Becomming Someone Special

“Do you think I’m talented enough?”

-       Annie Butterfield

Becoming Someone Special

Driving with other people in the car provides an opportunity to think and to have some wonderful conversations.  I make it my practice to spend most of my drive time without any distraction.  Yes.  It makes my family crazy to ride with me because most of the time the radio and other entertainment devices are in the off position.  When they ask why I do that to myself my reply is always the same.

“How can you tell what you think if you always have someone else in your ear giving you suggestions?”

So, three of us were driving the other day when my daughter, Annie, asked me if I thought she was talented enough.  I was taken aback because she is one of the most intelligent, talented people I know.  Still, I told her so and reminded her of another significant partner of talent.  Work!

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Utah I was cruising along very well until I ran in to one particular professor in my major field of study.  He was difficult to be sure, but I wasn’t worried.  I should have been!

I’ll never forget the first class I had with him.  The class started in a large room filled with more than fifty students.  He handed out the course syllabus and spent our first session going through the massive amount of work verbally.  I could hear gasps from other students as the presentation progressed.  The session ended and we all went our separate ways.

The next day we met again in the same room.  The professor walked into the room and then made an audible count. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!  “That’s about right!  Let’s walk down the hall and continue in our conference room.”

Those of us who stayed had a great learning opportunity and we worked hard.  But, my greatest moment of learning had nothing to do with the course material.  After our first exam the professor asked me to come to meet with him in his office where we sat down and talked for a few minutes.

“Up until this moment,” He said, “you’ve been getting along on your talent alone.  But, I’m not going to let you do that any more!  It doesn’t matter what the rest of the class is doing.  I’m going to make sure you learn to work!  Talent isn’t enough.  To really become someone special you have to work!”

Work I did!  I had never worked like he made me in my life.  It was hard.  But, I learned so much from him that when I had the opportunity to have him be the chairman my committee in graduate school I snapped it up. 

To be honest, he worked me so hard in graduate school I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.  But I did.  And, after I completed my degree he sat with me and we had another personal talk at the coffee shop.

“Congratulations.” He said.  “You’re one of three who have ever finished their degree with me as the chairman of their committee!  I washed all of the others out.  I don’t remember what point I knew you were going to be one of the ones that finished, but there was a time, fairly early on, I knew you were going to make it.  Now you have to decide what you want out of life, money or power.” (Money and power is another discussion.)

He really taught me that in order to get the most out of the individual talent each one of us has, we need to work hard at improving every day.  It is an individual journey that cannot be compared in detail because each person has a very distinctive, personalized path on which to walk.  But, the partnered principles of talent and work remain universal.  Use them in combination to your benefit.

Take time to examine your unique talents and abilities internally.  Make sure you search the deepest corners of your heart so you understand them as best you can.  Then, work with all your heart to develop your talents.  As you do, you’ll find new aspects of talent and personal strengths you didn’t comprehend before.  It will be a wonderful and challenging experience if you accept the call to become someone special; someone who has become the most they could make of themselves.

Zero Growth

“Can I so you what I’ve been up to?”

- Terry Ehlers

Zero Growth

Young children always say the same thing.

“When I grow up!”

They look forward to their personal growth.  They are natural born builders and seek to try and master new things on a daily basis.  They are seemingly in perpetual motion.  I find it challenging to be around them because I don’t have as much energy as they do.  There are also times when I don’t seem to have the same type of vision as they do.

What does vision have to do with growth in all of its forms?  It’s a very interesting question and I’ve been watching for clues as to their special relationship.  I say special relationship because it appears as if you can’t have one without the other.

A friend stopped by to see me yesterday.  He talked with me about his projects and how he is progressing on each one of them.  I took special interest because he’s the same age as I am.  In fact we were born within two weeks of each other.  Yet, I sometimes I see a magical spark in his eyes that is often lacking in the eyes of other people about our age.

What is this spark?  It has to do with vision.  Not how well his eyes work mechanically.  It has to do with the way he sees the world and views his role and opportunity in it.  He sees great things ahead and is actively working to achieve.  As a result he is growing all of the time!

A person who lacks vision also lacks growth.  Such a person actively fights growth.  As they do so, their view of the world shrinks and they see less and less opportunity for themselves and others.  There are also times when such people verbally talk about the benefits of “zero growth.”

Is there such a thing as zero growth?

I remember sitting in math class and learning about negative numbers.  Before that time I thought that zero was the lowest number possible.  But, as my teacher taught me about negative numbers I began to realize that zero was a small stop on an infinite, negative path.  A Rabbi once explained this concept to me in a very different way.

