Jacob DeNeui's Blog, page 3

The One Year Tattoo Rule

When I turned 20, I gave myself a birthday present that would last forever: a tattoo.  It’s a personal reminder of one of my favorite Bible verses placed right between my shoulder blades.  Seeing as my pupils and my shoulder blades don’t often hang out much, I rarely see it, but there’s something reassuring knowing that those markings underneath my skin are more than just a spur of the moment decision I made one night while out with the boys.  In fact the idea for this tattoo started long before my birthday, providing me a long period of time in which to decide whether this tattoo was something that I truly wanted to remain a part of me for the rest of my life.

Every decision you make requires a certain amount of time for that decision to be made with wisdom and prudence.  For me, I’ve decided that the decision to get any tattoo requires around one year of consideration before implementation.  During that time, I come up with ideas, listen to people’s opinions (positive and negative), navigate how/if my emotions change regarding the decision, and also allow my pool of ideas to develop, shift, or completely change.  When I think about my approach to getting new tattoos, I think about the similar choice we all face when making any worthwhile decision in life.  We are constantly faced with choices on how we will invest our time, our money, and our energy in life.  Unfortunately, too often these important decisions are made in haste, resulting in either broken commitments or disappointing results, either of which could and should be avoided.  As I’ve wrestled through these very decisions, I’ve come up with three rules that I feel can be helpful when facing important choices:

"Every decision you make requires a certain amount of time for that decision to be made with wisdom and prudence. " 

 

Rule 1: “Maybe” is King

First off, you should almost ALWAYS wait to say yes or no right away.  I know, I know, that club you were just invited into sounds super amazing and fulfilling and you’d probably do a lot of awesome stuff.  But have you really thought through what it will require in terms of commitment?  Instead of saying “Yes” or “No” right away, how about “Maybe”?  Learn to give yourself the right amount of time for each decision you make but only the right amount of time and no more.  However, "Maybe" is NEVER a final answer; it is merely a holding pattern until you decide the trajectory in which to launch your booster powered rocket jet pack of awesomeness!

 

Rule 2: Tune Regularly

You should have eliminated most of the questions regarding whether you made the right choice before you even made the choice but there will always be unforeseen circumstances that pop up later.  In such cases, you may find yourself needing to ACCELERATE, CALIBRATE, or EVACUATE.  If all signs seem to indicate you’re on the right path but you’re still experiencing lag, you may just need to ACCELERATE and push harder!  However, it’s important to seek out the wisdom of those you believe to hold the most “applicable” experience and knowledge.  If everything is going well but you’ve run into a few minor hiccups, you might need to CALIBRATE your plan.  This normally happens before accelerating or evacuating because it’s the point where you try different options, tweak your target market, experiment with different tools or different methodologies, etc.  Finally, if continuing down the road you set out on appears to be pushing you further from your ultimate goals, you may need to EVACUATE.  This should be done with great prudence and caution as nobody likes having poured time, money, and or energy into an endeavor that never reaches fruition, but sometimes it’s much better to cut your losses.  After all, it doesn’t matter how fast you’re running if you’re running in the wrong direction!

 

Rule 3: Be Alone

Being alone is underrated.  It is incredible how much work your subconscious is allowed to do when it is given the space and time to simply think and ideate without the distraction or intervention of others around you.  Do you remember the last time you got bored?  Me neither.  Nowadays with the world of information at our very fingertips and an ever-increasing pace of life, we allot our minds less and less time to run through the natural process it longs for of contemplation and processing.  Get away for a bit and allow yourself to think.  You won’t be disappointed.

 "It doesn’t matter how fast you’re running if you’re running in the wrong direction!"

 

While I wouldn’t say these three rules are the magic formula to never making a bad choice in your life again, I do believe that adhering to them will dramatically help you in making decisions that are best for you in the long run.  Waiting to give definitive answers, tuning your actions appropriately, and being alone are three great tips to help anyone give themselves the right resources for making decisions.  After all, nobody wants to wake up with a strange tattoo that kind of looks like a girl mixed with Zach Galifianakis (that's for you, all my 2000's rock star fans). 

 

Kicking Through the Board

“Now focus on the board!  Take your time and kick THROUGH the board, not AT the board!”

 

Sweat dripped from my brow into my focused eyes and onto the red and blue karate floor mats upon which I had spent countless hours training in order to get to this moment.  A mere three quarter inch slab of (hopefully) dry pine wood held firmly in place between two pairs of hands was now the last thing that stood between me and my next belt rank.

 

These are the words I remember hearing my karate instructors speak to me countless times as I would stand in front of dozens of people, all watching and waiting in anticipation to see if I would break the board.  To this day I’m thankful I had the wisdom of my instructors and all of these “board-breaking” opportunities in my life to teach me about how the importance of follow-through both in karate and in life.  If I’ve learned anything from breaking boards, it’s this: kicking AT the board is very narrow-sighted…and painful.  What I mean by that is that if you lack the commitment within every fiber of your mind, body and soul to truly break through that obstacle, you will not succeed.  Kicking AT the board comes from a mindset of not thinking that you can actually break the board.  Kicking THROUGH the board, however, represents a paradigm shift.  When one switches from kicking AT the board to THROUGH the board, it is essentially the empowered mindset, the belief that one can indeed break that board, that results in success.  In fact, kicking at the board is far worse than not kicking it at all because the only thing that approaches brokenness is your foot!

 

 "When one switches from kicking AT the board to THROUGH the board, it is essentially the empowered mindset, the belief that one can indeed break that board, that results in success." 

 

There are two distinct paths that lead to an “at” versus “through” the board result, though for much of the journey they are indistinguishable.  Both of these paths traverse the grounds of good intentions, ascend the hills of training, and even skip in tandem through the fields of motivation.  However, they part ways when the paths split into what I like to call “grit” versus “quit”.  It is this pivotal point in the journey that one might say will predict whether the board or the foot will reign victorious.  I like to think of “grit” as a high level of perseverance necessary to endure through struggles, whereas its counterpart “quit” is the lack of perseverance.  I have found that it is the accumulation of grit over an extended period of time that is often the best indicator of future success or failure.  My journey in breaking that wood board did not begin when I stepped on the mat that day for my belt test.  Instead it began months, or at times years, prior when I encountered my first fork in the road, the first trial in which my mind and my body screamed at me "Quit!" but my spirit instead chose to respond with grit.  Each and every repition I did of that kick during training, regardless of how tired or how bored of the kick I was, proved to be but another tiny step further down the trail of grit.

Author Eugene Peterson wrote a book titled “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.”  While I will admit I have not read the book, I’m in love with the title!  It speaks volumes to me in the realm of follow through and consistency.  We live in a society that prefers not to do anything in the same direction for any period of time, instead choosing to allow our insatiable desires to bounce from endeavor to endeavor, accepting that it’s okay not to finish because surely something else “worthy” of finishing is just around the bend.  We say to our friends, “I think I'm going to write a book!”, only to quit in the second week when we realize that such a feat would be too much work or that we’re not actually “qualified” to write a book.  We commit to serve with a local organization or group we believe in only to back out when we realize we've overcommitted ourselves.  We talk about our deep desire to travel the world and make a difference only to find ourselves working the same unfulfilling job ten years later.

 

"It is the accumulation of grit over an extended period of time that is often the best indicator of future success or failure." 

