Do you wake up each day inspired?

Just a question. Per last week’s blog, I have no judgment here, I am just curious.

Should we wake up in that state of mind each day, or at least most days?

Maybe we need to get our first dose of coffee into us to feel it, but after you’ve woken up, how do you feel about your day?

The reason I ask this is that we keep having this circular conversation about happiness, what it means to be happy, and how we should strive to be happy.  But I for one, don’t believe that is a real aspiration.

I think there are too many factors affecting each day that can render a shift in our immediate state of mind.  Being happy, at its best, is always going to be a moving target.

You can’t control or constrain happiness, it’s an outcome of your mindset, your circumstances, and how you react or cope with those circumstances.

But the concept of inspiration is an aspirational pursuit.  It’s like the dimmer switch on the wall of a room light.  You can turn it up or down as the day goes, but the light is always there.  It’s the light that draws you in, just like a porch light attracts moths in on a hot summer night.

Inspiration is the thing that attracts you toward your work, play, activity, connection, and communication.  It’s the thing that sets your table each day and pushes you when you don’t even know it’s there.

It gets you past the days when things just aren’t going well, or things aren’t right.  It’s what you look towards to remind you about why you do what you do.

My inspiration is the idea that I can create change, challenge convention, and stimulate thought through my actions, and example.  I am inspired to inspire others.

When I asked you if you wake up inspired, I didn’t mean, do you wake up to the sounds of a choir and an aura of light?

What I meant was, do you wake up with a sense of direction?  Do you feel drawn to explore your day, or do you feel resigned to face your day?

What is it you want others to feel when you are around them? 

What is it you wish to bring to the party so to speak?

The essence of how you wish to contribute to others, how you want to impact those you meet and interact with each day is the essence of your own inspiration.

If you’ve never contemplated this question, I offer it for your consideration.

If you have contemplated it, and you do know what inspires you, are you allowing it to inspire you each day, or only sparingly?  Are you constraining your inspiration, or exploring it each day?

If you know it, and you feel it each day when you wake up, then keep sharing it with the world.  You are leaving your mark.

The news this past weekend has caused me to further reflect on judgment.

It’s become the nature of society today, likely always being a part of society and humanity.  We love to judge each other, we love to judge ourselves as well.

But when self-judgment becomes toxic or unbearable, our minds look elsewhere to serve our internal need to feel better about ourselves by looking down or at someone else.

I’m guilty, I’ve done it, way too much. Still do it.  It’s not an easy habit to shed. It’s in our DNA.

Maybe because our neurological foundation is all about self-preservation, we just naturally need to define our environments, circumstances, relationships, and pretty much anything we need to interact with or be connected.

But most of what we judge today has nothing to do with self-preservation, and everything to do with pushing the mirror away.  We want to be right, and we want them to be wrong.

Unfortunately, there is very little right and wrong and a whole lot of grey.

Opinions reign down constantly.  Everyone has them, they are like ass-holes…..heard that one before?

I am fascinated by when something like this past weekend’s news occurs, how fast people can leap to conclusions, define what they saw, believe they are right, or demonize others simply through their lens of perspective.

You have to know you don’t have all the information.  You have to know you are creating your narrative to satisfy something you already believe, no?

How can we come to so many conclusions so easily without all the information?  

Sure, you might share a thought or observation, but to then take the leap of faith that based on that you know there is a conspiracy a plot, or an over-reaching agenda? 

That’s judgment, not curiosity.

If we want to change our society and contribute to being better stewards of our world, we need to shift our narrative from judging others to being more curious about others.

More recently, I’ve begun to watch different news sources, cultivate alternative opinions, and listen more to what is being said.  I felt I was reasonably good at it, but I needed to re-double my efforts.

Why?

Because the internet drives judgment. Judgment sells. Judgment creates fear, and fear motivates.  If we don’t understand something, we become scared of what it might mean or could become.  We build a narrative around the information, we categorize it, and we limit it.

