Write Your Eulogy, Then Live the Life You Want

Here is great article shared with me from a friend and fellow fly fisherman Pete Dodds. Pete found this article by Geoff Yang a Partner of Red Point Ventures on LinkedIn. Given the fact it is graduation for so many young people starting their careers and the fact there are so many still looking to make changes in their lives do to lay offs, dead end jobs or people unsatisfied with their current career path I felt this was so appropriate to share. Mr Yang explains so well what I tell others when speaking about the LIFE community and the opportunity to pursue significance and a meaningful life.

Take the time to read and think on where you are in your current journey. Breathe and give yourself a chance to “live the life you’ve always wanted”.   

There’s always so much encouragement for graduating classes. “You are the generation.” “You will change the world.” I’m sure you are and you will, but how? How will you make a difference? I’m not going to tell you how to change the world; that’s up to you.

What I am going to give you is my advice on what will help guide you to make that difference. In my 30-year post-grad career, these are the words of wisdom that helped guide me—both personally and professionally:

Life is short. As you embark on the rest of your life, consider what you want it to be like and what you want to accomplish. Pretend for a moment that rather than graduating, starting your career, and moving on toward the rest of your life, you are at the end of it. How would people remember you, as both a person and a professional? Write your eulogy now. Think about how you want to be remembered by your family, friends, and colleagues. Let this shape you.

Do something you’d do even if you didn’t get paid to do it. If you don’t, then life will end up a chore. My dad was a chemical engineer who designed large-scale process plants. I remember seeing him get up every morning and go to work, and I don’t think he passionately loved what he did. He did it because he felt it was his responsibility. Life will be more fulfilling if you do what you love.

When I was finishing my MBA, the highest paid jobs were in investment banking and consulting. They were also the jobs with the highest prestige because they tended to attract the best and the brightest. Because of this, they were alluring for many graduates—when you have been out of the job market for a couple of years racking up student loans, working for a top-tier company with a solid paycheck made sense. I knew that neither of these routes was right for me. My choice to go a different direction ended up serving me well in the long run. I’m lucky enough to have found something I love doing. Not to say that it’s not work and it’s not tiring. It is. However, I constantly think about how lucky I am to do what I do—and get paid to do it.

It’s OK to be impatient, but don’t rush things. There’s a fine line between chasing your dreams and not being willing to lay a long-term foundation for success. When I finished graduate school, I saw a few people in my class who wanted a shortcut to success. They suffered from the “get rich quick” syndrome. Early on, they took risky bets with second-rate companies in hopes of accelerating success. With very few exceptions, that strategy did not work. Unfortunately, when they wanted to return to the mainstream, they didn’t have the foundation of success upon which to build.

Take risks with smart people. It’s fine to take calculated risks with your career, but when you do, make sure you understand the risks along with the reward. Make sure you take risks with the best people you can find. It will make all the difference in the end. If you want to start a company, recognize the risks you’re taking and do a gut check about how much you believe in what you’re doing. If you passionately believe in it, then do it with your eyes wide open and surround yourself with the smartest people you can find.

There is always next year, but at some point you start running out of next years. As you move forward in your career and in life, you’ll find yourself putting things off until next year. But there are only so many next years in your life. I’ve generally never passed off an opportunity to have a great life experience—be it travel, learning how to fly or play piano, or taking courses that weren’t directly relevant to the path I was on. The more you can do to round out your life outside of work, the more fulfilled you will feel in the end.

Don’t be one-dimensional. Life is more than your career. Life is about being a responsible, interesting person, and in my opinion, one of the greatest gifts in life is having close friends. As you move forward on your journey, you’ll find good friends are few and far between. I am fond of saying that I don’t need more friends, I just need more time to spend with the friends I already have.

Best of luck in your journey—and don’t forget: The journey is its own reward.

Teams, Teamwork and Teambuilding

A Team is a group of people brought together to accomplish a common purpose

Wikipedia describes Teamwork as “work done by several associates with each doing a part but all subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole”

Teambuilding improves performance of Teams by enhancing Teamwork.

Wikipedia describes “The overall goals of team building are to increase the teams understanding of team dynamics and improve how the team works together. Unlike working as a group, working as a team incorporates group accountability rather than individual accountability and results in a collective work product.Team building encourages the team approach to working on a project.”

Being part of a Team has many benefits, just two of which is the camaraderie and the amount of fun you can have. Here is a funny video to help you enjoy the Team experience.

