

In his book, Tim tells the stories of individuals whose hearts are gripped by the need to do something, to do anything, to make a difference on this planet.

His book is a powerful call to action.

When Tim was looking for stories of people whose passion influenced the direction of large corporations, I was proud to be able to connect Tim with Joan Krajewski, a member of the Microsoft Personal Empowerment Group that I incubated with a number of friends at Microsoft.

Here is Tim describing Joan’s passion and her impact.

Tim’s book offers us hope and examples of how each one of us can do what we thought to be the unthinkable – each one of us can leverage our vision, our purpose and our passion within the organizations that we work with to have a profound impact on the planet.

That is an incredible thought, isn’t it?

Check out Tim’s book “Saving the World at Work” and his website here. It has links for where to find the book, including free goodies such as DVDs, that you can read and watch; to inspire you and the people you know and convince you that YOU can make a difference.

The earth is calling.

The world that we are leaving to our children is calling.

The legacy that we leave to our children is calling.

What are we waiting for?

Let’s get engaged and make the difference we are capable of and called to create.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For the longer version of “Saving the World at Work” – A Call to Action, please click here.

Authenticity – A Personal Assessment 8 Years After 9/11

2009-09-11T05:54:00.001-07:00

Today, many of us honor those lost during the attack on 9/11. Regardless of what terrorist theory, conspiracy theory or anything else people subscribe to, what is important today is to honor those who were lost and to offer love and support to those they left behind.

I have some poignant memories of that day and the days that followed that are as fresh in my mind today as they were eight years ago.

With these memories in mind, I wonder how we as a society have grown since the events of that horrific day.

Greed, apathy, indifference and lack of foresight have allowed us to create one of the greatest financial collapses in history. The governments tell us that it is near an end. Tell that to the many who lost everything.

Disease, hunger and poverty continue to kill millions every year, including 29,000 children under the age of 5 every day for lack of clean drinking water.

Wars continue for the standard reason – primarily political agendas that kill our young people to satisfy the need of some administration or dictatorship.

Now I’m an optimist – perhaps fatally.

Despite all of the things that continue to go on in the world, I believe that we can solve all of these problems.

I also know there are a lot of great optimists in the world striving to solve the world’s challenges. They need our help to make solutions a reality.

We won’t solve them by simply pretending the world is all good (as in the rose-colored glasses optimist) and assume this will make it so.

We won’t solve it with positive thinking alone although belief in our ability to solve these things is essential.

We won’t solve it by prayer alone although for many, it brings strength.

We won’t solve it by refusing to collaborate with others.

We won’t solve it by expecting something for nothing.

We can only solve it when we return to a place of authenticity, a place that says we need to be more accountable for what we do in this world and we need to hold others more accountable for their actions and results.

We have to start naming the elephants in the room when it comes to accountability and responsibility. We must do it with respect and with an eye towards collectively solving the great challenges in the world.

We can’t just name the elephant and say “my job is done”. Once we name it, we need to play an active role in deciding what to do with it.

When we do this, we choose to unleash our phenomenal potential to love, create, cure, share and solve problems to make a difference in the world.

I know that we all prefer to envision a world of unlimited potential.

I know that my friends Eric, Narender and Stephen believed in this also.

Let’s not delay releasing our fullest potential to make this world a better place.

Let’s do it now.

Isn’t that the best way to honor those who are lost?

Is that not the greatest legacy we can leave to the next generation?

Yours in service and servanthood and in dedication to those who were lost and those who grieve their loss.

Harry

For the full version of this “Authenticity - A Personal Assessment”, please click here.

Accountability and Authenticity

2009-09-01T07:03:00.001-07:00

As I dressed this morning, I donned a pair of jeans and a yellow polo shirt and prepared to meet the day - nothing significant to report there.

However, to a small band of entrepreneurs in New York in the late 90’s to early 2000’s, Tuesday was Yellow Shirt Day.

Every Tuesday, my team and I would all wear yellow shirts and would go for a walk during our lunch break and compliment other people who wore yellow shirts. The reaction from strangers on the streets of New York covered a broad spectrum, ranging from humorous to angry.

The co-founder of Yellow Shirt Day, Narender Nath, was killed in the World Trade Center less than a year later during the horror of 9/11.