We love to define it, because we can manage our feelings around what we know, but we don’t know what to do with the nebulous possibilities….that’s scary.

The truth is we don’t know, there is no perfect, right answer, and most certainly with the limited information we usually have, we have no right to conclude.  

We need more information!

How do we get more information….we ask more questions.  We look around, explore, remain open, try out different perspectives.

We seek to call ourselves out on what we believe.  It’s not easy, but it IS necessary.

We’ve become polarized because polarization creates a false sense of security, but security just the same.

Security is comforting, and comfort is our happy place.  

But comfort is also a place of stagnation.  If we want to grow, we need discomfort, we need to feel a little out of sorts.

We don’t always have to feel out of sorts, but we also don’t always want to feel comfortable, and worse, feel we are right and they are wrong.

Today, more than ever before, we must be more curious. We must start our conversation with better questions and a desire to better understand instead of telling others what we think or believe we know.

Double down on curiosity, and never stop seeking.

How often do you find yourself answering this question; “How are you doing?”

“Busy.”

Or how often does someone you’re reconnecting with say that as well?

Or maybe we say, “All good, busy, but good.”

It’s become the default response. No one tells you how they are doing, that would take too much time, and you wouldn’t care to hear it all either, right?

We ask the pleasantry question, “How are you doing?” because it ticks all the boxes, it says we care, it says we want to know about you, and it says hello all in one fell swoop.

But the truth is we don’t care, we don’t want to know about the person in this immediate conversation, and we want to most likely get to the point of the interaction.

Worse still is the fact that the person we are talking to says they’re busy because that’s a better response than, I’m down, I’m depressed, I’m tired, I’m burnt out, or I’m happy, I’m doing great, I’m excited. All of these statements kind of lead to a response from you, like further elaboration is required.

I’m busy kind of hits you in the face and says all at once, I’ve got a lot on my plate, I’m overwhelmed, and you need to be succinct and focused in your response to me. Don’t waste my time, and I won’t waste yours.

Still further challenging is the fact that it’s true. Most people these days are completely overwhelmed with work and trying to achieve the dream.

How many times have you gotten in an UBER in the last year and spoken to someone who is doing UBER as a third job during the day to make ends meet?

How often are you running into friends who have so many plates spinning, you can’t imagine how they keep them all in the air?

How many plates are you spinning?

Life today is frenetic, and on top of it, the social media gods have decided that if we are not busy enough, they will fill all our extra time with useless scrolling.

Even with all of that, our business has become a badge of honor. We default to this language because we don’t want people to think we aren’t busy. God forbid we would have it all together, not be busy, but somehow be successful in everyone else’s eyes by luck. Luck isn’t acceptable, it’s gotta be earned!

We think that being busy is a precursor to being successful. Success is defined sociologically by what you can accomplish, what you can get done, how much you can take on. Get after it, right!

As I’ve shared in the past, I like the Nightengale quote, “Success is the pursuit of a worthy ideal.”

It’s all about the intent, the expression, the connection to purpose, and the worth while effort. It’s not about how much effort, the intensity, or the occupation with it, it’s simply about pursuing in a way that allows me to feel it, own it, live it.

For me, the pursuit of a worthy ideal; challenging convention, creating change and inspiring others through the work and life I live is my success.

These days, when someone asks me how I am, I usually say; “My life is good, it’s full and it’s rich.”

I am content and joyful in my work, and I do have time to think, explore, and reach.

How can you be a better responder?

Most likely the solution will be found in your sense of purpose. Are you living the way you love, or the way you feel you have to?

A worthy question for all of us.

This week Canada turns 157 years old, and our friends down south will be celebrating their 248th Anniversary of Independence on July 4th. Usually, such events are celebrated with fanfare and fireworks, and most of the time, an appreciation for the long weekend.

