Month: June 2017

There are many famously successful people who can attest to the veracity of the title:

Abraham Lincoln

Thomas Edison

Benjamin Franklin

Michael Jordan

Tiger Woods

Derek Jeter

Steve Jobs

Gen Stanley McChrystal

The three authors (okay, we’re not famous, but we’ve failed many times)

The list goes on and on.

I’ve been reminded of this reality multiple times this week. I think it’s important for a lot us to remember and reinforce with others that failing is not the end. In fact, failing is doing. Doing is necessary for succeeding. It’s the very rare exception that ANYONE does something perfectly the very first time. Athletes practices actions over 10,000 times just to build muscle memory in order to be able to be successful sometimes. Inventors design, build and test prototypes over and over until they get to something they think is acceptable. Artists paint and repaint brush strokes or pencil lines thousands of times in order to develop their eye for color, shading and perspective. Singers and musicians practice and rehearse relentlessly always trying to hone their craft and make it better.

Each time we do something we succeed. We succeed in making ourselves better for the next time we try that something. We learn something new with each attempt. We grow as a person with each attempt. We DO something every time we fail. Don’t stop doing things.

The title of this post is from the poem by Robert Frost – one of my favorites – and is a reflection on Frost’s past and his satisfaction of doing things his way. As our children go off and discover the world it’s important to remember to let them explore the road less traveled. It’s hard to watch your children go into the unknown and not worry, but it’s also important to let them make their own mistakes as well as their own victories.

The genesis of this post was listening to a young man’s parents telling (dictating) to him what he needed to do after graduation – to the point of how much time he would get off before starting work. The father had arranged a job for him and seemed rather pleased with the choice of vocation for his son – who just sat in silence.

Maybe the young man was happy with the road chosen for him – I’ll never know. I can’t help but wonder if the world lost a Picasso or a Hemingway because his choices were made for him and his true potential was never realized. What I want for our children is to see them grow into whatever their abilities allow them. I want them to take the road less traveled by – and as Frost said – that will make all the difference.

I read an Asian proverb (attributed to the Chinese, Japanese and Indian cultures) that mentioned that every human wears three faces.  The first face is the one you show the world – not the true you, but the one you want others to see and changes depending upon the situation. The second face is the one you wear around your family and friends. That face also changes depending upon the situation and is usually different that the face you have for world. The third, and last face is the one you see in the mirror. That one can’t change because it’s the true you.

As you move into the world it should be your goal to merge those three faces into one. We have wrote about fake it until you make it – and this involve merging that confident face you wear in public into the one you see in the mirror. Take time to show the world the real you – so that the face in the mirror, at home, and in public look remarkably similar. The proverb goes further to say that none have achieved the mastery of all three because we too often deny the fact of the three faces to begin with.

Congratulations to this year’s college graduates – know you carry the love of not just one father – but three. No matter the challenge, no matter the difficulty, and no matter the distance – you will be loved by your biggest fan(s).

This post is advice specifically for our six daughters and one granddaughter along with every other generation of women that come after these seven wonderful, brilliant ladies. Sorry boys, but you don’t need this advice so get over it. The advice comes from three old white guys who have seen how this phenomenon plays out in real life and how each of you can take control of your career.

More than once, I’ve had conversations with men and women at work about how each gender presents themselves when applying for jobs or pursuing promotions. Here’s the general difference in approach according to EVERYONE I spoke with. If the job requires ten specifics skills or abilities, men will apply if they have three or four of the qualities knowing that they can learn the other six or seven on the job. Women will not apply for the job if they have less than nine. There are different reasons for this: lack of confidence, conscientiousness about the requirements, fear of perpetuating sexist biases if they can’t do the job, etc.

Here is the advice: All three of us dads (the old white guys) KNOW that when it comes to professional occupations, you can do as well or better than ANY guy we know. This isn’t coming from your dads. It’s coming from three senior professionals with vast experience recognizing talent and potential. We know the guys are faking it and we hope and pray that you will too. It will make your life, and the lives of so many other men and women, immensely better because you dared to fake it until you make it.

