Author: Ricardo

I feel like I over-exerted my brain. I am, as they say, brain-fried.

One of the nice things about being brain-fried is that you hardly notice you are brain-fried. The realization tends to come when you try to think about something heady and worthwhile. You try, but you can’t. Your head might hurt (as mine does). At minimum, your thoughts are foggy. You might call them murky, at best. Try as you might, your thoughts don’t race. It’s more like they schlep their way through your boggy mind.

Another nice thing about being brain-fried is that it is usually a good indicator that you have exerted considerable emotional energy in some activity that required your full, undivided attention. This is a good thing. Sure, you may have gone down in flames, but you were 100% “there”…fully invested in whatever you were doing. And chances are that the pursuit of…whatever it was that you were doing…was in some way vital to your life. Few things demand more of you than the work of your life.

The opportunity to spend 4 out of the last 7 days working as hard as I have on exercising skills that I consider newly-emerging has been an incredible blessing. The two venues that presented themselves to me were different, with different players, different desired outcomes, and different requirements. The scope of each engagement was drastically different. The number of people I worked with was different. The results were different, and the levels of success attained were different. Each was so completely different from the other…

Yet, together, they were the same: opportunities to move others towards achieving a common goal. The stakes are high when you raise your hand and tell another that you can help them facilitate a challenging conversation, but, when successful, the reward…the reward is invigorating.  Brain-fried and invigorated…what a pair.

In case you were wondering, in the short term “brain-fried” prevails.

When you go outside on a typical hot, muggy Puerto Rican night, you are greeted by the chirping sounds of the unofficial ambassador of Puerto Rico, the coqui.

The coqui is a small tree frog that lives all over the island of Puerto Rico. Modern myth says that the coqui is unable to live anywhere else in the world but Puerto Rico.  While romantic, it is a common misconception.  Stories are told of failed attempts to maintain coqui’s in captivity elsewhere, failed attempts at keeping them as pets, and failed attempts at transplanting them to other tropical locals. In fact, the coqui has invaded the Hawaiian Islands and is a source of great consternation for many of its inhabitants.

The coqui is a difficult animal to keep alive in captivity because it is very attuned to the climate of Puerto Rico. There is popular poem , “El Oracion del Coqui” or “The Prayer of the Coqui,” in which the coqui begs God to take care of the coqui’s little Caribbean island because, “As you well know, I cannot live anywhere but here.” There is nothing more symbolic of the heart and soul of Puerto Rico than the coqui.

 I am not an economist.  I do not pretend to be well-versed in financial matters.  I have an MBA, but I can’t say that I’ve grasped the micro and the macro of it.  What I have always known is that indefinite growth is impossible and that an expanding economy isn’t sustainable.  Duh, right?  We all sort of figured that one out.

What, then, should become the new measure of economic value?  How do we measure success?  For decades, growth and profit have been the Holy Grail of individual business and of the larger economy.  But if we can all agree that growth doesn’t last forever and that the quest to push the envelope of growth will only lead to compression, collapse, and contraction, then what model should we hold up for the developing nations of the world, for the emerging economies?  

It troubles me that, as we export jobs to the developing world in the hopes of lowering the cost of production and providing services, these receiving economies begin to grow.  They begin to take on the characteristics of our old ways.  They begin the pursuit of what will ultimately become unsustainable growth.  So, are we just exporting a failing, untenable vision of economic success?  Are we pushing these fragile economies towards a model that can only end in disaster?

Is there another way?

I don’t know.  I’m not an economist.  I simply observe and wonder aloud if we can define a new measure of success…

I know that this is probably a really unpopular, potentially offensive thing to say, and I will say it anyway. I don’t go out of my way to support breast cancer research because, at this point in my life, my time and resources are limited. Since my time and resources are limited, then I have to take a hard look at where I spend both of them. When I take that look, I observe that a lot of people dedicate both their spare time and resources towards breast cancer research and awareness. It’s a topic that is very much in the public eye. So, I can take a step back and look elsewhere.

Like to research into Rett Syndrome. I have a personal connection to Rett Syndrome, so that explains my primary motivation. I also know that it’s not exactly a disorder about which most people are aware. So, I see it as my obligation to lend whatever support I can into research. It’s a personal choice, of course, and I think that the resources I direct towards Rett Syndrome are needed more because there are fewer people contributing. There are all kinds of rational reasons for why I’m misguided, I am sure. Where you focus your energy and resources, though, isn’t exactly a rational, objective science.