Sometimes, with big dates, like any anniversary of importance (our centennial in 1967, or their bi-centennial in 1976) there is more lamenting on the state of the nation, the accomplishments, and the feelings toward bygone years.

For me, this year in particular, I want to reflect on what our nations are supposed to represent to the rest of the world, and what they seem to be losing daily.

Democracy, for all its fractures and fissures, still stands for the ideal of freedom of will and accomplishment.  The ideology that any person should have the opportunity to accomplish what they set out to achieve, and live a life they steward themselves.

It’s supposed to represent a place where diversity of opinion, and belief can reside as neighbors, collegially and safely.  Without a sense that sharing one’s belief or opinion might result in one’s harm or restraint.

It’s supposed to feel like one can travel and move about with relative ease, without any constraint other than those self-imposed by budget, time, or the constraints agreed upon civilly through means of a government built by the people, for the people.

In other words, we make our own rules and we live by those rules, and if we don’t like them, we use the political constructs built by our forefathers to change them.  We amend them, we create new ones, and we delete old, outdated ones.

This is the Kool-Aid I drank for most of my life, I guess it allowed me to feel comfortable that what we had made sense, that what we were doing was somehow better than them, whoever they were.

But throughout the last half of my life, since the early 90s, I’ve seen a slow and insidious degradation of all that I grew up with (however flawed) a slow burn of our flags, and what they represent.

Six significant elements have contributed to the destabilization of our democratic fabric in my estimation, and one more that is just beginning to make it all exponentially worse.

The first is the advent of 24-hour news in the mid-eighties and the politicization of that news through opinion pundits.  Ratings and greed began to shift the news from reporting and holding accountable, to defining what was happening through a curated perspective. 

Still more disturbing was the monopolization of media by a few media oligarchy who decided to politically bias the news to favor the corporations who would  spend millions upon millions of dollars on advertisements.  Soon the adoring pundits became all too comfortable with lying simply to make more money.

Cue the internet, which begins to take this reality and redefine it again. Now we have curated content on demand. Now, without us knowing it until it’s too late, we receive confirmation of biased opinions, and we get bespoke news and information to satisfy our beliefs. People get sucked into clickbait rabbit holes only exacerbated by the social media explosion that follows.

The shift in corporate greed instigated in the early 80s saw more and more corporations move their focus from high-quality products and services, manufacturing, and consideration for the workers (never perfect by any stretch, but better than now), to outsourcing manufacturing, downsizing employment, and focusing on shareholder gain. This was the oxygen for the fire that was burning the fabric of our flags.

Social media dropped jet fuel on the fire.  No one saw it coming.  No one could  even begin to contemplate what this new medium would mean.  It has done some good, but I’d have to say that for the most part, much of what it has done has been downgrading our social fabric. Most certainly it is reinventing the way our youth sees the world and we are only realizing how this change is truly affecting the next generation of adults and businesspeople.

These ingredients shifted our moral compass. No longer would one need to face their foe and speak their truth knowing there might be ramifications for their bullying or vitriol.  All the cowards who wanted to say something however true or false could now build literal empires and followings on the backs of followers who no longer received variable perspective, or actual truth.

Truth?! What is that really?

The cost of this cesspool of fallacy and immorality has been the slow insidious shift of our political leadership from people who sought to contribute through public service (yes, they had their flaws and foibles no doubt) and try to create a better set of circumstances for their children than they experienced growing up.  

Getting elected required money and alignment with the private sector, but not to the extent that it does today.  Today, the cost of getting elected can only be born of the private sector corporate conglomerates who choose their team and set the rules. Our leaders are owned and operated by those who seek profit over people.

The pandemic amplified this ugly mess, and made everything more evident.  It eroded the public trust in institutions, and it seemed that on a daily basis new fractures exposed themselves in public institutions we had trusted implicitly for so long.  Was it right for us to doubt, most certainly, but the level it has ascended to at this point renders these institutions dysfunctional and further exacerbates the end user, the public.

