Musings

The gift doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do with it. Not everyone who succeeds has a gift, but everyone who succeeds did something with whatever they had at their disposal. And not everyone who is given a gift does something worthwhile with it.

What you do with your gifts matters more than what you were given. Do something worthwhile.

Seth Godin often talks about the “race to the bottom.” For a business focused on doing everything possible to reduce cost and come in as the cheapest in their sliver of the market, achieving that goal generally requires giving up an awful lot along the way. The worst part about that race? Someone wins. They often win by stripping away the very things that once made them special. Is that really a race worth winning?

In the same vein, I’ve learned that hiding, the quest to become invisible, to go unnoticed so as to avoid ruffling feathers or making waves, is, as a goal, a pyrrhic victory, at best. At worst? It robs the individual of everything that makes them special, that can differentiate them as unique human beings capable of contributing in astounding ways. And it kills the spirit. It absolutely destroys it. Like the race to the bottom, is this a goal you want to achieve?

Recent research conducted by Imperative revealed that people who do not engage in work they believe has an impact have a 2% chance of self-reporting themselves as fulfilled. Without personal and professional growth, they have a 1% chance of reporting themselves as fulfilled. By making themselves small, by dulling their luster, by retreating in shadow, people attempting to hide will sabotage their ability to find fulfillment in their work. I’ve heard people say, “This is just a job, a paycheck. I come in, do my time, and get a paycheck. I live my life outside of these walls.” There are two problems with this logic.

First, we spend so much time at work that, following this approach, we would spend most of your day suffocating who we really are as living, human beings. Nothing healthy can come of filling eight hours a day, likely half the time one is awake, with meaningless, unfulfilling work. The second problem with this logic ties back to Imperative’s findings: not having meaningful work and not growing through work experiences all but assures that people who hide at work will not feel fulfilled outside of work. There is no real separation of work and home; there never was. We are human, and we are whole. We integrate whether we believe we need to or not. We cannot spend half of our waking hours in drudgery and expect to switch gears and find fulfillment in the hours before and after work. No matter how hard we try, we’ll always fall short. We will always rob ourselves of at least some of the happiness that is our birthright.

The first step is to stop hiding. Raise your hand and participate. One day at a time, little by little, step out of the shadows and let us see you.

We want things “our way,” but within limits. That’s kind of the gist of how most people handle customization. The deep pool of seemingly limitless possibilities is intimidating, so when presented with infinite depth and breadth, most of people opt to just lounge at the water’s edge.

Defining a section of safe waters and a curated selection of potential activities makes the murky, unfathomable depths far less threatening. Most people respond better to parameters within which to make their choices. A customizable menu at a fast food restaurant is less daunting than the open-ended question, “What do you want for lunch?”

Customization, then, is a double-edged sword because most people want the opportunity to choose but want those choices to be manageable. Too much choice can shut a person down. This makes applying for and getting a job with a large corporation easier than starting a solo venture from the ground up. It makes choosing a well-defined major and course of study at a large university a path of less resistance. It’s safer and easier to let someone else define the goals and rules of the game. That’s what most people want. Or is it?

Something is shifting in the world of higher education, and I think it’s worth taking note. Customization is becoming increasingly popular, at least among colleges and universities seeking to attract the brightest minds with the greatest potential. While “I’ll tell you how this degree curriculum works” is predominant, more and more institutions not only offer but promote and sell the idea that the student can customize their education. They are free to follow a core curriculum with a few choices along the way, but they also have the option to completely customize the college experience. Interested in Physics and Music? At the University of Illinois College of Engineering, a student with such interests can create a specialized course of study unique to solving problems at the intersection of the two. At the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Stanford and many others, similar mindsets serve as the foundation for the guiding philosophy for developing leading engineers, doctors, and political scientists of the future. The message to prospective students seems to be that customization isn’t meant to be feared; it’s the way of tomorrow. It reminds me of how we used to talk about global change when I was in college.

Despite this shift, customization is overwhelming outside of higher education. Award-winning and prolific author Neil Gaiman recently made this observation: a page filled with writing, no matter how atrocious, can be fixed; you cannot fix a pristine page…because there’s nothing there. It’s time to take the fear of customization, of sullying the pristine and blank page, out of the equation. I believe the world we live in is optimized for customization. Technology provides us access to seemingly limitless possibilities, but having options is not the issue. Making choices is the issue. In order to make those choices, we need to narrow down the options. The first choice, then, is whether or not we believe it is worthwhile to define the options ourselves, then make a choice. The alternative is to continue living in a fast-food world and tweak the choices others make for us.