 

Why is this?

Like I said, there is very little difference between the two paths throughout the majority of the trip.  If you were to watch two martial artists as they prepared to break a board, one with an “at-the-board” mindset and the other a “through-the-board” mindset, you would probably notice very few differences between the two, but it is exactly those few, miniscule differences that would set up one for success and the other for failure.  The focus is different, and there is a certain rigidity and sense of fortitude in the “through-the-board” martial artist that is lacking in his comrade.  Perhaps the differences between those who are known for follow through and those who aren’t share similarly minute yet powerful distinctions.  I’ve seen countless possible world changers act in what appears to be a determined and focused manner only to find them kicking at the board and not through it.

 

I find it amazing what placing your feet one inch closer to your target can do in preparing yourself to break a board.  If you think about it, it would seem that such a trivial adjustment to one’s board breaking strategy would produce minimal results in the final outcome, yet it is a physical manifestation of the switch from kicking at the board to kicking through the board.  That miniscule inch is where the path splits between “grit” and “quit”.  It is the space where one is forced to decide whether they will choose to muster up their inner strength and grit or instead allow their "at-the-board" mindset to win out.  It is where one chooses to let nothing stand between them and turning that board into firewood.

 

 























 

 

(PS: Writing this blog was difficult for me because there was so much I wanted to say!  That’s why I’m going to continue the conversation in my next blog by talking about my process for “ideating” and how I choose what to pursue and what to deny or save for later.  Stay tuned for more!)

Intentional is my Favorite Word

“Everybody ends up somewhere in life.  A few people end up somewhere on purpose.” 

-Andy Stanley

 

When I woke up, all I could feel was panic.  As the light poured into my room, I realized the unthinkable had just happened: I had overslept.

 

Normally oversleeping is only mildly stressful, like when I overslept my physics final (I swear there was a power outage), but it’s completely manageable.  This was different.  At the moment I woke up, I was supposed to be on a plane flying out of Spain, the country where I had spent the past six months studying abroad.  Instead the only thing that was “elevating” was my heart rate as I leaped out of bed like a bat out of hell, to do who knows what.  The mistake had been made and the odds were slim to none that they would turn the rig around and wait for me to rush to the tram and get to the airport (after all, it was a weekday).  After several unproductive phone calls filled with neither comprehensible English nor Spanish and a quick ride to the airport and back that accomplished nothing except an increased sense that I had just beaten the record for ‘Most Epic Fail’, the full reality of my situation had sunk in.  The only way I could get back now was by me, a broke-as-a-joke college student, buying another $1000 one-way ticket home, which was about $999 more than I had.

 

I had missed my shot and now it was going to cost me.

 

Have you ever had an experience like this?  It sucks.  Sometimes it takes a disaster such as missing your international flight to make you realize just how important it is to understand what it will take to arrive at your destination.

 

We all have a desired destination, and I’m not talking about Fiji or Paris.  We have all been hardwired with goals and dreams for our futures that describe the type of woman or man we want to be, the legacy we want to leave, or the adventures we want to experience.  Whether that looks like solving world hunger or loving your family well, each and every one of us knows to some degree or another where it is we want to go.

 

However, just as I made the mistake of not taking decisive action to ensure I made it to my destination, too many of us pass through life making the same mistake. “Good Enough” Land can sound mighty appealing in the moment.  It requires little to no effort to get there (after all, “there” is wherever you end up arriving), and minimal effort can appear quite attractive when all you want to do is live for the moment, and I quote: “YOLO”. 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the beauty that the carefree spirit creates!  I recently enjoyed a layover in Tokyo where I boarded a train from Narita, the town an hour outside of Tokyo, and then arbitrarily picked a city to stop at and explore.  While the nearly undetectable amount of Japanese in my foreign vocabulary stock pile made this decision somewhat unnerving (special “Domo Arigato” to the Styx’s “Mr. Roboto” for giving me half of this vocabulary), it was still exciting and enjoyable.  And why was it enjoyable?  Because after my previous epic travel fail, I had learned to set boundaries that protected me from missing the mark again.

 

I had learned to be more intentional. 

I love that word ‘intentional’.  In fact it’s my favorite word in the English language.  I love it so much because I believe it best describes the essence of who I want to be in this life.  The very thought of ending up somewhere at the end of my life and wishing I had taken the initiative to end up somewhere else scares me to death, and I’ve decided not to let that happen.  After all, life is short and I want to make it count.

 

Am I starting to sound like a narcissistic control freak?  Don’t worry, I’m not… I don’t think…

 

Don’t get me wrong!  Yes, it’s true that by nature I tend to lean towards over-planning and over-controlling my environment.  I like to know what will happen and when so that I can help create my most ideal outcome in any situation.  However, I have learned that to be intentional and to be controlling are not inherently synonymous.  I equate it to a cruise ship.  Aboard the cruise ship are hundreds or perhaps thousands of people all milling about on multiple decks in countless rooms, all enjoying custom experiences that they are free to pick and participate in.  However, there is one thing that is not afforded such liberal freedom and that is the direction in which the boat is heading.  I believe being intentional is like being a cruise ship.  If we are studious and steadfast about which direction the ship heads, how fast, and what route it takes, we will eventually end up where we want to go (unless you’re the Titanic…sorry).  The beauty of this situation is that once your bearings are set, all systems are checked, and the green light is given, there is no need to control every action aboard the boat.  The boat’s inhabitants are free to roam and do as they please without fear of derailing their vessel!

 "If we are studious and steadfast about which direction the ship heads, how fast it goes, and what route it takes, we will eventually end up where we want to go." 

In the same way, I believe that living an intentional life is meant to be filled with a beautiful dichotomy of freedom and restraint.  If one is truly set on actually arriving somewhere in life, to omit intentional behaviors and characteristics from one’s life is akin to setting sail from America in your rowboat without a map and grabbing some shuteye as you dream about the vegemite sandwich you hope to find when you awake in the Land Down Under: let’s just say the odds aren’t in your favor.

 "Living an intentional life is meant to be filled with a beautiful dichotomy of freedom and restraint."

Maybe it’s just me but wouldn’t you agree that living in a way that maximizes your impact on this world is preferable to leaving your legacy up to chance?  I’m no Martin Luther King Jr. but I have a deeply rooted dream inside of me, a dream that will take more than mere chance and fortune to turn into a reality.  Every day I see vehicles of talent and ability simply brimming with potential yet sadly stifled by distracted and unintentional operators.  At the end of the day, when the fat lady has sung, we will all arrive somewhere. 

 

Some people will have arrived on purpose.

Which is Bigger?

Think for a second about someone with the perfect life.

 

Seriously, take a second and picture them in your mind.

 

What do you see?  Does it resemble an Instagram feed?  Are they standing with the sun glistening off their finely tuned muscles next to their well-behaved and gorgeous family in front of their perfectly immaculate house nestled in a Hollywood-esque background that he or she purchased with the American-Dream-Sized paycheck they got from their to-die-for dream job which they earned after a spotless scholastic career that sparkeled with achievements like “Student Body President” and “Sigma Cum Laude” due in part to their incredible study habits (that of course never tainted their charming ability to enjoy all of the coolest social scenes)?  Sounds pretty amazing, right?  In fact these are just the types of assumptions we might make about somone because of the computer screen sized rectangular lenses into a seemingly (and perhaps actually) unachievable world of achievement, happiness, and success.

