Musings at Altitude

Audrey didn’t want to go to sleep tonight…what almost-4-month-old would…I mean, after all, this world is quite the exciting place to a relatively new passenger on this fast moving bus of life!  As I watched my daughter struggle with Audrey, I did the honorable thing and said “give her to me”, and I immediately started that gentle and nurturing motion that can only come from a grandfather holding his granddaughter.  As I felt her settle down, I quietly meandered to my office and sat down on my ergonomically correct and rocking chair, and I slowly rocked her with the only light visible in the room being the screen saver on my computer.  Within minutes, she was sound asleep, and that sense of relief came over everyone in the house.

Most grandfather’s realize how rare and very unusual it is for a grandfather to put a granddaughter to sleep.  That’s the magical domain of a grandmother, and most grandfathers don’t even give it a try.  But tonight for some reason was different.  I wanted to engage.  I wanted to embrace a challenge.  I wanted to enter a twilight zone of sorts involving the gentle and nurturing embrace of an infant child to get that child to prefer sleep over the excitement of this brave new world that they’ve entered.  AND I DID IT!  Not only did I do it, but she stayed asleep even while visiting her grandmother watching the hockey game and then finally being carried up to bed.  Of course, her grandmother did that…that’s certainly not the domain of a grandfather.

Being able to do something this unusual is priceless!  There is a sense of accomplishment here that can’t be effectively explained, but trust me when I say that I’m smiling from the simple act of getting a nearly 4 month old to sleep when others struggled so mightily to accomplish that goal!

PS.  Some may say that putting folks to sleep shouldn’t be something that surprises me.  I’d prefer to think that it was something really, really special!

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I live a very passionate life.  It could be passion in a relationship.  It could be passion in my job.  It could be passion in any particular interaction where I think I can help or I think I can learn.  It could be passion in the awe of God’s creation.  It could be passion from a song or passion from a call or passion from a specific thing I see that causes that unique emotional and passionate response.  It could be passion from being held when something has seriously gone wrong or being high fived when something has unexpectedly gone right.

At times I see folks with no apparent emotion at all, and I wonder how they could possibly go through life or any particular event of life without passion.  Passion is what fuels me.  Passion is what allows me to overcome setbacks.  Passion is what allows me to take on that challenge that everyone else may have said was impossible, but for some reason, I smile and say “let’s get it done”.  Passion is what allows me to see the purple mountains majesty and to picture what life will be like after the devastating storm ends that may currently engulf me.  Passion is what allows me to believe that my life is to be served in obedience to my Creator, and passion is what burdens me so greatly when I fall short of what that same Creator expects of me.

I can’t imagine my life without passion, and I can’t imagine passion without truly embracing life – all aspects of life – all phases of life – all events of life.

I remember the hugs.  I remember the high fives.  I remember the sun just hitting the mountains and turning them purple.  I remember devastating personal loss.  I remember the incredible joy of miraculous events.  I remember shaking so awkwardly before that first jump out of an airplane.  I remember that decision to start a business and then that decision to depart that business as well.  I remember that first check.  I remember that first election.  I remember that decision to change careers.  I remember not getting paid for months.  I remember that first big deal closed.  I remember that first multi-million dollar check that I had to rush back to the office to make payroll.  I remember breaking bones.  I remember mending bones.  I remember standing next to the President.  I remember being yelled at by the President.

Each passionate moment was deeply carved into my memory, and those passionate moments bind together today to fuel a desire for even greater passion from the events of my life from this point forward. 

Passion is my goal.  Passion is my choice.  Passion is priceless.

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I spent many hours today Christmas shopping with my wife.  Our family split up into two teams – my oldest, my youngest, and the grandbaby went one way and my wife and I went the other way.  After about 3 hours of shopping, my wife said, “you’re doing very well today”, knowing how much I hate shopping and also recognizing that during those 3 hours I didn’t really say one word that would have shown any displeasure or discomfort on my part at all! 

We spent all 3 hours at WalMart, and in those 3 hours, we had found about 80% of the gifts we needed, had lunch with our son (who works at WalMart), and had decided which other stores we needed to visit in order to finish out our shopping for the day.  After dropping off the first round of bags at home, we finished our shopping 2 hours later after visiting both Best Buy and Barnes & Noble.

As much as I dislike shopping, I must admit that for some reason today was different.  Maybe it was the lunch.  Maybe it was the feeling of finality as I knew that the gift list was rapidly shrinking.  Maybe it was because I spent all afternoon poking fun at my wife.  Maybe it was because I focused on both the spiritual and the personal side of my assessment today.  Could be any or all of these, but amazingly, I truly enjoyed spending this day shopping with my wife.