On a daily basis, everything seems normal.  Life goes on, and we get up each day and get it done, but there is this buzz in the air around us, constant and unnerving, that something is going to break.  I don’t know when or how, but something will break and what lies afterward is uncertain.

Cue the next great invention, AI.  We don’t really know where this giant experiment with reality will lead, but one thing is certain, there is much that will be different, some for the better, and some for the much worse.  The potential to take everything above and simply fabricate a truth, create a false reality, now that is an experiment with much possibility to go wrong.

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark – 1995

On this Canada Day, I want to celebrate my country and those that I love, but I also find myself at a loss for how we got to where we are, and more difficult to contemplate is how we find our way to something better.

Not to leave you, the reader, with a sensation of bleakness, but I do think our way to something better is instigated by how we treat one another, and what we aspire towards.  

Let’s focus more on being better humans to one another each day. Let’s aspire to be better versions of ourselves.  Let’s de-emphasize our focus on money and wealth, and shift to a focus on the wealth of health, family, and community.  It’s not cliche, it’s common sense.

Let’s make a greater effort to inform ourselves through multiple sources, and embrace critical conversations and curiosity.  We must not become complacent, tribal, and protective of what we have.  We need to learn more about one another, recognize our differences, and celebrate our similarities.  We all want something better for ourselves and for our children.

Here’s to hope.

We are way past the “information age” as knowledge and information are plentiful on the internet today, and most recently with the advent of ChatGPT and other AI information sources, access to information is without constraint.

Even more importantly, access to curated information is astronomical.  We can search for the information we seek, and if we prompt effectively, we can have this information provided to us with clarity, devoid of filler or wasted content.

We can get to the point, quickly and easily.

However, we still need greater context exposed within this content.  Decision making with wisdom remains a constant of value and importance.

I recently reflected on a story I encountered a number of months back.  I was watching a short documentary on the rise of the group One Direction, specifically how the group was created.

The instigator of my watching was out of an interest in how Niall Horan (one of the groups members and a new judge on my favorite show, the Voice) had come to be a part of the group.

The documentary presented Niall’s audition.

He showed great talent, but also an arrogance not warranted for his age or experience.  He caught the eye of the judges, but when it came time to send him through, the notoriously negative Simon Cowell surprisingly voted yes.  I believe it was Sharon Osborne who also put him through, but a third judge voted no because she felt he’d been too arrogant. 

Katie Perry was the fourth judge. She agreed with Simon’s assessment of his underlying talent, but she also felt he was too cocky…….despite these feelings, she pushed him through.

Segue forward several weeks, and Niall along with all the future members of One Direction had been cut from the talent camp. They didn’t make it as individuals to the final talent show.

However, the show featured both an individual and group program, and the judges decided to create a new group to compete in the group format.

From a palette of images on a desk, the judges collated pictures of each of the former members of the camp who had been cut.  Working their way through, they slowly defined the membership of this new boys group who would compete in the group program.

Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Zyan, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson

Names of five boys who until this moment were headed home to lives of the unknown.  What lies ahead, who knows?

Here was Niall Horan, second time lucky again.  Almost didn’t make it through the audition, and now gone from cut to collected, united with four others who would soon be famous beyond anyone’s imagination.

This ragtag band of unknowns would soon win the show, and go on to being one of the biggest boy bands in the history of music, and each a multi-millionaire.

Why do I tell this story?

Because the decisions made to allow Niall to pass through the audition, the decisions made to put him with the rest of that group of boys, and the consequent decisions by those who voted to see them win the competition, these are context based decisions.

They are the decisions born of experience and intuitive trust. 

Katie Perry just felt something was right about this kid, born of her own trajectory in the business, a feeling, an itch. She sent him through.

Simon Cowell, perhaps loaded with more experience than Katie as a judge of talent just knew he was something special, and pushed him through with no question.

Another judge, for other reasons unknown, just didn’t feel right.