 

I find it woefully ironic how the enormous increase in our ability to share information with the world has resulted in a subsequent enormous (yet camoflouged) increase in social idolatry.  I use the term “social idolatry” to describe our insatiable appetite to compare our own lives to the lives of those around us, and this comparison can go both ways.  While in one second you may find yourself languishing over the despicable and unimpressive state of your own life compared to that of your superstar friend, the very next moment can find you in equal fervor sneering at the pathetic state of your “less-than-accomplished” friend who’s achievements, body type, and relationship status all pale in comparison to the laudable list of your own accolades. 

 

And this can all take place within a matter of minutes.

 

In my experience, I have found that this fact is not lost to most people.  While the world may continue to cling to grandiose dreams of bigger and better, at least they recognize the rat race they find themselves in.  However, as I considered the ramifications of such a futile and endless pursuit of “Insta-perfection”, I began to realize a truth.

 

"Instagram is only two dimensional whereas we humans are infinitely complex MULTI-dimensional beings." 

I see life in visual metaphors, so as I began to chew on this thought, I began to picture two spheres with rods of varying thicknesses and lengths protruding from their centers, much like the sketch above.  In the same way that it is impossible upon first glance to determine which of the objects is bigger in its three dimensions, so I believe it is impossible to accurately create an all-inclusive value assessment of someone due to several limiting factors we will discuss shortly.  The levels of depth involved in accurately calculating our true merit in ALL the areas of life (not just shallow, single snapshots in time posted to our social media page) make it, I believe, near impossible to accurately assess both the worth of others and ourselves.  An example of this is that while the cute girl with the million-dollar body might speak confidence, character, and happiness to the eye, what lies inside of her might actually be the very opposite.  The counterexample of this is the girl whose freckled face and less than athletic physique may visually communicate undesirability while, in actuality, years of practice of patience, kindness, and goodness have created a character worth more than all the popularity social media can provide.  We are multi-dimensional people, and that means we are more complex than superficial judgment is capable of accurately assessing.

 

As a competitive person (and also as a shamelessly self-identified human being), I have thought long and often about the factors behind why this comparison game leads to nearly spotless record of inaccurate judgments, which I have narrowed down to the following three: Countless Categories of Comparison, Time, and Limited Points of View.

 

Countless Categories

Unless you are firmly set on life’s purpose lying solely in how good you can doctor up your life to APPEAR, there are innumerous fields in which we as human beings may pursue meaningful growth and purpose, the majority of which I would say are nearly imperceptible.  While it is easy to perceive the quality of one’s body or perhaps their scholastic, athletic, or career achievements, there are other equally or even weightier qualities which might not be as visible to others.  For example, while judging how terrible someone is at managing their money (from your perspective), you are negating the energy and benefit of the great depth and understanding they carry in their level of emotional intelligence which could possibly contribute to them being a far superior leader than you.  How easy it is to formulate a judgment, whether positive or negative, of someone else based solely on a limited number of observable traits.

 

Time

I have found myself quick to judge myself as well as those around me for a lack of development in one area or another only to later find out that person had worked very hard over a long period of time to overcome obstacles I wasn’t even aware of.  Their current self was actually incredibly improved and successful compared to their old self.  Often we can’t see where someone has come from or how much they are growing currently, yet we still find it acceptable to judge them or ourselves. 

 

"When we acknowledge the beauty of progress over position, we free ourselves from negative pressure on both others and ourselves."

 

Limited Point of View

Remember that perfect person you thought of at the very beginning?  What you just viewed in your mind was most likely a carefully selected snapshot of one particularly attractive moment in his or her life.  I’ve often heard it joked that if all the mothers with their photos of their beautiful, angelic babies wanted to communicated reality, it would probably show them crying as they cleaned up that nasty diaper blowout or their sleep-deprived, lethargic expression after countless nights of no sleep.  Yet everything we view, whether on social media or in “real life”, is merely a glimpse into that person’s life and certainly not the full novel.  We are incapable of viewing someone in all times and places, which provides us very minimal data from which to draw conclusions about someone, and this is an inescapable limitation we must accept and embrace.

 

It is hard not to be critical of ourselves or of others in judgment of character, ability, or achievement.  However, to be optimally self-aware is to operate with these self-limitations in mind.  After all, why should we waste our time destroying our confidence and joy based on inadequate sources of information when the energy spent comparing and evaluating yourself and others can be put to better use by channeling it toward self-growth and improvement?  We may never know which of the two representations of spheres I drew is bigger than the other, but acknowledging that imperceptions is the first step toward something even more valuable than the knowledge itself. 

 

Masters and Padawans

Gandalf and Frodo.  Yoda and Luke Skywalker.  Sean Maguire and Will Hunting.  Katsumoto and Captain Nathan Algren.  What is it about these relationships from stories like The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Good Will Hunting, and The Last Samurai that captures the hearts and minds of humanity? 

 

Apparently we love stories of the teacher and the student.

There truly is nothing new under the sun if you look at the similarities between all of these stories, yet we are helplessly drawn to them.  I believe this is because we are hardwired to desire this very form of personal relationship that is formed on the longing for a reciprocal relationship based upon the transfer of knowledge, experience and wisdom.  In the words of the Hebrew King Solomon: “the glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old.”  Just as a rocket requires the explosive energy of colossal amounts of fuel to be tempered by the massive accumulation of human intellectual capital in order to dance upon the dust of yesterday’s impossibility, so mankind has consistently found need for both the passion and inexperienced optimism of the young along with the sharpened foundational wisdom of the old, a beautiful dichotomy of healthy submission and of continual growth and exploration.

            While the concept we seek to plant within the fabric of our own lives has come under various classifications such as “discipleship”, “counseling”, “or “guidance”, I find this idea sufficiently explained with today’s practice of “mentorship”.  Mentorship can be a scary word to some and, quite frankly, many people fail to do it well.  It can often carry the connotation of dominance and inferiority.  At times it can blow a cold chill within a relationship between two people, creating an awkward, austere sense of formality and rigidity.  Or it may lean the other direction, beginning with hopes of mutual benefit and satisfactory passing and receiving of valuable understanding while reality brings about a much less anticipated and potentially egregious result. 

            In my (very limited) experience, I have seen that while so many desire to “be mentored” or “have someone to look up to”, they seem to stumble through the process of how to obtain that type of harmonious relationship.  That’s why I decided to share my thoughts regarding mentorship and the opinions I have developed along the way on how to operate well in beginning and maintaining healthy mentorship relationships.  While I am still painfully aware of my “wet behind the ears” state, I’ve also come to accept some of the insights afforded me through intentional pursuit of understanding and experience in this area, so please take a few grains of salt with you to sprinkle across the writing of a self-proclaimed “padawan”.

 

Lesson 1:  Be bold…

 

If you are in search of someone to mentor you and find yourself waiting for that someone to come to you, GOOD LUCK!  Every once in a blue moon you may stumble across someone with the time, interest, and ability to mentor you who will initiate a mentoring relationship but in my experience this is not something you should expect. Odds are there’s a reason you’ve selected this person as someone who you want to learn from which means he or she is in high demand.  Every person that I’ve ever admired enough to pursue mentorship from is protective of their time, and for good reason.  I’ve learned that in asking them for their input, I am asking for them to sacrifice some of the only non-renewable resource on the planet: time. 

