Growth Through Change

“When a choice plant . . . became root bound and began to deteriorate, Wade told me I needed to transplant him into a larger container.”

Growth Through Change

My daughter, Annie, left to chase her dreams last week; she’s the last of our three to have done so.  The event made my wife look like a Hollywood Star as she took shelter behind huge sunglasses so as to hide her flowing tears during the trek to the airport.  It is a momentous change in our lives.

There is nothing so unchanging or as inevitable as change itself.  The things we see, touch, and feel are always changing.  Annie has noticed this very acutely as outlined in her text messages to me from New York this entire weekend.  Relationships between friends, husband and wife, father and daughter, sister and sister are all dynamic, changing relationships.  It is a constant that allows us to use change for our own good.

I can’t think of anything that describes this process of change better than an experience with my friend Wade Anderson.  He and his wife Regina own Tooele Valley Nursery.  I rely on them to help me plan, execute and correct problems in my landscape.

“When a choice plant”, Fred the Fern, “became root bound and began to deteriorate, Wade told me I needed to transplant him into a larger container.”

I rescued Fred from an office more than 35 years ago.  Someone had thrown him in the trash thinking he was a goner.  I could see that there was still life in him and as a result, he’s provided me with joy for more than half my life!

Wade told me I needed to put Fred’s pot upside down, pull the plant out, shake the soil from the roots, and clip and pull all the stragglers from the root system.  Then I got a much larger pot, and following Wade’s directions; I vigorously pushed the soil tightly around the plant.  Soon, Fred took on a whole new life and has grown to be huge!

Perhaps too often in life we set our own roots into the soil and become root bound.  We may treat ourselves too gently and defy anyone to disturb the soil or trim our root system back.  When that happens we, just like Fred the Fern, must struggle to make progress.  Change is hard!  It can be rough!

But, we need not feel that we must always be what we are right now.  If you’re like me you have a tendency to think of change as the enemy.  Many of us are suspect of change and will often fight and resist it before we have even discovered what the actual effects will be.  When the change is thought though carefully, it can produce the most rewarding and profound experiences in life.  I look at my daughters and realize that they are the reflected beauty of this important truth.

Through my daughters, I’ve noticed that as opportunity for change reaches into our lives, as it always will, we must ask, “Where do I need development? What do I want out of life? Where do I want to go?  How can I get there?”  Weighing alternatives very carefully is a much-needed prerequisite as one plans changes.  We are usually free to choose the changes we make in our lives and we are always free to choose how we will respond to the changes that come.

Yes, there is pain in change, but there is great satisfaction in recognizing that progress is being achieved.  Knowing this keeps me from driving to the airport and getting on a plane to New York or Arkansas right now!  Life is a series of hills and valleys, or pots, and often the best growth comes in the valleys.

I’m sitting here with Fred the Fern.  He’s been with me since before my marriage, though the birth of my daughters and is here now in fanned glory to remind me that even though my girls have departed and there are many changes to come, I can evoke the greatest discovery to welcome the coming change.

William James once said, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that we can change our circumstances by changing our attitudes of mind.”  Will our minds tell us that change is our enemy?  Or, will our minds tell us change is a reflection of beauty yet to behold?

Emotional Touchstones

Special Olympic medals carefully removed. – Karen, Special Olympian

Emotional Touchstones

Karen was sitting across the table from me.  I watched as she reached down to her side and pulled her backpack up and onto her lap.  She quietly unzipped the bag and made several withdrawals.

The bag was acting as her personal bank.  Her withdrawals were brightly colored medals attached to flowing ribbons.  She had won every one of them during Special Olympic competitions.

“This is perfect” I thought to myself.  “Medals of accomplishment being lovingly caressed in the middle of a Special Olympics Board of Directors Meeting.”

They demonstrated her accomplishments and gave her courage.  It was her turn to give a report to other members of the board.  When she heard her name she straightened up, looked around at the others sitting at the table and gave her report.  She did a great job.  But, she wasn’t finished.

When her verbal report was complete, she picked up one medal.  She wrapped it in circular fashion and then placed it on the table in front of her.  She soon had all of her medals in a neat row in front of her.  Finally, she returned all of them back in her pack and I watched a smile filter across her face.

I had seen such a smile before.  It crossed the face of my mother one day when I was visiting her.  We had been talking about her accomplishments and how she had overcome the challenges she had faced and overcome during the course of her life..

“When I feel sad I review the greeting cards I ‘ve received from my friends and family.  I read them again and I’m soon feeling good and confident once more.  Their messages of love give me the courage I need to face and get over the hurdles I’m facing.”  My mother said to me.  Then I watched that same smile of contentment spread across the width of her face.

