Tag: making a difference

Learning to Lose

Posted on by Carl Weber

Learning to Lose

 

(image courtesy of my daughter: thanks kiddo!)

There are some things that come easy to us. It may be a task, a sport, a relationship, a job that we are either naturally gifted at, or has just gone well for us. Nothing about this was particularly hard or required a lot from us, but we had success.

The success can lull us into thinking that if we continue the same level of effort, the same level of accomplishment will be ours. As if success is a simple machine and as long as we keep feeding it the same parts, the product just pops out the other side.

Something happens.

The other team wins.

Our relationship fails.

We get fired.

We lose.

The loss hits us hard and we scramble to figure out why.

We blame ourselves. Sometimes we blame others.

We struggle and get back up.

We play more games, and don’t always win.

We meet more people, and don’t always find the one.

We apply for more jobs, and they don’t call us or they pick someone else.

The old stuff that made us a success is no longer enough.

So…

We train harder.

We work on our stuff.

We refine our skills.

After some time passes, we begin to win again.

We become better players.

We develop deeper relationships.

We discover better careers.

Learning to lose reminded us that what was good enough for yesterday won’t get you through tomorrow. Success can get you pretty far, but learning to lose challenges you to become great.

Let Me See Your Calendar

Posted on by Carl Weber

Often we wrestle with getting certain projects or activities completed. There are times I wonder if procrastination should be elevated to some sort of art form. The level of creativity that abounds when avoiding certain tasks is nothing short of a masterpiece.

If procrastination was art, I would be Picasso.

This procrastination can permeate through simple tasks and projects, down into our roles both personally and professionally. What starts off as a delay in painting a room or cleaning up your desk, can become putting off coaching employees or participating with your family. One day you wake up to a mountain of unfinished projects, ideas, or roles.

I was listening to a speaker give a talk on what it takes to be a good leader, and one of the keys was following through on certain tasks. When coaching others, this speaker often listens to leaders talk about the things they would like to do, and then says a simple phrase.

“Let me see your calendar.”

The speaker then challenges the leader to show them in their calendar the time the have scheduled to work on that project, and where the deadline appears. Reluctantly, the leaders typically respond that those ideas or projects are not in the calendar. The desire was present, but not the mechanism to create the action needed to complete or make progress on these tasks.

Instead of shaming the person being coached, the speaker then simply works to find dates and times in their calendar and holds them accountable for completion.

I am trying the same approach with myself and others. While coaching a few individuals recently, I realized how much we all need this encouragement and accountability. A few days ago during a coaching session, I realized that there was a project that I had put off for about 12 months. The project itself would take about 1 hour, but there was some sort of procrastination mountain standing in my way.

This morning I spoke that simple phrase, “Let me see your calendar.”

There was space, and the project was scheduled and completed. One simple phrase and the project came off the stalled idea mountain and is now a reality. Imagine the results if we use this simple phrase with ourselves and others.

Try it out, it may just Change the World.

Badfriend.com

Posted on by Carl Weber

badfriend

Have you ever had that friend that just drifted away? You stopped calling. They stopped calling. Weeks pass and evolve into months. The next thing you know, years pass. When you reflect on the relationship, there were no major fights or arguments, but time creates this sort of distance between you. That distance becomes a larger and larger incentive not to pick up that phone, or send that text. Even worse, when you mount the courage to send that message, it is not returned and your efforts are in vain.

While reconnecting with a close friend recently (it had been years without calling or connecting) we talked about ways to prevent this in the future. Both of us need to commit to calling, texting or emailing each other. It makes it harder that this particular friend is 1,824 miles away so the odds of bumping into each other at the local market is pretty slight.

In order to ensure that we stay connected, we came up with an idea for a website and service for anyone who needs a little help being a better friend.

In the spirit of creating funny domain names, we called it badfriend.com (it is not a real site…yet).

Here is how it would work.

You sign up on the website and identify your friends. Your friends are either already members or you can invite them to the service. There are various levels of connection services that help remind you to send that email or text. You can initiate that conversation through the website or app, and automatic reminders are sent to remind you to connect with your friends. You would have your own email address @badfriend.com and the system would send your friends notice when you were not meeting your requirements as a friend.

If you do not connect regularly you are charged a penalty.  However, if you do connect with your friends you earn points. These points enter you into a lottery for cash prizes, similar to the experiment that VW did with speed camera in Sweden.

Relationships are not always easy. Being a good friend takes work. Imagine how amazing it would be to have a website and app managing it all for you and creating the right incentives and penalty.

Until then, it is up to us to make the decision to stay connected, pick up that phone, or send that message.

If it has been a while since you called or connected, you can always start how I initiated my conversation with this friend:

“Hi, this is Carl@badfriend.com, I am sorry for not connecting, lets start again.”

Pick one friend, the one that was once close but time has created distance. It won’t be easy, but pick a day within the next week and connect, it may just be worth it.

Build Up or Tear Down?

Posted on by Carl Weber

Stones on the Beach

I have a habit of making cairns, especially when we spend time on the rocky coast of Maine. There is a challenge to find the right stones that will fit together, balance against the wind, and rise up to leave their mark on the landscape. These reminders provide some sense of identity along the somewhat anonymous coast that someone stood on that spot and created.

When creating in this space, one must acknowledge that eventually the pounding surf will remove all evidence of your work. The never-ending cycle of water will topple any temporary reminder of any creation, but something compels us to create near the ocean despite the inevitable. Something about letting the ocean reclaim these stones seems appropriate.