So to those of you who think you’ve got enough hot stuff going for you that mentors should be BEGGING to mentor you, you might want to grab a bite of humble pie.  In the same token, many people choose not to pursue mentoring relationships themselves because they feel unthoughtful or greedy, as if the person they are asking to mentor them would rather do anything but mentor you.  There is a fine balance between undervaluing the person’s time (see lesson two) and feeling afraid of coming off as presumptuous.  Most people of experience are honored when they are asked to share their wisdom, so Nike up and DO IT!

            Sometimes being bold means humbling yourself and risking rejection.  Don’t be offended or hurt if you find yourself the one initiating meeting up with your mentor.  Remember, you are asking for a sacrifice on their behalf yet it is a sacrifice that most people of Yoda-like status are simultaneously seeking opportunities to invest in people they find to be of high potential, people who are fully committed to growing as much as possible through their time together.  To demonstrate this, I’ve found it is helpful to do two things: first, as we’ve already talked about, YOU need to take the initiative to meet up, whatever that looks like.  Mentors are often looking for an ROI (Return on Investment), and if you fail to take the initiative to set a time to meet, what are the odds that the time they spend investing in you will produce any return on the investment of their time? 

Second, do your research.  When you meet with a mentor, you should already have a game plan of what you would like to learn from him or her.  This doesn’t need to be a seven page, single spaced checklist of interview questions for him but there should be a level of preemptive thought regarding how you desire to grow through the relationship.  For me, I recognize that I meet with three of my biggest mentors for different reasons due to their specific skillsets and/or experiences, so I go into my time with them specifically looking to grow in the areas where I find them to be strong.

            My uncle is a very forthright man.  He oftentimes (at the embarrassment of his family) will ask for the most outrageous and generous favors from others…and receive them!  He has shown me that it truly can’t hurt to ask.  So BE BOLD!

 

Lesson 2:  ….but Not Too Bold!

 

As I said earlier, pursuing mentorship relationships is a balancing act of boldness and humility.  While on the one end of the spectrum many are too timid to approach a person whom they would love to grow from, many lean the opposite direction, assuming that the person whom they eagerly want to learn from has nothing better to do than to pour into their life.  Oftentimes these are people who are so passionate and so excited about their own life pursuits that they sometimes struggle to see the realities of the lives of those around them, resulting in presumptuous petitions that, due to their extreme nature, might often simply go ignored.  Instead of asking for one hour a day from that CEO that you’ve always admired and hope to model your career after someday, perhaps begin by asking him out for coffee (you buy).  Or maybe it’s a 15 minute skype interview (at his convenience), or meeting for lunch once a month (his choice…and you buy).  This is not a black and white issue as there are many people whose personalities and lifestyles lend to having more time to freely give so it is absolutely a judgment call.  My point is before you shoot for the moon, you might want to make sure it’s loaded and pointed in the right direction.

 

Lesson 3:  Give and Take

 

“To him whom much has been given, much will be required.” 

 

Have you ever learned lessons in your life?  Is there anyone you know who is younger than you?  If you answered yes to either of these questions, YOU TOO CAN BE A MENTOR!  My first two points were to the matter of seeking a person with more experience to mentor you, as I will be the first to admit the extents of my wisdom due in course to my limited number of laps around the sun.  I do not claim to have all the answers, but I have come to believe that young men and women all to often doubt the power of what they have to offer those even younger or less experienced than them.  It is not hubris to recognize the value you have to offer the world because of your unique gamut of knowledge and experiences.  Be sure to walk the line of true humility but I encourage you to not only seek to be invested in but also whom you can invest in. 

            I’ve been teaching karate now for more than 14 years and I’ve discovered that I’ve grown so much, if not more, as a karate teacher than when I was directly under the instruction of my teachers.  As you pour into the lives of others you will likely find you are simultaneously developing yourself.  The process of mentorship is an extremely dynamic one with benefits coming from both sides of the field. 

With this said, it is important to be real with where you’re at in life, the extent of your knowledge in different areas, and where your true value lies.  The freshman, second string quarterback might gain from waiting a couple of years before trying to share expertise with his teammates, but that doesn’t mean he can’t invest in the lives of the kids on the peewee football team!  Just be self-aware of what you have to offer and where you still have room to grow.  In other words, don’t try to be a Yoda when you just learned what a lightsaber is.

 

            Mentorship is a beautiful process.  It is how boys and girls become men and women, how hard earned wisdom and painful lessons learned become transcendent of time, flowing from the confines of one person’s life and multiplying their impact in the life of another, who then pours into another, who pours into another, so on and so forth.  It is, what I perceive to be, the single best way to live beyond yourself by maximizing the effect of your assets upon the world.  Perhaps you have thought about this topic a lot already or perhaps it is new to your brain.  Wherever you fall, know that we were all made to learn and to teach in some way or another, to be both Yoda and Luke.  How you do that is entirely up to you.   

 

 

(Did you like the blog?  Have any thoughts?  I’d love to see your comments below!)

What do you Cherish?

What do an author, a social entrepreneur, and a swimsuit designer have in common?  If they were at Biola University in Los Angeles three weeks ago, the answer is probably Praxis Academy.

A couple of weeks ago I boarded a plane from Bozeman, Montana and flew 1,000 miles to the city of angels in search of insight and inspiration into the ever popular buzzword “entrepreneurship”.  If you read my last blog, you already know that I’m an entrepreneur at heart, so when a close friend and mentor of mine urged me to attend Praxis Academy, I bit the bullet and signed up just shortly before the event. 

To summarize why Praxis exists, the organization states that their objective is to teach entrepreneurs how to dwell within the intersection of culture, theology, and entrepreneurship, stating, “at Praxis, we believe the future of culture depends largely on the next generation of entrepreneurs.”  You can find out more about Praxis on their website, but I thought I’d focus on a topic that was brought up during our first session: the “cherished topic” that is.

This idea was promoted on day one of the conference and I felt compelled to share it with all of my readers (I promise it’s not the title of a women’s book for better marriage).  From the very beginning of the morning, we were asked to begin searching ourselves for what it is in the world that we either can’t stand or that lights a fire within us.  Maybe for you its helping people live healthy lives, or maybe it’s giving justice to the oppressed, or maybe you’ve always just wanted to help people by working with your hands.  The cherished topic is something that makes you become alive and it is a fire that cannot be (easily) put out. 

Unfortunately, for many of you ambitious go-getters, identifying your cherished topic can be a confusing and angst-producing ordeal.  In fact some may have even been told that pursuing a cherished topic or “passion” as a line of work is impractical and should be avoided.  In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, author Cal Newport assumes the role of antagonist in his supposition that the pursuit of passion in work is energy ill-spent, saying that “telling someone to ‘follow their passion’ is not just an act of innocent optimism, but potentially the foundation for a career riddled with confusion and angst.”

However, Jena Lee Nardella, the founder of Blood:Water Mission (an organization that has brought clean water access to more than one million people in Africa), might say otherwise.   Nardella claims that it is possible to find one’s cherished topic, stating that it lies at the intersection of what she refers to as “my deep gladness” and “the world’s deep hunger”. 

