Flying Solo

When you run into a struggle. You are not alone. You do not have to do it alone. There are people in your life who want to be there for you and they want to be a part of your life. They are your friends for a reason.

I am not the first person to have the struggles I have. You are not the first person to have the struggles you have. I ask my friends for help when I have hardship and I share with my friends in real time where I am at. Sharing my struggles or requesting help from friends has never been met with denial.

Friends do not leave each other in the lurch. They pick each other up and share when they are celebrating and when they are hurting.

Who are your friends? Who do you share your high points with that is not your significant other? Who do you share your low points with that is not your significant other?

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However, Although

In my high school English class, we had to write a paper on the famous novel Watership Down by Richard Adams. Being the famously intelligent student I was during my senior year of high school, I did not finish the book. I paid attention to the conversations in class, I started reading the book. But truly did not care or finish the book.

We then were required to write our summary of the book and relate it to something, I cannot remember what I was supposed to relate the book to or even what I wrote about besides writing an eleven page paper when the requirement was five to seven pages.

The teacher that year required we turn in a rough draft of the paper for her to review as her way of assisting us in the paper writing process. So I did. I was up till 11:30, midnight, or later the night before pounding out the rough draft.

The following week we all met with the teacher one-on-one to discuss our drafts. When she and I met, I don’t remember anything else about my discussion with her besides one thing.

She laughed at me.

My teacher laughed at me for starting a paragraph, “However, Although?”.

My goal in doing so was to get her opinion of which word would better start the paragraph. Ultimately, I just picked a word and said nothing else to her the rest of the conversation.

Who do you have influence over? How careful are you with your influence? How much do you measure your words and actions with those you have influence over?

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Consistency

Posting so frequently I have to regularly be writing and producing posts. I am constantly observing to find more ideas. Many ideas. I have to come up with enough ideas that I can throw out the bad ideas and keep the good ones. Sometimes the bad make it through too.

As much as I like the ideas I have, they all are not good ideas and not all of them turned into a post. My ideas page is full of ideas that will never be posted because I know the ideas are not worth the time it takes to post much less the time it would take to read it.

The idea is only the first step. After the idea I have to sit down and write it, workout an image I like. All of this take time and patience on my part because I want to be done after I come up with the idea.

The most difficult part of the process is the writing the post. I will regularly run into a phase where I do not want to write something, cannot write something, or just plain do not know how to address a topic. The only saving grace I have in this process is routine.

The more I go to the same place. In the same chair. With the same view. At the same time. The fewer and fewer issues I have. The words write themselves from the tips of my fingers when I am feeling truly inspired and they steadily drip out of my fingers when I have no motivation or at all.

Where are you stuck? What routine do you have to help you cross the hurdles in your life? Where are you so beholden to routine that you are sacrificing others for the sake of routine?

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Fact Finding

What is your story? Where does it start?

What happens in the middle? Where does it go wrong? What does it look like on the other side?

When was the last time you asked someone else about their story?

Are you actually getting their story or are you fact finding about how they succeeded and failed? Are you really digging into their lives? Are you waiting for your turn to talk?

I have yet to find someone who does not want to tell their story. Truly listening to someone else tell their story takes more than just showing up. You have to listen too.

Who’s story are you listening to?

–JT

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Blank Canvas

When you do something, do you look at it and ask how it should look or do you dig in and get started?

It is so hard to stop and make sure it is going to look the way it should. The way it should look does not have to be the way everyone else makes it look. But do you know what a success will look like when you get there?

Do you know what a failure will look like when you get there?

Developing a picture of where you are headed can decide how the process should go and how the process will look through the development of your ideas and projects.

Having a clear picture of the end result will keep you from being over run by the structure overseeing you.

Changing the picture of your final product based on new information is natural.

What is the picture of success for what you are working on? When was the last time you updated your picture of success? What new information have you gained to help you succeed?

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Flow

When you are inspired, it just flows. Everything comes out just like it needs to come out. The words flow. The art streams from your paint brush. The contracts write themselves. Job is practically done by the time you get to work.

The rest of the time, we show up and make it happen because we need it to happen. We force every character from our finger tips whether we like the words or not.

We drag the paint brush over the canvas like it is soaking up the paint faster than we can dab our brushes.

The contracts take ten times longer to write.

Work feels like it is work-ier today than it will ever be.

Doing the work anyways pays off when the next stroke of inspiration comes. It will also come sooner.

Sometimes inspiration comes from within. The rest of the time, it comes from practice and showing up.

What are you putting off? When is the next time you’re going to work on your project despite not feeling like it?

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Remembering The Future

I was recently observing someone who is older than I am and their children are much older than my boy is. They were lamenting a decision one one child was making and did not appreciate a turn another child’s life had taken. The parent fully loves their children, they were in a moment of expressing concern for the differences their children had decided to make in their own lives.

