Stop And Reflect

Every year, this week causes people to take a moment and stop and reflect back, ideally with the intent of being thankful and grateful for the things in your life.  Truth be told, to some the actual act of thankfulness may seem cliche, but I think that attitude is not only wrong, but extremely flawed.

During this past year, I made a new friend who really forced me into a position of having to be thankful for what I have, but more importantly the sacrifice others have made on my behalf that allows me to have what I have.

My friends name is Tony, and although a few years my senior, we are close enough in age that others would simply assume we are about the same age.  What Tony exudes in terms of service and sacrifice causes me to pause and recognize how good I have had it, and how lucky I have been.

Tony enlisted in the Army at a young age.  As I was walking across the stage at my high school graduation, Tony was boots on the ground in a foreign country fighting a war to help liberate others under the repressive thumb of dictatorship. 

What breaks my heart is the fact that Tony was injured, he suffered, and although now fully retired from active duty, the scars and injuries endured in service continue to this day.

What causes me to stop and reflect is this simple fact.  When I woke up each morning during the last 25 years, my typical focus was on my family, my friends, and ways to conquer the world.  Tony’s perspective is quite different serving strangers in a far away land, and hoping and praying that he would be safe and make it back to his bunk (or worse) and the end of each day.  

Tony is not alone, we all have a Tony in our life that served in a role few can imagine, but many have endured.

I’m thankful for Tony this Thanksgiving season, but more important I’m thankful for people just like Tony, who willingly volunteered on my behalf, to keep our country the best it can be, serving in places I hope I never have to go, facing enemies that would keep most of us awake at night.

Tony has the scars and injuries that he wears as a badge of honor.  There is no regret from Tony as to his service.  Quite to the contrary, I have seen that servants heart extended into a civilian role as Tony reenters a world I’m quite familiar with, but one that he is learning and now finding his role and way to serve others.

Tony may never strap body armor on again, or use a machine gun to serve, but the weapons he now uses to serve are much more powerful, his voice, his story, and his example.  

This week, as you gather around your dinner table complaining about your family that you can’t stand, or the things you think are wrong.  Take a minute and reflect back on the Tony’s you know in your life.  I for one will have Tony and his family sitting across from us as we break bread together, enjoy some really good food, and dine in the company of friends and family.

Being thankful and grateful is a powerful tool that helps put perspective on life.  I promise you, no matter how bad you think you have it, there is always someone else that wishes they could be you.  Thankfully, because of the service of people just like Tony, you and I have the freedom and opportunities we have, and I for one can tell you, you really don’t have it that bad.

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours.

*****

Personal Success Coach is pleased to offer coaching packages starting at $299 per month.  Each session is intentional and deliberately designed with you in mind to address the issues important to you taking you from where you are in life to where you want to be.

One Hour Backwards

I woke up yesterday at 4:18.  On a normal weekday, my alarm chimes at 4:39 and my feet hit the shower by 4:41.  If I mange to sleep to 6:30 on a weekend, that qualifies as sleeping in.  This weekend was, depending on your outlook, the dreaded or anticipated ‘fall back’ weekend, where clocks everywhere magically move backwards one hour thereby providing an additional hour of sleep.

Of course, we could get into the discussion of why this is stupid, and how in reality there really is not an extra hour of sleep, and I am sure that conversation would be captivating to all, however, with the change in time I thought we could have some fun and take the time change a level or two deeper and ponder the idea that if, and the key word here is ‘if’, you could turn back time, what thing(s) would you change.

But in the interest of keeping it inline with the time change, if you could turn back the clock one hour what thing would you look to change, or do differently.

What conversation might you have again to create a different outcome?

What decision might be hanging low that could be rethought to achieve different results?

The questions are valid and the ideas almost endless.  The ability to go back, in effect have a do over, get to set things right.  I can guarantee there is something in everyones life that they wish they could do again if given the chance.

May I throw a wild idea at you?

You can.

And you can start today.

Life, and people, have a funny way of granting a tremendous amount of grace and mercy to folks willing to come back, acknowledge previous outcomes that didn’t go off as desired, and grant them the ability to have a second chance.  

