Kevin Tumlinson's Blog, page 10

expectationism

Things don't always turn out the way you blue bird in that tree outside my window.

But that's the point, isn't it? Life ... it's like it was meant to be unpredictable and unknowable. Yeah, we can predict and know a lot of the bits that are a granular part of this nutritious existence, but we can never see the whole. We don't have the perspective. Ain't no mountain high enough.

We set ourselves on a path, with every intention of just keeping one foot in front of the other, only to discover that the path itself is moving. We thought we were walking in one direction, when all along the path was taking us in another. In fact, we weren't walking at all. We were being carried, the whole time. We were essentially marching in place.

I believe in choice, and purpose, and goals. I believe that you can't have success without those. But God is teaching me that I can only choose and plan so far ahead. I can choose the next step. I can pick the next direction, the next distant goal. But I can't determine the journey as a whole with my "planning." Life happens way too often for that.

Recently I've watched my amazing wife deal with changes to her plans. And, just as she (and me, too) was thinking, "OK ... that didn't work out, so I'll pick this direction instead," it all changed again. And then, quicker than we could blink, it all changed AGAIN, and even the small bit of planning she'd committed to was shot, worth nothing. Ferriss Bueller was right, life does move pretty fast some times. It's like a slight of hand trick, and in the end your wristwatch ends up in someone's bag of Doritos, and you're asking, "How'd that HAPPEN?!?"

The most important thing about expectations is how you deal with them when they aren't met. 

Right now, I have a vision for myself—for my career, for my marriage, for my physical fitness. I'm making plans, and I'm acting on them. I'm praying that all these plans will glorify God, because that's the rule of my life now. And even as I'm planning, I have this awareness, tickling at the confident bits of my soul, that these plans, too, shall pass. Tomorrow I might have to improvise, because everything I thought was anything is anything but everything now. 

That's the point, though. When God says "have faith," it's not just a command to "shut off all your thinking and let me drive." It's about choices, really. It's about choosing to stand back from the plans you had, the expectations you were cultivating, and say, "OK. I planned, God. You laughed. So what's next? How do I serve you with the next choice I make and the next action I take?" And then you shut up and listen.

Advice even I should consider taking.

 

 

encouragmentacity

Today I got a word of encouragement.

So it's a funny thing, but I don't actually take encouragement well. I mean, I'm grateful for it. Love it, actually. I do like knowing that I'm doing well, that I'm appreciated. It makes all the difference in the world.

But what I mean is, I don't have a canned response for taking a real, genuine compliment. I can accept praise for something I've created. I can quip about deadlines or workload, and the super heroics needed to master both. I have responses for almost any casual question you can ask. But tell me you're proud of me? Man, I nearly dissolve into a blubbery mass.

We don't always know just how desparately we need that word of encouragment. Just a simple, "I think you're doing a great job" is enough to turn the tide and make a day go from so-so to so-yeah!

And maybe it's good that I don't have a canned response for that. It has a deeper impact. It means the praise is genuine, and therefore more heartening.

Sometimes we start to feel that no one is noticing those little things we do throughout the day. The "get by" syndrome we all seem to live in tends to make us numb. We forget that, just like our kids or our friends or our spouses, we need to hear something good about ourselves, too. If we don't, we start to doubt, somewhere inside, that we're doing things right. We start to wonder what everyone is saying about us, and we become more and more certain that it's not good.

God has a word for us, I think. Our problem is we don't spend enough time listening for Him. We get into our own heads, our own routines, our own funk, and we forget that there's a voice there, calling gently, saying that He loves us.

Don't forget that. You're loved. Really. Truly. Without doubt. And if you need that word of encouragement in your life, I can honestly tell you ... you are wonderful. You are beloved. Thank you thank you thank you for being YOU. God loves you. I love you. And you are doing an absolutely fantastic job with your life.

the Yahoo mistake your startup can't make

Here's a shocker: The Web changed everything.

You've heard that before, mostly about 10+ years ago. Actually, over the past 20 years the Web has become such an integral part of our lives that it's hard to imagine life without it. I can't even remember how I managed to drive from one place to another before Google Maps. And how did I satisfy personal curiosity before the sum of all human knowledge was literally at my fingertips? Am I the only one who gets stressed out when watching old movies, wondering why no one is checking their iPhones?

There's such an immediacy to everything now. Take this blog post, for example. I just sat down and started typing. In a few minutes I'll hit "Save & Close," and this thing will go public. It will post to my website, then the RSS feed will be picked up by the service that pushes it to my social media channels. Within half an hour it could be read by hundreds, thousands, heck maybe millions (a fella can dream), who only a couple of decades ago would have to wait for it to appear in their paper or in a magazine, weeks or months after it was written. 

