Mastery

In the last post; I talked about strength. Tonight I feel like I should take it to the next step. Mastery.

When I was on the subject of strength, I mentioned the concept of developing those things that you are good at. To the extent of becoming great at them.

This is what i consider to be a master. I don't really care what particular discipline you are considering for the analogy. you are likely to find ten thousand other folks in the world who could be considered masters at it. There is nothing that will separate you from any of the other masters at whatever it is that you do.

But, that said, although there are other masters in the world; there is a world of difference between the masters and the rest of us.

If your computer dies, you call a master to repair it. If your car has a problem, you take it to a master mechanic. Likewise the master plumber, master carpenter, etc. Other sectors may call them doctors, professors, or something similar. The point is that these folks are generally considered to be the best of the best at something very specific. You would not call a plumber to fix your fuse box. He knows how to fix the drain. Not the socket.

The old adage is I think "jack of all trades, master of none." It implies that a person is not able to master more than one (or all) of the different disciplines available to them.

This, to me, is a crock of shit.

Given enough time, effort, training, and practice, I believe that the human mind does indeed have the capacity to master any damned thing that catches its attention.

The problem is that most people do not devote those four factors in unison often enough to actually learn to do more than one thing really really well. I know lots of folks who can do lots of things half-assed. I also know lots of them who can do one thing really well. I only know a few who can do lots of things really well.

I feel as though tonight's thought is a focus point for me of where I was when I started writing this journal. i haven't explored this idea in quite a while. So I re-examined myself in this light, and spent some time reading the things that I have written. It is apparent to me that I really am still pursuing those things that I spoke about over a year ago as being important to me.

Point in fact. Every single one of the interests that were mentioned in that very first post. Every single one has in my mind been developed to some point closer to mastery than it was at the time. I have continued to be driven to exercise each of those skills and grow my own mastery of it. Although I am still a jack of all trades by and large; I would say that I can now see that someday I might be able to at least consider myself to be a master of some. Sure beats none in my book.

And thats the point isnt it? Every day of your life you need to experience growth. It seems to me that the only way to find out what this world that we are in is all about is to grow with it. I dont want to get to some level of whatever and just stay there. I want to get bigger, better, faster, smarter, (better looking, but good luck right?) and so on every day. Staying the same just doesnt cut it.

The only way that this can happen is through challenge. Take help where you can get it, but face your challenges. head on. try it. whats the worst that can happen? failure, although it sucks, sure beats not trying at all. And failure never really happens if youve done your homework and your studies, and taken the test with a sharp #2 pencil right?

The point is, find something, anything, and master it. or find ten things and master them all. Just try not to get to be pretty good at them and then quit learning.

strength

merry Christmas everybody.

we all have a specific thing that we are particularly good at. Strong if you will.

For some of us, it is physical ability. We hit the gym, bulk up. see how many reps we can do. How ripped we are able to become.

Some of us try to be financially strong. How much money can we make, sock away, spend, How well can we be set in our financial lives.

There are those of us that attempt to be strong in soul. How strong can we make our relationship with the lord. How much can our music mean to us. How well are we able to get to know ourselves.

We try to be strong in our careers. The next level. the next promotion. the next great achievement. That next publishment if you are one of my researching friends.

And yet, there always seems to be a void in our lives regardless of how strong we may feel. There seems to be that weak spot for us. It is as if we spend so much effort making ourselves strong in one thing that we neglect the opposite of it. yin and yang.

I know many workaholic folks who have no home life. By contrast, I know lots of folks with great home lives who are not successful at work. I know that this gets back to the balance that I talked about a few posts ago, but it it a fascinating concept.

What I think is that we all need to pay attention to where our strengths lie.

The best possible example is a friend of mine who gets into bodybuilding. When he was just starting out, he focused on building his upper body. After a short time, he discovered that he was not gaining as much mass as he thought he should have been able to. Much to his own chagrin, he hired a personal trainer. He told the guy that he wanted to get big, ripped, whatever.

Do you know what happened? The personal trainer took him off of weights and started him on a cross-training routine for cardio. Then when he had gained some physical fitness, they started into the weight room. the created a routine that encompassed most of the major muscle groups in his body.