I’m ready to jump in the deep end. Are you?

I don’t have anything to say. Well, at least nothing that interesting.

I haven’t climbed Everest. I haven’t taken a solo sub to the bottom of the Marianna’s Trench. I haven’t survived an organ transplant. I haven’t overcome unsurmountable odds to learn to read and write. I haven’t escaped a civil war. I haven’t worked my way out of poverty.

My skin is white. My name is Latino. I went to college and got an undergraduate degree. I went to graduate school and got a graduate degree. I got an MBA, in fact. My employer at the time paid for most of it. My parents aren’t divorced. They love me dearly. They’re old, which is a good thing. I have two brothers, and they are good men. They love me, too, and I love them. We still speak to each other. And we definitely look forward to family gatherings with our wives, all of our children, and our parents. They might only happen once a year or so, but we look forward to the time together.

I met a great girl, dated her, and fell in love. I asked her to marry me. She agreed. Nobody called off the wedding. Nobody stood up towards the end of the ceremony and tried to stop it. Nobody was murdered at the reception. I don’t think anyone even got into an argument. Sure, we fight from time to time, but nobody hits anybody else. We don’t throw things or curse each other out. We’ve been married for over 20 years. I still like cuddling with her. We spoon just about every night. We might snore on occasion, but we still sleep in the same bed.

I have two sons. They are good, young manlings. They were born with all ten digits and all the right components in their nether regions. They are normal, healthy, smart kids. They play instruments (a couple each). They get along. They argue, but they always end the day saying “good night” to each other, often with a big hug and brotherly kiss. They respect each other, and they respect their parents. We can take them just about anywhere, and they won’t embarrass us. They are polite. They know how to behave in public. We’ve travelled all over the place with them, including to Europe, and they are the best young travelers a parent could hope for.

I’ve never been laid off. I’ve never lost a house to foreclosure or a car to repossession. We’ve never been sent to collections. My wife had her purse stolen once, and we once had someone open a credit card in our name, but we got that taken care of swiftly. I was on some sort of TSA watch list for awhile. Well, it’s more accurate to say that my NAME was on a watch list. I remember one time when I was compared to the photo they had on file on the watch list, it was clear to the TSA agents at the airport that I was not the droid they were looking for.

I don’t have a super power, extra appendages, mutant abilities, or interstellar/trans-dimensional technology to aid me in the fight against otherworldly foes.

I am pretty normal. I’m just a guy, a normal, American guy. No tragedies to speak of and no Earth-shattering accomplishments. Now that I think about it, I’m fairly boring.

The problem is that I think that assessment holds true when I compare myself to other, more interesting people. Let’s face it: some people are really, really interesting and have really compelling stories. There are too many examples to cite. Ok. Maybe there’s time for one. How about Nyle Dimarco? He’s the guy who won America’s Top Model and Dancing with the Stars, a year later. Double reality show wins. That’s pretty cool on its own, but, in case you didn’t know, he’s Deaf. Become America’s Top Model is cool, but you could see how he’d win, Deaf or not. He’s a handsome dude. But Dancing with the Stars? A dance competition won by a man who cannot hear? See? Compelling story.

To one extent or another, we all do this, though. We all select the brightest star in the constellation and say, “See? I’m dull. Duller than dull.” Of course, we overlook the fact that we’re a star in a constellation. Or that we’re an average person, living an average life in 21^st Century America. Or 21^st Century Europe. Or on 21^st Century Earth. Or that we’re alive in the 21^st-freakin’ Century, period!

I spent an hour not too long ago with my teenage son watching J-Rock videos on YouTube. J-Rock is a genre of music from Japan. We could have spent all afternoon watching videos and listening to J-Rock. He wanted to show me some K-Pop, Korean pop, videos, too, but we had other things to do. Music from Japan and Korea, at our fingertips. Hours worth of content. HOURS. From the other side of the world, instantly available. I hate to say it, but when I was a kid, that just wasn’t possible. I remember how hard it was keeping up with American music when I was a kid growing up in Mexico City. Even as US citizens who came back to the US once or twice a year, it was difficult to keep my collection of vinyl and cassette singles and albums current. Today? I could have been a US citizen, living in Mexico City, listening to J-Rock. The 21^st Century is pretty amazing. But only if you think about it. Otherwise, it’s “ho-hum, boring.” Like me.