I DID write for papers and magazines back then, you know. Stop scoffing!

Along with the immediacy—the increased expansion of "reachability" that content producers have—there's been a simultaneous decrease in limitations of distance. I'm sitting in an office in Houston, but you may be reading this from a bedroom in Paris or a ski slope in Colorado or a men's room in Chicago (hi there). 

Recently, Yahoo and Best Buy decided to pull in their remote work force. They have their reasons, and likely a room full of well-paid, brilliant minds that can explain, to the decimal, exactly why this is a good move for these companies. I can only come at it from the perspective of the lowly marketing consultant and copywriter.

It's a mistake. 

Pulling in the troops means increasing overhead. It means cutting yourself out of the worldwide pool of brilliant experts that are only an inbox away. It means limiting your access to a broader canopy of ideas and experiences, and drastically reducing your ability to innovate.

The good thing about Yahoo and Best Buy is that they are established brands, powerful enough to correct for a mistake once they see it impacting the bottom line. So by no means do I believe this is the end for either company, unless they stubbornly hold on to what they're planning. A bigger issue is that many smaller companies are watching, and may follow Yahoo's lead.

DISASTER. The only real advantage that startups and small- to mid-sized businesses have is their flexibility and adaptability. Having access to the larger pool of talent made available by technology gives them the ammunition and the arsenal they need to be competitive. Keeping everything "in-house" has been the death knell for more companies than I could possibly name.

There is no way to predict what will happen with Yahoo and this drive to bring everybody home from the wilds. It may work very well for them. They do have the advantage of being a known brand with a lot of backing. People may uproot and move closer to Yahoo offices worldwide, just for the opportunity to be a part of the company. More likely, from my perspective, is that those talented people Yahoo depends on, who could balance work and family life before because they worked from home, are going to be on the lookout for a chance to jump ship, first opportunity they get.

And because they ARE talented people from Yahoo, with a proven track record for working remotely, they'll likely find that opportunity sooner rather than later. Contracts and golden handcuffs be damned.

So Yahoo loses some of its top talent, and the industry gains it by simply offering the chance for a balanced work/home lifestyle. Does it really cost Yahoo that much time and productivity for people to communicate via Skype or IRC or email or the million other ways we communicate online? As far as I can tell, most office buildings are crammed full of people who are mostly doing anything they can to get through the day so they can get back to their families and homes ... the real point of working, actually.

If someone is not producing, you let them go. If they miss deadlines, you let them go. If they are not collaborating effectively, you let them go. Or better yet, you train them, incentivise them, get them on the same page, and let them go if they can't manage that. It's really very simple, and cost effective. It doesn't matter WHERE people work. It matters that they produce.

If your business is more focused on keeping people within sight than with results, you're going to have a very tough time. Focus on metrics, and adjust your strategy according to those results, and you will succeed. It's worked for thousands of billion-dollar companies. It will work for your small startup. Don't worry about where your people are. Don't worry at all. Just make a plan, make your expectations clear, demand quantifiable results, and prepare to change your strategy based on what you're seeing. That's the formula. It works.

To Yahoo, all I can say is, good luck. I personally see this as a chance to quietly dismiss a large number of employees, without having to lay them off. It's smart, really, from a certain perspective. But it's not right. It is, in fact, wrong. No shade of grey there. This is the wrong move, and it will have a cost, even if that cost can't be predicted at the moment.

For startups and small businesses ... there are going to be some very talented former Yahoo employees looking for new opportunities very soon. Go get 'em.

 

changeocity

I'm thinking about change a lot this morning.

It happens. Sometimes we don't get much of a choice in the matter. And at that those times we have a tendency to push back. We like forward trajectory, after all. We like to continue momentum. Change means discomfort, effort, anxiety.

Even good change can bring on a little bit of a panic attack. Having a baby? Getting a new job? Having corrective surgery? 

How we deal with change is the very definition of our character. If you want to test who you really are, who it is that lurks deep within the folds of your brain, what the color of your soul may be, change is your chance. Nothing will tell you more about you than you during times of change.

I like deliberate change. Those changes you've planned, plotted, strategized, chosen. You don't get many of those ... well, you get as many as you want, but most people tend to avoid deliberate change.

I'm like that. Or I have been, most of my life. I flow with whatever's happening around me, adjust to it—bellyache about it, but mostly just go with it. I've spent a considerable amount of my time on Earth just waiting things out. You could almost call it patience, if I weren't so busy complaining about it.