Narender came to mind this morning as I realized I was wearing a yellow shirt on Tuesday and I thought about how he lived his life versus how the media tells us we should live.

The media encourages us to focus on the disaster all around us under the guise of informing us.

If only we could get some breathing room from all of this gloom and doom, we reason, then we could be more true to ourselves.

Narender looked at this challenge differently.

He knew that if he waited for the opportunity to be authentic with himself and with others, he would wait forever and would be incredibly frustrated as he waited.

Narender believed that our world is what we believe it to be.

The media wants us to believe it is all coming apart.

Narender believed it to be one of unlimited opportunity for living, loving, learning and leaving a legacy.

I know you believe this also.

As many experts say and as Narender practiced:

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Yes, it is an overused statement.

But perhaps it is overused because we still haven’t learned the truth within it and so we need to keep hearing it.

How do you see the world today? How badly would you like to see it in a different light?

Look around you – there are many people who are ready to collaborate with you to create that world.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

PS – A guy by the name of Mike walked into the coffee shop as I was writing this. He was wearing a yellow shirt also and so I couldn’t resist introducing myself and telling him the story of Narender and Yellow Shirt Day. As he left, he laughed and said “maybe we can start Yellow Shirt Day where I work”. That would be cool, Mike!

It sometimes doesn’t take much to influence someone else in a positive way.

Simple actions touch hearts and in turn influence minds. Whose heart are you touching today?

For more detailed musing about Accountability and Transparency, please click here.

Consistent Messages – The True Source of Inconsistency.

2009-08-17T18:06:00.001-07:00

I noticed a sign on a cemetery gate as I drove by it the other day. In large letters it read “VISITORS ONLY”.

As I read it, I thought “well, there are only two types of people of interest here”:

The people who stop by to pay their respects are just visiting and have no intent of moving there permanently … at least for now.
The people who are buried there have no intention of leaving.

So who does the sign apply to?

I laughed and drove on.

We laugh at the inconsistency or humor of signs that we read that weren’t intended to be funny.

But perhaps if we look inward, we might stop laughing.

Do the signs that we project make sense?

Do we say one thing to someone but inwardly say something else to ourselves?

When it comes to inconsistencies, it is easy to find examples of them in others.

I wonder though if the greatest inconsistencies that we see are in fact mirrors of inconsistencies within ourselves.

It is easy to observe, laugh and muse at the inconsistency of many things and people in this world.

But before we do this, let’s make sure we are consistent with ourselves and the message we promote to ourselves and others.

Now if you will excuse me, I have some inconsistencies to iron out.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

For the longer version of “Consistent Messages – The True Source of Inconsistency”, please click here.

The Shadow Effect – The Inner Demon That Enables or Disables Our Life

2009-08-04T08:16:00.001-07:00

I have seen a lot of self empowerment movies over the years, including the modern classics such as “The Secret”, “What the Bleep” and others. I enjoy and have been impacted by books such as the classic “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale and the powerful “Leading at a Higher Lever” by Ken Blanchard. They were all interesting, fascinating, positively disruptive and informative in their own ways.

However, when I watched “The Shadow Effect”, my personal definition of who I am and how I came to be was shaken to the core.

“The Shadow Effect”, like some of its contemporaries, sports an appealing cast, including Debbie Ford, Deepak Choprah, Mark Victor Hansen, Marianne Williamson and others.

The movie is based on the premise that each one of us has a shadow side to our life, a darker, potentially disempowering side that was formed early in our childhood through a number of less than positive experiences (at least as perceived by the child). This shadow plays a key role in determining your thoughts and actions through your life and therefore, many of the results in your life, both good and bad.

The movie is based on the medically accepted fact that any disabling thoughts in your mind will produce disabling actions. Disabling thoughts produce a disabled result just as enabled thoughts produce enabled results.

This is also not a movie that you can just watch – watching will be insightful but not transformational. However, if you use the interactive version of the movie as I did and honestly perform the exercises that it presents, I think you may find the results profound.

How is this done? You’ll need to watch the movie to find out.

I will say this. To name and embrace your shadow takes a lot of courage. To not embrace your shadow is up to you but to not do so perhaps reduces the phenomenal potential of your life and with that, perhaps your sense of purpose, happiness and contentment.