Remembering her smile brings a smile to my own face.  I’ve found that I can jump a little higher, run a little faster and face my challenges with more courage when I have this type of smile on my face.  It’s a smile that can only come from using emotional touchstones to generate internal strength.  What touchstones can you withdraw from your personal bank?

Accelerated Change

“How do I make myself over and over again?” – Mike Skinner

Accelerated Change

Mike Skinner was sitting next to me, near my left elbow.  He is the former President of Coinstar, an International company that processes more than $3 billion of coins annually.  He’s one of America’s best and brightest! We were enjoying a lunch meeting, working together with other allies, to speed economic development in Idaho through Cooperative Venturing™.

Cooperative Venturing is the Wayne Brown Institute developed process of combining extraordinary business talent with promising early stage, economy-accelerating companies.  Its whole purpose is to accelerate change for the better.  Better means higher paying jobs, a more agile economic base and increased wealth for everyone.  It’s focused economic change.  But, it is also change on another, more basic level.

It embraces the most vital parts of capitalism, individual creativity and self-interest, while altering the competition model through cooperation.  So, Cooperative Venturing is a counter intuitive process that takes time to understand.  It is challenging to implement because of the ever-present human drive for selfish personal profit.

So, It’s impossible to implement without the proper framework in place.  That’s what this lunch was about.  Creating the necessary cooperative framework on a statewide basis.  It is a framework that needs have guardianship and the flexibility to change constantly as new components are always necessary.

Mike was addressing the challenge of this standard by asking the question “How do I make myself over and over again?”

That’s when I thought of you and how I could apply this concept to personal growth.  And, it dawned on me that you and I could use the principles of Cooperative Venturing to accelerate our own growth.  What can we do to accelerate change for the better?

One common phrase used to describe someone who has changed for the better is “He is a self-made-man.”  And, it describes a competition based personal model.  But a faster, more effective personal change model requires a small shift in focus to one of cooperation.

“Hi Dad, I need to talk with you, but I’m having lunch with my mentor.  May I call you when I’m finished?”

It was my daughter Kilee calling me from Ohio where she is rolling out a new initiative for Wal-Mart Corporation.  She applies the principles of Cooperative Venturing exceptionally well.

She watches for openings to make positive changes, puts a plan in place to make the change possible and then builds a team of real smart and talented people from a national talent pool to cooperatively roll it out across the corporate system!  It saves her company millions of dollars every year.  It makes the company stronger and better!

So, how do you and I make ourselves better over and over again?  We watch for areas where we need to improve, we make a plan to create change and then we reach out to the smartest and most talented people we can find to help us.  But there is a trick to this.

Make sure you’re constantly obtaining new human resources.  Old friends are great!  But, had I never met Mike and befriended him, I would never have benefited from what he’s able to teach me.  Make new, high quality, friends constantly!

Let’s ask Mike’s question regularly.  If we will, while following the unique steps of Cooperative Venturing, we’ll enjoy accelerated change and become more than we ever imagined.

Steering on Your Path

“I just did my first mini-article for Elle!” Jessi Butterfield-McKnight

Steering on Your Path

“I just did my first mini-article for Elle!  I’ll email it to you.”  The text from my daughter Jessi read.

“Wow!”  I shot back.

I am wowed by how far she’s come.  How hard she’s worked.

She started as a model just seven years ago and during her first few months was called for one photo shoot in particular.  Everyone had arrived, ready to work, with the exception of the makeup artist.  The director gathered everyone around and said, “I guess we’ll have to cancel the shoot because the makeup artist didn’t show.”

“I can do that!”  Jessi said.

And, she did!  It turned out to be a sharp turn in her life, a pivot point.  She had a clear vision of where she was going in fashion, but at that moment she took a detour that allowed her to accelerate toward her ultimate destination, but on a slightly different path.

Many of us create a plan for lives, see only one path, and when we hit a detour, or make a wrong turn; we believe that all is lost. But, Jessi has shown this doesn’t need to be the case.  As I’ve watched her created her business I’ve learned a new, better way to approach business and life.

First, she built her future in her mind.  She made a plan. She knew she wanted to be in fashion and created her path in detail.  She even got her degree in English from Westminster College knowing that fashion models generally don’t have long careers.  A degree in English would allow her to write for a fashion magazine when she could no longer model.

Second, when she arrived in New York City she started in the most humble of circumstances, slept on lots of couches and lived out of a suitcase.  She measured each step by seeing each stride forward as a victory.  Measuring her progression helped her through lots of disappointments and caused her to keep searching for ways around the obstacles she encountered.

Third, Jessi learned a lot with every step she took.  Sometimes it was a step forward.  Sometimes it was seemingly a step back or to the side.  She kept her focus on learning.  The more she learned, the more she understood there was more she didn’t know, so she just kept learning what she needed to know.  She got better and better and discovered this powerful “process of steering.”