Context matters, and contextual decision making is informed by experience.

I recently asked ChatGPT this question:

Why would you decide to allow your patient who has recently had their ACL ligament repaired ride a road bike or not?

Chat GPT Response:

Deciding whether to allow a patient who has recently had their ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) repaired to ride a road bike depends on several factors, primarily related to the stage of recovery and the specific circumstances of the patient. Here are some considerations:

• Post-Operative Phase: Initially after ACL repair, typically in the first few weeks, the patient may need to restrict activities to allow for healing and to prevent stressing the repaired ligament too soon.

• Rehabilitation Progress: As the patient progresses through rehabilitation, the focus shifts from protection and healing to strengthening and functional recovery. The decision to allow road biking would depend on how well the patient’s knee is responding to rehabilitation exercises, their range of motion, and the stability of the knee joint.

• Doctor’s Advice: The orthopedic surgeon or the physical therapist overseeing the patient’s recovery will provide specific guidelines based on the individual’s progress. They will assess factors such as muscle strength, joint stability, and any residual swelling or pain.

• Type of Road Bike Activity: Road biking is generally low-impact and involves repetitive motion. If the patient is cleared for cycling, they may start with stationary biking and progress to road biking as tolerated. The bike fit and setup should also be appropriate to minimize strain on the knee.

• Risk Factors: Road biking involves potential risks such as falls or sudden movements that could stress the knee joint. The decision to allow road biking will factor in the patient’s overall stability and the likelihood of avoiding such risks during the recovery period.

• Monitoring Symptoms: Throughout the recovery process, it’s crucial to monitor the patient’s symptoms closely. Any increase in pain, swelling, or instability during or after road biking should be reported to the healthcare provider.

In summary, the decision to allow a patient with a recently repaired ACL to ride a road bike hinges on their stage of recovery, rehabilitation progress, and individual factors.

What ChatGPT doesn’t say is how you navigate this information and weigh it. What is more important or less important. How does it dovetail with a current set of timelines and constraints.

How does it change if say, the athlete in question had also suffered a shoulder fracture and was rehabilitating that injury at the same time?

Complex problem decision making is fraught with contextual information that needs to be weighed against a myriad of factors, and this ability is cultivated through time under tension.

Why do I write about this?

If you want to get better at what you are doing, selecting mentors and programs, and information sources that provide context as a backdrop of choice and decision making is key to getting better.

There is much knowledge available, but how you use it is the key to your success.

How you use it is informed by Why and When questions, so keep asking and keep learning.

We just celebrated Father’s Day this past weekend.  Or should I say, many of us did.

Some celebrated their own father’s, others celebrated being a father as well.

My father passed many years ago, and to be honest, my relationship with my Dad was not a strong one.  

My Dad was a great provider, he did his job as the job description was told to him. That’s all he knew.  

But he was a good father just the same.  

I hold no resentment for our relationship, it simply was what it was.

But it also set the table for my own wrestling match with fatherhood. For a long time, it just wasn’t a likely thing.  I went through several relationships and marriages without its contemplation.

I didn’t yearn for the opportunity, I didn’t seek its fulfillment.

When I met my wife at almost 40, something began to change.  I began to feel like it was something I wanted to know about myself, something I should experience, especially with this woman. She was the right partner for this new horizon.

I had no idea what it meant, or what it would mean.  I just knew it was something I could see myself doing.

And then in a moment, from one day to the next, I went from oblivious to engulfed.  I went from nothing to something in a heartbeat.

For a closet control freak, becoming a father was an overwhelming experience.  Welcome to the firehose called life.  

Being a father is the greatest responsibility one could ever imagine.

You have to get up in the middle of the night, there is no option not to do so.  There is no get out of JAIL free card, no chance to do over.  All of a sudden, you realize this is here to stay, and you are in charge of this little being’s life, a life that depends on you.  

