There is only one reason.

3 Apr

I have an acquaintance who knows all about business. She’s knows how to start one, how to market it, how to sell it, and how to be a success at it. She reads dozens of business magazines and books on success. She knows all the buzzwords, all the famous people, all the best jobs and all the names of the companies that are moving up and making names for themselves. She’s like a business guru. She books herself in small venues to give speeches about business – how to get started, what to do when problems come up, how to be successful, and she’s filled with advice for everyone. But she has never DONE anything in business herself. She talks all the time about the companies she’s going to start, and all the success she’s going to have, the millions of dollars she’s going to make, and how she’s going to change the business world. But she never does anything. All she does is read constantly about these things, talk continually about them, and try her hardest to convince everyone around her that she is a success.

When asked why she hasn’t yet done anything to get her business plans going, she has a lot of excuses – all of which sound pretty good. “The market isn’t right for this model at this time. I am working on getting the start up capital. I am looking for investors,” and my personal favorite, “I’m still fine tuning what I want to deliver.” Okay. Well all these excuses might sound good, but years have gone by, she has no money, she struggles every month to pay her rent, she’s always scrounging around for some place to give a speech about success, and she’s really talking the talk. But that’s all it is – talk. She never steps up and starts.

There are innumerable reasons not to do things. Innumerable! If you aren’t ready or don’t really want to do something, the reasons you can come up with never end. There is an old story of a man who asked his neighbor if he could borrow his axe. The neighbor said no. He didn’t seem to be using the axe so the man asked him why he couldn’t borrow it. The neighbor said, he was sorry but he was making soup. What does soup have to do with me borrowing your axe inquired the man. Well, said the neighbor, if I don’t want to lend you my axe one excuse is as good as another. And it is.

We have a lot of reasons why we aren’t doing something we’ve been thinking we want to do. We can have as many reasons not to do things as we like. We could just say our hair is growing today or we have a bone in our arm. Really, any excuse will do. But if we want to do something there really is only one reason to do it – because we want to. That’s all. It’s simple. We want to do it and so we do it. If we don’t want to do it, we can stall. We can wait as long as we like until we’re ready to face the truth. And the real truth generally is that we’re not doing it because we don’t want to do it enough to take the steps to start.

One reason. That’s all it takes to do anything we want. One reason. Because we want to. Nothing else really matters. Think about it. One reason. And then decide.

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With all my heart.

2 Apr

This is a heartbreaking story – literally. A young man from Georgia a couple of years ago needed a heart transplant. He was only 15. The transplant committee was hesitant to put him on the transplant list because he had a troubled past, and they were not sure he would comply with the directions after the transplant to ensure that it was effective. Hearts for transplant are not readily available and come at the highest cost. So determining who gets one is a very serious business. The boy’s mother appealed to the press who immediately took up her cause and he got the transplant. He was grateful and happy at the time saying the transplant would help him, “So I can live a second chance. Get a second chance and do things I want to do,” he said. It was a happy outcome for him and for his family who loved him.

Fast forward two years. This week that same boy died in a car chase with police after an attempted robbery and in a stolen car. He was 17. It’s horribly sad on several levels. First of all, he was given two years of life he would not have had without the death of his donor, and being allowed to receive his new heart. Secondly, he obviously did not value that gift enough to change his life, and really do those things he said he wanted to do. Unless, of course, what he wanted to do was die in a car chase with police, which is doubtful.

The heart – we give it a lot of attention, and rightly so. Of course, besides the brain, it’s the organ that keeps us alive. We need it unconditionally. But what about the other “heart?” The one we refer to when we love someone, the one we talk about when someone is kind, the one we attribute to our charity and sensitivity. “She wears her heart on her sleeve. He has such a good heart. My heart hurts when I see such pain.” When we talk about our heart in that way, we refer to our human-ness. Our capacity to love and care. It’s a powerful thing, our heart, and all the emotions we attribute to it.