My friend did indeed get "big." And it happened very quickly. But it only happened because that trainer started out by focusing on the weak spots in the body.

We can all learn a lesson from this. If you have been working out the spots in your life where you are already strong, perhaps it is time to evaluate yourself. start working the things that you are not so good at. you know, the things that your spouse complains about.

You might be amazed at the degree of self satisfaction you find yourself with.

May god bless and keep you.
May he make his face shine upon you.
go in peace and serve the lord.
thanks be to god.
merry christmas.

Friendship

I have commented before about the fact that Babe and I are blessed with a group of very close friends.

Today is the birthday of one of them. Thinking about this last night caused me to re-examine how very close she has become to us. So today I'm going to brag her up a little bit.

Things that I love about this woman.

She is an absolutely fantastic cook. I cannot begin to describe some of the dishes that she has made for us.

I would trust her with my children in any situation. As a matter of fact, my boys do not allow her to leave their presence without a hug, and when the conversation turns to a visit; it very quickly becomes the only subject on the minds of turtle and tank.

This person is a loving mother and wife. I believe that she tends to be the glue holding her household together. Her husband, Foose, is my best friend, and like me, he tends to be pulled in many different directions at once, sometimes not leaving as much time at home as he might like. Like my wife, Foose's wife somehow manages to reinstall balance to her household.

She seems to be involved in every possible aspect of our church. Her generosity with her time and her talents is well known, and she does seem to be one of those people who is known as somebody you can call on for help.

I cannot count the number of times that she has picked up my children from daycare, or watched them when they were sick, or taken care of them in some other fashion.

By now, I imagine that you can understand why we value her friendship so much... Who wouldn't? I know that we are not alone in this, as her other friends also feel the same way. Anytime you manage to connect with somebody who becomes so reliable a support mechanism for you, of course you are going to value your relationship with them to a high degree.

And so, with that, I am wishing her a very happy birthday. I hope that she knows that she is valued, that she is respected, and that we all love her.

Happy Birthday Jody.

on hope and achievement.

hope. as per websters...

intransitive verb 1 : to cherish a desire with anticipation
: to desire with expectation of obtainment
2 : to expect with confidence : trust
synonyms see expect

what is it about hoping for something? Why does the human organism find pleasure in trying to see the future? In attempting to predict what may or may not happen next?

do we feel that if we hope something happens, and then it does happen; that we have somehow made it so? is it a god complex?

The thing about the definition listed is that word, expectation. expect. The comparison tonight is that I expect that the tank and the turtle WILL keep their rooms clean. I expect that they will heed the words of their mother. I expect that turtle will not come home from kindergarten with a yellow light. But i dont hope for these things.

Expectations have consequences. SO what are the ramifications of hoping for something that doesnt pan out?

The point is that websters has a bad definition here. An inaccurate synonym if you will.

case in point. I said that I expect that Turtle will not come home with a note from school. I hope, by contrast, that nobody picks on him on the bus. Expectations are something held by those in control of a situation. I can offer some influence on his behavior in the classroom. I am not able to influence the bus ride.

And really, when you think of it, the things about which you would consider yourself hopeful are normally well beyond your own control. If they were in your control, you would not hope for them, you would just make it so.

All of this is not really tonights point. If I had really wanted to work with hope and hope alone, I would have just used the "hopes for a promotion" definition.

The idea tonight has more to do with the old " where do you see yourself " question.

You cannot expect anything in the future of your life. You dont know. You have no control. Because you never know what is going to happen next. Look at the news sometime. Pick any story and tell me that the central figure had any idea that they would be on the news today. you dont know.

So we do the best we can to control life. We spend our money in our own way. We live to our own standard. We follow the rules we know. And we try to live our lives down a path that we expect them to take. Even when we get bumped off one side of the path or the other, we correct ourselves to try and get back onto the path. If a college student does poorly on an examination, they may take it again, or add some extra credit time to get their grade back up. If a worker has his hours cut at the full time job, maybe he gets a part time job so that he can afford to keep his truck.