Since we are closing in on the end of March Madness and coming down to the Final Four, I thought I would share a few good basketball coaches (as well as football, corporate, and Life Coaches) with not only some amazing teams and records but also some sound advice for you and I to build our own Teams whether in sports, business or right at home.

A few resources to help you build your Teams can be found in the LIFE business. Here are just a few books to help you develop your teams; Team Begins at Home, The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player, Good To Great, Leading with the Heart, Success is a Choice.

Educating the Populace

In my ongoing discussion about education and the value of college degrees I came across a video posting of Dr Ben Carson on an expanded discussion after his National Prayer Breakfast speech. In this interview he mentions that one of the most important things we can do to re-direct the course of America is that “we have to get our populace educated” Given the fact we have more college educated adults today than in the history of our country one would have to question the value of those college educations. Given Dr. Carson’s comment certainly one would assume that having a nation with so many college graduates we would not have the problems we have as a nation. It questions the validity of the many college degrees that have been granted. Listen to Dr. Ben Carson as he is interviewed by a number of guests and discusses possible solutions to America’s challenges. As Dr. Carson speaks about solutions by educating ourselves ask yourself  are we educating our populace or are we just selling degrees? The LIFE community has an objective to lead people to truth i.e. to educate the masses.

Fiat Degrees

Over the last 30 years there has been an emphasis on the need for a college degree in order to be successful. There has been so much of an emphasis on obtaining a degree that degree programs are everywhere, and the cost to obtain one has far exceeded inflation. While Food and the (CPI) Consumer Price Index had just over 200% increase, and Shelter just over 300% increase, Tuition rose over 1100% during the same period (see graph).

Is the cost worth the return? Have we begun printing degrees like the Federal Reserve prints money? Fiat money as defined by Investopedia is “Currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, despite the fact that it has no intrinsic value and is not backed by reserves.” Could this surge on the apparent need for degrees by the same definition – A Degree(s) that a government has declared to be legal tender, despite the fact it has no intrinsic value and is not backed by reserves (reserves being solid market demand). If the demand is low (college graduates can’t seem to find jobs in their field of study) then why the high cost? Is the cost artificially high versus the value of the degree?

When I was in high school the opportunities to advance in a company in many cases were because there were few people with a college degree, so those who had one were the ones with the best opportunity to “climb the corporate ladder”. Now it seems everyone has a college degree; the janitor, the girl who makes your latte in the coffee shop and the security guard by the elevators. The value of the degree has decreased because there are only so many available spaces at the top of the company. I recently had a young man with a Bachelors degree in Physics tell me that his degree is now the equivalent of a high school diploma. He can only get a job in a lab for just over minimum wage.

In analyzing the value of a college education today I came across this article from Globalization 101 a Project of the SUNY Levin Institute:

American Perception of the Value of a College Education
Hundreds of articles in major newspapers on the decreasing value of a college education have been written over the past year.

Basic findings:
• School quality is declining. A federal study showed only 25 percent of college graduates had information literacy. Thirty-three percent of college students had less than 40 pages of required reading per semester (The Economist, 2012), a measurement that demonstrates a lack of rigor in U.S. colleges. The book Academically Adrift, confirms the decline stating that students did not gain critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills after three semesters in college (Ripley, 2012)

•The tech sector inspires and rewards college drop-outs. The Thiel Fellowship pays students to drop- out of college and pursue their own ventures. While, many tech companies are hiring college drop-outs, who are viewed as free-thinkers and risk-takers. (Williams, 2012)

• The bachelor’s degree is worth less than it used to be. Many bachelor degree holders are employed in jobs that do not require a college degree and furthermore these degrees are not necessarily aligned with job openings that require different skill sets. So, alternatives, such as training programs and online programs are proliferating and Master degree programs are increasing as well (Lawrence, 2012).

Has your college degree provided you the salary you expected?

An Article from the Wall Street Journal entitled The Declining Value Of Your College Degree  stated ; “ A four-year college degree, seen for generations as a ticket to a better life, is no longer enough to guarantee a steadily rising paycheck.”

Have you received your college degree and found it difficult to find a job in your field of study?

Did you feel you received your money’s worth for the education you received?

In retrospect would you have reconsidered getting a college degree?