But the heart should not outweigh the brain. The brain is what tells us what is real, where our reasoning is, and helps us figure things out. Who among us hasn’t fallen in love with someone or something with our hearts, but realized with our brains that it would never fly? We need to reason even when there is emotion. We need to think even when we’re captivated. Sometimes that may take a little time until all the facts uncover themselves, and sometimes we know right away it’s not a good idea to follow our “hearts.” We need both our brains and our hearts to make decisions and if we’re careful, and take a little time, those decisions will be made well. Not always, of course, but if we think, we’ll be more successful than if we don’t.

Once I bought the most amazing jacket – I just loved it from the moment I saw it and it was on sale, so I bought it. It was expensive but I was completely crazy about it. So I followed my heart, pulled out my credit card and bought it. I was ecstatic all the way home with my new find. I couldn’t wait to wear it. But when I got home and pulled it out of the bag I noticed a problem with one of the sleeves I had not seen in the store. There was a big pull in the fabric and no matter how I twisted it and tried to fix it, there was no hope. And then when I looked at the color in the light of day, instead of the light in the store, it didn’t look so great. In fact it was ugly. Ugh. I could not return it – no sale returns clearly posted in the store, and now I was stuck with an expensive jacket I would never wear. I kept it in my closet for over a year as a reminder to me to THINK before I jumped when my heart told me to.

Making a bad purchase is a small thing in the scope of our lives, but the reminder to think before following our hearts is an important lesson. The boy with the heart transplant had been given a second chance at life. He had been given an extraordinary gift and in the end, he squandered it. He could have done amazing things with his life. He could have chosen to be noble. He could have helped others. He could have been the example for good. But he followed his other “heart” – his base desires and did not use his brain. And now he is gone. We should do better. We can use our hearts for all the great and tantalizing moments in our lives, but we can also engage our brains to think before we act. Be kind, be loving, be compassionate, be careful, AND be wise. Use your heart for good, and use your brain to help you achieve that good.

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Getting the last word.

1 Apr

There are some people in this world who, for reasons that escape me, absolutely HAVE to have the last word. They need to have the final say, the last comment, the end remark to close the issue or conversation. Most often this is during a disagreement or negotiation situation of some sort, but not always. This seems like a control issue. They can’t let it go, whatever “it” is, until they are the ones to end it.

Everyone has dealt with people like this and it is nearly impossible for them to let it go. If we say another word after they are supposedly done, they will speak up and end it again. This will go on and on until they finally get the last word. If the situation is intense and we feel strongly about something, we may be tempted to send one more salvo after they’ve ended their part, but that never works. If we say anything after they are done, they will revise and make another comment. The conversation will not end until they end it. Nothing will end until they say it’s over.

So how can we navigate this and still feel like we have some control ourselves? The most effective way to deal with someone who has to have the last word is to LET THEM HAVE IT. We can state our positions, we can be calm and effective, we can be clear and concise, and we can be in control of our emotions. After we have said everything we feel is important to establish our point of view, we can stop talking. The other person can then respond to everything if they like, say what they want to, and end the conversation by having the last word. Giving them the last word does not weaken our positions or us. It does not change our message or make it less important. In fact, by standing by our previous statements and allowing the other party to have the last word, we are in fact the ones in control of the conversation. We own it because we consciously decide when it will end.

People who need the last word can make our interactions difficult – if we let them. They can make the conversation go on and on way past the point of resolution – if we let them. They can frankly make us miserable and even lose focus of the original point – if we let them. But we don’t have to let them. We can be in control of the conversation, we can be in control of how things go and when they will end. If your counterpart needs the last word to finish the issue – let them have it. And be content knowing you set your own boundaries and stayed in control of your actions. That’s the most effective way to navigate the situation. And when we’re effective, most often we’re successful in achieving our goals. And achieving our goals, not getting the last word, is the prize after all.

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What’s the worst that can happen?

31 Mar

One day while driving through town with my son, the man in the car in front of me threw some trash out the window. Incensed, I laid on the horn and shook my finger at him through the windshield. My son went nuts. “What are you doing? That guy could have a gun and just pull over and shoot you for that! Is it worth that for a little litter?” I told him he was over reacting. The odds of that guy actually being so angry that he’d shoot me over my horn blast was absurd. But was it? I began to think about the situation in a different way. Every day we read incredibly horrible stories about people doing things out of anger just like my son was warning me about. Hmmm. That experience made me ponder my situation a bit more carefully.