In other words, might I suggest that we all have opportunities each and every day, to set the clock back, and gain a second chance to create a better outcome.  And here is what I know to be true.  When afforded those opportunities, if you truly act in a way that suggests you have learned from past mistakes, the situation and the relationship almost always comes out stronger than it was previous.

I don’t know about you, but to me that seems like a win-win that can be applied to life, more importantly it seems like a lesson that can be applied to my life, and maybe yours?

This week, as your body readjusts to time might I suggest you seek out those opportunities for a do over and actively engage with the person or activity that wasn’t handled to your best last time, and give it another go.  I promise you, in those moments of vulnerability those you seek for the do over will not only respect you more, but almost always grant you that which you request.

So there it is, this week seek out some set the clock backwards moments, and allow the time to get straightened out.  Your mind and your body will thank you.  And look at the bright side, unlike day light savings time, you will not have chase through the house trying to change all the clocks and replace all the smoke detector batteries!

*****

Personal Success Coach is pleased to offer coaching packages starting at $299 per month.  Each session is intentional and deliberately designed with you in mind to address the issues important to you taking you from where you are in life to where you want to be.

Choosing To Fail

I have a friend, he is almost 20 years older than me, and having known him for most of my life, I think I can speak with authority in the topic being introduced here today.  

My friend has been married several times, and divorced from the mother of his three adult children, he now resides with his girlfriend who is my age, and therefore 20 years younger than he is.  

Got it?  Good!

I lay the ground work as it will serve as an important idea I am going to try to develop this week regarding life in general.  My friend and his ex-wife raised three kids, all of whom are college educated and functioning, contributing members of society.  

The girlfriend has three adult kids as well, but those kids are younger in comparison to those raised by my friend, coming in around 20, 22 & 24 - give or take a year or two on each.  These three kids life paths have been quite different from those taken by my friends kids.  Although as a result of a teenage pregnancy the middle child was forced into being an adult, the oldest and youngest still have not transitioned into adulthood yet.

I bring you one more nugget of information to more fully develop the backstory - the girlfriend is comes from a family that is third or fourth generation, dependent.  In other words, the lineage is such that the family as a whole depends on the government to survive.  Call it what you will, food stamps, subsidized rent, hand outs, tax breaks.

Now let me be very clear here.  I am not in any way, shape or form attempting to make a social or political statement with what I am sharing here, for me, the lesson comes from the choices each individual makes that can effect the outcomes of their own lives. 

Recently, the youngest of the three kids rejoined my friend and his girlfriend, the kids mother.  He had had an extended stay at his birth fathers house, and after battling drug addictions and other issues, he decided to move to his mothers verbally stating he wanted to start life over and have a redo.

Starting over and having a redo is hard.  I do not want to suggest it is easy at all.  Making the fundamental changes necessary in life to course correct and determine a different outcome is extremely difficult.  But hear me out, it is extremely difficult, but not impossible. 

My friend asked me if I would meet with this young man, and I agreed.  During out time together he spoke a big game, talked about all the things he wanted to accomplish, and to his credit he had a “take the world by the horns” attitude necessary to start the path towards success.

During our time together I gave him a very simple assignment, one that would only take a few moments, but within the assignment it would require some really hard self reflection and adjustment.  I told him that I was all for him seeking to change his world and his outcome, but that the change could only start with him, emphasizing that the only thing he could change is himself and therefore despite all the distractions and complications of life, he was going to be the one that needed to change.

Sadly, as of today, the simple assignment given to him by me has remained uncompleted.  I have seen him a couple of times since our first meeting, and my friend keeps me in the loop as to the lack of progress with this young man.  The sad truth is, he is more content to blame his circumstances on everyone else, than he is willing to own the circumstances and start taking the difficult steps towards change.

Here is where I am at with this process.  The reality is, we all have circumstances that affect the outcome of our lives.  Perhaps yours are not as tragic as this young mans are, perhaps they are worse.  The question I always like to see asked and answered is simply this, what are you doing to make the changes necessary to achieve the outcomes in life you want to achieve.  

