“Change is inevitable, growth is optional.”  John C. Maxwell

This was the quote on the T-shirts we gave the participants of our recent MpwrU Retreat.  MpwrU is a life mentorship group that my wife and I steward. We’ve been doing it for over five years now, and this was our second go-round with a retreat for the group.

One of the key things we teach in the program is the idea of reflection, recognition, and re-iteration.

Everyone’s life is about navigating change, sometimes slight, and sometimes dramatic, as change is a constant.  One could even argue that without change management, there is an entropic nature to change. A slow downward slope.

Leave a home unattended and return 20 years later.  You won’t be able to see the house because of the vegetation around it, and the house will be in disrepair even though nothing has been used or abused by those not living in  it.

That’s nature.

How do we prevent our home from deteriorating like that over time?  We maintain it.  Sometimes we re-new it or revise it.

We look at what is wearing out, we recognize the deterioration, and we replace, repair, renovate and renew.

But this is not as much a process we learn or effect upon ourselves, at least not as practically.  

We tend to over-use our bodies and our minds, pushing them to manage the stress and load of our every day agenda’s, or we simply ignore them altogether,  hoping they will respond when needed.

Feeling overweight, then go on a radical diet and begin a training regime and expect the system to respond!

Feeling lonely, get a dog and pay no mind to the overwhelming time and budget demand associated with taking care of an animal.

Time is ticking on the clock of life, it’s time to have kids, but what it costs in time and effort is mostly an afterthought.  We’ll make it work.

Move halfway across the world to take a new job, family in tow, we’ll figure it out when we get there!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have a fitness and health plan, enjoy pets, or children, or go for the new job.  I’m just saying we should learn to walk through a process of reflection, recognition, and revision that leads us to our new iteration intentionally.

Let’s take stock of where we are now, what the change we wish to create might look like, assess our preparation and capacity, talk with those that matter, and then make a decision based on who we wish to be, not what we wish to have.

Do we wish to be healthier – what’s it going to take?

Do we want to have a pet – is it feasible?

Do we want to be a parent – what will it mean to be ALL-IN?

Do we want this new job/promotion – How will it make us better and why is that important?

Life is an iterative process.  You want to own it, not react to it.

Will there be times when you need to react? Absolutely, plenty!  But the more you create intentional processes for growth, the less of the growth will occur as a response, more will be created with your blessing.

“Change is inevitable, growth is optional.” John C. Maxwell

Steward your change.

What are your core values?

What does that question even mean really?

I’m not sure most people take the time to answer that question for themselves, perhaps until they are confronted with it in a business exercise or life coaching session.

It’s the background noise that informs how you feel when things don’t feel right.  When you feel a sense of dissonance with others, or with your environment, it’s usually because something you value is being ignored or disrespected.

I was introduced to a definition of success by a friend, “Success is when your behaviors match your values”.

Do you deport yourself based on your core values?

I think part of the attraction to organized religion is that most of the religions over the history of humanity start with a moral and spiritual code of conduct. A character compass if you will.

The essence of religion is your accountability to something higher than you, something that reminds you of who you are, how you should carry yourself, how you should treat others, and what is considered reprehensible action or inaction.

But religion doesn’t necessarily ask you to evaluate your alignment with the values espoused within. Instead, most religions impart an expectation to align with the doctrine.

So how do we know what is most important to us, and how do we hold ourselves accountable to it?

One way to do it is to make a list of common values.  Can’t think of any? The internet can give you a list with just a few clicks.

Take that list and ask yourself as you review it. Which ones resonate with you?  

Build a list of 20-30 values that have meaning for you.

Then be ruthless about stripping it down to your most important ten.  Those are the ones that cause havoc in you when they are not being respected, or there is misalignment with your environment or relationships.

The legendary coach of the Golden State Warriors, Steve Kerr reflected on advice given to him by Coach Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks, himself a legend of college and professional football. 

Steve admired the way Pete coached and how he established a team culture. Steve asked Pete some of his secrets for creating team culture.  Pete told him that to create team culture he needed to pick 10 values that are important to him, and then narrow it down to his core 4 values. 

Kerr settled on; Joy, Mindfulness, Compassion, and Competition.