No matter how you feel that day, no matter how well slept, no matter how empty of energy, no matter how much money you might not have, you must deliver.

Suddenly you realize, unlike most anything else in your life, you can’t walk away from it, you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, you can’t forget about it.

But why would you want to anyway?

It’s a responsibility I cherish deeply.  I GET to be a Dad, and it’s the greatest honor and privilege I could have ever imagined.

Becoming a father made me a better man, forced me to change in ways I would not have changed without her influence, and made me think about things differently.

It tugs at your heartstrings, pulls on your strength, and pushes you to the limits sometimes.  But all of this leads to unimaginable growth. If you give way to it, you explore parts of you that you never knew existed. Parts you later lean on for so many other challenges that undoubtedly come along.

You realize when you become a father that you really can do anything, and you really do know nothing.  

It’s humbling indeed.

Most importantly for me, I get to be Gretchen’s Dad. 

My daughter is  an incredible human, and I know I am biased, but she’s a wonderful package of smart, funny, inquisitive, curious, caring, kind, and amazing! She makes me proud every day.

I see life differently since becoming a Dad.  I feel different, I have a wonderful sense of purpose that wasn’t there before her.

And I know there is so much yet to come, so much more she will teach me.

Her mother gave her to me, and I am truly grateful. Thanks for choosing me to be Gretchen’s Dad <3

Happy belated Father’s Day to all the amazing dads out there.

Just back from a big junket to China for the first time in my life.

The more I travel this globe, the more I realize we are all the same, just dealing with the trials and tribulations of life with different strategies.

There is too much made of the political discourse, too much focus on our differences, not enough on our similarities.

I had the same remark fifteen plus years ago now when I did some extended work in Oman in the middle east.  Everyone figuring out how to make a living, how to navigate each day.

Different foods, different cultures, different fashions……but all the same challenges.

China surprised me.  I think the overreaching and constant messaging in western media about the oppressiveness of the regime made me believe I would feel oppression in the air.  

But it was the exact opposite.

The hustle and bustle of every airport, train station, and thorofare. Scooters and bikes buzzing everywhere, mixed in with the new car smell almost everywhere. 

Roads that didn’t give me a headache from the potholes were a change of pace from back home!

Walking the Houtongs, smelling the food, seeing the people in their day to day.  Everyone just going about their business, being human.

Walking the Great Wall, something I never in a million years thought I would ever do.  That was something special. But still taken by the “touristic” sensation of it all.  People everywhere, not many foreigners, just regular citizens being curious about something they themselves had never seen as well.

Teaching with live simultaneous translation, if you’ve never done it before, is a real exploration in patience.  Someone told me to forget the jokes, and they were right.  Jokes don’t work so well in translation mode.

But the patience in the listener was cool to watch.  People just as attentive having to listen once to something foreign, and listen twice to understand. But they listened, learned, and asked questions just the same.

Is there background noise, most certainly. Is there much I don’t understand, for sure.  I probably received a sanitized version curated for the foreigner. But I couldn’t help watching people simply go about their business each day and they did the same things we do.

They made the best of difficult situations, managed the turbulence of life, ate on the run, laughed, stared at their phones, moved quickly from one place to the next.

Kids are kids, they scream, and they cry, and they laugh and they play.  They are just kids.

We are all just the same, and the more we focus on that, the better off we will all be on this big blue planet.

What has been your cost of success?

I often ask this question to guests on Leave Your Mark.  At what cost has the success you’ve had professionally or personally come?

Most of the time, people answer that they’ve compromised relationships or their health.

Fascinating.

For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, “what is the key to a good life?” 

They followed men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. 

After starting with 724 participants—boys from disadvantaged and troubled families in Boston, and Harvard undergraduates.  The study incorporated the spouses of the original men and, more recently, more than 1,300 descendants of the initial group. 

It is the longest in-depth longitudinal study on human life ever done, and it brought the researchers  to a simple and profound conclusion:

Good relationships lead to health and happiness. 