By the way, we all did this in order to get where we are today so we know it works.

The title is a phrase from the oath of office that each coauthor has taken multiple times during our military careers. Most American citizens don’t think a lot about the domestic part of that oath even though we have had reminders throughout our history from Benedict Arnold to Timothy McVeigh who represent this portion of our oath. Sometimes the enemy isn’t someone but something.

I believe this to be the case in our national security apparatus currently and I think true self-sacrifice is being overshadowed by the need to act on short-term ___ in order to maintain long-term security and stability. More specifically, I believe our LTG H.R. McMaster has made some short term sacrifices, including spinning stories for the administration, with the long term objective of keeping his job and maintaining the ability to influence and direct what little strategy comes out of this administration. He is not alone. Scores of individuals have been pressing on through silliness and self-absorbed behavior to continue serving the nation. This is a true dilemma of integrity that not many of us have to face on this grand a scale, but I believe we all face from time to time in our lives. This is when we find out what really matters to us and what we are willing to sacrifice personally for the benefit of others.

I missed today’s post because I was too focused on something else.  Having total focus is not necessarily a bad thing…except when you have other things to do.  Most of the books I’ve read on being successful talk about perfect focus.  Rick Pitino (for the non-sports types – he was a very successful college basketball coach) in his book, Success is a Choice extolled the virtues of focus and how it helped him be a successful coach. Phil Jackson (winningest coach in professional sports) in his book, Eleven Rings spoke about the absolute focus that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant had on his championship teams. They had that amazing ability to see the whole court when they needed to, but also to focus when they took a shot.

Focus can be a negative though – many of the most focused people I know can’t seem to manage more than one thing at once (call it good or bad). Achieving a perfect balance between focus and being able to do more than one thing at once can be hard. The book I recently finished, The Shallows by Nicholas Carr spoke about the myth of multitasking.  Experiments have shown that when college students were asked to do more than one thing, such as listen to a lecture while watching TV, or surf the web, and then tested on the material from the lecture– they did significantly worse than those who focused on the lecture. Even though they all believed they were great multitaskers.

We are all trying to find balance in our lives– which brings me to the point of this post. It can take a lifetime to find the balance between opening your aperture to see things around you  and having perfect focus – and that’s okay. Remember to see the forest and not get too focused on the trees (yesterday’s post), but also be in the moment -focus on what you are doing – and be happy.

Reading social media everyday reminds me we live in a time of quick-tempers, anxiety and unprecedented sharing of feelings in social media. All of this has been facilitated by incredible leaps on technology. Most of us will say we want a friendly, happier, and calm existence while seeking out controversial websites and social media. I’m guilty as anyone of saying I want to avoid raising my blood pressure, only to click on a story that sends me through the roof – knowing full well that it would.

Recently, I’ve been trying to be more mindful of what I read – especially if doesn’t add to my happiness – or is of value as a source of information. I’ve always been fascinated with philosophy and in particular, Greek philosophy. The main reason I enjoy reading Greek philosophy is that Greek philosophers had so much time to contemplate life.  One particular school comes to mind when thinking about what would be useful in today’s negative media-saturated world – Stoicism.

Most people (who are familiar with the term stoic – or perhaps know a little about philosophy) think that stoicism is about suffering with a stiff upper lip or being emotionless like Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. What Stoicism really teaches is acceptance and being practical about life.  Stoicism, as a philosophy, is traced to around 300 B.C. to Zeno of Cyprus.  The Stoics had centuries to think deeply -about how to live – without distraction – and developed techniques or ideas to help us appreciate the good in life, while accepting the bad. These techniques have stood the test of time and are still appropriate to today’s busy world. Here are some of the most useful techniques.

Learn to accept what is and isn’t in your power (think serenity prayer).

You should approach everything with composure and tranquility of mind.

The second-century slave-turned-teacher Epictetus said, “Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.” Viktor Frankl wrote about this principle in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl wrote that while we often can’t control what happens to us, we do have the choice how to react.  These days we also have the choice (media wise) to remove that stimuli as well.

