Quit and Go Home

“In the past decade alone, we’ve used innovation and technology to transform the U.S. energy story from one of scarcity to one of abundance.” - John S. Watson

Quit and Go Home

1973 was a long time ago.  Yet, I remember it vividly.  It seemed as if our world was being turned upside down.  OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, imposed an oil embargo against the United States.  As a fifteen-year-old boy I was perhaps most concerned about being able to have enough gas to drive a car when I obtained my drivers license in the coming year.  I was afraid.

Then, after driving for five years there was another oil shock in 1978 and 1979 and it seemed as if the wheels had completely stopped rolling in Southern California.  There were times when we couldn’t purchase gas for our cars and frustration ruled the day.  One close friend, who commuted from Santa Ana to Los Angeles daily, would have his daughter do her studying while she waited in line for up to four hours at a time to purchase fuel.  There were times when we couldn’t even purchase fuel.

Perhaps that’s why I was so attentive as John S. Watson, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Chevron, recently said, “In the past decade alone, we’ve used innovation and technology to transform the U.S. energy story from one of scarcity to one of abundance.”  And, his comments brought to my mind Thomas Edison and the way he approached creating abundance.

When Mr. Edison was sixty-seven years old he came home after ending his day at his laboratory.  He had dinner with his family and not long after they a man came rushing into his house.  The man bore urgent news.

A fire had broken out at Edison’s research and production facility!  Mr. Edison went to the scene, which was fueled by the many chemicals being used in the buildings.  Because of these chemicals, the flames were an intriguing green and yellow and were shooting six or seven stories in the sky.  This, along with the tremendous size of the fire, fought by men and engines from eight surrounding towns, caused a large crowd to gather.

As Edison made his way calmly through the crowd of hundreds of onlookers and frightened employees he looked for his son.  Once he found his son he said, “Go get your mother and all her friends.  They’ll never see a fire like this again!”

“What?!” His son replied.

Edison responded calmly with, “Don’t worry.  It’s all right.  We’ve just got rid of a lot of rubbish.”

That’s a telling reaction from a man who had just lost his life’s work!  Most would have gotten angry, quit and gone home!  But, Edison knew that such behavior would have accomplished nothing! Rather than let this destruction break his heart and ruin his life he said to a reporter the next day that he wasn’t too old to start over again.  “I’ve been through a lot of things like this.  It prevents a man from being afflicted with ennui.”

John Watson is not and Thomas Edison was not a man filled with weariness or discontent.  At a time when others were harboring feelings of scarcity, they focused on creating abundance for themselves and others.

Watson and his company Chevron, along with others, have succeeded in transforming perceived energy crisis into tangible energy abundance.  Such a feat can’t be accomplished without a scrupulous outlook and people, people who combine innovation with talent while remaining focused when others are transfixed by a “falling sky.”

Though Edison watched his hopes and dreams be incinerated against the sky and lost the equivalent of an estimated twenty-three million dollars, of today’s dollars, he elicited enough energy to make the equivalent of two-hundred-million dollars that same year while putting his employees back to work and producing new products that the world had never seen before.  He suffered a breath-taking disaster and replied to it by creating breath-taking abundance.

Will you and I respond in the same way?  Will we put our energies, emotions and exertions where they will have a real impact?  Will we say, “Well, this is what has happened and there is nothing I can do about it.” Will you and I adopt the same scrupulous approach in our lives?

Yes!  Let’s say, “I’m not going to quit and go home! I will combine my talent with innovation, work hard and focus on creating abundance when everyone else is cowering in fear!”

One Big Thing

Cool nights, shorter days and color leaking from trees

One Big Thing

“It isn’t spring,” I said to myself as I was cleaning my garage and working in my yard yesterday.  Summer is getting dangerously close to turning into fall.  And, fall is the time I like to do my “spring-cleaning.” 

The dust and clutter of outside work is everywhere!  We’ll all be sort of locked up, spending more time inside, soon.  So, it only makes sense to make sure everything is prepared to weather the long, cold, dark days ahead.

“It isn’t spring for me either,” I breathed out as the ache of work ran from my shoulders to my toes.  I stopped for just a moment and reflected.

When I was in the spring of my life I had lots of hopes and dreams.  Most of those are no longer with me.  However, one thing is still with me.  It was a conversation I had with my friend Ron Green many years ago as he was entering the winter of his life.

“My life turned out just the way I planned it!” He said to me with a twinkle in his eyes.

I could tell he meant it.  There was that “thing” in the lilt of his voice.  There was conviction etched on his face.  He had lived the life of he own design and was grateful for it.  I returned his gaze and while looking at him with great admiration, asked myself, “Is my life turning out the way I planned it?”

“It isn’t spring anymore” I continued.