We like to believe in all sorts of warm fuzzy things like free will. freedom of speech. self reliance. In fact, we dont have any of them at our disposal. You are only in charge of your path until some outside factor changes it for you. You dont have any more control over the overall outcome of your life than an ant on the sidewalk.

Ants are a curiosity to me. Workers. An ant possibly has the highest work ethic of any creature out there. They are constantly trying to be hopeful about the future that they are faced with. Until you or I ride our bicycle across that path and squash them.

Thats what I mean about not having control. There is a song on the radio right now about this idea. "sounds like life to me" Talks about some of the challenges that we all face in our lives, and sort of makes light of them, The idea, i suppose is to tell you to roll with the punches. Thats a different song though.

But the hope. Thats what keeps a person moving. Have you ever seen a person who was truly hopeless? Collapsed in a ball in the corner? It is only hope that drives us. This is the true root of motivation. If we see some benefit, some light at the end of the tunnel, and we believe that our actions will get us closer to it.... that is acting in hope. And it is also at the core of motivation. Any reward you foresee is based on hope.

So try this on for size. Lets try and expect things instead of hoping for them. How would your behavior change? If you expected a promotion instead of hoped for it. Would you change the quality or quantity of work you were doing? Your interactions at your job? I bet you would.

Now I am not talking about entitlement here. I am saying that your life would be drastically different if you took the stance of having some amount of control over what happens to you. And by the way, taking some responsibility for what happens in your life as well.

It doesnt work in all cases, but here I guess Im talking about personal achievement. I did not hope that my hotrod would turn out well. I expected it to do so and then followed through to make sure of it.

See the difference? When it comes to achievement, we all have certain things that we hope for. I think that they should become things we expect. It seems to me that the odds of achieving them will be a lot higher.

Going for a ride.

I had the unique experience over the last few days of driving. A lot of driving. It began with a trip from home to Saxeville and back over the weekend. This was immediately followed on Monday by a drive to Michigan's upper peninsula.

There is something very calming for me about driving for a distance alone. I find myself able to address a large number of thoughts and conflicts, sort of making sense of them. In this case however, I found myself ending the trips with more questions than answers.

As you are likely aware, I generally find myself drawn to a very down-to-earth way of life. Much more so than the day to day life that I actually lead. These two trips did nothing to quell that. Driving through these two very remote, rural, and agrarian areas only served to make obvious to me the benefits of that ideal.

Whether or not you agree with the ideal, it seems hard to argue the basic simplicity of life that becomes inevitable when you are in a full time environment of this sort. When there is not a Target, Walmart, Sears, Bed Bath and Beyond, Elder Beermans, etc within 35 or more minutes of your home, your life's pace will absolutely slow down. We're talking about people who dont have cable television because the lines arent long enough. People who have to examine the gas guage before coming home rather than before leaving home.

This sort of life to me is the ideal. In my mind, the opposite end of the spectrum would be some of the ultra urban apartments and condos out there.

The thing is, I love to have a little space. I sometimes like to make a mess. Or some noise. You cant do that when you dont have any space. Its rude.

When was the last time your friend with that gorgeous subdivision house talked about target practice in the back yard? Or working on the car in the garage? Or having friends over for a fire? Shoot, leaving the boat out overnight. Maybe I have a problem with authority, but I have never been able to come to grips with the idea of a restrictive covenant. Mostly because the damned things were written to keep people like me away.

Driving through these areas, it becomes obvious that the folks who live there full time are a bit more laid back. They do things as they are able. Within their own level of ability. And as they see fit. They do not update the house based on increasing its resale value. They dont buy things with the idea that they will ever sell them. For that reason, they make those things reflect their own personality. If they think that it would look nice to plant flowers in a bathtub int he front yard, thats exactly what they do.

Now I'm not saying what this sounds like. The real point here hasnt changed much from many of the other ideas that ive shared. Specific examples never quite seem to show the whole picture.

I guess the underlying theme so far is thus; Be who you are. Of course you will have to maintain some amount of social conformity, but be who you are.

It truly is the differences in people that gives us the most in common.

Nurturing Growth

Environments are reflected by their inhabitants.

Any time you take the time to examine growth, you must also take into account the events and the situations surrounding whatever it is that you are focused on.

