A Ton of Metal

Taking things for granted results in mismanagement at best and destruction most often.

I had just dropped my wife off at the airport and was returning home.  It was around 5:15am and the roads were peaceful and empty.  Considering how peaceful it is at such an early hour I wondered if my fellow interstate drivers were considering the same sense of black top serenity.  No sooner than the sounds of waterfalls and ambient music started as I considered this roadside peace I was reminded of reality and humbled quickly.  Without a turn signal a car in the adjacent lane cut me off.  Naturally I just gave him a little flash with my brights, as if to say in car language, use your blinker next time.  I didn’t lay on the horn or high beam him for 30 minutes.  There was no anger or aggression in my action.  Again I was on the interstate doing about 70mph and there was no traffic.  Much to my surprise I was greeted quickly with brake lights and had to slam on my brakes to a point of doing a mere 20mph.  Again, we were on the interstate at 5am, there was no traffic around warranting such a volatile braking.  It was obvious what his gesture meant.  It was obvious he didn’t appreciate me high beaming him.  It was also obvious that he was pretty reckless so I got in the other lane and continued homeward bound.  This should be the end of my little story, however, he sped up quickly and got so close to my bumper that I could almost not see his headlights in my rearview mirror.  His high beams were on and I was a little surprised by his recklessness at such an early hour.  I decided to ignore him, flipped my mirror up to dim the high beam lighting, and continued driving. My best logic told me that if I did he would leave it alone, however, and again, I was wrong and surprised.  He followed me like this for probably a couple miles, although it felt much longer than that.  Eventually he had to get off and go to wherever it was he was headed and it ended.  What he lacked in common courtesy he made up for in inspiring a thought though.

Isn’t driving fascinating?  I mean, be honest, get past the fact that you drive a ’92 Land Cruiser with no a/c and only one working power window, and consider the complexity of what is really going on when you’re behind the wheel of a vehicle.  There are several discussions happening in the automotive world currently concerning the lightest production vehicle, however, to generalize it, let’s agree that your vehicle is around 2,000 lbs at a minimum.  This guy was driving a Dodge Nitro, which weighs in at 4,162 lbs.  It is powered by gasoline.  The engine is lubricated with all sorts of oils.  The amount of flammable liquids in this 2 ton machine is enough to do some damage.  Then you have the problem of velocity.  We listen to the radio, steer, and know what the appropriate amount of pressure is to either decelerate or accelerate.  We have the understanding of distance to keep a safe amount and not just end up running into objects.  I could get a lot more involved and detailed; however, this is a pretty good starting point for me.  Do you see how complex it is to drive a vehicle?  It is complex and we do it like second nature, often not ever considering the complexity of it all.    When we are not appreciative of these things and are not grateful for all that goes into driving we take it for granted.  When we take it for granted we abuse the good to cause bad.  It is very good to drive, it is good to have all these systems and liquids working in such a way that we can transport ourselves at a greater efficiency to places we desire to travel to.  When we do not appreciate this and take it for granted though we abuse the good and cause it to become bad or destructive or discouraging.  That’s the story of my angry morning driving friend.  He took the complexity, full of dangers and risks, and abused it becoming destructive in behavior and what could have been destruction physically if something would have happened. 

I’ve carried around that thought for hours and internalized it in such a way to consider, what is it that I take for granted and when I do what does the destructive output look like?  When you see or hear yourself engaging in destructive behavior you most likely can use deductive reasoning to lead you back to the source of your behavior, a mismanaged good.  A good taken for granted.  If it is taking things for granted that leads to destruction than the inverse is simple.  The inverse logic would lead one to believe that being grateful leads to constructive behaviors.  We all have things we take for granted, but do we consider what taking it for granted causes?  Are we destructive beings?  Are we grateful?  Are we appreciative?  Do we take more than we should for granted?  So many questions, but isn’t that the point?  To be self-reflective and consider such things is what sets our minds apart from that of an animal, even if sometimes we act like one, most notably a jackass on the roads. 

