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Grow & Scale A Business That Will Set You Free
No One Gets A Pass
“You always seem like you’re good.”
The woman I was talking with was facing some significant challenges in her life. Her face was tear-streaked and she was clearly exhausted.
“Not always, “ I said. “No one gets a free pass.”
When we look at “successful” people, people who seem to have all their “shit” together, we imagine that their lives are perfect: free of stress, free of torment, free of sadness, free of challenges.
It’s not true.
Lately, I have come face to face with some friends and colleagues – wildly successful people, folks at the top of their game – who have suffered horrific, unimaginable losses and devastating challenges: the death of a child, the loss of a parent, the dissolution of a marriage.
When Ann and I were at Date with Destiny in December, Tony Robbins shared the epic that he and his son’s mother faced as their boy struggled with substance abuse and an eating disorder. Tony Robbins with a struggle. Imagine that!
No one gets a pass.
In college, I was one of those odious students who feigned indifference about studies and grades and still produced A’s. The truth was that I studied for hours and worked like a dog. The “act” was pure ego.
We serve our teams, our colleagues, our friends, our loved ones best when we are able to be “real,” when we’re able to drop the “act” and reveal the challenges that we face. When we’re able to do this, others can say, like I did when listening to Tony, “well if he can get through that challenge, I can face mine too.”
I am reminded of the old Buddhist story: A young mother appears at the door of the Enlightened One with her dead infant in he arms. She begs the Buddha to restore the life of her child. The Buddha tells her that he will grant her wish if she will bring him a mustard seed from the home of a person who had never experienced the loss of a loved one. She searched and searched from house to house. When she returned to the Buddha, she understood.
No one gets a pass.
Fireflies and Really Dirty Socks
Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.
Ideas are like fireflies. If you don’t catch them, they disappear into the inky darkness and are gone forever.
So many of our ideas, our thoughts, our dreams, our aspirations, come and go, arise and pass away, without ever being tried and tested; most never see the light of day.
When I learned to photograph, my mentor, the late great Galen Rowell, said “never edit in the field.”
What he meant by that was “keep on shooting.” Don’t ever over-think a scene. Don’t evaluate it. Don’t make a judgement about it. Don’t decide in that moment that it is or isn’t worth photographing. Just shoot. Just keep shooting. Just capture the moment. There will be plenty of time to evaluate and edit later on. 
When we would come back from the field, he would have ten rolls of film for every one of mine. And when we reviewed our slides together, his percentage of “keepers” would be astounding.
He captured more. And had more to show for it.
We need to capture our ideas. All of them. And then we need to play.
This requires that we have a means to capture, and the time to play.
I carry a notebook. Everywhere. In the car, to the office, out to dinner, to the movies, running, climbing, hiking.
Yes, even to the bathroom.
Write down the crazy, the far-fetched, the brilliant, the inspired, the weird. Especially the weird.
Jim Rohn once said,
If you’re serious about becoming a wealthy, powerful, sophisticated, healthy, influential, cultured and unique individual, keep a journal. Don’t trust your memory. When you listen to something valuable, write it down. When you come across something important, write it down.
I used to take notes on pieces of paper and torn-off corners and backs of old envelopes. I wrote ideas on restaurant placemats. On long sheets, narrow sheets and little sheets and pieces of paper thrown in a drawer. Then I found out that the best way to organize those ideas is to keep a journal. I’ve been keeping these journals since the age of twenty-five. The discipline makes up a valuable part of my learning, and the journals are a valuable part of my library.
Rohn used to carry his notebook journal to church. I do too. You never know where the next idea will come from.
The evolution of the 3M Post-It note is a great example. Endeavoring to develop a strong adhesive, a 3M scientist ended up with what looked like a failure: an adhesive that stuck but then pulled off easily. Four years later, a colleague was struggling in church (yes, see!) to keep his hymns marked in the choir hymnal. He remembered the adhesive, slapped it on his markers and, today, the Post-It is one of the most popular office products available.