 

As I listened to Jena describing this relationship and how it led to a vocation for her that not only changed the world but also brought great satisfaction, I found myself appreciating the idea more and more the more I considered it.  On one hand, one can find themselves pursuing work that grants them greater power, wealth, or affluence yet leaves the world in a deficit, it’s “deep hunger” left unnoticed or, even worse, abused.  On the other hand, said “hunger” can also become all-consuming and turn deep gladness into deep sorrow in an altruistic heartbeat. 

One important point that begs clarification is what type of hunger is meant by this analogy.  Initially, my mind thought only of work that solved great humanitarian need, as evidenced by Nardella’s mission to bring clean water to Africa.  Yet the more I considered this statement, the more I began to realize how encompassing the statement was.  Perhaps you see the world’s deep hunger for faster and more efficient accounting software, and you experience great gladness in filling that need.  Maybe your soul feels insatiably drawn to the hustle and bustle of Wall Street.  That’s great!  Because there is a near infinite number of needs or “hungers” in the world today, it is silly to be coerced by society into thinking one is more worthy or valuable than the other.  Therefore, my encouragement to you is to CELEBRATE your chosen hunger!  Only when you have come to embrace what this hunger is, confirmed by your “deep gladness”, will you come to discover your cherished topic.

Great.  Cherished topic detected.  Nailed it.  Now what?

Now it’s time to IDEATE (yes, that’s a word).  Once you have discovered a general idea of a direction in which to head, what do you do with that?  Jessica Munro, founder of Entrepreneurs by Design, has some thoughts.  In later sessions, I was privileged to be able to spend time with Jessica as she shared with us on how to create ideas that propel one towards their cherished topic.  Munro shared a lot about this topic, but for brevity’s sake I will condense it to one idea.  What most stood out to me in her message was the idea of the age old “work harder, not smarter”.  Munro proposed that often times the smartest thing one can do to produce new and creative ideas is to add disruption to your life. 

That’s right, go get disrupted.

For some this may mean blasting some Nirvana and pounding a couple of Red Bulls while jumping out of an airplane.  For everyone else, this means finding big or small ways to shake things up a bit, add some flavor to your life.  As they say, variety is the spice of life, and if all of the ideas you’re able to produce are bland and stale, maybe you could use a little “Jamaican-me-crazy” (if this spice has never entertained your taste buds, you haven’t lived).  In addition to this, Praxis co-founder David Blanchard added that in addition to placing oneself in an environment conducive to idea creation one must also “train your mind to ideate”, instead of just searching for good ideas.  To do this, one must spend time learning what good ideas look like.  Often times this comes from immersing yourself in the experiences and ideas of others.  Author Austin Kleon referred to the person who does this as a “scenius”, or one who produces what is perceived as “genius” ideas yet does so through the accumulation of the wisdom and creativity of numerous sources or “scenes” (for more on this idea I highly suggest reading his book Steal Like an Artist).

Finally, after the identification of your cherished topic, the intentional act of ideation, it’s time to DEVELOP your ideas.  Nardella imbued us with some parting wisdom based on her experience with the creation of Blood:Water Mission.  While filled with great triumph and success, the organization’s story is also filled with deep struggle and perseverance.  Nardella shared with us how she learned to operate in a manner she referred to as “slowly by slowly”.  Understanding that, contrary to the zeitgeist of our time, good things come more often than not with time.  If you are doing something that is worth doing and is worthy of your skillsets and abilities, it will take time and you will make mistakes. 

I am reminded of a keynote lecture I heard by Welby Altidor, the creative director of cirquedusoleil, where he encouraged creatives to design margin into their creative process by allowing and even structuring a reasonable margin for failure and mistakes.  I live by the mantra that any worthwhile success is built upon the foundation of failure.  In saying this, I must distinguish between dumb failure and smart failure.  I like to say that smart failure is when the first brave pioneer boldly bit into that poisonous mushroom and died.  Dumb failure is when his friend finished it for him. 

I remember quite strongly a post-adventure meeting with the outdoor youth organization I was a part of.  During our backcountry, winter adventure, one of our members had experienced a nearly tragic accident and came close to death.  After the trip, our leaders took the opportunity to instill us an extremely valuable life lesson: don’t live with NO risk, but rather KNOW the risk.  Developing your ideas in pursuit of your cherished topic should leave you constantly questioning whether you have actually have lost your marbles after all. 

As 184 of us departed from Biola University that Friday after a week of intense yet inspiring inspiration and information, I was left contemplating these thoughts of cherished topic.  What would be different if all of the world-changers out there took time to discover their cherished topic at the intersection of their deep gladness and the world’s great hunger, pursued ideas for working within that topic, and then slowly yet boldly developed them over time?  Careers aren’t made overnight just like visions aren’t honed in a week, so I boarded the bus with the anticipation for the future yet unknown.  While I’ve got a pretty good idea of my cherished topic (social impact design) and where I’m headed, you never know where the road will take you. 

So what is your cherished topic?  Feel free to comment below!

The Helpful Entrepreneur

When I was four years old I received my first Superman suit, summer edition.  My mom made it for me from a pair of blue athletic shorts and t-shirt, some red and yellow fabric and some Velcro (she is legendary at making a lot out of a little).  Soon I wanted nothing but to be that symbol of all that was good, noble, and powerful.  At the time, I didn’t realize what it was that so drew me to this superhero, nor did I care, but I was drawn.  The majority of my imaginative energy was spent pretending to be Superman, even after summer had ended.  So to keep me from freezing in the cold, damp, Wisconsin winters, mom was forced to design for me the winter edition.  Can anybody say “Blue sweats for days!”? 

            I think I was born to be a helpful entrepreneur.  That’s why Superman was (and still is) my inspiration.  If you think about it, that’s exactly what he is.  Just like any entrepreneur, Superman had a fire in his bones that prompted him to stand up and be the hero no one else could or would be.  He was a “helpful” entrepreneur because his motivation came not from his superhuman powers but rather the depth of his soul and his passion to serve those who most needed him.  His superpowers merely made him one of the fortunate, talented few who’s startup didn’t fail in the first year. 

             Fast forward a year or so to 1995.  I’ve always had a knack for creating solutions to problems (especially when pumpkin chocolate chip muffins were at stake).  At five years old, I was determined to show my neighbors how much we cared for them by helping them with anything, I didn’t much care with what.  That’s when I began my first “non-profit venture”: the Helpers Club (never quite got our 501(c)(3) status...).  The mission was bold, it was clear, it was powerful: “to help”.  I recruited all of my friends to join the newly formed Helpers Club.  Meetings were held in my room where a small group of poor five-year-old boys would fidget and eye the door, begging to be released from the overeager, disillusioned cage of their ambitious friend into the sunshine where they could play unrestrained by the burdensome club etiquette and rules I mandated (we were, after all, an official club).  Our first (and only) philanthropic endeavor was an afternoon spent picking weeds in our neighbor’s yard, all five of us.  Rather I should say we spent about 20 minutes picking weeds and the rest of the afternoon eating my mom’s freshly baked pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and watching movies downstairs while it slowly drizzled outside in the murky gray Midwest spring.