The thing, the idea, that I've come to, though, in my daily thinking, in my new perspective on the world, is that change is meant to be deliberate. We are meant to choose and grow. God built us to be choosing, changing machines. 

I picked up an adage somewhere along the way: "See a task, do a task." See a job that needs to be done? Do that job. See some trash on the floor? Pick it up. See someone who needs help? Help them. 

I don't always get that right, but I try to at least tip the balance into upper 50% territory. 

That's one way, on a moment-by-moment basis, that we can effect deliberate change in our lives, and in the lives of others. I think that comes from the highest command we've been given, which is to love each other like we love ourselves. 

How good at it are were going to be? Not so good. We're going to fail. You probably know that, instinctively. See, that's the point though, isn't it? You know, without doubt, that you aren't always going to do the right thing, make the right choice, take the right path. But you make the effort anyway. You make the choice anyway. And then, things REALLY start to change. 

There's another adage: "Be the change you want to see in the world." I like it. It's nice and positive. It's not a bad way to live. It's, again, the choice you make every moment of every day. 

Change is going to happen. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. It's almost always anxiety-inducing. But how we deal with change is the test of our character that we need to set a few benchmarks and goals, to find the leaks in our character, to start making choices and start making change a more deliberate part of our lives. 

Choosing would be nice for a change.

responsibilitation

The hard part about being responsible is sometimes you have to take responsibility for something you may not necessarily feel responsible for. Let that one spin around in your noodle for a bit.

Arguments. Who needs 'em? Nobody, that's who. And sometimes we have them even when we don't know what we're really fighting about. And I'd be willing to bet, if we could do some sort of study, that "we don't know what we're really fighting about" more than likely fuels a high percentage of the arguments we have. 

In the past 24 hours I've taken responsibility for two very different arguments. For both, I didn't particularly feel that I was the cause, that I had instigated, that I had provoked. But it hit me at some point (maybe about two sentences ago ... sometimes I'm slow on the up-tick), I may not be the CAUSE of the argument but I am, somehow, RESPONSIBLE. It has somehow fallen to me to resolve the conflict, to make the apologies, to smooth the ruffled feathers. Because I can. 

My first instinct, when I realize this, is to think, "Why should I?"

I don't want to. I want to storm out, log off, slam a door, click "block user" or a dozen other things that could be "solutions," could absolve me of responsibility, could end the argument without me having to bend or take a bruise to the ego or feed some future justification for arguing with "evidence" of me having once been in the wrong.

That's unfair. And unfair ... that rankles me. I have this inflated sense of "justice," but it apparently weakens as it radiates further from me, here at the center. Justice for all, but mostly Kevin.

Thing is, I've taken on a role of leadership in my life. The adage is, "Leaders are made, not born." Made by choices, made by decisions, made by actions, made by responsibility. You can choose to be a leader, even if no one wants to follow you. This is the route Kevin has chose. He speaks of himself in the third person so that it sounds as if at least ONE person is following him. 

And if I'm going to be a leader, I have to take on the onus of leadership, the responsibility that comes with the gig. Sometimes, the leader has to bear the brunt of the ego bruising and injustice. The range of the leader's "justice field" has to increase, radiate further out. If you're going to be a leader, you're going to have to ditch pride and take more responsibility.

God makes it clear that leadership is what we're doing here. Leading in our family lives, leading in our communities, leading in our own inner thoughts and struggles. Leading means being responsible, even when it's unfair.

Arguments. I hate 'em. I am not a big fan of conflict, and my primary tool for dealing with it is avoidance. But I can't do that. Avoiding it means saying, "This isn't my responsibility." It means I'm a follower, not a leader. So it's up to me to step in, to diffuse, to apologize, to suck it up and acknowledge, to myself, that even if I don't think I'm in the wrong, the only way to be in the right is to be the peacemaker, the bringer of justice, the equalizer of joy, the responsible one. 

That's not easy. It never will be. And the only way it works is if I surround myself with people who can be my strength and guidance when I need it. That's what God was going on about, with the whole "fellowship" thing. One thread is weak, many threads, woven together, can be strong. 

So what is being a leader, after it's all said and done? It's being a part of greater leadership. It's being responsible, even when you don't think you are, and it's being a part of a strong rope woven of other leaders. Leadership isn't meant to be a lonely, solitary role. It's meant to be a fellowship. It's meant to be a community. Every thread carries its own weight, but helps, too, to carry the weight born by all the other threads.

That's what leadership means. Time for me to start weaving. 

whonicity

Do you know who you are?