Except, maybe I’m not that boring. I did grow up in Mexico City. I lived with my family in Mexico City for over 10 years. My dad was an executive with an American firm operating in the country. In fact, my dad was Vice President of Manufacturing for Latin America for a book publisher. He got to travel around Latin America. He had some corporate perks, too. We attended a private school that catered to international business people, wealthy nationals, and politicians from all over the world. The ethnic clicks in my school were legit: the Japanese click all came from Japan; the Brazilian click all came from Brazil; the American click all came from the US. The Japanese club pretty much conducted business in Japanese. The Brazilian kids chattered to one another in Brazilian Portuguese. Military brats, embassy kids, and preps made up the US contingency. Of course, there were clicks of kids from our host country, too. In that regard, kids were kids. Still, it was a rich, dynamic, horizon-expanding environment. I can’t think of a single person from my school that I still talk to who does not look back on our shared experience and marvel at how fortunate we all were. Truly.

We traveled back to the US at least once a year, generally twice. We took vacations to all the hot spots in Mexico, vacations that I now realize, through the eyes of an adult paying for his own family’s vacations, were very expensive. We had nice cars, nice clothes, and nice things. Our pantry was always packed with snacks and cereals and goodies from the US. My parents threw really great parties, often with live music and an open bar. I grew up privileged, but my parents still made us wash the dishes, dust our rooms, and take care of the family dog. They tried to keep us humble, but they also sent us off on some pretty amazing adventures. My older brother, for example, traveled to China, Japan, and Mongolia as part of a school trip. He studied abroad in Madrid when he was in college. I got to spend the summer between junior and senior year in high school in Moscow, as the guest of the Cypriot ambassador to Moscow. I visited them again at their home in Nicosia, Cyprus, when I was in college. I got to stay with my friend in their apartment in Larnaca. It was pretty cool.

When I left Mexico, I went to college. It took me five years to get through it, but I did it. I attended both the University of Miami in Florida and the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. I met my wife there. A couple of years after we graduated, my wife and I got matching MBA’s. I worked in the corporate world, for the same company, for 23 years. I relocated from Texas to Illinois during that time. I took a seven-month temporary assignment to Belfast, Northern Ireland, and traveled with my wife and kids to Ireland, England, Spain, Italy, France, and Scotland. My kids attended a private school for most of their education in the US, and we home schooled both of our kids for 8^th grade in order to provide them a unique, tailored experience before they jumped into the grind of public high school. We live in a nice house, try to give our kids the best we can, and take family vacations every year.

See? Not a bad life. A little average, but, then again, a little not.

It comes down to perspective. Who are you? How often (and how harshly) do you judge yourself? Do you judge yourself relative to some ideal in your head? Or do you judge yourself relative to others? These are all important questions, but there is one that I think is far more important: are you kind to yourself? I think you should be because you can’t be kind to anyone else, not really, until you learn to be kind to yourself. Give yourself a break. You might be boring by someone else’s standards, but, to another, you just might be the luckiest person in the world.

As with so many other things, boring is a matter of perspective.

One of my sources of self-doubt involves assumptions. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that all of my sources of self-doubt involve assumptions to some degree. That’s because self-doubt is often associated with how we believe we are perceived by others rather than on actual information about how others perceive us. Most of the time, I can’t actually know what a person thinks about me or how they view me without them telling me outright (and even that can be unreliable), so all I really have to go on are my interpretations of things that happen and how others treat me. That’s an imperfect way to model the world around me, but it’s all I’ve got. It’s all any of us really have.

Rather than make assumptions about what others think, it’s likely healthier and more productive to work with the things I can know like how I feel about myself and my work, the results of my work in the world around me, and the impact I perceive my actions as having on those around me. I can also ask other people for their input. That’s a much better option than making up stories about what they think because those stories are often just reflections of the tapes already playing in my mind. As a result, the stories I make up about others are probably just reflections of my own inner dialogue, so it’s really not about the other person at all! It’s all about me and my own self-assessment.

While that could be confusing, it should be reassuring. Learning to focus on what goes on in our own minds and in our own hearts can help drown out invalidating stories about other people, their feelings, and the operation of their minds. Getting to know other people is important, and learning to give and receive feedback is vital if we want to adopt a mindset that allows us to continuously get better.  I know that, in my life, I am most productive and have the greatest impact when I focus on understanding the processes of my mind and my heart. What I think and what I feel are within my span of control and focusing on changing them, when needed, will yield far greater results than seeking to change what other people think. In addition, what others observe me do and the improvements they see making in my own life can serve to influence. Influence is how we make our way into the hearts and minds of others.