Similarly, I find myself leaning towards other organizations and the work that they do because of a personal connection that initially drew my attention. Once the personal connection is made, then I assess the value of my contributions. Does what I do make a difference? Can I find a niche where my unique talents can be leveraged? Will my monetary contributions be used in a manner that aligns with my personal philosophies and convictions? Is there an opportunity to affect the greater good? The answers to all these questions (and others) do not have to be “yes.” I just have to say “yes” to enough of them. Take Acumen Fund, for example. I was moved by a personal appeal. I was persuaded by what I read online. I was sold by the passion and conviction of the people who work for the organization. No science here, just art, feeling. It really comes down to emotions, doesn’t it? Why pretend I am wholly rational when we are, by nature and design, not rational creatures?

I am, by no means, one of the great philanthropists of the world. My life is unfolding in such a way, though, that I recognize that my time, energy, and coffers are needed in ways that I have yet to contribute. This is why I am here. This is why I am writing this. It is not all about dollars and cents and cans of green beans dropped off at the local food bank. All of those are needed. But your time, energy, and, most importantly, love are needed more than anything else. 

Dollars fuel the machine, but love sets the course.

Share your love.

It’s not that I feel any more important today than I did yesterday.  It’s not that I feel like my purpose for existing is any more clear to me.  It’s not that I have figured out any of life’s great mysteries.

The difference is in believing that I can.  I just can.  Period.

It’s not delusional.  It’s not overly optimistic.  It’s not idealistic.  What it is…well, is true.

I can.

I can because it’s not hard.  I can because there is no reason not to.  I can because there are courses of action to which I am called, and if I am called then I am meant to.  I can because there is no reason to fear.

I can because maybe nobody else will, and, my friends, that would be a tragic shame.

I can.

Can you?  

I sure hope that you do.

 Some days, you just have to go see a contemporary jazz dance performance just for the sake of going to see a contemporary jazz dance performance.  Why not?  When was the last time you did that?  Maybe last week.  Maybe never.  Regardless, it’s something that you can say you’ve done after you’ve been to one.

See?  That was easy.  I just had an enriching life experience.  No TV.  No DVD.  No internet video.  I sat in a seat next to my wife and watched a contemporary jazz dance performance.  I enjoyed it.  She gave me tickets for Christmas.  We watch “So You Think You Can Dance” together when it is on.  She knows I love the show, so she bought me tickets to see a real dance performance.  

It was awesome.  The dancers got sweaty.  You could hear them breathing heavy, grunting.  You could hear their feet drag across the stage.  They played cool music.  Some of the music was dudes beat-boxing.  My wife laughed because it reminded her of our little guy.  He likes to drop beats.  He does it in class.  We all refer to it as just another song in the soundtrack of his life.  He sometimes makes me think of the movie “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.”  He just doesn’t have a band following him.  He does it himself.  So, when my wife said that about the music at the performance, I thought about my son and the movie, and I laughed.  Inside, of course.  

The dancers reminded me that we all have gifts, we all have art.  We want to give it.  We need to give it.  Why else would they spend a Friday night sweaty and panting and jumping around on a stage to an audience that didn’t even all stay around for the second half.  For a paycheck?  Sure, money is good.  We need it to live like everyone else in this country.  But the paycheck is a benefit.  What I watched on that stage reaffirmed what I know to be true: the pursuit of dreams and of passion trumps all else.  All things pale in comparison.  I felt blessed to partake in that gift.

So, thank you to those wonderful dancers in the North Shore Dance Company.  You really made me day.  

And thank you to my beautiful wife for such a thoughtful and meaningful gift.

 On the drive home today, I was thinking about Haiti and how frustrated I feel that I can’t do something tangible, something real, that has to do with healing.  There is going to be so much hurt, so much pain, for months and years to come.  We’ll forget about these people, go on with our lives, and still there will be so much to do.  So, I started crying.  My chest feels like it’s going to explode.  I just feel so connected to this, and I can’t figure out why.

Connected.  Interconnected.  We are all one.  The Dalai Lama wrote about a Buddhist image that illustrates interconnectedness.  Imagine a vast, celestial net.  At the intersection of every rope on the net, there is a jewel.  It’s a pristine, beautiful jewel.  It has many facets, and it reflects everything around it with brilliant clarity.

You are that jewel.

And in you there is the reflection of every other jewel in the net, in the web.

Every single other jewel.

That is interconnectedness.

So, I am going to keep on this path.  My oldest son gave me a Clifford the Big Red dog to send to Haiti.  I have a contact willing to make room for this one dog.  Someone handed me a plush Tigger today.  My mother is sending me a check for $25.  There are orphans arriving in the US, more to come every day.  There were about 400,000 of them in Haiti before this.  

