If You Wait Until It’s Really Painful ….

…. 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.

Changing Your Perspective

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.

A Quest for Authenticity – How Many Lives Are You Living?

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”.

Appreciating What We Create – A Lesson from Michael Jackson

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”.