Homeostasis keeps us alive. It is the tendency for balance within systems, especially within the bodies of living organisms. Body temperature in mammals, for example, is regulated internally. A mammal works hard at maintaining a consistent internal temperature. In a human being, that temperature is approximately 98 degrees, give or take a degree of variance. Our bodies burn fuel in an effort to keep it within a certain range. When it’s cold, we shiver to burn more fuel and generate heat. When it’s hot, we sweat to give our bodies a layer of moisture that helps radiate heat through our skin. Shiver. Sweat. Shiver again. It’s all designed to keep that temperature stable.

There are countless systems and interactions going on within our bodies aimed at maintaining an overall, homeostatic state. Homeostasis also applies to systems outside of our bodies. Ecological systems can be said to be in homeostasis when the environment provides the organisms living within it everything they need to maintain stable populations. The ratio of predator to prey contributes to the homeostatic state of the ecological system, too. Too many of either can have a devastating effect, overall, sending the entire system into chaos. Pollution, rainfall, rate of growth, and rate of decay are other variables that affect these ecological systems. Balance between them all is essential.

Homeostasis, then, is a very good thing.

Until it’s not.

Homeostasis becomes an issue when it is applied to the inner workings of the human mind. Homeostasis is good for the biology stuff, for sure. It’s when the cognitive stuff kicks in that homeostasis can be troublesome. When we experience extremes in life, the tendency is to have extreme reactions to the experience. These reactions are both cognitive and emotional. I differentiate the two as process of mind (cognitive or what you think) and process of heart (emotional or what you feel). Regardless of terminology, they are extreme cognitive and emotional reactions to extreme stimuli. These stimuli elicit thoughts and feelings that fall outside our normal range.

If we won the lottery, we’d feel euphoric. If we lost a limb, we’d feel destitute. The influx of money would likely lead to weeks and months of “floating on cloud nine,” while the loss of function would likely lead to weeks and months of struggle and depression. However, what research has found is that people who experience such extremes tend to revert, over time, to a set-point, a level of cognitive and emotional being that is characteristic of the individual. In other words, once they get past the extreme reaction to the extreme event, they go back to equilibrium. It’s almost as if a sort of balance exists for our thoughts and feelings. There are peaks and valleys, but the inclination is to get back to “normal.” That’s homeostasis.

The problem is that homeostasis becomes a barrier to happiness and overall well-being when we look to change, to move outside our range of normal. As we attempt to change, something pulls us back to our old patterns, habits, and ways of being. Our bodies don’t like extremes, and our minds don’t like extremes, either. But extremes are what are required to move outside of comfort zones and effect real change.

As the calendar year winds down, our thoughts and feelings will likely move to extremes, potentially motivating us and hardening our resolve to do things differently in our lives. When the new year arrives, the bias will be towards action. The bias generally does not last long. Whether or not action actually yields results depends on the ability of the individual to overcome homeostasis. Knowing that, we can plan in advance and develop interventions to keep us from regressing to the mean.

I took my wife and two sons to a corn maze this weekend.  If you live in the Midwest, it’s a thing.  We do it every year.  We wander through the maze, collecting “punches” on our map along the way.  It’s not enough to just discover the maze; there’s a higher goal of finding each of the stations with a specifically-shaped hole punch along the way.  Where we go, there are three levels of difficulty.  This year, we chose the most difficult path.  On this path, the locations of the stations are not marked, so gathering each hole punch is a true challenge.  Corn stalks are tall.  At 6’2’’, I feel like a shorty next to the rows and rows of corn stalks.  This year was the first year we braved the “expert” path.

Over the years, I’ve tried to teach my boys how to use a map to navigate the maze.  Corn maze maps are not like conventional road maps.  Intersections aren’t clearly marked.  Milestones (stations) and landmarks (bridges and climbing platforms) are represented at their approximate locations on the map.  The paths themselves are kinda-sorta like the picture on the map; what was designed on paper does not translate 100% to the actual paths cut through the rows of corn.  In many ways, learning to navigate a corn maze is a lot like learning to accomplish goals in life: what we have is a direction, not necessarily infallible directions.

A couple of hours before we left for the corn maze, my 17-year-old son clicked the virtual “submit” button on his very first college application.  There are several more to complete, but the first one is done.  It was a major milestone in his life.  Through much of the process of completing the application and writing the necessary essays to go with it, he has relied on several people to act as guides, to help and nudge and offer advice.  In the end, though, he has lead us in the direction of his goal.  No directions from us, just direction from him.  Getting to the first milestone, that first submitted application, was a major moment in his life.