Of course, if you never look at your ideas, play with them, think about them, expand and experiment with them, test them, try them, see where they might go, the exercise in writing is just pedantic.
It seems as if brainstorming in business and in our creative lives has become a lost art. Maybe because we’re moving so fast, maybe because it seems that everything needs to happen now, it seems like a wasted effort.
Ideas need time. To marinate. To incubate. And they need expansive, playful space.
If you capture them, if you nurture them, if you act, many will be keepers. Some will soar.
Allegedly, the manner in which male college students determine whether their socks (yes, and their underwear) require washing is to throw them against the wall to see if they stick.
Do you have an idea for a book, a business, a painting, a play, a movement, a mission, an empire?
Write it down. Work with it. Throw it against the wall.
Maybe it will stick.
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It’s A Dead End. And That’s OK.
They looked liked ants, even through the high-powered spotting scope. Two tiny dots on the 6000′ sheer, icy face of Mt. Hunter.
They had been there for days, working to pioneer the new line. Up narrow runnels they would climb. Swinging their axes into the ice. Moving slowly, arduously in the arctic cold. For hours on end. 
Then an impasse. A dead end. The route would go no further. The obstacle insurmountable. Retreat the only possibility. Back to the place of beginning. Back to start it all again.
The next effort sometimes would go better. And sometimes not. Sometimes they would advance a few pitches closer to their summit. And sometimes, every route they choose would thwart them.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
In our businesses, our creative endeavors, our athletic pursuits, our relationships, indeed, in all of life, obstacles abound. Sometimes we can muscle through them, forge the way. Sometimes not.
Sometimes it’s a dead end. Turn around we must.
And that’s ok.
To stand indecisive on an icy ledge is to invite catastrophe. The same is true in life.
We need to move. Even when we don’t know the way.
Perhaps especially when we don’t know the way.
We need to try. We need to act. We need to overcome.
We can choose to stand in indecisive terror. Or we can forge ahead.
Every way that doesn’t work is a lesson, a key to understanding a way that might.
Every way that doesn’t work is one step closer to the way that will.
The dead ends force us to face our fears and our frustrations.
Our darkest demons meet us there
Yet the dead ends make us stronger, wiser. More discerning. More tolerant and patient.
And, often, what looks like a dead end is really a doorway into an new dimension of our lives. New opportunities. New possibilities.
We are called to practice what Jim Collins in Good to Great calls “The Stockdale Paradox”: Great leaders acknowledge the current realities and don’t pull any punches. But at the same time, they have an unwavering belief that they will ultimately prevail.
It’s curious to me that in the mountains, the dead ends are often just part of the grand adventure. Gathered later ’round the fire, they glow with epic valor and gallantry in the re-telling. Desperate measures taken. Dragons slain. Challenges met and overcome. Fresh courage hewn to meet the dawn to come.
Perhaps we need the dead ends in our lives as well, even though it doesn’t really feel that way.
As we watched our comrades through the scope, we so often wanted to cry out, “No! Not there! A waste of time! Turn back now! Go the other way!”
Of course they couldn’t hear us. But even if they could, would they have listened?
Are You In The Mood?
The bed was warm. She cozied closer. 
“Are you in the mood?”
I looked at her, my eyes wide in disbelief.
“What are you, on crack?” I asked. “Of course, I’m NOT in the mood.”
Who asks questions like that? It was cold outside, 18 degrees as I recall. And dark. Who wants to run in the cold and dark?
She was joking, of course. It’s not a question we ask… or entertain about our running. At least not often.
Because, for pursuits of any import, mood is irrelevant.
I’m rarely in the mood to go to the gym. I’m never in the mood to count my calories or sort my supplements. I’m only occasionally in the mood to run. Sometimes I’m in the mood to write. And sometimes not. I love to photograph. But I’m never in the mood to edit. I’m passionate about speaking. But the preparation is tedious.