Step back and see the forest, and not just the trees. Stoics call this “the view from above”.  Doing this will help you to put things in perspective and sometimes even help you laugh away troubles that are not worth worrying about. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius noted in his personal diary, “The Meditations” – “Altogether the interval is small between birth and death; and consider with how much trouble, and in company with what sort of people and  in what a feeble body, this interval is laboriously passed.” Meaning – don’t sweat the small stuff considering how much life you have lived – and will live.

Contemplate the day ahead. A prepared mind (according to stoics) will make all the difference between a crappy day and a fairly good one.  If you know you will be facing the office jerk – prepare yourself mentally for the challenge. If you know that traffic will be bad – find a podcast or music that helps calm you down – imagine yourself in a good spot and let the good times roll.

Be mindful of the here and now. The past is no longer under your control, and as Elsa said in the movie Frozen – let it go. The future will be here soon enough, the most effective way to prepare for it is to be where and when you are — right here, right now. As Kris Kristofferson wrote in the song (one of my Mom’s favorites), Help Me Make it Through the Night, “Yesterday is dead and gone And tomorrow’s out of sight…”

Finally, before going to sleep, either keep a diary or make a mental note to let go of the day that has passed. The idea is you to learn from your experiences and forgive yourself for your mistakes. Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher wrote, “Admit not sleep into your tender eyelids until you have reckoned up each deed of the day — how have I erred, what done or left undone? So start, and so review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good [ones] be glad.” Then go full Elsa on the day and let it go.

So there it is – a little Greek philosophy for your Friday. Stoicism was meant to be a day-to-day philosophy to help you get through the day. Stoicism is not about suppressing emotions or suffering through life with a stiff upper lip. Stoicism is about regulating your responses to whatever life throws at you, enduring what you must, enjoying what can – and knowing the difference.

Friday Dad Joke.

Where do Generals keep their armies?

In their sleevies!

I missed posting yesterday.  Not in the sense that I fondly remembered it upon its leaving, but rather, I completely forgot it was my turn to post and didn’t realize it until very, very late.  I’d like to say I spent the time deep in thought, pondering weighty topics to be discussed in this post, but in reality, I spent the time tracking down and buying a car.  The point of this post is not to recount the analysis and selection process, not to opine on the nature of haggling and deal-making.  Rather, the purpose is to point out something that we run into pretty frequently, and that is how we many times go through our days on autopilot, functioning, but not necessarily living.

Days like today, truthfully could have been any one of a thousand days where I got up, had my coffee and started to check off my list.  I had calls to make, a couple of meetings to dial into, a couple of presentations to work on, a paper to draft, emails to respond to, etc. I dutifully got out my to do list and started checking things off one by one.  The next thing I knew, it was noon and my only real notable accomplishment was the consumption of 4 cups of coffee and remembering to mute my phone on the conference calls.  I am a big fan of routine and patterns, but I realized that I was missing a lot of interesting things by shifting into autopilot, and as I started to review what all had actually happened, I discovered that I was missing quite a bit.

I think that happens much more frequently than we all think.  We get so “head down” in our lists, projects, and activities that we fail to notice the things around us that can improve our mindset and lives if we let them.  For example, opening the blinds of the office provided me with a beautiful view and bright environment, which immediately improved my mood and energy level.  Likewise, an email from a former work colleague announcing the birth of his first grandchild took my mind from the frustrations of the strategy meeting I was in to fond remembrances of my grandchildren and happiness for his joy.

It is certainly important to work hard, complete tasks and focus, however, it is just as important to balance the work with the act of living and enjoying life.  We used to have mandated break times throughout the day, when I first joined the work force, but we have rapidly become a country where we have working lunches and no real breaks.  We start early and stay late and we wonder why we burn out.  Breaks are important because these little moments throughout the day are like stolen vacations, which bring with them peace and perspective, which we tend to ignore in our rush to check off the to do’s on the list.  So, as you make your way through your workday tomorrow, stop every couple of hours and take a break.  Look outside, walk around, or just let your mind wander.  It’ll do a world of good…just be sure to come back!