Everyone Needs A Good Coach
I love football. In fact it is the only sport I ever really excelled in. I didn’t play college football like my sons but I was a pretty good high school player. Early in my career, coaches recognized I had some strengths. I was a competitor. I was intense. I was coachable. They also saw several deficiencies. I was not big, strong, coordinated or fast. In other words, on the surface you would think I had little chance of success. But, and here is a huge key, remember I was easy to coach.
Under the excellent tutelage of some very dedicated men, I was taught techniques and reads that served me well. When I played defense, I could read the direction the play was going by the first steps the lineman made who were suppose to block me. I picked up subtle movements the running backs made pre snap that tipped their hand on where they were heading on the play. Those reads helped me make up for not being technically fast. I became football fast. I could get to where I needed to be faster than many who had greater speed because of the insights given me by my coaches. And on the other side of the ball I became an all- county center on the offensive line. Every week I would be charged with the assignment of blocking someone 25-50 pounds heavier than me. It is impossible to do using just average strength. But a coach taught me the importance of leverage and technique. I could and did win the battle most of the time against guys way bigger. How did I do it? I was willing to listen to a coach who taught me the techniques and skills I would need to succeed.
Regardless of how successful you are, you can be better when you listen to a good coach. In the game you can only see what is happening from a single perspective, your own. With a coach, you get another pair of eyes and a lot of wisdom that can help you rise way above your natural ability. I have a serious question for you. Do you need a different perspective? Are you coachable? Sometimes being coachable is all you need to really thrive in the Big Life.
Born To Lead
June Elizabeth is my eight-year-old granddaughter. She is kind, charming and very creative. And, she likes being the one in charge of the other grandkids. She absolutely does not mind making sure they behave properly and do what they are supposed to do. Some might see this as a fault. I see it as a huge natural strength. Miss June possesses an innate leadership quality in her personality. This meme made me smile today.
Leadership is influence. Nothing more and nothing less. I have known I had leadership skills from the time I was June’s age. As I have grown up, I have discovered that my leadership skills can certainly be improved upon. Training is good for all leaders who want to do a better job. But, this one thing is true; jobs wont get done without leaders leading the way. If you feel you have leadership potential inside of you, don’t put it off. Male or female, if you were born to lead, for goodness sakes, lead.
Letting Go
Lao–Tzu was a Chinese philosopher credited with founding the philosophical system of Taoism around the 6th century BCE. He said, “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”
I have been thinking about that statement a lot lately. It is so easy for us to get stuck. We lock in on a label that we think defines us. It could be a good label or a bad one. Either way when we identify ourselves with the label it ends up holding us captive for the rest of our lives. The problem with a label is it is based on the past. I was (fill in the blank). But, we were created to grow and evolve. I am not supposed to be tomorrow what I was yesterday. And I will never experience becoming what I can become if I am only holding on to my past.
For me to become all I can be I must let go of yesterday so I can walk into my now. That’s what Lao-Tzu meant. Yesterday is gone. Let go of all of it, the good, bad and the ugly. You are growing. You are wiser. You are not dominated by fear. You can walk confidently into your future knowing you are becoming the man or woman you always knew you could be. Big living is simply becoming your best you. Don’t settle for yesterday’s you. You, fully alive today, is who you truly want to be.
Getting Past Your Past
I used to spend a lot of time reflecting on mistakes I had made on my journey. Trust me, there have been more than a few. I would think, “How could I have been so stupid?” I could lose a whole day going down the road of why. Here’s what I have discovered. Digging up all those old bones doesn’t help me at all. Owning your failure is important, but then you have to move on. You can get past your past. But, it will never happen if you constantly are thinking about the ditch you drove into yesterday.
I love the late great Maya Angelou. She said it like this, “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
That’s what I believe. As I have learned better, I have done better. That’s the ticket to getting past your past on your big life.
Don’t Be Like The Bee!
What if I told you that you are the reason your situation seems so dim. I don’t mean to be trite, and I certainly am not trying to add any shame or pain to an already difficult time. I just mean your vision is determining to a large degree the severity of your situation.
I learned a long time ago most situations are not as bad nor as good as you think. When something difficult happens around me I try to remind myself that this is not as fatal as it feels. Conversely, when something really good happens to me, I try to remember this is not the end all greatest thing in the history of the word. This might be good, but it is not the best thing ever. By training myself to see things closer to the middle and not quite as extreme, I feel I can better handle the ups and the downs of life.
I also try to remember to look at difficulties with an open mind, intent on finding solutions. I can rehash problems from now on and nothing will get any better. I want to look up, around and inside of myself to see where my answers might lie.
I have been told that you can trap a bee in a mason jar and leave the lid off and it will stay there. Why? Because they don’t look up. They just buzz around bumping their little bee head into the glass wall. What if you could get that little bee to just look up and see the opening above it’s head? It could fly away to freedom, but no, it only sees the wall that has it trapped. Don’t be like the bee. There are possibilities all around you. Big life means finding the path that leads to your freedom. It’s there – find it.
It’s Going To Feel Better
My dad is in the hospital recuperating from knee replacement surgery. I have never seen him in more pain. It has been tough for me to watch, and I am sure much tougher for him to endure. Yesterday, in the midst of a pretty intense physical therapy session I heard myself say, “Hang in there dad. It’s going to feel better when it stops hurting.”