Hope Springs

I’m confident that some if not all of my neighbors think my wife and I are crazy.  We are the new kids on the block.  We bought our first home in an old neighborhood at the heart of the Arts & Design District nestled away on a quaint little cul-de-sac.  We’re the youngest couple by far.  There are actually some original homeowners still living in this neighborhood!  When weather permits we walk to as many things as we can in the District.  One of the many things we have done and continue to do is yard tours.  Julia loves gardening and nature, so with great excitement she grabs my hand and walks me around the yard during the summer to show off her handiwork.  Our yard is beautiful because of it and I truly enjoy these tours.  If you’re in Indiana then you know it has been an unusually warm “winter” this year, so much so that last week on one of the nicer days Julia took me on a spring tour.  With enthusiasm she pointed out the buds on tress and her prized bulbs breaking the ground surface.  All this made me think of one word, hope. 

The glimmer in her eyes matched the pep in her step and joy in her voice as she took me on the tour and pointed out new birth beginning to show signs of spring.  She was so excited because these gave her hope for spring.  This got me thinking, what makes me have hope and what is it I am hoping for?  To extend that to you, what do you hope for and what triggers enthusiasm for that hope?  Julia hopes for summer, she loves summer days full of gardening, cheap beer, grilling out for dinner, and time spent together under the sun.  When she sees signs for what she hopes in she is filled with excitement.  Some hope in a god, some in a season, and others in a vast universe of other possibilities.  So what is it that you hope for?  What excites you for things to come or the arrival of what you hope for?

Furthermore, bringing this all back to a personal level, in life, are you someone who offers hope?  Are you a person that offers signs of hope to others?  Hope that people are kind?  Hope that people forgive?  Hope that good manners aren’t just a state of nostalgia your grandmother lives in?  Hope that humanity is decent?  Hope that integrity still exists?  Hope for love?  Hope builds and gives life.  If you’re not offering hope what are you offering?  Like the aura of delight surrounding Julia as she shows me the tip of a daffodil coming up  on a day in late February, do you cause joy in others?  Random thought while walking around the yard I know, but one so simple and powerful that shouldn’t not be considered.  Do you inspire hope?

Value

How one determines or considers their personal value or worth is directly connected with how they interact with their environment, whether it be personal or professional.

I went to lunch with a couple friends who do similar jobs within an organization. Both departments and roles affect the other so they are familiar with each other’s’ jobs. As they heatedly exchanged words about their perceived value I sat back in my seat seeing a bigger picture than they realized they were painting. Maybe it’s just because I’m so analytical or a big picture type person, but the theme I saw developing in this discussion was one of value and how an individual perceives his or her own value. Both sides saw themselves as more valuable than the next and the argument continued to go in circles because each was only putting out arguments attempting to prove their superior value. As I so often do, I stepped in as a mediator and gave my best objective view of both sides, trying to explain to each how the other felt while also acknowledging their opinion and point of view. I provided both with confirmation of their values and tried my best to help each other appreciate the other’s value. The lunch was intense but ended with laughs and hopefully a little understanding.

I often times find myself just watching others and paying special attention to how they treat each other. In my professional experience at a fortune 100 company I’ve been discouraged to see unkindness and impatience. The larger a group of people gets the tougher communication becomes. This is because the differences between so many people becomes exponentially larger than they truly are. When this happens people stop thinking of each other and turn their focus inward. This inward focus creates a natural desire to prove one’s worth or value to others because they don’t feel valued. If others won’t value them they go on a mission to prove their worth.

A brilliant quote from a surprising source:

“You are never as good as you think you are and you are never as bad as you think you are.”
-Mike Tyson

One side of this quote is from an individual perspective; don’t whole heartedly accept your own perceived value. You are your worst critic but can also be your biggest fan. Both extremes are equally unhealthy.

I am a hopeful romantic of sorts I suppose. I am hopeful in people. I view the majority of people as well intentioned citizens looking to discover or confirm their own value. I don’t think when Bob snaps at Mary in a meeting he is intentionally, in that moment, consciously intending to hurt Mary’s feelings by having a rude tone. Mary of course only feels devalued and takes immediate offense. Things could and often do get out of control and quickly. It’s important in moments of conflict to consider 2 things. 1, remember that people don’t intentionally hurt each other (unless there is a mental illness or a behavioral problem), give everyone the benefit of the doubt and 2, consider confronting the person who offended you. How you confront someone can make all the difference. I am in no way promoting “going off” on someone because you were offended. In the heat of the moment at the height of your emotional reaction is not the appropriate time to consider confrontation. After you have cooled down and really processed the offense, calmly approach the offender and only talk about how you feel. Tell them how they made you feel only, do not prescribe anything to them about themselves, but rather focus on telling them how you feel, talk about yourself. How the offender responds is 100% their responsibility. You have no control on how they will respond, but as long as you were professional in your confrontation then you are in the clear and should not carry the burden any longer.