No.  It isn’t the spring of my life anymore.  That simply means I have things to do outside and inside of myself to prepare for my day of twilight.  The day when I, like my friend Ron, can say to another, “My life turned out the way I planned it!”

Before you roll your eyes, know that not everything has turned out in my life exactly as planned.  It hasn’t in the past and it won’t in the future either.  And, that’s one of the miracles life offers every one of us.  Life often gives us much more than we planned for.  It repeatedly, unexpectedly delivers more than we ever dreamed possible!  Different can be better!

Better!  Now I’m thinking about “one big thing.”  What is it I want to be known for at the end of my life?  This is a question to ask oneself during every season of life.  It doesn’t have to be asked only in spring. Summer is dangerously close to turning into fall.  Fall is the time when I do my spring-cleaning! 

One Big Thing!  It only makes sense to make sure everything is prepared.  How do I want my life to be remembered?

Swimming Through Time

Two wires and a dry pasture

Swimming Through Time

I looked out the window and didn’t see what I expected to see.  I looked again.  I still didn’t see it!  I looked a third time more earnestly.  Nothing!  It was early in the morning and I was already thinking about the future.  However, this little dose of “the moment” snapped me back to right now.

“This wasn’t what I wanted to do this morning. My life is like swimming up stream!” I muttered to myself.  At the same time, I knew that if I didn’t solve the problem right “now” a significant area of my pastureland wouldn’t get the water it needed to live.  So, I got into some work clothes and began to walk back to see if I could identify the valve or electrical problem causing the disruption. 

The walking soon allowed the tall grass to tickle my senses and my thoughts began to focus on the issue at hand.  I was searching for a solution! 

Such seemingly trivial problems or tasks have always been part of my life.  I suspect they’re part of your life as well.  And, on this particular morning, the glow of the sun haloing in the eastern sky acted as a revelatory catalyst to teach me about how to stop struggling against the current.

Just under twenty years ago the surrounding high mountain desert had swallowed up this same piece of ground.  Now I was enjoying the lanky grass topped with tassels of seed waving at me as I passed.  It was a small thing, but not insignificant!

Each step caused me to recall the many slight and undesirable tasks I had completed to transform this land.  Now I was walking through the all-inclusive.  The sum of all the small undertakings knitted together to form the whole.  It was eye opening! And, the sun seemed to burst its way over the peaks as if announcing that the day had arrived along with my new appreciation of how small things had combined, with time, to create something of magnificence.

It seems as if we, you and I, often miss the magnificence and significance of the small moment. We’re so busy planning for our future that we often don’t take pride in the tasks we’ve been given right now.  We just take each moment for granted; deposit our salary (or commission) and dream wistfully of the amazing things we’re going to do in the future.  The things that are more suited to our talents and us.  Or, we harbor some animosity for our current circumstances thinking, “What am I doing? This job or seemingly menial task is a waste of time!”

How silly we can be!

Everything, every task or assignment matters!  It doesn’t matter if we’re fixing sprinklers, mucking stalls, or taking tickets at the local movie theater.  Overlooking small things as simply a means to an end is an oversight.  Everything is a chance for you and I to do our very best and can be transformative if we will simple respond to whatever life throws at us with:

Hard work.

Honesty.

Helping.

When we focus our efforts in this way, we begin to partner with time.  We begin to swim with its current and to see our future in a new and different way.  It is revealed to us, not as a wish, but moment-by-moment in a way that is reminiscent of a bricklayer’s technique.

“Step-by-step,” I recited on my way toward the dry back pasture!  I looked around and smiled, no longer upset at the inconvenience.  I knew that my best work, applied to this very moment, was creating something of beauty and significance.  I held that future in my hands as I repaired two small wires. 

You’ll love swimming through time!

The Language of Life

A company called Limnu

The Language of Life

I was listening and evaluating.  Listening because I wanted to hear specific things.  I was evaluating because there are different kinds of action, action and “right action.”

There are those who say that the important thing in ones business and life is to take action.  I can certainly see why they would say that, because doing something, taking action, is key in every aspect of business and life.  It’s the first step of progression.  And, it’s all too often the first and the last step people take toward their desired evolution.

We, my Cooperative Venturing Team and I, were working with Grue DeBry, one of the founders of an early stage company called Limnu for the very purpose of assisting him to move past simply taking action to concentrate their efforts on taking “Right Action.” 

Grue, and his co-founder, are two of the most creative and talented people I’ve ever met.  For example, they were part of the development team that brought us the wildly successful and popular Shrek movies!  And, their creation of the new company Limnu has shown me that their abilities are continuing to increase. 

Expansion always means stretching.  Always!  At this very moment I could see something about that elasticity in Grue’s eyes.  I decided to ask him about it.

“You know my father and my family.  They’re all business guys.  When I try to talk with them about what we’re doing they look at me and roll their eyes!  They see me as a creative type that just doesn’t get it.”  He said.