 

realocity

I shouldn't write a blog post just to write it. 

That's the conclusion I came to about two minutes ago, right before I highlighted every scrap of text I'd written and hit "delete." It was a good piece, about regret and decisions and making up for mistakes. But it wasn't really from the heart, ya know? It was me trying on a voice. Me trying to be someone I'm not.

Sometimes I write things that are heartfelt and, miraculously, inspirational. I see it when it happens. I feel it. And that gets me all jazzed up. 

"Yeah!" I think. "I'm good at this! I can motivate people! I'll be an inspiration!"

That's me up there, putting my own ego and motives above what God wants from me. I'm not exactly glorifying God with that kind of post. I'm glorifying me.

I don't plan my blog posts. Not really. I write whatever pops into my head, or I post an image I think is funny or a video I think is inspirational. I don't have any sort of organized plan concerning this blog. It's me. Brain dumped, gettin' all wordy widdit, doin' that voodoo that I do so well. I like writing. LOVE writing. I like to jazz things up, make things fun and exciting, inform and inspire and occasionally enrage. 

But when I pretend ... when I write something that's hollow and uninspired and disconnected, when I write something that's meant just to push some false image of me to the reading public, that's when it sucks.

Lately I've written several posts that come from a spiritual place within me. That's God talking, not me. That's God, doing the voodoo the He do so well. Reaching out through this wretched sinner of a Wordslinger, reaching past the goo and bile of my ego and self-centered interests, and saying something to the world that counts, that matters. God gave me a skill and a talent and a passion, and when He uses it there's nothing but AMAZING there. When I use it, for my own selfish agenda, there's nothing there at all.

What I want, the earnest desire of my heart, is to write and fulfiill God's will in my life. I want to touch others. I want to inspire. I want to entertain and motivate and move. I want to create that thing, that ineffable thing that God has placed on my heart, that burning desire I can't even define, and I want to spread it wide and far and deep in the world. 

And I can't do that if I'm writing a blog post just to write it.

I made a commitment a week ago. I want to post something on this blog every day. There will be days I miss, I know. There will be days when I repost something from social media, or post a picture I created or a YouTube video I found, or an excerpt from one of my books, or an article on online TV programming, or an open letter to a restaurant, or a million other things. I just want to make sure, make absolutely sure, that what I'm posting is real, that it counts, that it MATTERS. That it's me. And that, above all, always above all, it's glorifying the God who created me, and who rules in my life.

You have no idea how hard it is to write a sentence like that. Honest. I think that I feel some sort of weird "shame" about it. Like I'm afraid I'll offend a large swathe of my friends and my readers. I'll somehow turn people off to me. They'll scorn me, ridicule me, toss me aside.

Good! SO good! I need that. I want that. I've been promised that with that sort of scorn and ridicule, in God's name, I will be blessed. The shame? That's something I need to deal with, because it's not real. It's not me. It's not right.

Thanks for reading. I have to tell you that. I appreciate it. I love you for it. I hope that somehow I touch you, and I help you. But you touch me and help me, by reading and commenting and just being who you are. God bless you. Thank you. I wouldn't do it if you weren't here, reading it. 

And I promise, I will try with every post, every book, every article, every word I write to ensure that it is always something from within me, something that glorifies God, something that is real. No lies. No posts just to post. Always from the heart.

patiencity

Patience isn't the kind of thing I've spent a lot of time cultivating. Doesn't move fast enough for me. 

Get it?

But it is something I've seen as a weakness in my character. And with it comes a whole slew of stuff that I have to fight to overcome or apologize for after. I can be a jerk to people, when I'm annoyed. As my wife puts it, I "go for the throat." I don't just bite, I try to tear people apart for daring to offend me. 

And there could be a long line of things for me to deal with, spiritually and emotionally, before I'm free of that kind of reaction. But I think somewhere near the top of that list is patience.

This morning I was sitting at a light. 

Oy. I could break off into a tirade about this, because it wasn't JUST a light. It was a light made of stone. It was a light frozen in time. It was a light that, despite the very NATURE of light, was a solid presence in my morning, going nowhere. As cars whizzed by me on my right, free as birds, and as no traffic whatsoever passed on my left, I sat at this turn signal, waiting. Aging. Becoming furious.

My first instinct? "I should write to the city about this thing. I should stand out here some day and shoot some video, showing how many cars stack up, how long it takes. I should get a pellet gun and take a pop shot at this thing! I should drive my truck into the pole! I SHOULD SMASH! KEVIN SMASH!"

I'm a writer ... coming up with absurdly over-the-top scenarios is what I do.