What if, before we make a decision we thought about the worst possible outcome. What is the worst thing that could happen? Even if it’s unlikely that the worst possible scenario would actually happen, what if we thought about what that would be before we made our decisions. What if? I mean even if the odds are strongly against it, sometimes the worst case scenario actually does happen. And that deserves our thought before we make a decision.

We were working on a an intense project at work and I was exhausted. I really needed a day off. I wanted to ask my boss for it but I stopped and thought about all the possible outcomes. He could say, “Sure go ahead. Take the day,” and that would have been great. But what would the ramifications have been overall. Everyone was stressed and working hard, everyone probably wanted a day off. My position was pretty high and I probably had more freedom to ask than those further down the ladder. If I took the day off and someone else couldn’t, or worse, didn’t even feel like they could ask for a day off, how would that impact the team? How would I be viewed? Worse case scenario – Everyone would hate me and I would be a pariah from then forward. I didn’t think THAT would happen, but there were other things to consider. After I pondered this for a while, I determined that it would be better not to even ask for the day off. Just grind through the project with everyone else and when it was done, we could all take some time. So that’s what I did.

I will never know if I had taken the day off if anything negative would have happened or if anyone would have even cared. But taking the time to consider the worst case scenario gave me a broader picture of how my decision could affect not only the others involved, but the project as a whole. It was worth the time I spent thinking about it before I decided what to do.

It probably won’t matter what we have for breakfast, what shoes we wear to work, or where we park our cars. But some decisions we make today will matter. Some decisions could have far reaching consequences. We never really know how far those consequences could go. Like tossing a pebble in a pond the ripples could go wide. So before we decide anything that touches others or impacts situations, we should take the time to think. “What’s the worst that could happen?” If we can work around that, if we can manage that, then we can go forward with confidence. Start thinking.

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What you want most.

30 Mar

Someone very wise once said, “Our greatest sorrows come when we give up what we want most in life for what we want most at the moment.” That’s a strong statement and it is most certainly true. What do we want most in life? The first step is to determine what that is. Not always as easy as one might think. What do we want most? Think about it. Take some time. Decide what is most important to you at this time in your life. Is it to spend more time with your family? To change your appearance? To get more fit? To change your career? To start working on that dream you’ve had for a while now?

Once you determine what you want most, begin to think about the ways you’ve been trading it off for what you want most at the moment. What are you doing now, that’s probably easier, that is keeping you from doing the thing you really want to do most? Perhaps you want to lose weight most of all, but right now you want those French fries. Perhaps you want to write your first novel, but your favorite TV show is on tonight and you don’t want to miss it. Perhaps you want to get closer to your family, but right now you want to relax at home. There is nothing wrong with eating French fries when you want them, watching TV or relaxing at home. But if those are just the things you want at the moment and not the things you want most of all, it may be time to re-evaluate them.

Life has a way of filling up our days with details and busy-ness. There is always one more thing to get done, one more deadline, one more chore to do. But all those things are momentary in nature. How can you rearrange things so that you have time for the one thing that isn’t momentary – the one thing you’ve really been wanting in your life? We are all in control of our time and how we use it. Yes, you may have a demanding job that takes your time, and you need that. Yes, there is a lot to do after that, but it’s not impossible to plan for the time you need to work on what you really want.

Today, take a few minutes and think about what you really want most out of your life right now. Define it, and then make a plan to make time for it. Change things around and make it a priority. Don’t let anything interfere with your plan. Start working on that one thing you want most. As you do, you will see that as it becomes part of your life, it will become second nature to give it the time you need to get to the goal. You will feel stronger being in control. You will feel happier knowing you are working on what’s important to you. You will feel more confident because what you really want, who you really are, is getting the attention we deserve.

“Our greatest sorrows come when we give up what we want most in life for what we want at the moment.”

Don’t give it up one more day. Start now. Change your course. Be what you want most to be.

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