            There’s something about stories in which the protagonists overcome their physical restrictions and become “super” human, soaring through the air, moving objects with their mind, or crashing through buildings without a scratch that has always resonated deep within my soul.  You might say there’s always been a fire inside of me to “be the change I wish to see”.  It’s almost like the desire to be a superhero is in my DNA.  Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t turned into a pancake when a car tire ran over my chest at  two years old (true story).

 























 

            Now we jump to 2013.  At 13 years old, I am upset.  The source of my frustration is that I am two years too young for most of the jobs in our small, mountain town.  I knew I wanted to start earning money and working but I didn’t know how I could do that if I was too young to sign my W2, so I struck out on my first business venture: construction site cleanup.  I was very good at cleaning things and I wanted to badly to work in construction (it was manly, after all), so that seemed like a logical choice.  With this in mind, I made up my fliers and talked to my friends who had dads in construction, trying desperately to get connected somewhere.  While they all gave me plenty of pats on the back and words of encouragement, I also received a ‘No’ from them all (something about not wanting the liability of unemployed children walking around their job site and getting skewered with a rusty nail or bludgeoned with a falling board).

            Unfazed, I moved on to the next idea: car detailing, since cleaning came naturally to me.  Once again I made up my fliers, handing them out to everyone at church, nailing my first (and only) client!  While both of these ventures turned out to be quite disappointing for me, I wouldn’t be shaken. 

That’s when I (reluctantly) joined my 8th grade teacher on his own entrepreneurial business venture: door-to-door candle sales.  But not just any candle, mind you, but SOY candles.  Yes, soy candles.  I can still remember going door to door around my neighborhood, riding my bike down Whitefish Stage Rd. in the hot summer sun, just trying to make something for myself, no matter what the cost (I hated selling things).  I can still remember my proselytizing speech I would give: “Did you know that most candles are made out of paraffin wax?  Did you also know that paraffin wax is a waste product pulled from the bottom sludge of petroleum?”.  I made sure to emphasize the word “sludge”.  As I rehearsed for them my clever speech, I would pull out my array of wonderful, scented candles from my backpack, allowing their noses to meander through the forest of wonderful aromas, silently hoping they wouldn’t open the gardenia candle (I assure you that no gardenia EVER smelled that potent and abrasive).

            Several jobs and a few years later and I found myself in college, struggling, like most college students, to make it through school while not going completely broke (at least for too long).  School was tough and found I was unable to sacrifice much time to pay the bills.  That’s when a friend and mentor of mine asks me to consider giving his children karate lessons.  Naturally I loved teaching karate and I wanted to help my friend out, so I agreed.  I had taught martial arts for years before going to college but it was my first time teaching outside of my own academy.  So, once a week I would pretend I knew what I was doing, turning couch cushions into punching bags in the Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship house in which I lived, along with two dozen other college students.  While I would never have considered it a “startup”, it helped pay the bills.

            It’s now 2017.  I haven’t detailed a car other than my own, cleaned a construction site, or sold a soy candle in many years.  I do, however, still teach martial arts.  Ki-3 Karate (pronounced “KEY-three”) is a small, private martial arts school with REAL training equipment that operates underneath the LLC I created two years ago called Jacob Ideas, my outlet for creating and sharing my design, writing and teaching.  Sound pretty generic?  It is.  If you’ve ever had a junk drawer in your house for placing all of the stuff you didn’t know what to do with, that’s what Jacob Ideas is for me.  It’s what happens when you enjoy doing multiple, completely unrelated things like karate, 3d printing, writing, and architecture and want to figure out what to do with it all.  But I suppose that’s all part of the journey of self-discovery for a helpful entrepreneur.  I’ve watched enough Superman movies to know that he also didn’t have it all figured out when he first started out.  From learning to harness his superhuman powers to figuring out what his role was in a society that offered him no applicable role models for him to follow, it took Superman time to finally figure out his place, through trial and error with a couple of mistakes and bumps along the way.

            I’m far from the end of my helpful entrepreneurial journey, but if I’ve learned anything from Superman it’s that I’ve been gifted the desires and abilities I have for a reason.  I’ve come a long way through it all as I’ve learned more about myself, my abilities, and what it is I can offer the world.  There’s a lot I don’t know but there’s a few things I do know: I’ll always be an entrepreneur, I’ll always desire to help, and I’ll UNASHAMEDLY always love Superman. 

Three Steps to a Focused Life (Part 3: Good vs. Great)

(Note:  This is the final blog in a three-part series on helping you achieve focus in your life)

 

I’m sure we’ve all heard the phrase “herding cats” before.  For the sake of humor let’s take a moment now and visualize this metaphor.  You are in a green pasture full of rolling hills…and cats (the hills are rolling, not the cats…well, maybe some of the cats are rolling too, I don’t know…).  You’re a cat herder and your sole job is to herd these cats as a unified whole from one pasture to another, all while riding Bullseye, your loyal ranch horse, with nothing but a lasso and a whistle startling enough to give new meaning to the term “scaredy cat”. 

This is, of course, is a rather humorous metaphor that is meant to explain the futility of striving to manage too much at one time, hence achieving nothing but a feeling of stupidity and a few dozen scratches over your entire body.  It’s a funny thought but also a sad reminder of reality for many of us.  I would dare to say that the majority of the high achievers out there struggle with this “futile fumbling for felines”, though we may not realize it.

What I’m referring to is the challenge of resisting the temptation to overflow our lives with activities and commitments.  The struggle to say no to things in this day and age is very real.  For me, I know that I love to say ‘Yes’ to any and every opportunity that comes my way.  I feel that there are too many exciting opportunities in this world to say no to any of them. 

The thing is I know I’m not alone.

We live in a culture that has popularized the “both/and” mentality when making decisions.  Instead of having to choose between a healthy family life or working 80 hours a week we’re told we can have “both/and”.  In the past families had to choose one or two activities in which their children could participate but now you can have your cake and eat it too.  There are so many options available and the accepted pace of life is so fast that the word ‘discretion’ is virtually nonexistent in the realm of composing our schedules.

In his book ‘Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less’, author Greg McKeown calls out the elephant in the room with his proposition that that culture is wrong when it claims that only by doing more things can you achieve true fulfillment in life.  Nobody would dispute the fact that we all are granted only a finite amount of resources, which includes our time, money and mental, physical, and emotional energy, and if said resources are in limited supply, it goes without saying that the one seeking to maximize the effect of his or her assets ought to exercise extreme discipline and discretion in how those assets are spent.  McKeown puts it well when he states, “There are far more activities and opportunities in the world than we have time and resources to invest in.”  Architect and modernist Le Corbusier, along with the whole of the Modernist movement, advocated this idea of power in simplicity by popularizing the phrase, “Less is more”, a statement that has since become the mantra of those seeking to achieve focus, power, and beauty through the disciplined pursuit of less.

If you’re like me, all of this talk about doing less might start to make you break out in a cold sweat, but stay with me here!  It’s not like it sounds.  Before being disciplined in the pursuit of the one or two great things while sacrificing the ten good things, it is important to spend time in what some have called “the spaghetti phase”.  This is the phase where you’re trying everything and anything.  Sometimes it is impossible to know what our passions and giftings are without first exploring a multitude of options first.  Just as when one tests to see if spaghetti noodles are fully cooked, sometimes you need to just throw a bunch of things out there and see what sticks! 