Understanding that this three-step-feedback-loop is a process of steering her life and business made it possible for Jessi to learn when and if it was time to pivot or persevere on her current path.  It allowed her to get past disappointments and use what she was learning to accelerate toward her clear vision.  She didn’t give up and stayed focused on her destination.

You and I can do the same thing.  We can create an enviable life or a world changing business.  To achieve our vision we can employ the principle of steering to create a plan, measure progress, and learn constantly so we can fine tune what we’re doing or change our paths slightly while keeping focused on our desired destination.

Give me a Break!

“I just didn’t accomplish anything in 2014.” – Phil Grimm

Give me a Break!

A group of us were headed to dinner.  It was a cool, but not cold evening.  So, we decided to walk the short distance down 200 South Street to our chosen location.  Our walk gave me a chance to talk with my friend Phil.

Phil is one of the most successful people I know.  I love to work with him because it allows me to see things the way he sees them.  He sees things much the same as I do, but he sees things I don’t see and I marvel.  I use our time together to learn how to see what he sees, because if I can adjust my thinking to incorporate the way he thinks, I’ll benefit a lot.  Now that I’m with him, I’m doing what I almost always do.  I listen.

“I’m going to do better this year!”  Phil says to me.  “Last year was just a blur.  I just didn’t accomplish anything in 2014.”

Phil is always generous to me and I’m wondering why he isn’t being very generous to himself.  I know he accomplished a lot.  But that isn’t his view right now, so I listen and make sure he knows I’ll do anything I can to help him reach his goals.  I also have an “I’m looking at myself in the mirror” moment.

As I look into that mirror I realize that I have a habit of being real critical when it comes to how I live my own life.  Maybe it’s the society we live in.  Maybe it’s just a few of us who are driven to keep pushing toward achievement.  That’s why my friend Michael Sears describes us as “Mushers.”

A musher is a person who is constantly working, someone who is personally demanding.  As I listen to Phil a life changing thought comes rushing like a high velocity wind.

“Give yourself a break.”

The thought wasn’t for Phil.  I was giving a Phil the break he deserved.  I know how hard he works and all he accomplishes!  The thought was reflected in my mirror.

Now I’m taking steps to learn how to be a little more generous to myself, how to be more kind.  And, I’ve started by creating a “shift” phrase, “Give me a Break!”  When I am feeling as if I haven’t done all I wanted to do, I haven’t reacted the way I ought, or I’m not everything I want to be, I’m saying to myself, “Give me a Break!” 

It’s making a difference!  Give it a try.  I can’t think of anyone who deserves a break more than you!

A Single Invitation

“How did you get him to come?” – Lynn Butterfield

A Single Invitation

The Monday before Christmas has become a time for me to get together with some of my neighbors to spend the evening singing and eating together in home of my friends Shelly and Brad.  It’s become one of my favorite nights of the year.  This year was no exception.

This time there was an exceptional person who came to our evening just one week ago.  I was grateful to see him, but was also surprised by his unusual attendance.  While we invite all in our neighborhood to come, we usually have 9 or 10 families participate.  So, to have one special guest come was a surprise to me.

I was so surprised that I pulled Shelly aside and said, “How did you get . . . to come?”

I’m not using the name of our guest here.  You probably don’t know him personally.  He is, however most likely just like someone else you know living in your own neighborhood.  He’s single and generally stays to himself.  Most of us have very little interaction with him for those reasons. 

It isn’t that we don’t like him or that he’s a bad person, he’s just single so most of the time he doesn’t feel as if he fits into our family centered activities.  So, he stays apart from us almost all the time.

Because he’s apart in many ways, my neighbors and I don’t really know what’s going on in his life.  Yes, we smile and wave to him in passing.  We would even describe him as being an integral part of our neighborhood.  But it just isn’t true.  He lives with us, alone.

“How did you get him to come?” I asked.

Shelly responded with a simple, “I invited him.”

“That’s so great!”  I responded.  “I’m glad he’s here!”

“Me too.” She said.

But that isn’t the whole story.  After all, we had written and delivered invitations just like we do every year.  So what was the difference this time?

The difference is that Brad and Shelly took the time, during one of the most hectic seasons, to personally go and visit our friend.  It was that personal, face-to-face, I’m here to show care for you visit that made the difference.  What could be more appropriate during the season of “good will?”

I sat in a cozy chair with my heart filled with good will in the home of Shelly and Brad, singing songs of comfort and joy.  I looked up to see our friend reading the words to the songs as we went along.  He was singing almost in silence, but he was there with us and that made all our hearts sing with a little more emotion and gratitude to have someone important to us gathered in.