The trick is that those relationships must be nurtured.

So here we are compromising relationships AND our health to be successful!!!

So many people say this, and in some ways quite cavalierly, like it’s a reasonable cost associated with being good or great at something, or having success as our sociological influences would describe it.

Having things, doing things, being things that people look up to or admire.  That is success in the mind’s eye.  

And yet, near the end of life, the lament is always, I should have spent more time with my family, I wish I’d taken better care of myself.

I guess there are three questions worth answering here:

1 – Is Success actually about acquiring things, achieving things, or being something or someone others admire or wish to emulate?

2 – Can you have success as described above without compromising your health or relationships?

3 – If you can’t, is there another way to describe or define success?

That’s the key really, what are you using as your compass leading towards success?  What is a complete expression of this truth, not sociologically misguided aspirations.

Aspiring to do things, accomplish things, or create things is absolutely the essence of being human.  But the argument about who is successful does not rest in the end point, or completion of the objective, it rests in the effort and intent to actualize it.

Can you bring quality effort, and intention, yet still reserve some of yourself for the actualizing of love, kindness and contribution for those who mean everything to you?

Does being a good father or mother mean you can’t be a good pilot, or doctor, or construction worker?

Are you successful if you are a good construction worker, teacher, or parent?

Does one leave one’s mark in that which gets noticed and celebrated, or is a mark left when the contribution remains unknown, or simply understood by the few rather than the many?

The fact that something we achieve or do becomes recognized should be an incidental outcome, not a focus of identity or achievement.

Do it because you love it. Be with them because you love them.  Be where your feet are, be present, be connected, and always do your best.

Words to live by.

In such effort can most certainly reside the actualization of a dream living in the presence of friendship and love.

When I became a father, my brother, who is a teacher, recommended a book called, “Hold on to Your Kids”. Written by Gabor Mate a renown MD, and Gordon Neufled an Doctor of Psychology, in it the two try to tackle one of the most disturbing trends we see today: children increasingly looking to their peers for direction, their values, identity, and codes of behavior.

They describe a primary form of attachment that all human beings first explore with their parents. This natural and innate form of attachment ensures that they will be well stewarded and directed by they parents who, in general, naturally seek their children’s best interest.

They describe over the course of the last 30+ years an erosion of the family nucleus resulting in an earlier peer orientation and eventual peer attachment that undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile, and sexualized youth culture.

As the authors explain in the book, children end up becoming overly conformist, desensitized, and alienated; being “cool” matters more to them than anything else.

The authors explain the causes of this crucial breakdown of parental influence—and demonstrate ways to “reattach” to sons and daughters, establish the proper hierarchy in the home, make kids feel safe and understood, and earn back their children’s loyalty and love.

One of the things they ascribe to is the concept of traditions and forms of structure that children can anchor to and remain attached to even in the most challenging time of their development.

When I first read the book, I was truly drawn to this concept of anchoring through traditions. I recognized right away that in any of the successful group dynamics I have witnessed in my career and life, the structures and the traditions create anchor points from which one can push off and land each time one takes a risk, reaches higher, tries something new, or just gets after it!

Wether you are a parent dealing with the changes and growith of your child, or you are simply leading or supporting others in the successful execution of a plan or a strategy, the concept of establishing anchors and traditions can be a game changer.

Of course, everyone needs differing amounts of “flux” or “flow” in their life so that they feel alive. The same thing day after day becomes mundane and empty, so we inject moments of opportunity, change, and adrenaline rush into our lives, and everyone has a different threshold for how challenging or off the hook these experiences need to be to keep life stimulating.

But we all need a grounding point, a foundation from which to fly and these grounding points rest in the type of structures and traditions that we hold true and honour in our lives regularly.

Whether its beginning the day with a walk or a workout, checking your social media, waking up to a hot cup of coffee or a tea, finishing the day by journaling or a great conversation with your partner, these structures provide us with rest stops and points to ponder or simply be empty of thought. These structures create points of debarkation for the next adventure of the day.