“O.K.” I said.  “You do get it!  You just haven’t been explaining it to them in their own language.  So, tell me what you do and how you do it in detail so we can discover how to tell them your story in a way they’ll understand it.  It’s the same story you need to tell the investors you’re seeking.  Show them you’re not just taking action.  Show them you’re taking the right action!”  I responded.

“This is a story?”  He asked.  “Oh!  I know how to tell a story!”

That’s how I got to, listening and evaluating, with Grue telling me his story.  He would talk.  I would listen and respond.  I was searching to identify his unique “revenue acceleration model.”  And while I was doing so, I also discovered a personal message for you and me about the necessity of taking right action in our lives.

Life is designed to stretch us!  It’s teaching us the necessity of taking right action.  We just haven’t heard its message in our own language! Our world is telling us something with each and every failure and action we take.  If we’ll wake up, listen and evaluate every failure and action, we’ll recognize they also contain a message.  It’s feedback giving each one of us precise instructions on how to improve, how to wake up from our cluelessness. It’s trying to show us our own personal acceleration model. 

Understanding this allows us to change our personal story from one of never ending disappointment, being thwarted by one obstacle after another, to one achievement and anticipation.  It opens the way for us to see that our way forward is a process of overturning obstacles so we can become more magnificent with each step taken. 

Our story can be one of turning a negative, our failures, into a positive. We can turn what others view as a disappointment into opportunity by simply understanding and speaking the language of life.  Are we listening?

Malleable, Adamant, Self-confident

“When you factor in vision and work ethic, much of life is malleable.” – Ryan Holiday

Malleable, Adamant, Self-confident

“A huge roll of hay came down and crushed him!  It’s a miracle he’s alive! They’re such a wonderful family.  I’m so glad they bought my land.” Nancy said to me, after she finished signing the final document to settle her transaction with Chad and Shondell Hymas.

Chad and Shondell had left our meeting just a few minutes earlier.  They were off to finish helping at the stock show held as part of our county fair.  I held the door as they left the building.  Chad rolled through with Shondell lightly pressuring the handles on his wheelchair.

“She pushes me everywhere I go!” Chad said to me in a lighthearted manner.  That may be true, and something else pushes Chad along as well.

“I wanted to buy this farm because I want my family to be tied to the land.  I want them to remember their heritage.  There is just something about the land and its relationship to people.  It seems to mold us.  It shapes us into people we’d never become without it.”  Chad explained to me. The land has molded Chad and it has combined with one over-arching obstacle to make him in to a person he never dreamed he could become.

Chad is still a farmer and he still views himself as such.  He is also a professional speaker.  He travels the globe giving people inspiration.  The Wall Street Journal calls Chad one of the 10 most inspirational people in the world!”

“I get asked on a daily basis how I am so happy despite my circumstances.  How did I remain positive through all the changes that were taking place that surrounded my accident?  Let me answer you this, I am happy in spite of my circumstances.  Because of the things that I have learned on this journey, mostly the last 11 years of my life, that I would have never experienced otherwise.  These experiences have shaped my life and made me who I have become today.  There were times right after my accident that I am not proud of and I wish to not even recollect, but throughout that time and more recent times, these are the things that I have found truly work for me.”

The obstacles and experiences you and I face will work for us the same way they’ve worked for Chad if we’ll let them.  We just need to remember three things.  Be malleable. Be Adamant.  Be self-confidant.

Be malleable.  People often get tied to a false idea about what their life should have been or how it should be now.  I remember asking one friend why he was so upset all of the time.  He responded, “My life didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.”  Such an approach to life leaves a person impossibly wanting and missing out.  Their next opportunity might have allowed their to be better.  Unfortunately, they’ll never know because they didn’t allow such opportunities to blossom!  People falling into this trap have forestalled the possibility of life being better than they thought it could be! You and I can avoid this trap. We can expand our perspective to allow for the unforeseen to enrich our lives.

Be Adamant.  There will be times in our lives when people will try to make decisions for us.  When this happens we must be unwavering in seeking what we want in life.  When it happens simple ask, “If I show up, will you give me a fair look?  Be straight with me, if I come and try, will you give me a chance?”  Focus your efforts on what you want to accomplish, not on things of the past that you can’t change.

Be Self-confident.  Know “What is up to us, what is not up to us.”  Ryan Holiday gave me a list of “what is up to us.”  Here’s Ryan’s list of what we can control:

Our emotions

Our judgments

Our creativity

Our attitude

Our perspective

Our desires

Our decisions

Our determination

As Chad and Shondell left our meeting I recognized resolute determination.  I could see it in their eyes as they rolled down the handicap ramp while exiting the building.  As I watched them leave, I could see myself beginning to roll in the same direction.  I wanted to be more malleable, adamant and self-confident as a result of knowing them.