There are people who live alone who are surrounded by us, not gathered in.  Can you imagine being surrounded and alone at the same time?  Brad and Shelly have shown us that when we imagine ourselves as more inclusive the result is heart warming and life changing. 

Change lives where you live by including the single people in your neighborhood.  They may be young or old.  They may simply be hoping for an invitation that hasn’t yet been offered.  Make them an offer and warm hearts no matter what the season.

A New View

“I’ve lived in New York all my life and have never seen it from this view!”

A New View

It felt as if we were standing on top of the world.  Lights were sparkling as far as we could see.  The amazing diamond spectacle surrounding us made braving winter’s cold wind worth the walk out onto the terrace to savor our special moment.

There are some special moments in life that will take your breath away.  These are life-changing times in every person’s life that deserve to be cherished.  I had one of those just this week.  My daughter Jessi got married in New York.

To celebrate this special event we had reception in a rooftop solarium on the South side of Central Park.  We enjoyed the company of friends and family with music and food.  We laughed, ate and got to know each other better.  But, when one of my daughter’s friends said, “I’ve lived in New York all my life and have never seen it from this view!” it really made me think.

It’s so easy to live life without looking for the extraordinary in our day-to-day lives.  Sometimes we walk through common, even presumably mundane events hundreds of times and fail to see a new view that can enlighten, enliven and enhance our souls. Our friend told me that she had walked past our reception place hundreds of times and had no idea that an extraordinary view existed just a few floors above.  “This solarium and terrace have the most spectacular view of the city I’ve ever seen!”  It is an enchanting place.  I wanted my daughter to remember it always. 

I once had a friend who said, “When I want to take a picture I simply look at what I want to remember and treasure it up in my heart.  That way I can go back there when ever I want.”

So, I walked up to my daughter and said, “Jessi, make sure you take Ren out on the terrace and savor this moment so it will last forever in your hearts.”

She took him by the hand and went out of the door to the terrace.  I watched as they shivered together and took in the view.  Their skin was cold, but their hearts were warm.  They took the time to treasure up their moment so it would be locked up within their memory.  It was that very moment that gave them a new view, a vision that transformed their night into a moment that will last a lifetime.

More Than a Mentor

“Cooperative Venturing”

More Than a Mentor

It’s great to have a mentor.  A mentor gives companionship and transfers valuable knowledge to the apprentice.  It is little wonder then, that wherever I look, persons and institutions are offering programs to mentor their clientele.

 It is true that one person can change the course of another and even that of an institution or of a nation or world.  We would call such persons leaders, people who can show a better way for others to follow.  But, true leadership is more than a mere statement of mentorship.

I’ve observed that perhaps the most important ingredient in mentoring goes beyond a declaration.  It must be rooted in selfless caring.  That’s because the most effective relationships are defined by love.  A person offering assistance for the purpose of personal gain will never be a true mentor or leader.  They are simply greedy people and greed will always fall short in the end. 

When the people, who are to be served, understand a selfish mentor’s motivation they will quickly flee to what they desire, a generous giver who hopes only to add value for the sake of sharing and creating.  And, true sharing can only come from a heart without duplicity.  How does such a thing come to pass?  It comes from the foundation of purpose.

Wayne Brown Institute was formed on a firm foundation with such a purpose, to improve the human condition by direct transfer of specialized knowledge with personal caring.  I have spent the last twenty-five years working with participating professionals and have documented their success.  I feel grateful to have spent almost half of my life with amazing people who have shaped me as an individual and have allowed me to be part of creating a more successful paradigm than that of individual mentoring.  We call it Cooperative Venturing™.

When I said it was great to have a mentor, I meant it.  But having more than one mentor is of greater benefit than having one mentor.  The reason is simple.  It is impossible for one person to have as much experience and knowledge as a combination of many doyens.  Can you imagine having such a group of uniquely skilled and long experienced experts all working in concert for your personal success without charge?

I sat at a table with four other Cooperative Venturers this week.  We were reviewing the results of a new component to Cooperative Venturing that was rolled out in the fall.  I looked around the room and felt my heart swell with gratitude for being able to learn at the feet of such people!  The results of our efforts were as we had hoped so we are making plans to put a framework in place for expanded success.

Expanded success will mean more high paying jobs for our community.  It means that our tax base will improve and that more wealth will flow into our homes than ever before.  But, most importantly, it means our best and brightest are giving themselves to future generations by instilling their knowledge and experience into a new generation of talented apprentices.

We are all apprentices.  I realize this more and more as I interact with Cooperative Venturers.  We all have the ability to receive.  We all have the ability to give.  Join us and become both a giver and receiver.  Become part of the Cooperative Venturing Network™. http://www.venturecapital.org