Do you have the courage? I believe you do. I also believe that you deserve greatness in your life.

Embrace your purpose, your gifts and the lessons from your life.

Watch this movie and be prepared for a new journey in your life.

To purchase a copy of the movie, go here.

To watch it online, you can find it here.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed review of this movie, please go here.

Nominating A Few Heroes

2009-07-10T10:52:00.001-07:00

In my typical day of driving my life at 1000 miles per hour, I am blessed with the opportunity to share with and learn from many people.

Every person, whether they represent something we like or don’t like, provides us with an opportunity to marvel at the creativity of the human mind and the notion that unlimited potential exists in all of us.

Given all of this potential, today’s world is complex and there are many people out there crying for help – perhaps one of them is us.

In this same world, there are many people who are answering the call, bringing their wonderful talents, strengths and compassion to bear to help in any way they can. Perhaps one of these people is you also! :-)

On my full length version of my blog, located here, I nominate 5 special people who are heroes in my world:

Mark Hundley

Terry Reilly

Leonard Szymczak

My Family

A special hero I won’t name here

These people represent the best of humanity – people who do their best with what they have to make a difference in the lives of others.

The qualifications for being a hero have nothing to do with the scale of the act of heroism – we don’t need to be a hero for thousands of people.

What matters is that we use our gifts, talents and strengths to make a difference in the life of someone else.

When we do this, we are a hero to someone else.

You also have your own heroes.

I invite you to publically acknowledge them and share with the world why you believe they are a hero.

Despite what some people would say, the world is filled with heroes. Let’s bring them out in the open and celebrate what makes them special.

We can all learn from them.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

For the full length version of this blog on “Nominating a Few Heroes”, click here.

A Quest for Authenticity – How Many Lives Are You Living?

2009-07-06T10:38:00.001-07:00

I am running into more and more people these days who are living two or more completely different lives.

One life is the life of their dreams – passionate and living on purpose. In this life, they are living their dreams, creating their own companies, making a huge, positive impact on the world. Many of them are best-selling authors, in-demand speakers or high-powered consultants offering advice to the elite. Their home life is right out of Leave it to Beaver, the Brady Bunch or some other idyllic family experience. They live in a world where they speak freely and passionately about their purpose, their faith, their ideals and core values and their vision of the world. It is a beautiful life without fear of anything.

What a beautiful image they weave.

The other life is the life the same people are currently experiencing. They are frustrated with their boss, their business partner, their client, their spouse, their children, their President or Prime Minister or someone else. They feel frustrated that nobody seems to care about their vision for the world. They are afraid to expose their core values, their faith or their belief structure. They are afraid to stand up and speak out when they witness something that is legally, ethically or morally incorrect. With this in mind, they assume their own personality is flawed or unworthy and thus they create new personas based on the situations they find themselves in.

Life is challenging enough when you have one life to live.

If we are living by our core values and are aligned with others with similar values, it helps to know that we should push through because the results are worthy enough to persevere for.

If we are pushing something that we are not in alignment with, then we often wonder why we should bother. After all, we may be pushing for something important for someone else and not for ourselves – living a life for someone else.

If that’s the life we want to live, then we should select a person that we are living our life for and ask them if we can leave their name on our headstone when our end-of-days has arrived.

We might as well, since we lived their life based on their values, beliefs and expectations anyway.

Wouldn’t it better to be remembered for who we are and not for how we reflected the best of someone else?

Exactly – so what are we waiting for?

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

Click here to read my detailed blog entry on “A Quest for Authenticity”.

Observations on Leadership

2009-07-02T09:49:00.001-07:00

I have been rereading Ken Blanchard’s recent works, including Leading at a Higher Level and The One Minute Entrepreneur and thinking through a number of organizations that I am familiar with for one reason or another.

I am struck with the brilliance of his work and at the same time, alarm bells go off in my head as I see many self-described leaders failing at basic principles of leadership, namely:

- having clearly communicated vision, mission and purpose

- empowering their teams to achieve the vision, mission and purpose in a manner that allows for significant contribution and personal growth of team members based on their strengths and abilities

- recognizing and highlighting the strengths in team members and finding ways to explore and amplify these strengths

- proactively coaching their team members

- encouraging team members to grow beyond the capabilities of the leaders themselves

- creating an honest, respectful, trust-filled, transparent environment where communication and collaboration are embraced.