Children have an enormous capacity for learning. I see this in my own kids, and their ability to grasp and own an idea with very little explanation. The synapses are firing so quickly, and the interference is so low, that a child can process and commit to an idea much more quickly than an adult. Kids dont have the worries and stress that come with responsibility. This alone allows focus.

But a child can only learn that which is presented to him. Whatever it is that a child is subjected to becomes the norm, the way of doing things, of speaking, of behaving. Kids tend to be fantastic mirrors of the role models around them, because of the capacity, and desire, to focus on what is going on around the world that they live in.

Where this idea really becomes interesting though, is in the management of people.

Very rarely can the worker influence the growth of a supervisor. The idea of it counters most logical thought processes. More commonly, the worker is a product of the manager or supervisor. Highly productive people are generally motivated by highly productive bosses. Unfortunately, not-very productive people can also be reflections of highly productive bosses.

To illustrate this, examine the way in which you train a dog. If you want a dog to complete task x, you have to encourage that animal more and more specifically towards that task until he begins to understand. We have all been privy at one time or another to training a dog to recognize the boundaries of his yard. How is it done? Correct if you said that you walk him around the edges on a short leash, then a longer one, then a rope, then no rope, before finally letting him loose completely and calling him in if he gets too close to the edges. It never works if you just stand on the porch and scream at the dog every time he moves.

Teachers do this by the way. It is the tell me, show me, watch me theory. Whenever I am training somebody on a new process, it is this theory that I follow. I start by explaining the task at hand, then by working through the process a few times with the trainee, and finally by observing that person doing the job and offering constructive help.

This goes back to the kindergarten theory of management which I spoke of in another thread. When you start to deal with your people in the same manner that you might deal with a kindergartner, you begin to understand a relationship in which you are nurturing growth. This is not to say that you talk very slowly and specifically. This is more broad-based. A kindergartner will flourish if he is given opportunity to impress the teacher. If he is given a chance for success on his own. If he is able to attain something through his own success.

If you have a child, you know this. "clean up your bedroom and you can have a cookie" or "eat your brussel sprouts and you can have dessert"

It is the same with workers. I have yet to see a worker who was motivated by the fear of termination. Or who did a better job after being bawled out in public. I have never seen a person come to work committed to success the day after being told he was doing a poor job. Especially if that person didnt believe the assessment was accurate.

The ideal employee is as follows. Committed and excited about their job. Interested in what it is that they do for a living. Proud of the company that they work for. Feels valued in what they do. Believes that they can be successful in what they do, and that the success will generate more of the previous feelings. Is certain that the things that are expected of them are attainable. Notice that I did not say that the worker believes that they will be better paid.

We have all seen situations in which a person did not work out in one organization and yet was wildly successful in another. The person changed jobs, and was suddenly driven, motivated, interested, and successful. Unfortunately, we have all seen the opposite happen as well.

I believe that most of the time the change has to do with the supervisor more than the employee. My own experience has been as follows. If a person knows what is expected of them, believes that it is something that they can accomplish, and sees a benefit to doing so; they will be successful at it. Leave out any of the three, and they will fail. ten times out of ten.

If the person does not know what they are supposed to do, it isnt going to get done.

If they dont think they can do the job, or believe that too much is being asked, they arent going to do it.

And most of all, if that person does not think that getting it done will have a result, they wont get it done. Any time that a person gets to thinking that it doesnt matter what they do, because the result will not change, they will not take the extra steps that separate them from success.

So a person is the result of their own environment. An environment that encourages creativity will breed creative people. One that encourages stringent attention to structure and routine will create those folks. When you put a person in an environment, they become part of it.

When I talk to managers, one of the most common things that I hear is that their people are either afraid to make decisions, or that they make the wrong ones. It never fails to raise the question in my mind of consistency in that organization. I wander when i hear these things whether or not the worker has been walked around the yard, whether the leash has been lengthened gradually, and finally let go, and whether or not the worker has been called back from the boundary from time to time. More often I find that these organizations have very little structure or set ways of doing things. I find usually a situation in which people are turned loose on the job, and are only hemmed in when things get out of control.