As the parent expressed their concern, I had to mark it down. I had to mark down an acknowledgement of my own future feeling. I had to put a flag in the ground to remind myself that my child will make decisions, but these decisions will not always be my decisions and I will have to find a way to love him and support him as my boy.

Remembering what has not happened, but is yet to come, will be most important when it happens.

I cannot let my feelings overrun me in the moment or I might forget those who have gone before me and forget the lesson they taught me.

Other people will make decisions I do not completely agree with. My continued involvement in their lives will be dictated by my reaction to their decision.

How do you react to decisions you disagree with? How do you treat people who make different decisions than you? What is your threshold for the difference between the importance of a person and the importance of a decision?

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Unprepared

Fridays come every week. You look forward to them as the last day of the week but you also run into Thursday evening like a freight train. It runs you over!

Thursday evening is the night where you do not feel like cooking. You still have to go to work the next day and it has almost nothing to look forward to doing. Thursday is the day you have to survive to get to Friday. Wednesday is the middle of the week and you can celebrate the halfness of the week being over but all you do on Thursday is throwback to the days that were not Thursday.

What if you started doing Thursdays differently? What if you started putting something to look forward to on Thursdays? How about start planning a fun lunch date on Thursdays? You can Thursdays so much better, reward yourself with a dessert on Thursday nights. Thursday does not have to be a drag. And the best part is, you know Thursday is coming every week, you can plan on it.

What else in your life are you treating like Thursday? What else in your life drags like Thursday drags? Are you plagued by the 2PM blues? Do you plan to reward yourself for the hard meeting you are about to lead? Are you prepared for your car to break down, again?

Life throws you curveballs, but not knowing when they are coming does not mean you cannot prepare for them. I promise you your car will break down again. Your roof will spring a leak. A bag of groceries will fall apart. A friend will let you down. A safe bet will go awry.

Are you ready for it? How are you preparing for the curveballs?

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Half Slice

The landline has existed, as far as I am concerned, since the dawn of time. It was a great tool in its time. It worked well. It was relatively reliable. It was not too complicated to use. Best of all, it was a stepping stone to the internet’s infrastructure.

Today the phone is not what it once way. Today, we do not use them much at all in the same way to how they were intended to be used. Today most everyone uses a cell phone and that cell phone is probably a smartphone.

Our tools change over time. They develop and grow into what we need them to be. We needed a way to talk to our friends and family who were far away. Now we can talk to them, send them a picture, send them a video, or write them a message all from the digital half-slice of bread we keep in our pockets.

We all wanted to be able to talk to our friends and family. What we got is way more than what we needed. Where we’ll end up is way more than Ma Bell ever imagined. But these tools are integrated into our lives almost as much as the food we eat or the clothes we wear.

What tools are deeply integrated into your life? What tool could do the job better? What tools do you not need? What tools do you need in your life?

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Less

We all have a lot to do. We have task lists, job descriptions, grocery lists, and bills to pay. There is no lack of things to do. Even when we sit down to relax, there are plenty of things fighting for our time and attention.

When these things creep into our lives, we obviously let them into our mental space. The first few odds and ends creep in, no big deal. Over time, more and more of these things creep. They go from one or two things to being a few things here, a few things there. A couple nice things for this every week or two and three or four good things for that. These things take over.

These extras take over. We are not doing what we set out to do. Our focus is lost to all of these non-essentials taking over. In no time flat, our entire task list is filled with tasks we would not dedicate our lives to completing.

Because we are doing so many things, we cannot do anything well. We can only skate by doing a mediocre job a so very many different tasks and projects. We would do better if we could. But there are not enough hours in the day.

What are your priorities? What are you saying yes to doing? What are you saying no to doing? What are you not doing as well as you could? Does your task list match your priorities?

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The Rule

For every rule, system, or process, there is an exception. The oddity. The statistical outlier.

It is the fringe user or the odd case. The thing the system was not designed to accommodate.

After you implement a new system, you will invariably run into the exception. These exceptions are your moment to shine.

I often will hesitate to implement a new system because of the exceptions. The minority will keep me from making it better for the majority.

What keeps you from implementing systems to improve the system for your coworkers, users, and customers?

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Success

The feeling of cooking the perfect dinner.

The accolade after acing a geometry test.

The joy of finishing an intricate puzzle.

The feeling of success is wonderful. A sort of euphoria induce by brain chemistry and psychology.

It also puts a filter on life. It clouds our judgement from seeing another way to do things. After landing a big sale, we try to do it again the same way we did it before. After building a company that out performs the market, we try to do it again and again using a recipe.