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I made it to 37,000 feet four different times this past week, and I truly enjoyed the freedom of thought that came from being removed from constant connectivity and the associated tension when on the ground.  That freedom begins the minute they make the announcement, “please shut off all electronic equipment”, and that freedom leaves the minute the wheels touch down on the arrival runway.

On the last two trips to altitude, I put my earphones in, put my iPod on my favorite songs, and the first song that came up was a song by Casting Crowns called “Somewhere in the Middle”.  The message in the song is about our path to sanctification and how we’re in the middle of what we were and what God wants us to be.  In one particular line, they sing, “somewhere between who I was and who you’re making me, somewhere in the middle you’ll find me.”  If you want to listen to the song, here’s a link to it – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DveYBno-pmQ&feature=related.

As I focused on the words in the song, I realized how true that is for me in my spiritual life, and I then realized that it also applied to every phase of my life.  In fact, as I began to do an assessment of my life, I broke it down into four different areas – spiritual, personal, physical, and professional – and then I laid out a simple assessment tool with a very candid rating on each area of my life:

In the scale, I used “P” for “perfect” on the far right and “PF” for perfectly flawed on the far left.  I then thought long and hard about how I’m doing in each area. 

In my spiritual life, I spend a lot more time in prayer and in reading God’s word, but I don’t spend nearly enough time living my life in accordance with the way God wants me to live.  It’s pretty clear to me that to live in accordance with God’s will, I need to live a life of service to others and live a life of obedience as well.  I struggle at times with the first and I struggle mightily with the second. 

In my personal life, I have struggled a lot with balance, spending most of my time on the road and not being available when and where I was needed to be the husband and father I needed and still need to be. 

In my physical life, I’m a slug, sitting here fat and dumb but not necessarily happy with my physical condition much of the time.  It’s pretty simple as to the solution – get active and get committed to improving my current physical state, but I always find reasons to wave off on that long walk or to eat that extra piece of pie. 

And in my professional life, the more I experience and the more I learn, the more I realize how little I really know and how lacking I really am.  I compensate by working extra hard and quickly apologizing for all my mistakes, but in the end, I’m only half way through my 50 year work life, and I feel like I’m only half way through the learning I need to do to be able to be the person I want to be in a leadership role.

So I truly am somewhere in the middle, and unfortunately in several areas, well below where I ought to be at this point in my life.  As the song says, I’m “somewhere between who I am and who I used to be, somewhere in the middle you’ll find me,”  but I’m not sure I’m very excited about where those ratings fall right now.  I’ll ponder these ratings for a while now, and I’ll come up with some commitments and resolutions to improve in each of these four areas.  But I’ve done that before and only nudged myself up the scale a little bit.  At this phase and stage of my life, nudging isn’t good enough anymore – I need leaps up the scale.  That’s what I need to figure out how to do.

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I’ve had many philosophical and therapeutic discussions with friends and business partners over the last week, and each and every time, the conversation at some point turns to what affect if any this economy is having on business operations.  The answers have ranged from “devastating” to “no change just yet”.  But everyone is fully expecting some impact to business revenue…it’s not a question of if…it’s only a question of when.

I’ve asked several folks what they are doing in response to or in anticipation of the impact.  I can summarize all of their comments into the following:

• simplify the game plan
• focus on business basics
• stay on offense/control the ball/run more, pass less
• protect the quarterback
• get to the post season

During the last few years when business was booming and the phone kept ringing with new opportunities, many businesses got away from their game plans, took advantage of aggressive scoring opportunities, and trusted their sales teams to generate new revenues to cover the enormously high discretionary spending that was occurring.  But those times have changed and that optimistic and sometimes reckless spending of the past has been replaced with an intense focus on optimizing margins, minimizing or deferring costs and maximizing revenues from existing relationships.  Many companies have already gone back to basics – selling, serving, and collecting – and most companies are now focused on small efforts executed well.  These small efforts provide much greater certainty in today’s very uncertain economic conditions, and frequently occurring small victories provide some comfort and even create some momentum in times of enormous economic distress.

A common theme has also been to protect your star players – the quarterbacks in this sports analogy.  That also occurs by focusing on basics – blocking, executing, getting those business first downs, and winning enough games to get to the business post season.  Star players don’t like playing for losers.  Star players don’t like getting sacked because of poor business blocking.  Star players don’t like undisciplined teams where fumbles frequently occur and through those turnovers, business is lost.  Instead, star players like being part of winning teams.  Star players greatly appreciate the corrections and adjustments that adapt the game plan to the competition that exists.  Star players like being part of the game plan development and like being held accountable for game time execution.  And star players like overcoming great adversity and winning in spite of the enormous obstacles to victory that may exist.