After creating these three cairns the other day, we walked further up the coast to another small beach and passed a couple with a child. We did the obligatory head nod and smile as we passed and eventually we turned around and headed back past our creation. To my surprise, we saw the couple and child again, at the site of our creation. Instead of admiring our work, they were standing at the path and throwing rocks to topple the cairns.

They must have seen it in my face when I gazed upon their actions and they spoke first.

Did you create these?

Yes.

There was an awkward pause. Stones in hand, they looked at me as if they had done something wrong and were waiting for some clue from me on how to proceed. It was a struggle to fight my initial instinct to be angry or upset at them. I did not own the stones, the ocean, or the coast. My creation was temporary and the changing tides would return these stones to their rightful home within a few hours anyway, but the rush of emotion was still present. I knew I had to say something.

It is totally okay. Some people build up, and others tear down.

I smiled. Eventually they smiled too and restarted their stone throwing and we moved on.

When you build something, however temporary it is hard to watch it used for something else when you knew its original purpose. Change can be hard. What seems like tearing down, may just be a new and innovative use for what you built. But when someone else sees a new use for your creation it can still feel like a loss to you. Perhaps your creation had its run, served its purpose, but its time has passed.

So when someone is changing your creation ask yourself, is it time to build up or tear down?

Which Race Are You Running?

Posted on by Carl Weber

Yesterday I got to cross off a goal from my list. I ran a 5K.  Sure, running a 5K is a perfectly good goal. Running a 5K has been on my yearly goal list for a few years and I have been able to cross it off each year. This year the goal was different. Simply running a 5K was not the goal yesterday. The actual goal was to run a 5K together with my daughter.

ShoesRunning with my daughter was the goal. We got new shoes (note the distinct advantage I have simply from shoe size) signed us both up a few months ago, and a small competition began. Every few weeks a photo would appear on my phone. The photo was of the treadmill time of her latest run. In addition to these photos, periodic smack-talk began to appear alongside.

Once I get new shoes maybe I’ll smoke you in a race 😉

Perhaps as a way to defend myself, photos of my treadmill times were exchanged (especially when my times were faster), along with various replies, especially when she was getting nervous.

I’m kind of nervous!! I hope I’m not too far after you 😁

Luckily you will have your dad at your side encouraging you

And I hope to have my dad behind me cheering me on

This would cause more photos, and faster times, and more replies. This banter and friendly competition helped both of us stay on track and keep running so we would be ready for race day. But when race day arrived, something happened.

A few people who I know were also racing that day. I tend to be competitive by nature and I have been running at my fastest pace in years. I felt a different goal rise up inside me. This was my chance. A chance to finally demonstrate that I was faster than these other runners and have a “win” and obliterate my last year’s time. My daughter must have sensed something because she casually mentioned that it would be okay if I ran ahead, despite our earlier goal of running together.

I had a choice to make. And isn’t this a choice we all face at some point? We work together with other people. The original idea is a team achievement, then an individual opportunity comes our way. What we decide in that moment is important. Do we honor our original commitment? Do we give into ourselves and break away from the pack in order to “win”? I had to ask myself:

Which race are you running?

My choice appears below. (I am wearing the red hat, she is in the bright yellow shirt.)

As for beating those other people, there is plenty of time and plenty of races ahead of us. (And they should know that I am coming after them in the next race.) For now, I am happy with my choice. A message on my phone as she was driving back to school confirmed that it was the best choice.

But you’re a great dad and ran with me so basically you won the whole race

Today, make sure you are running the right race…It may just change the world.

HALT or you may regret the outcome

Posted on by Carl Weber

About half way through a session with senior leaders on how emotional intelligence impacts the work place, I had to admit that the prior day I failed miserably at it myself. Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, assess, and control your own emotions, while being able to empathize and work with others and their emotional state.

The discussion traveled toward finding ways to slow the world down, and understand your own emotional situation. We talked about identifying certain negative emotional triggers, or those events, people, or activities that can hijack you and cause you to react instead of respond to those around you.

One leader spoke up about a technique that served them well during their career. This technique was a simple way that a mentor encouraged them to think about their emotional state, before the term emotional intelligence was in the mainstream.

One simple word: HALT

HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. When you feel yourself getting emotionally charged, you are supposed to stop (the word HALT helps you remember that part) and ask yourself if any of these attributes are true.

Am I hungry? Am I angry? Am I lonely? Am I tired?

These four states are not exclusive and more than one can be true at the same time. The mentor compared these four to an engine: one with four cylinders. If all four are in a good state, the engine (our emotional state) runs smooth and without issues. If one cylinder becomes disabled, the engine starts to run pretty rough, but it may still get us there. If two or more are disabled, it is time to shut the car off and seek help.

For me, about two and a half cylinders were disabled at the time when I interacted with a few people in my circle. I was angry (my primary emotion), tired, and little lonely. The HALT approach would have helped me identify some of the primary causes of the hijacked emotional state. My emotional glass was cloudy, and it spilled out on those around me.

Of the four parts of HALT, lonely was the one state that at first felt strange to consider until I unpacked it a little. It is easy for me to identify when I am hungry, angry or even tired. Identifying the lonely that proved most valuable. Most days I am surrounded by people, but do not have time to connect deeply. Connecting with others becomes even harder as I pack more and more events into work and life, but the lonely remains.

HALT helped me as an “after-the-fact” diagnosis of what happened, and the new goal is to use it prior or during the next stressful event.  I hope it provides you with some insight into your world and your relationships.

After apologizing and trying to own my emotional state, I went and had breakfast with a close friend. With the lonely cylinder repaired, the engine is beginning to run smoothly again.