Yes, it sucks that this kid had the deck stacked against him from the day he was born given the circumstances he was born into .  It sucks.  I’m not going to argue that point for even a minute.  But here is what I know, he can, if was chooses too, make changes necessary to confront those challenges and set himself up for success in this life.  

NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT FOR HIM - and guess what, no one else can do if for you either.

You and you alone hold the keys to your life’s journey in the palm of your hands.  You and you alone can either choose to make the past events of your life the reason why you fail, or the reason you succeed.

And guess what, you have the ability to start that change TODAY.

If you make that choice.

So the challenge is really simple this week.  If you are stuck in a place using the events that have occurred to you in the past as the reason you are the way you are today.  STOP IT, and start making change that will positively affect the outcome of the rest of your life.  Just because you started behind does not mean you cannot finish strong.

Make today the day you stop making excuses and start making decisions that will positively affect the rest of your life.

The journey will not be easy and the steps you need to take will probably be hard, but I can promise you this, the outcome you will achieve will be worth it.  

When I get to the end of my days, I want to reflect back and say with confidence that I lived my life to its fullest, that I gave it my all, and that I did the best job possible for me, the ones I love, the ones I am fortunate enough to do life with.  

I believe with all my heart and soul that failure is a choice, but it is not a choice I accept, and it is not a choice that I will allow to hold me down.  I feel bad for that young man, but in the end, I know the only person who can make that change is him, and right now, he has chosen to fail.

How about you???

*****

Personal Success Coach is pleased to offer coaching packages starting at $299 per month.  Each session is intentional and deliberately designed with you in mind to address the issues important to you taking you from where you are in life to where you want to be.

Take A Minute to Thank Your Trash Man

Do you remember the old 80’s hair band song that stated in part, “...you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone...”?  While that song is not typically thought of as a Christmas song, during the week of Christmas that song played over and over again in my head as I lamented the fact that I no trash can outside of our home to put trash into.

On the Friday before Christmas we had scheduled to have the windshield on my wife’s car replaced as she had been hit by a pretty nasty stone while driving to work the week prior.  The technician who came to the house to install the windshield dropped the windshield as he was attempting to install it cracking it.  We both felt terrible as he had to return to his shop to get a new windshield to finish the job.  We had several appointments and obligations so we asked him if it was alright if we left, leaving the car unlocked so that he could finish the job upon his return.

We didn’t get home until late that evening - so it wasn’t until the following morning that I noticed that our trash can was no longer curbside in front of our house.  I commented that maybe the windshield technician had moved it to the side of the house, but upon further investigation - my trash can was gone.

I immediately attempted to call the trash company, but they were closed given the weekend - so no resolution could be reached until Monday, which also was Christmas Eve.

It wasn’t until I lived without a trash can that I realized how much I appreciated having a trash can to put all of our household trash into.  Forget the fact it was a holiday week and as such our trash output was higher than normal - the simple fact of not being able to take a bag of trash from our kitchen to the outside trash can was turning into a dilemma.  

Throughout the course of the weekend, we improvised, burning in our fire pit as much of the paper trash as possible limiting the items that could not be burned, but still the bags started to pile up on the bag porch.

Monday morning I was able to speak directly with the trash company learning that when the truck picked up our can on Friday, the arm released the can into the back of the truck and that there was no way to retrieve the can safely.  The representative stated that we would have a new can delivered in the next few days apologizing that the Christmas holiday meant several days of delay.

Two days after Christmas we came home to find a shiny new trash can in our driveway.  It was truly a sight for sore eyes.  Up until that point in time, I had never really given much thought to a trash can, but living without a trash can revealed just how much something as insignificant as a trash can can be in a persons life.

More importantly than that - although I’ve always made a point to thank the trash men when I’ve seen them picking up - just how much their service was to our family was made abundantly clear during the week we lived without that trash can.

My challenge this week to you is simply this.  What thing(s) in your life do you take for granted never giving it a second thought that if it were gone, you’d truly miss?  In our household, going a week without that trash can revealed just how much we appreciated the service they provided.

Take sometime this week and say thank-you to the things and people that make your life easier and more convenient.  It will not only make those people know that you appreciate their service to you - but it just might make your day better as well.

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