Author Jim Collins explains this idea with a different metaphor when he says that it’s like the difference between firing a shotgun and firing a cannon.  A shotgun fires off multiple, tiny pellets that spread out the farther they fly, making a wide range of targets but not making much impact.  A cannon, on the other hand, hits a single target but with intense force.  Collins suggests firing your shotgun first in order to gain an understanding of where the targets are and which targets are worth pursuing.  Upon discovering the most strategic target(s), it’s time to fire the big boy! 

McKeown concurs with Collins, stating that those pursuing more effectiveness through less over commitment “systematically explore and evaluate a broad set of options before committing to any.  Because they will commit and ‘go big’ on one or two ideas or activities, they deliberately explore more options at first to ensure that they pick the right one later.”  This approach has been the majority of my experience with my own company Jacob Ideas, my personal outlet for sharing my ideas and design work with the world.  Because my interests are so widespread, ranging from teaching karate to designing 3D printed chess sets, I wanted to give myself the freedom to explore my interests, to try new things and see what maintained my curiosity and also showed promise for further investment.  Through this process of distinguishing the good parts of my business from the great parts, I’ve had to make choices, some of them quite painful, regarding what opportunities to pursue and what to let go.

Thankfully, I’ve discovered some handy tips and tricks along the way for figuring out what to let go and what to pursue.  The first and (in my opinion) most important tip for encouraging focus in our lives is to create a killer vision and mission statement for your life (see previous blog).  Vision and mission statements exist to provide clarity in where a person or organization should spend their efforts while simultaneously clarifying where they shouldn’t.  I created my vision statement to be very short and sweet:

“Maximize the effect of my God given assets on his Kingdom”

Obviously this statement was born out of the lens through which I view the world, but can you see the clarifying power it holds?  The key words in this statement are ‘maximize’, ‘effect’ and ‘assets’, and they all have the intent of reminding me that to make the type of difference in the world that I want to make requires being deliberate and intentional when choosing how to spend my limited amount of resources.  Now whenever I make a personal or business decision, I must ask myself if doing so will be the best use of the resources I’ve been given. 

Another great tip that I pulled from author and fitness guru Timothy Ferriss that has helped me learn how to focus on the great things is the importance of conserving one’s mental energy.  Ferriss makes the point that every decision we make requires a certain amount of mental energy, whether great or small.  He uses the example of choosing what to eat at a restaurant, a relatively unimportant decision that for many can turn into an exhaustive task!  While there isn’t a fuel gauge for measuring our mental capacity, Ferriss asserts that minimizing the time and energy spent on such trivial decisions actually allows greater reserves of energy for decisions that carry greater weight in your life.  In doing so, you are able to afford more attention and focus on whatever task is at hand instead of feeling mentally drained because of all the other decisions made previously that depleted your tank.  And when your mental energy tank is full, you are free to pursue the ‘great’ things in your life without being bogged down with the infinite amount of ‘good’ things (like whether you should get the roast duck with the mango sauce or a juicy medium rare T-bone steak).

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not share the humorous yet brilliant practice of author and activist Bob Goff.  Goff, in an attempt to continually cleanse his schedule of over commitment, turned Thursdays into “Quit Something Thursdays”, effectively giving himself the freedom and mandate to quit something every Thursday.  While this may or may not be directly applicable to you and your lifestyle, I find it a most ingenuitive form of continually monitoring one’s schedule in order to keep from falling into destructive habits.

Life is full of choices, and it always will be.  If we are to live our lives in a way that produces effectiveness and focus, we must learn to sacrifice the good for the great, for in the words of Jim Collins, “Good is the enemy of great.”  We can either choose to embrace all of the options that lie before us, the multitude of hobbies that pique our interest, the exorbitant amount of extracurricular opportunities to advance our careers, etc., or we can choose to go against the flow, to say no to the dozens of good things so that we can pour all of our heart and soul into the few or singular thing(s) that have proven to be truly ‘great’.  I would encourage you that, upon discovery of what those few great things are, pursue them with dogged persistence and let nothing stand in your way!  I’m reminded of a parable about a man who, upon finding a hidden treasure buried in the ground, returned home and proceeded to sell everything he had to buy that singular treasure. 

Clearly he understood the value of giving up the ‘good’ things to achieve the ‘great’ things.

In closing, let me leave you with a quote by one of my favorite authors, Andy Stanley: “Everybody ends up somewhere in life.  A few people end up somewhere on purpose.”

 

PS:  If you liked this post, have a question, or even disagree, leave a comment below!

 

Three Steps to a Focused Life (Part 2: Vision and Mission)

(Note:  This is the second blog in a three-part series on helping you achieve focus in your life)

 

In this second portion of the series, “Three Steps to a Focused Life”,  I feel that the next most important step after honing in on your passions is to explore the purpose and the value of a vision and mission statement for your life.  A wise man once said, “Where there is no vison, the people perish.”  Those words might seem like overkill to you, (I'm picturing bowling with a bulldozer right now), but I don’t think he's far from the truth.

            Hopefully you find yourself surrounded in life by positive people that encourage you and push you to be all that you can be, but I’m sure we’ve all encountered at least one naysayer who seemed to suck the very life from your soul.  These people tend to be very broken, people that once were full of piss and vinegar just like you, with dreams and ideals and aspirations!  But then life gave them one too many sucker punches to the face and they were “knocked out” of the ring. 

They lost their vision.

Now obviously we’re not talking about “sight” here.  No, vision is something much deeper.  No one can tell you that with more merit than architect Chris Downey.  Downey works as an architect and consultant for projects including eye centers, rehabilitation buildings, and transportation projects.  Christ is very good at what he does.

 

Chris is also blind.

 

After receiving surgery to remove a brain tumor, Downey lost his sight, but he gained something else: insight.  Downey’s take on the difference between sight and vision is that “vision is to see with more than just your eyes.”  It was his vision, not his sight, that he depended upon to get him through the dark night of the loss of one of his previously most active forms of sense. 

So if vision is different from simple sight, what does it mean?  We hear all the time about businesses having vision and mission statements, but I have a sneaking suspicion that most people, even the people who wrote the statements, don’t actually understand how they are meant to relate to one another. 

 

It’s like pounding a lemon with a couple of dashes of sugar on top and thinking it will taste like lemonade!

 

Before you create your own vision and mission statement, you must first understand what they are and their proper relationship.  Think of it in the context of taking a road trip.  Before you set off, you need to do two things: first, you must know where you want to go, and second, you must figure out how to get there.

Your vision statement is your destination.  It says “this is my ultimate goal”, nothing more, nothing less.  Economist and author Jim Collins says that well-conceived vision contains two major components- core ideology and envisioned future.  This means understanding and fully embracing who you are and the trajectory of you or your organization, whichever it may be. 

