The Blame Game – Less Fun Than Monopoly ….

…. 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.

Can You Ask For Help?

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.

Accountability and Authenticity

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.