Traditions like bringing the entire family together for Sunday dinner, booking a vacation in the same location each year on the same dates, talking on the phone once a week with distant loved ones, or gathering the clan for Thanksgiving are strong anchors that keep the family and those we care about close and connected.

Its important to determine which structures and traditions in your life bring you, and those you lead or support, a sense of foundation. If the opportunity to sit for dinner with your partner and children (if you have them) allows you to feel better connected to them, then ensure this part of your life remains steadfast.

If journaling on a daily basis creates clarity for you, then make this a sacred past time. The better you understand your fundamental foundation for success, the more you will thrive when you know its solid.

However, when structures and traditions in your life are interrupted, don’t panic! Realize that this too is part of life, there will be moments when our foundation elements must be re-patterned or revised, go with it, not against it. Experience it, evaluate it, and see if there is anything that comes of your new day that perhaps might be incorporated in your program.

Experimentation creates reflection, learning and revision. That’s how we get better and better.

Whatever your traditions, identify them and honour them as they will anchor you, and provide you with the foundation from which to fly!

Best,

Scotty

I lost my mother this past week…….94 years young.  

She passed peacefully with the care of her nurses, PSW’s, and doctor. Thank you.

By her side were some wonderful friends from her church who hovered over her these past many months, and made sure she was safe and warm. Thank you.

Time can be cruel sometimes, and I missed being with her in her last moments.  Perhaps fortuitous, as I would rather remember her as I experienced on the last visit I made shortly before her 94th birthday.

I made her laugh.  

Perhaps my most favorite thing to do, and more important my favorite memory.  My mom loved to laugh, she loved a good joke, or a good comedy.

Her laugh and smile, and ability to laugh about her own foibles was perhaps, among many, her most endearing quality.  

She made you feel heard. 

She had a great humility.

It’s been hard. Hard to watch her become less able.  This rock of life who I always knew had more strength in her left pinky than I had in my whole body.

Born in the depression, a part of the so called “Silent Generation”, they spent young adulthood in a post-war period. This group is known for accepting rather than speaking out, and accepting modest means with little complaint.

My mom was a victim of numerous lifethreatening diseases, and a lifetime of challenge and loss.  Through it all, she always smiled, never complained, always made the best of the difficult situation.

Her friends always remarked to me, how she would never complain.  She would speak up if she felt there was an injustice or incogruency in life, but she never complained about her circumstances.

My mom was a ROCK.

I think the thing my mother was most proud of was the boys she chose to raise. Brad and I were both adopted by this wonderful soul.

She didn’t have to choose us, we got pretty lucky I’d say!

She always revelled in knowing what things we’d been up to, what new worlds we were experiencing.  

She always listened, and a great pride would rise in her face as she saw our passion and our growth expressed in our stories.

Our stories told, just like most mothers do, she would ask us if everything was ok, as though she would swoop in and fix all that wasn’t right if and when she had to, but she never had to.  

Ok, maybe a few times when were were young 😉 LOL

We were her greatest pride until one day her wonderful grand-daughter Gretchen was born.  We were no match for this little package.  Lois was especially proud to be Grandma.

My only regret is she only got her wish to be Grandma after she had turned 78, and she didn’t get to spend the time I know she would have loved simply because it was just too much.

Time was passing, like it does for all of us.

Slowly, the water and the winds of time eroded the rock, and the rock became a pebble, and the pebble became a grain of sand, and now that grain of sand has blown away, never to be seen or heard again.

But the sand will find it’s resting place, she is now a part of us, oh how we miss her so.

Her friends at her church say she is now in paradise.  I just know she is safe, and that’s all that matters to me.

On mother’s day, I celebrate this soul who for a moment, blessed us with her love, kindness, and protection.  

I miss you mom XO.

Scotty