Resolving the conflict of perceived value is important to success, both personally and professionally. Considering others as valuable in unique ways, different than your frame work for value is important to respecting others. Without respect we cannot value others and if we fail to value others we will receive equal reciprocation, meaning others won’t value us. If we don’t feel valued by others we will fall into the ugly downward spiral of trying to prove our value at the expense of others. Don’t try to prove your value to others by devaluing them. Look for value in others, when you do that it will be reciprocated appropriatley thus ending the ugly cycle of individuals seeking to prove their value to the world. Do you value others? Do you value yourself too much? Do you value yourself too little? By considering the theme of personal worth or value we can change the trajectory of what can sometimes be a rocky environment. We can improve the professional and personal world by doing so.

Sophia Grace and Rosie hit Disneyland!

Not sure how I got started watching these girls, but I think they are so funny and Ellen is great for having them on.

Swimming

My face scowled as I pondered the content I had just ingested.  I recently read an article in Inc Magazine entitled, “35 Ways to MakeYour Business Look Bigger.”  The general premise is easily understandable, but my thoughts went to the logic behind the 35 ways.  Why would one want to follow ways to make a business appear bigger?  If someone is striving to make their business seem bigger then it’s implied that the business is small.  Why not just be ok with being a small business?  Why try to fool your clients into believing you are bigger than you really are?  Appearing to be something that you are not seems a bit misleading and downright dishonest doesn’t it?  Why make your business look like anything but what it is?  A business with integrity, clear communication, and a firm grasp on their brand/identity is a good business.  It boils down to brand or identity discovery and active marketing strategies.

I hold this same logic towards behavior and morality.  Rather than managing what you don’t want to be or what you want to be, be authentic and learn who you are then you can make plans to address behavior.  The same is true of business, before you go out building an awesome website, hiring a virtual receptionist, and implementing expensive marketing campaigns stop and become comfortable with your identity.  Once you know where you are then you can know where you are going and make appropriate adjustments.  If you’re lost in the middle of an ocean the worst thing you can do is start putting all your energy into swimming.  What if you swim the wrong way or further away from shore?  That would be a lot of wasted energy.  The best thing to do is identify where you are so you can plan to get where you’re going.  The benefit for just accepting or discovering your identity before running to the numbered steps so many “experts” offer is that you actually learn who you are, which is priceless.  Another benefit of slowing down enough to look in the mirror honestly and discover your identity is that you may easily overlook strengths and focus too much on flaws.  We have all been guilty of this, this is a reason why those 10x or 5x mirrors are not allowed at the Sloope household, I don’t want to celebrate or focus on flaws.  In identifying your brand you are also able to focus in on unique strengths that set you apart from others.  Slow down, identify yourself then cautiously start planning.

Once you know who you are you can know where you’re going.  Once you know where you are going you can bring people along.  This is where consumers or clients get involved.  If I pay a taxi driver $60 to take me from the airport to home and get dropped off somewhere else I can assure you I may pull a Hulk and flip that car, haha.  In all seriousness though, if a consumer or client is told that a company is something or is going somewhere only later to find out they arrived at a different location than told or experience a different identity than they were sold, it creates a loss of trust, which ultimately leads to no business.  Doesn’t it all boil down to trust anyways?  Consumers/clients trust a company to do what they desire therefore they invest money in return.  Obviously this is a very simplified story of how the free market works.  It is important to be clear with clients and consumers about exactly who you are, without filters, fireworks, or misleading grandiose marketing.  If you can gain trust authentically then you have a strong connection, lasting longer than the next set of steps offered by the next “expert.”

I’m all for a company appearing well put together.  Before money is thrown at marketing strategies brand management should eat up the majority of energy and resources if you ask me.  Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it less or more of a pig, neither shall actions without clear branding.  Understand where you are before you start swimming, could get you a lot further and save a lot of energy.

Sophia Grace and Rosie again.

I cannot get over these little girls rapping, it makes me laugh.  I'm not sure how I feel about the music the listen to or emulate, however, the end product is pretty entertaining.  Thanks to Ellen for having a great show and featuring these kids.  Enjoy.