Rory Vaden writes, “Simply stated, there are only two types of activities: things we feel like doing and things we don’t. And if we can learn to make ourselves do the things we don’t want to do, then we have literally created the power to create any result in our lives.”
Successful people do whatever they need to do to achieve their goals, regardless of how they “feel.”
“Successful people are successful because they form the habits of doing those things that failures don’t like to do,” said Albert Gray.
Form the habits of success. Dial in the gym, the run, the weekly planning, the healthy meals. Schedule and commit the time to write, to paint, to practice the instrument. Do what’s really important. Do it every day. Don’t think about it. Don’t analyze it. Don’t wonder about it. Don’t worry about it. Don’t re-consider it. Do it. Just do it. No matter what.
When was the last time you asked yourself whether you were “in the mood” to brush your teeth? What a ridiculous question to ask, you say. Make your habits of success like that.
The things that look effortless, the performances that are flawless, the achievements that astound (all those things you’re jealous of): they’re borne of countless hours of practice and preparation. Of doing. And doing again. And had nothing to do with mood.
So if the new business venture is on your list, or the MBA, or the 5k in the spring, now is the time to start.
I don’t care if you’re in the mood, or not.
Not Worth The Effort
It’s good you didn’t bother. Wouldn’t have worked out anyway. A massive waste.
Those New Year’s resolutions. 
Yes, it’s February. Time to get on with life, with muddling.
Those goals, those hopes and dreams and aspirations: too much work. Too much effort.
Way too busy.
And who makes them, anyway?
Turns out the numbers are fairly grim.
Statistics show that less than half the population bothers to set goals for a New Year. (In the audiences I have polled this month, it’s less than 20%!) And by the beginning of February, nearly 80% of those who do have given up.
(So whether you set some goals… or didn’t, you’re in great company!)
Of course, as the research shows, the problem is that we’re socially conditioned to the status quo; to think small; to underestimate our abilities. And we’re comfortable, even in our discomfort.
Change rocks our boat. (Even little change can mess us up: try brushing your teeth tonight with your opposite hand.)
And other folks: they don’t like us to change. It’s unsettling. Disturbing. Threatening. When our “friends” and family react to our “audacity,” we retreat to safety so as not to lose our place.
And those big goals are, well, big; daunting; overwhelming; scary. Buoyed by holiday revelry, they may have seemed exciting. Plausible. Obtainable. Now they seem impossible.
Too, there is that evil lizard – the lizard of resistance. (I know him well. He hides under my bed.) The lizard says, not today, not now. It’s not the right time. Tomorrow will be better, safer, easier. Put it off to another day.
Well, I’ve some bad news for you. The only constant is change. Whether you like it or not. And you don’t have time. There may not be another day. Today is the only day you have. Today is the day. If you’re too old, too fat, too tired, too poor, too unprepared, tomorrow won’t be better. (In fact, you’ll likely be older, fatter, more tired, poorer and even more unprepared.)
(And, oh, by the way, how long will it take to finish that project you never start?)
But I’ve got some good news too. Resolutions aren’t limited to the New Year. Every day’s a new beginning. Filled with possibility and promise. So, today,
- Set a goal that really means something to you, that excites you, that jazzes you, that urges you up in the morning, that rocks your world.
- Break the goal down into small, incremental, manageable steps so you don’t get overwhelmed.
- Take a little step every day toward your goal; small consistent steps over time lead to magnificent outcomes.
- Surround yourself with positive, affirming people; fly with eagles; don’t hang with pigeons.
- Know that the evil lizard always lurks; acknowledge him and walk on by.
- Get a mentor, a coach, a partner, a fan. It makes a difference.
As Annie Dillard says, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” We can spend them muddling, hanging in there, getting by. Or we can co-create our lives as masterpieces.
It’s really up to you. Unless it’s not worth the effort.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”
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