Thing is, I had also just spent the morning reading about change, about how God wants to live within us, and what it means to surrender to Him. I had prayed and asked, point blank, that God would give me plenty of opportunities to change my attitude, from negative to positive. I had actually awoken this morning thinking about something that I could always rely on, in the past, to get me riled up and angry, and I had prayed then and there for the strength and courage and wisdom to stop, to choose a different reaction, to focus on something good instead of something that robs me of thought and power.

And here I was at this light.

I could feel the knot tightening. That old, familiar knot that binds me up pretty good when I'm angry. I could feel the tension. The sickness in the pit of my stomach. The muscles pulling in my neck. I was getting mad. I was starting to get impatient. 

And then I saw it.

Past that light ... literally in the same eye line, but just beyond, was the sunrise.

Clouds rippled, and sunlight blazed through patches, but it was the gradients of color that made it so ... so ...

Stunning. 

Reds. Purples. Blues. Yellows. Hues and shades, gradients and hints of color. It was a panorama of beauty, stretching out bigger than I could take in all at once. It was glory and power and movement. 

And even though I as looking in the exact direction I'd been looking a moment before, I no longer saw the stop light. Instead I saw the light of the day. And in that instant I shifted from "KEVIN SMASH!" to something ... different. Peaceful. Patient. Happy.

The knot loosened, along with the muscles in my neck and shoulder and jaw. The sick twist in my stomach unraveled and faded. The building rage turned into a lighthearted laugh. Just like that. 

All it took was looking past the obstacle to a wide open world.

I want to start looking past the obstacles that are in front of me, and to the wide open world beyond. I'm looking past the little light and into the bigger light. I'm looking past what stops me and into all the potential I have ahead of me. 

I know that not everyone who reads my stuff is a Christian. Some of my friends are vehemently atheist. Dedicated atheist, really. And in my time with them, I never push them to believe, because I think it's up to them. God will call, but we answer. It's a two-part process. And the command I have from my Lord is to love everyone like I love myself. I fail at that, oh yes. I'm BAD at that. I have a critical spirit that's fueled by vanity and ego and narcissism. But I recognize the command and power of one who is greater than me by far. And I saw that in evidence this morning. I see it every day. Noticing it ... that's a different story.

But I hope that right now, if you are one of those friends who doesn't believe, that maybe you might hear a tiny voice, feel a tiny tug. Maybe. Maybe. Or maybe not. But if you are stuck, and can't focus on anything but the obstacle in front of you, then whether you will believe in God or not, I hope you'll take one of His lessons as your own. Look past the thing that's blocking you, and look into the wide open world beyond. Look in the direction you want to go, not at the thing that keeps you where you are. 

how to change the world with a DVD burner

Watch this video. Share this video. And be in awe of this video.

The world just changed.

 

simplicitude

[image error]Midnight Man, Kid Speedo, and the Swashbuckler. Behold our might!Yesterday my friend Rick posted a couple of photos of me and our friends from "back in the day." I had an uncanny ability to wear sunglasses in every photo. But beyond that, I was looking at this younger, much more clueless version of myself and I thought, "Those were simpler times." 

And maybe they were, in some ways. But after giving it some thought this morning I realized that at that point I was looking back at photos of an even YOUNGER Kevin and thinking, "THOSE were simpler times." I'm pretty sure there was a point at which I was in diapers, looking at finger-painted self portraits, thinking, "those were sure simpler times, five minutes ago."

I don't think any of our times are really "simple." We had different issues, and different levels of complexity, but in the moments we live them, every moment is kind of hectic. There are good times and there are bad times, and it's our perspective that makes them so.

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a hell of heaven and a heaven of hell." 

-Paradise Lost

That quote from "Paradise Lost" sums up a few hundred years of self improvement advice. How we think, at any given moment, is how we see the world. So that moment, when we were 20 and hanging with our friends, seems pretty breezy and free to us at 40, but at that time may have been tinged with worries like, "Am I going to find someone? Will I find a job? Will I pass Finals?" It didn't seem so simple, back then.

It's not going to be as easy as telling yourself, "this too shall pass." But there has to be something to this idea that nothing is permanent, and that the issues we face right now aren't going to be issues forever. Maybe we have to constantly remind ourselves of it. Maybe it's a mantra we have to repeat in the face of every negative thought. Sometimes that's what it takes.

So I think I'll take a deep breath and look at my life right this second and say, "Those were simpler times." And who knows? Maybe I'll start to believe it, and maybe it will be true. And one day, years from now, I can look at a photo and think, "Wow, that's where all the simpler times started."