The results of our repeated efforts are rarely the same when reapplied to the same venue. Kodak was once their market leader. and now they are in shambles. Blockbuster pretty much had the corner on the movie rental market. Blackberry not only had the corner on the smartphone market. They were the very best at mobile email.

These companies were not put out of business by a competitor. They were put out of business by the evolution of their products.

Instagram is the evolution of Kodak. Why print our favorite photos? We can only see them when we have them with us or someone is at our house. Now we can have all my favorite photo in our pockets all the time.

Netflix and Redbox put Blockbuster out of business. Blockbuster wanted us to come to their hut to rent their movies. Netflix wants to come to our house to loan us their movies and Redbox wants us to snag a movie from them when convenient for however long is convenient.

These companies were the evolution of their predecessors. Their predecessors were put out of business by the next logical evolution. The predecessor is predisposed to thinking they already have it right. They cannot see the next evolution of their business because they are so focused on iterating on the product they have and resuscitating the old business every way they can.

What has been your biggest success? Since your first success in this area, how has the world changed? How would you repeat your biggest success today?

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Trying

We cannot know if something is going to work until someone tries it. You don’t have to be the one to try something, but someone has to be the first one to try it. And if is going to work, then why not it be you.

Odds are, whatever it is you are going to try has a pretty low cost in the grand scheme of things, the worst thing that can happen is either your boss or your community will say, ‘No.’ But even if they go that route, they will be nice about it. They are with you for a reason and they want you to succeed and in saying no, they are freeing you up to try something else.

And, if you really do believe in what you’re trying to do, then their no’s won’t stop you, it will deter you closer to a route that will work in the long run.

I know I usually get hung up in the exceptions and the excuses. They slow me down and I buy into them without ever trying a thing.

What is stopping you? What is the next step taking you closer to giving it a try?

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Details

Do you ever get overwhelmed by a project? All the parts there are to it. The way you are going to have to do all the steps that are hard and annoying. They have so many steps and attributes to track.

This does not seem to matter. You have to do the project anyways. Your boss assigned it to you. The government expects you to do your taxes. Your car needs to be repaired. You need to see the doctor for the chronic issue you are still having.

You do not get to skip a step in this process. You have to get it all. You cannot afford to miss anything. At the end of the day, if you miss something it only causes bigger issues.

Using a cheaper option for the supplier in the project costs you quality. Not seeing the doctor costs you sick days. Not getting your car fully repaired will lead to more car issues in the long run. Not doing your taxes will lead to the government fining you and cost you more money than the taxes you need to pay.

When you slow down and hit every step, checkbox, and detail possible, you pay for the whole thing up front and you do not have to keep paying for it over and over again. Best of all, you pay less in the long run too.

How great would it be for everything to cost less in life because you did it right the first time?

Take your time, do it right the first time.

No matter how much I want to so it right the first time. I get impatient and skip ahead. I let myself get overwhelmed and anxious by the size of the project and the ambiguity of the unknown. When I stop, breath, and take my time. I never regret it.

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Followthrough

Have you ever noticed you cannot throw a baseball nearly as far when you without followthrough? You have to begin the stopping before you ever release the ball and you never ramp up to full speed because you know you are going to stop before you ever bring your arm around.

Same deal when you are up to bat. You bring the bat around and you have to stop as soon as you hit the ball. But you never get up to full speed and you have to begin the stopping process before you ever take your step towards the first base.

Same deal in life. When you commit but do not follow through with your commitment. You never reach full speed and you begin the stopping process as soon as you start. And you let down the rest of your team.

You let down the rest of your team.

How would you feel if someone else on your team was stopping before they start or never getting up to full speed?

In order to get up to full speed, you have to swing through the ball. In order to make the throw from first to third, you have to have followthrough.

In order to be an effective team member you have to have followthrough on your commitments and assignments. In order to go all the way, you have to follow through the wall.

I am afraid of followthrough because I do not want to fail. I do not like followthrough because I do not want to be the ‘bad guy’ with people.

We have to do it anyways.

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Systems & Processes

You are not the first person ever. Odds are someone before you has done what you have been trying to do. They worked it out. Experimented. Tried over and over again. Developed a best method or practice. And now they have probably even written about it. They have shared their idea with the internet for everyone to read for free or cheap.

Why then are you trying to figure out how to do it on your own? Adapt their method to your use case. Odds are they figured out the fastest and cheapest way to do it. Plus, if you use their method, you have just freed up so much of your own time to get things done that really matter.

And if you are doing this and you are the only one who does it and it has to be done the way you do it. Then why not write it down, systemize it, and help someone else do what you are doing. There is a pretty good chance there are other people in the world trying to do what you are doing. These other people can probably use your advise and perspective on how to do what you are already doing so well.