John Wooden said, “it’s the little details that are vital; little things make big things happen.”  In these uncertain times, the folks I know are focusing even more on those little details and all of them are going back to the basics of business execution.  All of us are looking to grind it out right now, knowing that we’re going to get more yards on the ground than in the air.  But every one of us will at times heave the ball down the field – it’s in our nature to go for that big play – but we’ll stick to the game plan overall – and hopefully we’ll all stay in the game and eventually win and make it to the business playoffs.

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Although I write for therapy, when I’m incredibly tense or desperately anxious about any particular issue or meeting, I can sit and look at this screen for hours at a time and nothing seems to flow.  I’m coming out of one of those cycles now – three days of fairly intense thinking – and then additional time to decompress.

72 hours is just about the time it takes to get things moving once again.  I’m looking forward to that.  So much to share, and no way yet to frame those thoughts.

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I mentioned earlier that Thanksgiving is a very special holiday for me, as we pause for that day and give thanks for the many things we’ve been blessed with and the many people who are such a blessing to us.  Yesterday was no different – the prayers of thanks were flowing and the smiles were abundant. 

I started my day with a quick blog, and I had a special blogging partner as I typed it out and posted it:

We then shared breakfast with our immediate family, and we were thankful to spend time with our oldest daughter, her husband, and our grandbaby; our son and his fiance; and our 14 year old.  After breakfast, the oldest two left with their family and friends, and my wife spent several hours in the kitchen cooking up the perfect meal for the three of us that remained:

It was a wonderful dinner of stuffed cornish hens with all the trimmings, and then we topped it off later in the evening with four different pies.  Now that was something to be thankful for!

Today, as I type this, we have been blessed with some visitors in our backyard:

In these two days, I’ve been reminded time and time again of all the things I’m thankful for – my family, my friends, the food on the table, my home, my country, and the always present evidence of God’s magnificent creation.  I need to remember to pause every day amidst all the chaos that is life and give thanks – the reminders of all that I am thankful for are everywhere – I just need to take the time to look.

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Three generations of the ladies in my family converged on the malls this morning, leaving home at 4:00 am and taking advantage of the “Black Friday” savings for early shoppers.  About mid morning after many hours of their shopping, I received this photo on my Blackberry:

When I received this, I went from Audrey’s smile to the Coke and immediately thought of the old advertisement for Coke, “I’d like to buy the world a coke”.  As I was sitting in my office, I started humming that tune, and now I can’t get it out of my head!

For those of you that want a refresher, take a look – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2QZW1mexhQ.

I bet you’ll be humming it for a while too!

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On this wonderful Thanksgiving Day, I am so thankful for so many things.  The list gets longer each year, so I’ve begun to categorize them:

• “F’s” – Faith, Family, Friends, & Food
• “Well Being” – Health, Home & Job
• “Liberty” – Country & Freedom

When I’ve given thanks for the “big 3”, I then move on to specifics areas of thanks within each category, and I think back through this past year on prayers that were answered, miracles that occurred and help that was needed that was provided.  That list gets longer each year as I now look more intently and recognize those times of special intervention that in the past I may have thought were coincidence or luck.  In this year, there was healing that was unexpected, there was success in jobs that seemed impossible, and there was the gift of life – all of these brought smiles and periods of praise and great thanks!  There were calls at just the right time with just the right message; there were sermons with just the right teaching at just the right moment when that message needed to be heard; and there were hugs from just the right people at just the right time when things seemed so desperate.

I am blessed beyond belief with a family that loves me in spite of myself, with friends who encourage me when I often times forget to give them encouragement in return, and with a Creator that shows me each day through His magnificent creation His love for me and His presence in my life.  That same Creator and loving God has shown us this year once again through the miracle of life how special His plan and His creation really is:

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am so thankful for so many things, but most thankful for those who bring me smiles and remind me every day of what love really means.

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I walked into my home this evening to the smell of pies baking.  My wife spent this afternoon making three pies – pecan; blueberry; and cherry.  Then tomorrow morning, she’ll make a pumpkin pie.  Our house really smells good!

Early in the morning, we’ll start Thanksgiving Day out with cinammon rolls, eggs and bacon.  Sometime around noon, we’ll stuff the cornish hens and get them in the oven.  They’ll cook till about 2:00 pm, and then we’ll match the hens with a yam casserole, and we’ll eat the rest of the afternoon.  We’ll finish off the day with the pies.

I love Thanksgiving, not only for its meaning, but for its fellowship as well.  Christmas seems so hectic because of all the presents that have to be open.  But Thanksgiving seems so pure and so much less commercialized.  At Thanksgiving, everyone I know pauses to give thanks, and then everyone I know seems to take in about 5,000 calories in great food.

I am so grateful and thankful for my family and friends, for the blessings that I’ve received, and for the wonderful food that leads to wonderful fellowship that leads to wonderful memories that hold us over till the next Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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