The Serving Leader

Everyone loves a good story. Even better is a story that can be personal to you, where parts of the story are really parts of your story. Add to that story lessons that we can learn, that can move us to apply those lessons that are taught. That is what this book does, through a story of a father and son who have little it common or so it seems. How many of us have parents who we can’t seem to please, or who don’t recognize or acknowledge our efforts or accomplishments? This is a story of a father and son who are worlds apart but through tragedy come back together.

This book comes with some pretty powerful contributors with Forwards by Leadership experts Ken Blanchard and Orrin Woodward. Ken Blanchard best known for his book The One Minute Manager, and Whale Done is a legend in the leadership world. Orrin Woodward is the international best-selling author of Resolved and co-author of the NY Times Best Seller; Launching a Leadership Revolution. He is founder of The LIFE company and Independent Association of Business “Leader of the Year”.

The authors of The Serving Leader Ken Jennings Ph.D. and John Stahl-Wert, D. Min. both have extensive education, and a wealth of experience leading and teaching. Mr. Jennings is a past co-director of the Global Leadership in Healthcare Program at University of Michigan Business School, and has a Bachelors in Behavioral Science from the Air Force Academy, and was an adjunct professor at Columbia University Business School. John Stahl-Wert is President and CEO of Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation and on the faculty of Geneva College’s Masters of Science in Organizational Leadership.

“Five Powerful Actions that will Transform your Team, your Business and Your Community” That’s the tag line just below the title describing how this book, The Serving Leader, can impact us.

This book delivers. Read it, then give me your feedback.

I’d love to hear if this book impacted you the way it did me.

I’d love to hear your story.

Your Legacy

Another year has passed and we are one year older, one year wiser, and have one more year to be thankful for. Thankful you say? “This has been a bad year, this went wrong and that went wrong. Things didn’t turn out the way I had imagined. Yes I am one year older but no farther ahead than when the year started. In fact I am no farther ahead than I was 5 years ago” We’ve heard people say this or we’ve made some of these comments ourselves.

It’s a New Year and that means it’s time to begin a new beginning. I had a mentor tell me years ago, “You can’t work hard enough to overcome a negative thought process” so let’s start with changing the way we think.

Let me give you some thoughts to help guide you towards your incredible future.

First…. Be thankful you are here to read this.

Second…Let’s change our input. What we tell ourselves. Maybe we need to change who we associate with. Pick up some good books, CD’s, DVD’s that challenge your thinking to improve. Attend a seminar or find a good church. Find a mentor who will be willing to coach you and to whom you will stay accountable to.

Third…Define what the rest of your life will look like……Your Legacy

Benjamin Franklin had 3 phases of his life. He was first an Entrepreneur, then an Inventor, and finally a Statesman. I could give countless examples of people who started late in their life, who started over, who failed at first and then succeeded beyond their wildest (and their in-laws) expectations.

Don’t let another year slip by. Begin your legacy today. I want to share the importance of starting on this journey today by sharing an article from a friend of mine Kristen Seidl.

I spent some time talking with a woman who was 82 years old the other day. She was in an assisted living facility where, because of some health issues, she couldn’t take care of herself on her own anymore. Her husband had already passed away and she only had one son who never married and moved away about 13 years ago. I could tell there was an emptiness inside her as her only son calls about once a month and has only visited once since she first moved in over a year ago. I began to ask some questions about her life and some of the memories she had from when she was younger. But the responses I got were completely not what I expected. I knew this was a divine appointment.

Looking back on her life, she shared some regrets. Her first regret was not having more children. In her generation, it was not uncommon for families to be 5-10 children deep. She had mentioned that in her earlier days, prior to being married, she experienced sexual abuse which scared her to the point that she never wanted to get married or have children. She said that if it wasn’t for the stigma and pressure for women to be married back then, she might have been alone her entire life. She carried that fear with her and was never able to resolve it even after having a child. She said her second regret was not having a better relationship with her son. She knew that he was her priority but because she couldn’t erase the memories from her past, she just ‘did what she had to do’ to raise her son but that was it. As he grew up, he became more and more distant to the point where he moved out at 16 years old. Her son is now in his early 50′s and he too never got married or had children. Her last regret was that she feels like she wasted most of her life by living in the past. She told me that as a child, she wanted to be an actress and travel all over the world. She loved being in the spotlight and making people happy and said she was a very lovable young lady. After the abuse, she couldn’t imagine being in the spotlight. She gave up on all her dreams and isolated herself from the world for years. After she married, she said her relationship with her husband was cold and distant and she said if it wasn’t for her commitment to God at the alter, she would have never stayed with him. “We were basically roommates” She said.