The Blame Game

The common denominator to all life’s problems is….wait for it….Y-O-U!

In order to better understand where all this is coming from I’ll give a brief backstory to help shape the context. 

I play in a basketball league on Tuesday nights at a church.  There are several implied underlying factors within the fact that this league is ran by a church, probably the largest being mutual respect or at the very least appropriate behavior.  Interestingly enough I have found that any sort of strength a situation can offer can be twisted or mismanaged in such a way that it quickly becomes detrimental.  The strength and main reason I got involved was to meet new people who shared an interest, basketball.  The strength is meeting new people who are very different from you.  The flip side of that coin is that new people offer new opportunities for differences and furthermore disagreements.  In basketball specifically there are tons of disagreements, about calls a ref should or shouldn’t make or did or didn’t make, zone or man defense, and sometimes even as essential as to team structure.  Most recently I have found one individual on this team disagrees with everyone on about everything, to the point of not even being willing to listen to his teammates.   Long story short, this guy, who is a heck of an athlete, basically tries to run a one man show, which understandably chokes the life out of the team.  Going back to this league being ran by a church it is equally understandable that we don’t want to confront or hurt anyone’s feelings about this so we speak in generalities. So instead of saying, you are a ball hog and don’t pass the ball when you have open teammates we say we need to move the ball better as a team, hoping that the generality will hit home with a person individually.  The ultimate hope of all of this is that each individual will take personal responsibility for what they are capable of controlling and adjust accordingly.  We were having a particularly horrible game recently and at the half when we were discussing the game everyone was talking about bad calls and other external factors, no one was owning up to anything.  Of course the one person we wanted to talk directly to didn’t internalize our generalized statements and continued his play, which was detrimental to the team.  At the climax of the night, after being frustrated with everything else, including refs not making the calls he wanted, he just snapped, drawing two technical fouls and even threatening the ref.  All this in a church league.  After being ejected and asked to not return to the league, understandably so, the dude was still going on and on about how this was everyone else’s fault.  We finished the game by apologizing to everyone else for our (former) teammates’ attitude and behavior and getting blown out by 20. 

Unfortunately, all too often, I have found that personal responsibility is treated like a foreign concept in our culture.  Think about all the situations you can where you have the opportunity to take responsibility in a moment.  The possibilities and opportunities are endless.  Whether it is as simple as returning the shopping cart to return bin or complex as owning up to your end of the dilemmas in a broken relationship, taking personal responsibility opportunities are everywhere.  Now, back to our little church league rift.  In every situation accepting personal responsibility is the best route because after all the only control an individual has is that over themselves.  Everything external is an uncontrollable variable.  The ideology that one can control external variables is a divisive illusion that leads many to unhealthy and detrimental behavior.  After apologizing profusely to the pastor of the recreational department I made a statement that has stuck with me since leaving the gym, “He’ll learn in life it is always easiest and best to stop pointing fingers and start internalizing things.”  The gist of this thought is pretty simple, stop blaming everyone and everything else for what you are responsible for, how you react and interact with the environment in which you find yourself. 

Young people especially will have a very rough life if they go through it blaming external, uncontrollable variables for what they can actually control, their own attitudes and behaviors.  In the case of my former teammate he was getting angrier and angrier because he felt he was getting fouled when he took the ball in on 3 defenders and wasn’t receiving the calls from the refs.  Instead of taking the responsibility for himself and logically considering 1 on 3 wasn’t a good matchup and trying a different approach to avoid putting himself in a situation where he wasn’t getting what he wanted leading to frustrations he decided to continue in the same behaviors expecting others to change.  This is a horrible formula for success, one that actually doesn’t work.  Even as he was being tossed out of the gym he was spewing tactless words and accusations of others mistakes.  Never once did he accept any kind of responsibility.  I’d imagine that he still thinks he was in the right.  This is a nasty way of thinking that leads to equally nasty behavior.  This refusal to accept personal responsibility ultimately caused him to lose control because he was attempting to control that which he could not, others.  This is a great lesson to be applied to any other aspect of life as well.  You cannot control external variables and to attempt to do so will lead to you losing control of yourself.  It is true that the common denominator in all of life’s problems is you.  Accepting personal responsibility in life isn’t something to be overlooked, otherwise we end up getting kicked out of all of life’s proverbial games, much like our angry teammate did.