When you define these words in action, you need to explore what they are and what they mean, and constantly revise and refine the actions that align with the words.  What does it mean to be joyful?  How does it look, feel, and exhibit itself?

What does mindfulness mean?

In the Netflix series “Last Dance” in one of the last episodes a sports psychologist remarked that what separated Michael Jordan from his peers was not his skills or on-court play, although incredible just the same. What separated him from all the rest was his presence.  He was playing basketball, he was competing, he was on the court, in the game, all the time.

This is the essence of mindfulness.  Being present and connected to one’s self, living in the moment undistracted by what has been or what will be.

How do you evaluate it in a team setting? Not easy, but recognizing when you are your teammates are not present and bringing them back to the task at hand is a big part of it.  Holding yourself accountable and your teammates, this is how culture begins to thrive.

I think the idea of joy, mindfulness, compassion and competition invoke both a sensitivity to our fellow man and teammates, but also the essence of it all is to be competitive which infers a state of excellence.

Team success, if we take the definition of success I shared earlier as a reference point, is the ability of the collective to behave in alignment with these core values.  Success is not the wins or losses, but the organizational alignment with core values. The expectation is that if one remains aligned with such values, the outcome should take care of itself.

The Golden State Warriors have had their share of winning seasons, and championships, but they’ve also failed several times during Steve Kerr’s tenure.  Winning year after year is a near impossible thing, there are just too many factors that are out of one’s control to guarantee winning a championship each year.

What Steve can control is the environment he, his staff, and the team co-create to set the table for the possibility of winning.  Success is when your behaviors align with your values. 

I think this is something that is missing more and more in society today.  

People, especially our leaders, standing up for what you believe in, treating others the way you would wish to be treated, doing what you say you will do, and calling yourself out when you don’t.

Do the exercise of identifying what truly matters to you, and then reflect on how that should look in terms of your behavior and action.

Then take the time to evaluate yourself from time to time, and call yourself out when you don’t meet your mark.

If we all did this a little more, instead of pointing fingers at everyone else, we would all be a lot better off.

I was thinking about the idea of a license to practice a profession.

The essence of this concept is that a body representative of a profession has taken the time and effort to create standards of knowledge and ability required to practice.

Why do this?

Usually, it’s because we want the public for whom these professionals supply their services to know they can expect those who are licensed to be able to supply an adequate, consistent,  and in some instances, safe service.

Usually licensed professionals also carry forms of liability insurance such that if they make a mistake, the client or customer may have proper recourse.

The general public, for whom these professional services exist, wishes to know what the licensed professional is capable of, and allowed to perform.

You shouldn’t be cutting out a tumor on someone’s kidney if you don’t have a license to practice medicine. What if you cut out the kidney instead?

You shouldn’t be representing someone in a court of law if you don’t have a license to practice law. What if you forgot to prepare your pleading documents for the court?

We probably don’t want the Captain of the plane we are on to be less than licensed to fly!

But one of the downsides to the concept of a license to practice, is it also sometimes becomes a status symbol.  More than a license to practice, it becomes a license to look down upon others or to stand taller than most.

And it often constrains our ability to see beyond our scope, to find an alternative path or solution.

A license shouldn’t define you.  It shouldn’t constrain you. What it should do is augment you.

What I mean by this is that a license to practice often defines those of us who choose this path, rather than simply providing you with the ability to use this special tool.  

The more tools you accumulate, licensed or not, the more you become capable of exploring different paths toward solutions.

If you’re a doctor and you’ve explored other paths in nutrition and exercise, you can see other possibilities for your patients.

If you’re a physiotherapist who’s explored psychology, you can see the solution for your client’s pain might have more to do with how you help them define their solution than with the techniques you use.

If you’ve explored neuroscience as a performance coach, you might see where optimizing the neurological system might create better outcomes than adding more load to the bar.

I interviewed David Epstein on the LYM podcast several years ago and the through line of his book “Range” explores the value of being a generalist versus a specialist.  He has explored multiple professional domains and it informs his writing and exploration of subject matter.

“Breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer. That is, the more contexts in which something is learned, the more the learner creates abstract models, and the less they rely on any particular example. Learners become better at applying their knowledge to a situation they’ve never seen before, which is the essence of creativity.”