Today, looking back she wishes she would have pursued her dream of acting. She wishes she had a better relationship with her husband and son and she wishes she could go back in time and start over and live a more purposeful life. Now she lives with the pain of regret. Upon learning all this, I feared asking her about legacy because I didn’t want to hurt or offend her, but ended up asking anyways since she seemed to be very comfortable around me. I proceeded with, “Now I know I am young but I think about this all the time. I think about my actions today as a reflection of my legacy later. I don’t know how long I will be here so I want to make sure my actions count now. Have you thought about your legacy and what type of legacy you would like to leave behind?” I may be a bit naive but again her response surprised me. She told me that practically her entire life she didn’t even think about the end of her life.  She focused so much on things in the moment that the future rarely entered her subconscious. She knew that if she thought about the future, it would guilt her into changing and pursuing something bigger. She felt safe in her mediocre lifestyle and was afraid of letting go of her past. She was trapped in her own thoughts and found peace there. But now looking back she says she thinks about legacy all the time. Although now she feels it’s too late. I tried to encourage her and offer some suggestions so that she could find peace with her regrets and still leave a positive legacy. I also asked if I could share her story with others to give hope to those struggling with an addiction, abuse, trauma, divorce, neglect or any other crisis so they could hopefully overcome those struggles and still be able to live a life of significance and not look back on their life with regrets. She was so delighted by that and I could just feel the weight of regret being lifted off her shoulders. I told her I would help her leave a legacy that will impact so many lives through her story. I will also continue to visit her and help her relive the positive memories from her past and share comments from people who have been impacted by her story.

Leave a comment and share what steps YOU will take starting this New Year on building your legacy.

Christmas

Christmas is soon upon as it is Christmas Eve and many little children will be anxiously awaiting that special morning tomorrow when they wake up to find presents under the tree.

But what about the story behind Christmas?

I mean we all know the story of the birth of Jesus of the baby in the manger. The celebration of the birth of the Savior by gathering our families and singing carols of joy,  but there is a story we don’t think about or may not even know.

Let’s think of what happened that day from a different perspective. Imagine, when the Holy Spirit appeared to Mary to announce the birth of Jesus, Joseph’s world was turned upside down. He thought of leaving and could have, many men do when they found out their wife is expecting and they are not the father. And who could have anticipated all that of the horrible events that occurred as a result of his birth. When Jesus was born King Herod and the religious leaders of the day were troubled. They felt threatened. King Herod’s response was to have all the baby boys 2 yrs old and younger killed. He sent Roman soldiers to rip the young children from their mother’s arms and kill them.  How many innocent children were slaughtered as King Herod sought to kill baby Jesus? Mary in order to save her child had to flee to a foreign land and live there for years to protect her child. These were huge sacrifices made by Mary and others so we could be brought the Good News.  Jesus was the Light of the World, the Savior, but if you want to be the light for others you will have to reckon with the forces of evil.

The forces of Good and Evil will always be at battle.

Consider this that at the Birth – evil tried to destroy the child Jesus to prevent good from being done.

On the Cross – evil tried once again to end the hope.

Realize what it cost to save us.

What is the message of Christ that caused so much divisiveness?

LOVE – HOPE – PEACE

That message was met with anything but love, hope and peace.

Even today 2000 years later there is still doubt, disbelief, and divisiveness

In your life as you wake this Christmas Day what do you believe?

With whom do you trust your eternity?

One who brings a message of Love, Hope and Peace?

For those who believe – no explanation is necessary.

For those who don’t – no explanation is adequate

And as you face this New Year what do you want to do with the life you have left? What is your purpose? Do we aspire to do a great thing….perhaps impact the world for good, to be a service to others? Is it that we want to change the world without having our world turned upside down?

Joseph’s life in playing his role being the husband to Mary had his life turned upside down.

The Disciples’ that followed the Savior born on Christmas day had their lives turned upside down in order to change the world.

Don’t expect every day of your life to be like Christmas morning where you sip hot chocolate and open presents with everyone cheering, or enjoying seeing the children’s joy of opening presents. Recognize that for every prize there is a price. Are you willing to pay the price, not of death, but maybe of discomfort?  To turn others lives upside down you just might have to turn your upside down as well.

As you awaken tomorrow morning Christmas morning be thankful that comfort is yours because of His discomfort. And follow his example if you want to lead others to a better more comfortable life.