I am just one man.  I can’t save the world, so don’t get pissed at me for not plunging into every cause out there.  If it means that much to you, go do it yourself.  Don’t wait.  Be vital.  Be indispensable.  Save a life.  Change a life.  I’ll do this.  You can join me.  Or you can pick up your own standard.  Or you can ignore me.  

I don’t care.  I have work to do.  I asked God for a miracle.  Then, I realized something…and this comes back to interconnectedness:

We shouldn’t ask FOR a miracle, we should ask to BE a miracle.  Be a miracle, and you will make other people into miracles, too.  We already are.  We just have to realize it.

 Key Performance Indicators.  KPIs.  People who love to measure organizations, processes, and effectiveness adore KPIs.  Simply put, it is the variable that is measured in order to demonstrate success.  That’s my loose definition.  You can do your own research on Google and Wikipedia.

A KPI certainly serves a purpose.  There is value in measurement.  I have friends who spend their careers measuring and staring at KPIs in an effort to demonstrate how good or bad performance is.  A well-defined KPI can tell you exactly how that latest process tweak improved productivity or that cool new internet advertisement increased web traffic to your sales site.  If you can find a thing to measure, tie it to a desired outcome or result, and actually get meaningful data…well, that’s a KPI.

The problem arises when KPIs are applied to the human elements of interactions.  There is no KPI for how much you like someone or how loyal you feel towards a particular brand.  There is no KPI to measure love, and there is no KPI that can detect infidelity.  You can’t read a report to figure out if your best friend is feeling suicidal or if your spouse secretly hates your guts.

Likewise, there isn’t a KPI to tell you how much an employee likes working for you.  There are no KPIs to illustrate just how quickly key members of your team are going to jump ship once the economy improves.  I looked but couldn’t find a KPI to measure how easy it is to strip an employee of their dignity by disrespecting them and treating them like a cog in some giant, oily machine.  No, there are no real KPIs for such things.

Instead, spirit and connection and empathy and the dying art of intuitive action number among the capabilities that, if developed and nurtured, can provide a leader with the power to effect meaningful change.  I’ve never really believed that a statistic or a survey can give you true insight into the shared soul of a group of people.  Only a leader, with eyes wide open, can give that insight.  

How many insightful, empathetic, intuitive, spirited leaders do you know?  There aren’t as many as we would like to think.  Bummer isn’t it?  No wonder our places of work suck.  I wish they would get their acts together.

Sound familiar?  I hope it doesn’t.  If it does, then maybe you’ve pinpointed the source of the real problem.

In my estimation, the question shouldn’t be how many insightful, empathetic, intuitive, spirited leaders do you know?  In my estimation, the far more significant question is how many times have you been that insightful, empathetic, intuitive, spirited leader?

How many times has it been you?  Or…is that not your job?  Is that for somebody else to do?

Your answer to that question can change the world.

Inevitably, you come to this moment when the clouds part, the sun shines through, and the path is illuminated.

Unfortunately, I don’t have my walking shoes.

Well, I do, but I’m feeling a little afraid to put them on.  Or am I?  I mean, I think I should be feeling fear.  That’s what I would normally be feeling.  But…but it’s just not there.  No fear.  Well, how do you like that?

I like it a lot, actually.  Oh, there will be fear again, I am sure.  I am human.  I will doubt.  The tape in my head will play.  My insecurities will pop up.  It happens.  It will happen to you, too, no matter how self-assured you may feel.  Like I said, I’m human.  You’re human.  It is part of the experience, part of the journey.

The trick, see, is to meet the fear.  Embrace it.  Acknowledge it.  Then release it.

Release it?  I’ve written about release before, haven’t I?  Huh.  Maybe there is something to these musings of mine.

You know, Regine laid it out for me: I’m not that young any more.  I’m not old, either, but I’m not that young.  All she meant was that I don’t have to worry about credibility any longer.  That 28-year-old woman wrote a great book, and people read it.  They read it without regard for her age.  Why?  Because she had a message, and it was a good message.  She wrote eloquently, with authority.  Age?  Who cares when there is wisdom to be had?

Me…I’m a bit older than her.  I’ve got something to say, too.  And maybe, just maybe, people will listen.  If they don’t?  Who cares.  I don’t write for them, anyway.  I write for me.  I write for me and for the people who DO listen.  Even if there’s only one other soul reading my writing, it’s worth the time and the effort to put ideas on paper.

Every word, every idea is worth sharing.

Oh yeah…the path is clear.  Screw it.  Who needs shoes?  I’ve got a journey of a thousand miles ahead of me.  I hear those are best started with a single step.

Touchdown! Hello, Chicago!