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There and Back Again

Last summer, I had the opportunity to transition from Real Life to Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) at the Event Center. All in all, a pretty seamless transition. Of course I was sad to leave the Real Life family whom I had become so close to over the 8 years I had been a volunteer or staff member. All in all, it was the right move to make. I genuinely believe I was taken there for a reason and I am glad to have had the opportunity to be there.

While I was there I was able to make new friends and acquaintances with so many people within SEL and the Moscow-Pullman communities as a whole. I am so glad to have these new relationships. I am glad to have been a part of an organization wholly dedicated to producing quality products for their customers and continuing to be a staple of the community not only only on the Palouse and the Lewis-Clark Valley but all over the world. SEL is truly dedicated to making power safer, more reliable, and more economical.

After forty weeks, three weeks, and three days I have returned to Real Life to join the staff again as a part of the Creative Arts Team. I have been developing the way we plan and prepare for Sunday Mornings, our larger events, and finding and sharing the stories of God working in people’s lives within Real Life.

My time at SEL was not the best of times for a variety of reasons. I cannot speak to the parts of it that were not my responsibility but I can speak to the parts for which I know I am responsible. And there is no doubt I had a role to play in my time at SEL.

The biggest personal change I experienced is being knocked down a few notches. Going into SEL, I was very full of myself. I had grown and developed far beyond where I had started.

And

I

Knew

It

I left Real Life with an axe to grind, a chip on my shoulder, and my nose turned up at the world. My experience at SEL reminded me of who I am. I am a member of the cast of life, not the star of the show.

I learned several lessons in my time at SEL. I hope to lose none of them. But this one lesson I hope will never leave me personally. I do not know that I could ever teach someone the experience I received in developing my humility. My humility will now and forever be the best tool I have in learning from others, loving those who matter, and leading those who I am so fortunate to lead.

Humbly,

–JT

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Shipping

When I drop something off with the USPS or UPS or FedEx. They take it and immediately start moving it towards the intended destination as fast as they should. They do not have the option to sit on it or wait. They have been given my parcel to be delivered and they have the responsibility of getting it there.

Similarly, when I have an idea, passion, or solution. I have the responsibility to take it to the logical end. I cannot sit on it and rob the world of the idea and keep it from helping others or implementing it into a system. These ideas are meant to better the world around me. I have to let them out and help everyone else I can.

My friends.

My coworkers.

My family.

I have to put my ideas out there otherwise I am robbing other people of the better life I can help them have. The better life I could have. All because I shipped my idea and did not sit on it anymore. Not that my ideas are the key to success, but they are a step in the journey.

What ideas are you holding back from implementing? For yourself and others, what problems and solutions do you see? Who can help you ship more of your ideas?

Shipping,

–JT

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Enough

I like to bounce around with new ideas. I have quite a bit of fun sprouting ideas no matter how real or unreal they are. I like iterating and innovating on existing structures and blending together tools and resources to see something new come to fruition.

One space I am creative in far too often is my relationships with other people. I create stories for people. I create reasons for people. I invent ideas for people. Motivations for others. I fill in the gaps.

When I fill the gaps, my materials range from the biographical to the fictional.

Far too often I fill in the gaps for other people. Sometimes, I literally fill in the gaps by finishing someone’s sentence for them. Most often, I fill in the gaps with a story. Usually the story assumes a positive light or at least a neutral motivation. Only in a few cases do I frequently assume a negative motivation.

Ultimately, they are all wrong. They all fill in holes I am not meant to have. In short, I must fill in the gaps with the truth. If I truly care about the story or motivation I need to investigate the source and use the source material to explain the reasons behind happening. The more I invent, the farther from reality I land.

Truly, my creative curse is knowing when to stop. When to stop creating stories and ideas. When to wait for the truth.

Where do you make up stories? Where do you create when you should wait? When do you work when you should be resting?

Waiting,

–JT

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Contributing

Whenever I look at ancient architecture, I have to almost physically stop my self and remember someone built this building. Someone sat down, laid out a plan and decided to build this building. They decided it best for this series of bricks, carved stone, or pour blocks to go where they are.

I can look at the modern civilization around the ancient architecture and see this building is completely out of place. It no longer belongs, but once upon a time, it was exactly where it needed to be for the purpose it was made.

It was made where it was made for a reason.

For the construction no longer standing, it had a purpose but it did not stand the test of time. Whether the materials gave out, mother nature had her way, or war took its toll. The building is no more.

Today, I can see modern society, government, and the culture. They have all been placed where they are for a reason. They were all created with a purpose. I use all of them regularly.

However, I have to be prepared to contribute to them if I expect to ever see them change for the better. I have to be willing to throw in my two cents or I will forever be a silent victim of their demise.

How are you working to make the structures you are a part of better? What are you doing to add to positive forward progress? How are you making the people around you better?

Contributing,

–JT

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