In any case, one of the biggest things that any manager can do is make sure that the workers know and understand what it is that they are to do, that they are empowered to operate within that set of rules, and that they are comfortable with them.

Learning Every Day,
Greg

The Details...

Whenever you honestly examine some aspect of your life, it becomes apparent that how well you handle the details will determine the level of satisfaction you find.

For instance. I have talked before about the pickup truck. If I had not spent the time picking out that perfect camshaft for it, I can tell you that the experience of hearing it run would not have been the same. Come to think of it, modified cars are a great example of details. Think of all of the things that separate one hot-rodded car from the other. The wheels, the paint, the engine, the finish of the interior. The list goes on and on and on. But that said, I can tell you from experience that the difference of as little as a quarter of an inch on the width of a wheel can make the difference in whether or not the wheel looks or fits right on the car.

But we aren't talking solely about cars here. Imagine going to the store. The things that you have on your list to buy are very specific. You don't need milk, you need 2%. or soy. or chocolate. You aren't looking for Doritos, you want cool ranch, or late night taco.

The point is that the big things never go overlooked. Its the details that separate us from greatness many times. Its the little extra touches. Some people call it going the extra mile. More often its just taking the extra small step.

When we get dressed in the morning, we all wear pretty much the same things. We all have socks or something similar on our feet. We all have something covering our legs and torso. We wear shoes. And if we all stood in line together, it is the details of those items that shed light on our differences.

Think of men's shirts for a bit. Often, I wear sort of a denim-ish shirt to work. But if I really want to look nice for the day; I might wear something more dressy. The details of those shirts is what makes the difference in how I appear to my customers and coworkers. I generally will wear the same type of pants and shoes with either. But the shirts. They both have buttons. It is likely that they even have the same kind and number of buttons. They have similar collars. They have the exact same embroidery on them. But what a difference there is between a denim shirt and a crisp white dress shirt. Moreover, what a difference in the way the dress shirt looks with white buttons compared to brown ones.

Simple things can make the difference. How much different does a room look with a 40 watt bulb in the lights versus a 60 watt? Doesn't seem like much. Try it. Try it in your bedroom. If you have a workshop, try it there. It makes all of the difference in the world. The bedroom will be much friendlier, more inviting, not as harsh. The workshop will not be as usable, and your projects wont seem to work as well.

Ever been to a hotel that didn't put a mint on your pillow after cleaning up? Or bought a car and found old junk in the ashtray even when the rest of the car looked great? Most times, it is the things that would have taken one extra minute or one extra dollar that can really turn a person off.

Now for the reality of it. The details done correctly will never ever ever be a positive force for you. They tend to just make up the rest of the image. Not one time in your life have you looked at the ashtray in your car and said, " hey, there's no junk in it" You may have noticed that it was clean. But not in the way that you would notice it was dirty. You have never looked at my shirt and thought about the buttons. You have only noticed if one was missing or noticed that it looked very crisp.

But you will never get credit for following through on the details. You will only get whatever the opposite of credit is if you don't or aren't able to follow through and somebody notices it.

Interestingly, the level of pay that an employee receives works in exactly the same way. The amount of money you pay somebody will almost never equate to the level of satisfaction they get out of the job. Nobody goes to work and likes the job because they make a lot of money doing it. Lots of people go to work and hate the job because they don't think they make enough to do it. Details, like pay rates, can usually only be a negative. When they are a positive, they never seem to have the same impact. Every once in a while, people will notice perfection, but that is only in situations that they are looking specifically for it.

Point in fact. You can think of a time at a restaurant when you've gotten something off your bill at a restaurant because of a detail that was missed. I would wager that you have to think very hard to come up with a time that you have offered to pay more for the meal because everything was done right. You may have left a bigger tip for your server, but you didn't pay an extra buck for your steak.

Its because details are the things that are SUPPOSED to be done. If you are the housekeeper at a restaurant, you are supposed to leave the mints. If you clean cars, you are supposed to check and clean the ashtray. Whatever it is that you are involved with, there are things that people expect. They expect that your time and attention should be devoted to the details of the job. A housekeeper would never forget to vacuum the carpet. They might forget the mints. But that's the point.

In short, the difference between being good; and being great; is in the details.