― David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

What I’m trying to say is the license opens a door, but how you explore the room beyond the door is what counts. Don’t make your license your constraint, allow it to be a springboard to exploration.

Instead of the license defining how you deliver your craft, and the expectations of your client, make the license serve a greater purpose.  It allows you to explore your range knowing you have a central anchor of capacity you can lean on in darker times.

The letters and certificates on the wall mean nothing to the person you serve, what means something is how you serve them and how you help them solve their problems.  Build your reputation and character on the foundation of your ability to be resourceful and prepared for anything.

Exploring your range is the essence of the journey of life.

The essence of the Labor Day holiday in North America is the effective celebration of our devotion to work, and the acknowledgment that after work comes rest.

When you delve into the history, the holiday began in the late 1800s with a push from the working class to honor their effort to create the foundation of society, a shout-out to the blue-collar.

Over time, it has grown to mean the end of summer, and the beginning of the school year, for most a chance to regroup before the fall/winter is upon us.

The holiday has blended into all the other holidays on the map, a chance for some to reap the benefits and respite of a three-day weekend.

For others, the unfortunate reality is that the holiday is likely a blip on the radar screen of the grind.

Throughout the last few years, I’ve noticed more and more as I spend time in the back of taxis and now UBERs on my occasional trips to teach or consult, that more and more of the drivers of these vehicles do it not as a main thing, but mainly as a third or fourth thing!

Side hustle, plus, plus!

Just in the time that I have been on this earth, we’ve gone from one-salary families to two-salary families, and now multi-salary/sources families.  When does it stop?

Governments get blamed for policy decisions, the rich get blamed for establishing capitalistic bullseyes like the stock exchange and consumerism.

But the truth lies somewhere in our guts and our minds.  Our need to succeed, defined by a greater force that has existed for millennia, that accumulation and wealth are the objective measures of success.

What house we have, what title we have, what car we drive, what phone we carry, what computer we use, what clothes we wear, what restaurants we eat at…….it goes on and on.

There’s always another level, there’s always something more or better.

We find ourselves running faster and faster on a treadmill that has no limit.

Just think back to the 2008 economic implosion, the Dow was under 12,000 points, 20,000 seemed like the Mount Everest of market possibilities, and yet here we are 16 years later and we’re over 40,000 points!

I was talking to some friends who work in the pharmaceutical industry. The common theme is being salaried to do one job, but effectively managing the workload of two!

In a business world where the profit is incredible, and the supposed modus operandi is better human health (NOT!). I was kind of shocked that the corporate end game was not better working standards or care for the health and wellbeing of the employees, but rather how can we squeeze more juice out of the lemon?

But we don’t realize that we self-determine this reality.  We expect our end-of-year returns on our investments, we want the next level of the ladder, and we aspire to the grass is greener effect.

Our inability to be in the present and to be grateful for that which we have rather than pining for what we have not is the ultimate driver of this phenomenon.  

We can blame it on the big bad world outside, but we are the drivers, not the backseat passengers.

Think about it. Catch yourself the next time you are sitting on a park bench, back deck, or patio, chilling.  

Do you see the color of the sky? Do you hear the birds chirping? Do you feel the wind blow past your cheek?  Do you sense the temperature, the sun upon your face?

Or do you look down at your phone, and check the messages of variable sort?

The next time you are out with a good friend or relative, and you are chatting at the table, catching up.  

Do you hear what they are saying? Do you see what they are feeling on their face?  Do you listen to their thoughts, or do you listen to your own?

Worse, do you find yourself picking up your phone and scanning for nothing?  But it’s something important, right?

Maybe I’m preaching to the choir and you’ve got it sorted out. You are likely one of the few. And if that’s the case, I apologize for the sermon.

For most these days though, it’s become our nature, our need.  We’re obsessed with what we don’t have.

On this occasion of contemplation called Labor Day, take a moment to contemplate rest, what it feels like, what it means, and why it should mean more.

If you struggle with this, or the balance of life, I begin my next cohort of the LYM Life Lab in mid-September, have a look here and consider joining me on this journey called life! 

Registration closes September 6th.