Said he, “If you had the whole world and all of its wealth, but lived alone on this planet would you actually be wealthy?  True wealth is the result of relationships.  A person with no relationships can have all of the money in the world and also be the poorest person in the world!”

As a person’s vision decreases, growth decreases.  Both vision and growth may stop at zero for a brief time, but as they pass zero they begin to accelerate to more toward the negative as time goes on.

I’ve heard others say, “He is dead.  He just doesn’t know it yet!”

Death does not have to be our future.  As our vision and personal growth accelerate toward the positive our relationships also grow.  As our relationships grow, our communities grow.  When our communities grow, all of us become more and more wealthy in every way possible.  Vision, growth and strong relationships accelerate every one of us into infinitely higher possibilities of joy and fulfillment.

The Five Words

“Lose yourself in doing good.”

-David Geddes

The Five Words

When I was a young man there was a time when it felt as if my whole world was crumbling.  Everywhere I looked it was as if nothing good was happening in my life.  It seemed as if almost everything I counted on to provide me with happiness had turned against me and was now working in contradiction.  It was a time of personal darkness and despair so I turned to my Pastor for counsel.

I vividly remember sitting with him and talking about all the bad assaulting me at the time.  He listened patiently and intently until I had finished my seemingly unending list.  His face was loving in its attitude and when he spoke I could not escape the feeling of warmth with which it engulfed me.

“Lose yourself in doing good.” He said gently.

I had taken more than a half hour to outline everything that was bad and getting worse in my life.  I had gone into great detail to make sure he had understood every aspect of the challenges I was facing.  He gave me the solution in five words!

I tested his advice at that time and it worked!  I made sure I turned my focus to doing good all around me and soon I was surrounded by good everywhere I turned.  My life had changed, but not forever.

As the years marched forward my circumstances changed.  I was fully engaged in my business and had a focus on being successful.  I began to live my life as a continuing negotiation!  That is until I ran into an old friend.

When I sat talking with this friend I’ll never forget the look on her face when, in the middle of our conversation, she stopped me and said, “What happened to you?”

To say the least, I was taken aback!

After our meeting I thought about what she said over and over again.  I wondered what had happened to me.  What had caused me to stop being the cherished friend she remembered and loved?

As I thought about who I had become, the five words came back into my mind and heart.  “Lose yourself in doing good.”  Even though I hadn’t seen my Pastor for many years I saw his gentle and kind face as if he was there with me.  And again, I made a vow to incorporate his words into my life.

When I did, the good came flowing back into my life and I was happy once again.  It was at this moment I knew these were more than just words.  If one truly focuses on doing good continually, they discover a passageway to never ending joy.

When joy had left the life of one of my stepsisters, she came to me for advice in one of her darkest hours.  I felt helpless in offering her a solution until the five words came rushing into my mind.  I offered them to her.  They changed her life. 

Years later, when peace and tranquility were ever present for her, she came to me and said, “That was the best advice I have ever received!  Thank you!”

I simply said, “It wasn’t my advice.  It was from my Pastor, David.  He is the one who gave me the words to give.”

Now I’m giving these words to you.  Lose your life in doing good.  You don’t need permission from anyone to use them.  You don’t need any more money.  You just need to use them to the benefit of all.

Doing good for others will always come back to you.  There is no way you can ever give more than you will receive when you offer goodness directly from your heart.

Living Inside Out

“The only change was on the exterior environment.  Don’t let that affect you.  Keep focused on your own work and goals.” – Randy Rigby

Living Inside Out

When I was a young boy I loved to listen to my father tell me stories.  His tales mesmerized me and I believed all of them.

One day my parents got a phone call from my teacher at school inviting my dad to come to my class and talk about being a bear hunter.  My parents were shocked!  I wasn’t.  After all, it was my dad who told me about a time when he was walking down a trail when a huge bear came up to him and roared.

“The bear walked up to me and stared me in the eye.  Then he let out a deafening roar!  Did I run?  No!  I reached down his throat, grabbed him by the tail and turned him inside out!”  My father told me with convincing theatrics.

I was surprised when my parents declined the teacher’s invitation to talk to my class about his exploits as a bear hunter.  It was only then that I came to know that this fantastic tale was only a story.  But, to this day, I believe the principle of living your life inside out is one of the most important values a person will ever internalize and it still challenges me to this day.

As a tween, I began to make up my own “tall tales” and loved to tell people stories.  Then, when I was in high school I became an extemporaneous speaker.  I viewed myself as the top ranked member of our team and won the regional championship.  But, when it was time to compete at the state tournament I wasn’t able to control my internal stress and made myself “sick” with worry.  In the end, I couldn’t compete because of this self-induced illness and my friend and teammate won the state championship.  He deserved to win.