Another component, and what I consider to be the most critical, is simplicity.  Too often we try to cram every piece of information, every characteristic about the recipient of the vision statement, into the statement itself and it ends up looking like a deflated balloon.  Let me give you a few examples of the vision statements of several EXTREMELY successful companies and you’ll see what I mean:

 

·      Walt Disney:  To make people happy

·      3M: To solve unsolved problems innovatively

·      May Kay: To give unlimited opportunity to women

·      Nike: To experience the emotion of competition, winning, and crushing competitors

 

What kind of vision statement is “to make people happy”?  Doesn’t that seem too simplistic, like a child could have said it?  Exactly.  In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “To be simple is to be great.”  The irony of the simple is this: as the world has grown more complex, so has the desire for simplicity.  Authors Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger put it this way: “The amount of information accessible to us is continually increasing.  The ability to interact with the entire world is not possible…The result is a complicated world with complex and busy lives.  And, in the midst of complexity, people want to find simplicity.”  Why do you think Apple as a company has been so successful in what they've done?  They were able to take the complex and make it simple.  I can attest to this fact as I sit here writing this blog on my Macbook pro.  There is something powerful and calming about the simplicity of this machine, from its operation to its physical construction. 

Now that we understand the importance of being precise and specific in picking our destination (vision), it’s time to move on to understanding how to plan the route (mission).  If a vision statement is your purpose, a mission statement describes your process, or how you plan to achieve your purpose.  A powerful mission statement follows many of the same rules as the vision statement regarding power through simplicity and clarity.  An example of a powerful, supportive mission statement can be found at Venture Church in Bozeman, Montana.  Venture’s vision (their purpose) is “to help people take their next step spiritually”, and they do that through their mission statement (their process), which is “loving God, loving people, and serving others”.  If you ask just about anyone who has been around Venture for long, they’ll most likely be able to recite both the vision and mission of the church, which is more than most organizations with lengthy, difficult vision and mission statements can say about their members. 

If you’re wondering if your vision and mission statement are simple enough, think Geico: is it so easy a caveman could do it?

If you got this far, you’re well on your way to a focused life!  I promise you that developing a vision and mission statement for your life will be a very helpful step as you pursue more focus in your life.  But as I said in my last blog, good things take time.  Don’t rush this process.  Allow yourself the time you need to let ideas percolate before preemptively acting upon the first, unfiltered thoughts that come to mind.  And by no means is this blog an exhaustive resource for you as you formulate your own vision and mission statement.  There are innumerable resources out there that I suggest you check out, such as Jim Collin’s ‘Built to Last’ (or any of his books for that matter), or ‘Simple Church’ by Thom. S Rainer and Eric Geiger.  These are great resources for anyone who’s willing to buy into the power of simplicity. 

I look forward to sharing more about how to have a focused life in my next blog, so stay tuned!

 

 

PS:  If you liked this post, have a question, or even disagree, leave a comment below!

 

 

(Note:  For the final blog in this series, I will be explaining the value of giving up good things so that you can achieve great things.)

 

Three Steps to a Focused Life (Part 1: MaQuA)

(Note:  This is the first in a three-part series on helping you achieve focus in your life)

 

     How many people do you know that you can honestly say live their life with driven and focused intentionality?  My guess is you can count them on one hand.  But that’s because living with such manic clarity is extremely hard!  It means saying no to the nine good things so you can say “YES!” to the one great thing.  It means taking the long, painstaking amount of time to do deep soul searching and ask yourself what it is that sets you on fire, what grinds your gears, what keeps you awake at night. 

 

     If you’re like me, you often wrestle with confusion and discontentment because of the plethora of activities, sports, hobbies, career opportunities, and overall life paths that have been made available to us nearly everywhere we look.  Just think about it.  The possibilities are endless!  Technology is bringing business and communication to your very fingertips.  Try to think of the most obscure subject matter and there’s probably a book out there about it.  Want to travel the world?  Hop on a plane and be there in a day or less!  Given our current acceleration toward increased opportunities for growth and exploration, I think it’s safe to assume the number of possibilities will continue to grow.  That’s why it is becoming more and more important to live lives that are focused. 

 

     With that being said, you can’t live a focused life if you don’t know what to focus on, right?  But choosing something to spend your life’s energy on can be a daunting and, sometimes, scary task!  It’s no easy endeavor for sure, and you might find yourself asking yourself, “How do I know I’m picking the right path?”. 

 

Good question. 

 

     The first step in creating a focused life is to discover what motivates you.  Before you can ever put the pen to the paper testament of your life’s vision or mission, you must first search your soul.  Author Andy Stanley calls this step “Visioneering”.  He describes it as the process in which “ideas and convictions take on substance”, a journey of intentional living in which one “engineers their vision” by actively exploring their deepest desires and longings, the things that light a fire underneath them and make them want to get out of bed in the morning.  Whether it’ personal fitness, leadership development, or creating beauty through art, we all have something(s) buried deep inside us that can act as a compass as we navigate the tumultuous seas of life and the plethora of unknowns that they hold.  A good way to discover your key “motivators” is to make a list of jobs or opportunities you find that make you excited, such as joining the military, becoming an artist, moving to France, etc.  Once you’ve made your list, begin to ponder the items on your list and try to discover the key components within them.  These will probably be generic attributes like health, adventure, responsibility, etc.  Here’s a tip:

 

Don’t rush this!

 

     It’s important to give yourself time to think this through so that you discover your true motivators.  I had to walk through this process and it was a bit overwhelming initially.  I found myself being swayed by so many opportunities and job descriptions that sometimes I wasn’t sure I could ever choose one path!  I knew I loved architecture but I also loved travelling and going on mission trips!  I’ve always loved music so I thought being a musician sounded pretty fun.  I’m also a big fan of fitness and martial arts (SIDENOTE: most people don’t know this but if I hadn’t become an architect I probably would have either joined the military or become a personal trainer).  I felt that there were just too many options for me to pick the right one. 

 

However, as I began to look deeper into WHY I wanted to do these things, I eventually came up with three primary motivators: Mission, Quality and Adventure.  I made the acronym MaQuA to help me remember (isn’t that an awesome acronym?!  I’ve always thought it could be the name of a cool French one-hit-wonder pop band, or a blue drink that comes in a giant glass with a tiny pink umbrella…but I digress).

 

Let me explain why I picked these three specific motivators:

 

· MISSION- I’ve discovered that serving what I consider to be a greater good in this world is the most important factor in contributing to my level of fulfillment in life.  I experience great levels of satisfaction when I know my work is contributing to improving education, helping those in need, making people feel valued, etc.

· QUALITY- All work is a balancing act of different variables such as speed, quality, and cost.  I have a passion for quality.  I want the work I do to be excellent, to make the one experiencing it feel valued and uplifted.

· ADVENTURE- I am a born learner and experiencer.  I can’t get enough of life!  I want to learn new languages, try new foods, explore strange lands.  I seek adventure and need it to be an integral part of my life and work.

 

     Once I discovered MaQuA, so many things began to make sense to me!  I understood why I wanted to design architecture all over the world and why I didn’t like the idea of doing good things for those in need but doing it with poor quality.  It’s almost like I had gotten a DNA test and found out who I really was, deep down.  I began to worry less about the vast amount of fleeting opportunities I discovered and focused more on what would fulfill me at my very core.  Now I know that whatever job I pick or adventure I choose has to be loaded with MaQuA!

 

 

 Having a litmus test to distinguish between “okay” opportunities

and “the BEST” opportunities is essential if we seek to maximize our potential.

 

 

     If you’re reading this, I’m going to take a guess that you don’t want to waste your limited time on this rock we call earth.  Life is a gift and you have the opportunity to influence it. 

 

PS:  If you liked this post, have a question, or even disagree, leave a comment below!

 

(Note:  In my next blog, I will be diving into the importance of creating a vision and mission statement for your life)