A few hours later, for the first time ever, he took the map in his hands, and lead my wife, my youngest, and me through the corn maze.  It wasn’t our smoothest excursion to date, but it was another major moment in his life…and in mine.

Nothing subtle here: my oldest son is taking the reins.  He is assuming the leadership role in his life.  It’s amazing to witness, and I could not be more proud of him.  I’ve written about my boys and my family many times in the past.  Being a parent has taught me more lessons about myself and my life than just about anything else I can think of.  Once again, one of my sons provided opportunity for me to pause and reflect.  Life piles on experiences, often in clusters seemingly designed for teaching.  I don’t know how or why things work this way.  Perhaps it is as much a function of my expectations and interpretation.  Perhaps there is something bigger at work.

Either way, this weekend, between a college application and a corn maze, I was reminded of the importance of not relying on maps provided by others and of assuming the leadership role in your life.

We wind up where we choose to go.

 

When I was a wee lad, doing something “on purpose” usually implied that I’d gotten myself into trouble and my assertion that “it was an accident” was being called into question.  Doing something on purpose was, more often than not, a path towards unpleasant repercussions.

Naturally, I did less “on purpose” and learned to let the flow of the current take me.

Thanks to the guidance of influential adults like my parents, a few great teachers, and a mentor, I came to understand that the world was filled with choices and that I had to make them.  Simply allowing things to happen…that wasn’t going to cut it.

During my junior or senior year in high school, one of the electives I took was “Library Sciences.”  Yes, 17-year-old me was hanging out with the librarian at my school, learning the Dewey Decimal System inside and out, keeping the card catalog updated, and returning books to the shelves.

Did you catch that part about the card catalog?  I’m talking Old School card catalog, too.  Rows of wooden drawers that were filled with actual index cards upon which were printed all the relevant bits of information regarding each of the books in the library.  A card for every single, dingle book.  And when I say “printed,” I really mean typed, as in “letter, numbers, and words put on paper by a human being using a typewriter with great speed and efficiency, but not so fast as to jam the keys.”  Where my typists at?  Woot-woot!

During one of my excursions with the book cart to put books back on shelves, I stumbled across the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.  Instantly attracted and intrigued, I checked the book out and plunged in.  To make a long story short, I wound up asking for my own copy for my birthday.  I still have the copy I received and refer to it often.

Regarding choices, I learned this from Lao Tzu: non-action is action, so not deciding is, in fact, a decision.  We tend to omit non-action when articulating the options before us.  However, choosing to do nothing does not absolve one of the outcomes.  This was a profound lesson for me, one that I’ve never forgotten.  It’s a guiding principle today as surely as it was the day I realized its significance.

Going with the flow, then, is as much a choice as standing firm in the middle of the river, fighting the current threatening to pull me down and take me away.  Choosing either path is, in fact, done on purpose.  Now, whether one path is more purposeful than the other is another thing altogether…

A few years ago, I read the book The On-Purpose Person by Kevin McCarthy, and I thought again about the lesson of non-action and action.  In the book, Kevin offers a methodology for prioritizing how we spend our time, talent, and resources to help us stay focused on purpose.  Choice is central to Kevin’s method.  At every step, the reader must choose how to spend their time and talent.

Learn a new coding language or binge on Stranger Things: action or non-action.  Both are actions, both choices.  Both are done deliberately, on purpose.  And both can be precisely on purpose, aligned with who we want to be and where we need to be at a given moment in time.

Choose.  Choose wisely.  Choose with your purpose in mind.  Then, embrace the outcomes.  I believe it’s that simple.  At home and at work, we get to choose.  No more “accidents.”  Leave those up to Mayhem.  You…you get to choose.

Choose to love your purpose and pursue it relentlessly.

You learn a lot about what people really think about you when the stuff hits the fan in their lives.  What they look to you to provide to them when times are tough provides clue to what they really think about you.  Can you discern what matters most to them: the relationship or the transactional value you provide?  Do they turn to you for support, advice, guidance, or a long, warm hug?  Or do they turn to you for a business lead, a loan, or backup in a confrontation?  There is plenty to learn in how others treat you.  Sounds like common sense, but emotion often keeps us from seeing the truth.

Don’t judge the answers to these questions, and don’t judge the person.  Just use those moments to help you better comprehend where you fit into their world view.  With eyes more widely-opened, you can mold the relationship to either meet their expectations or yours.  Chances are, making it fit your expectations will take more energy and work, focused intentionally on the outcomes you want.  Just remember that your intention doesn’t guarantee success.  Or happiness.