I’ll never know if I could have won, because I let one small change in the presentation environment dictate whether or not I could perform, even though I had done the same thing over and over again in smaller venues and had been successful.  I couldn’t keep my interior self focused!

Randy Rigby once spoke to me about a conversation he had with an Olympic Athlete.  He said she told him that when she asked a coach what she needed to do to become an Olympian he said, “If I put a twenty foot long, four inch wide board on the floor can walk on it?”

“Yes.” She said.

“If I put the same board on the floor, can you run on it?”

“Yes.” She replied.

“If I put the same board on the floor, can you sprint on it?”

“Yes.  I can.” She answered.

“If I put the same board up in air between two buildings five-hundred feet in the air can you still sprint on it?”

“I’m not sure.”  She timidly responded.

“The only change was the exterior environment!  Don’t let that affect you.  Keep focused on your own work and goals.  That’s the difference between an athlete and an Olympic Athlete.”  He taught her.

The lesson is the same for every one of us.  I still sit and stew about things in my work and life that make me feel uncomfortable.  But, the difference between the High School me and the today me is that I’ve learned to break the scary things down in to simple steps.

First I see that the bear has walked up behind me.  I look him right in the eye and feel very afraid.  I want to die right there before he has a chance to eat me!  Then I say to myself. “Look, he’s opening his mouth.  But it isn’t to eat me!  He simply wants to scare me more, so I have time to do one small thing.  I can lift my arm up.  O.K.  I did that and I can see all the way down his throat!  I can thrust my arm down his throat!  O.K.  That worked and the bear is now gasping for air!  I think I can feel his tail with my fingers.  Yes!  I can grab his tail and pull him inside out!  Whew!  That bear didn’t eat me!  I did a good job!”

Now, that’s living life inside out!

You can live your life from the inside out by break your biggest challenges into small manageable pieces.  When you do, you’ll get better at managing the things that challenge you internally as well.

Clump of Comfort

“How can you have your horse and cow living together?  I tried it once and my horse just chased and bit my cows.”  Russ Johnson

Clump of Comfort

“They’re totally buddies.”  My daughter said to me as she watched our horse and one of our cows frolicking in the South Field together.

It was a different scene as was driving past my neighbor’s cattle herd this morning and saw hundreds of black furred Angus lying in a massive clump.  It is so like these creatures to be huddled together.  They rarely wander outside of their group too far.  They feel comfortable together.

Then I came home.  I looked out to see “34,” one of our steers, eating side by side with his buddy, Fifteen Bucks, our tall and grand Thoroughbred Horse.  They eat together, sleep together, and love to run and buck in unison.  It’s a quite unusual.

I looked a little further out and saw the other cows all bunched up.  34 knows they’re not too far away.  He just chooses not to hang with them all the time.  I can only guess that he likes to do some of the same things his friend “Buck” does.  But, the real question in my mind today is:  What was it that caused them to come together as friends? Doesn’t everybody prefer to hang with their own kind?

I remember when my friend John Garrity told me that I was lucky to have found my “tribe.”  What he meant by that was that I was much younger than he was when he discovered what he wanted to do professionally.  I’ve thought about that comment now for more than thirty-five years.  But, these days I’m thinking in a little different way.

I think of the diverse group of people I share my life with.  They’re male & female, and of different race, religion, nationality and profession.  As a result, I’ve been able to learn things that would have otherwise never entered my mind.  And, I’ve enjoyed experiences that I value more than I can say.

I was working in Hungary once when the interpreter with me said, “You’re a fast learner.”  She was referring to the way I was able to catch on to local customs so people we were meeting with would be comfortable.  I’m a better man because of this kind of knowledge gained through personal interaction.

So, my question to you is, “Are you living in a clump of comfort?”

The cattle I drove past today are spending their lives clump in comfort.  But you and I don’t have to live that way.  We can come together with the thoroughbreds around us and get increased joy from learning new things from them.  Sure, we may look at each other and know that we’ll never become the sleek, tall, strong, beautiful, exotic creatures others are.  But, we’ll be all the better for having associated with them. 

Always remember that to the members of other tribes you and I are exotic.  A guide I once worked with in China said, “The local ginger is never spicy enough!”  It is a local saying they use to describe the human tendency to want to stand out within the crowd we live in.

Use this tendency to your advantage.  Leave a clumped life behind and live with the standouts.  It will spice up your life.