Only about 20% of the leaders I have worked with actually follow these basic, common-sense principles.

Are we doing these things as a leader?

How do we know?

We need to remember that leaders are not just producing quality corporate results.

We are growing the next generation of leaders.

Whether the world grows or collapses economically, socially, ecologically or any other way depends on whether we empower or cripple the next generation of leaders.

If you are not sure how you feel about the leaders in your organization, feel free to drop me a note. I welcome the opportunity to explore it with you.

After all, our future is tied to our leadership.

How bright a future do we want?

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

Click here to read my detailed blog entry on “Observations on Leadership”.

Appreciating What We Create – A Lesson from Michael Jackson

2009-06-26T06:19:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, an amazing talent in the person of Michael Jackson was lost suddenly.

His life was a dichotomy of phenomenal talent and passion for his craft on the one hand and a misunderstood, anguish-filled, pain-laden person on the other.

It is easy to embrace the positive and be critical and harsh of the negative – even when what we demand of celebrities often puts them on the slippery road of selling their soul to give us what we need.

Just as we cry foul when a company that produces the products we crave pollutes the environment in order to create them.

Just as we scream for justice when the financial institutions that we demand staggering returns from go belly up as they discover that the means of producing those returns is unsustainable.

Just as we turn our back on the incarcerated, writing them off as the lost and unsalvageable when investing our own gifts in others may have prevented someone from becoming this way in the first place.

We are quick to congratulate ourselves when we harvest something positive from society.

We are just as quick to criticize and blame others when what we harvest or perceive is not positive at all.

We can’t have it both ways.

We need to accept that we are responsible for what we create – the good and the bad.

Once we accept responsibility for both ends of the spectrum, maybe we will complain less and work harder to step up and create more positively and purposefully.

Michael Jackson did some things wrong in his life. He did a lot of things right. He overcame a lot. Despite some of the things that he did that were wrong, he left a legacy to millions.

John Ruskin had a stone on his desk with one word carved in it.

The word was “Today”.

What are you doing with the gift of today to leave a positive legacy to others?

Look within before looking outside.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

Click here to read my detailed blog entry on “Appreciating What We Create”.

Living a Life of Gratitude

2009-06-24T07:25:00.001-07:00

In a world that the media would love to convince you is falling apart, there is still much to be grateful for.

There will be many times in our life when we feel that we are being squeezed or even crushed. Financial worry, relationship trouble, illness or other challenges will visit us at some point in our lives.

Anyone who says they have never had a challenge to overcome and don’t anticipate ever having one are either lying or delusional.

Life is not meant to be easy all the time.

M. Scott Peck, in his book “The Road Less Travelled”, opens the book with this thought:

Life is difficult. This is a great truth , one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

Despite our challenges, we continue to be blessed with much.

Regardless of what we think of others, there are others out there who care for us and love us.

There are people who are prepared to step up and help us.

The world is still filled with love, opportunity, collaboration, truth, sharing and beauty.

The opportunity to create and to manifest miracles is greater now than ever.

It is still a place where dreams come true.

Take some time and observe the strengths and resilience of people, especially children, who are struggling with poverty, illness, abuse, neglect, war, violence, loneliness, depression or some other great challenge.

Now take a look at people who have overcome all odds and made an impact in this world.

It’s an incredible world, isn’t it?

Be grateful for the opportunity to contribute to it and to leave your own legacy to others.

When life is hurting, dig deep. Hold on to your faith and your belief that you must overcome this. Look for the life lessons that will empower you to move forward. Throw off the yoke of challenge and keep moving forward.

Live your life with the gratitude that you are blessed with many gifts that are unique to you.

Gifts that we can’t wait to experience and celebrate!

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

Click here to read my detailed blog entry on “Living a Life of Gratitude”.

Introducing Musings-in-a-Minute

2009-06-23T19:41:00.001-07:00

Good day!

This is the new home for my musings-in-a-minute.

This is the home for a summarized version of my detailed musings and observations, for all blogs posted after June 23, 2009.

Each of my musings-in-a-minute has a link to the main blog if you would like to read the detailed version of my blog entry!

Create a great day!

Harry