If looks could kill, I’d be dead right now. Dad glared at me for a long minute before he smiled. I don’t think he thought my saying was very funny. But the therapist sure did. She said she loved the old adage and hadn’t heard that saying since she was a little girl. I told her I had heard it as a child as well.
I think the saying is a little bit funny because it sounds like it is encouraging, but I guess in the midst of terrible pain it is not, at least in the now. But it is true. The pain you are in right now will one day ease up and when it does, you are going to feel better. It might not be tomorrow or next week or even next month. But in most cases the pain will lighten and you will be able to feel better. When I went through a broken relationship several years ago, some good friends told me I was going to hurt for a long time, but the clouds were going to lift and I was going to feel better again. They were right. It took about a year for the darkness to lift all the way, but it did. So hang in there. If you are in pain right now remember the old saying, “It’s going to feel better when it stops hurting.”
Gratitude Is The Key
I love the time right around Thanksgiving when many of us are thinking about what we have in this life to be grateful for. It’s good to live a life filled with thanksgiving.
G.K. Chesterton said, “Gratitude is the mother of all virtues.”
I believe he is right. It is hard to possess any virtues if they don’t flow from a grateful heart. I see people everyday who have struggles far worse than I have ever known. I think about them often. I was born with good parents. I have good health. I have a good mind. I have a wife who is also my best friend. I have healthy successful grown children. My grandkids are all kind and well adjusted. I live in a beautiful home. I belong to a church I dearly love. I have friends who love me. I live in a great country where I am given freedoms not found in all countries around the world. You get the point. I could go on and on about the ways I have been blessed in this life.
Again, I quote the great Englishman Chesterton, who said this as he was coming to the end of a day.
“Here ends another day, during which I have had eyes, ears, hands and the great world around me. Tomorrow begins another day. Why am I allowed two?”
I understand his sentiment. Why are we allowed two? Life is a beautiful gift. It is not all good but there is enough good to cause us to go to bed each night with a sense of gratitude flowing in our hearts. Big life people, be known for your grateful hearts. It is the thing that matters most on the journey.
Do It Afraid
Susan Jeffers, a psychologist and author wrote most of her books around a simple thesis. She believed if we wait to stop feeling scared before trying to do what frightens us, we could wait forever. She believed that moving towards what we are afraid of is the only way to erase our fear. I totally concur. I remember as a young man learning this little mantra.
“Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.”
I can’t tell you how many times I have repeated that little phrase to myself when I have been afraid of something I had to do.
What are you afraid of today? Let me tell you the only way you will ever defeat your fear. You must get up and walk straight towards it. What you will find is when you charge towards your fear it shrinks away. It is the only way. Hoping you can ignore what you are afraid of and that it will somehow just disappear is terribly naive. It doesn’t work that way. It’s going to take an aggressive move by you. But the good news is you can do it. So big life people…. you do that thing you fear the most today, and I promise you, the death of that fear is certain.
Don’t Ignore the Red Flags
I interviewed Becka Cowen, a wonderful entrepreneur, this week for an upcoming Big Life podcast episode. I asked her a question I ask all of my guests that goes something like this: “What advice would you give to your 20 year old self?” She didn’t even hesitate. She said, “I would tell her to not ignore the red flags.”
I knew she was talking about some painful experiences she has had to endure when she didn’t pay attention to warning signs that had appeared all around her.
I left her loft in midtown Atlanta after our interview and thought about that statement all the way home.
How often have I ignored clear red flags in my life?
Dating someone when I knew early on because of some red flags she was not going to be a good match for me. Trusting someone when the red flags said the person doesn’t appear trustworthy. Investing in an idea when the red flags told me this was not going to be a credible way to make money.
Attempting businesses that all the red flags said were not a good match for my talents and personality. Red flags can be very helpful if we don’t ignore them. I have and it has cost me.
Big living means watching out for the red flags that can adversely affect the life I am wanting to live.
Pay attention. The quality of your life depends upon it.
Building A Strong You
Living in fear can be seriously detrimental to you. I am not just talking about opportunities you will miss because of your fear. I mean when you live with a fear mindset it will eat away at your sense of self-worth. It will erode your ability to believe in your own value as a person.
Psychologists and counselors have long been intrigued by the connection between low self-esteem and fear. In numerous studies, they discovered people with many reasons to have a high sense of self-worth, but they don’t. They are accomplished in many ways, were raised in nurturing, healthy families, are very gifted, quite attractive and well-liked, but they struggle with their own sense of worth. These people get lots of praise and attention. They elicit positive feedback from people. They appear to be successful in most everything they do, and, yet all of that doesn’t seem to change their inner lack of self-esteem. Why would that be?
The most recent studies discovered that one component to low feelings of self-worth is that when people faced a difficult or fear producing situation they did not take action and face it head on, but rather avoided it. Here’s what they found — When people take action, even though things don’t turn out perfectly, they get this surge of delight. They think to themselves, “I did a hard thing. I took on something that was challenging. I faced a fear head on.” When you do that you grow. You get this sense of strength inside. When you do not face your fear, you shrink a little bit on the inside.
What fear do you need to face today? Is there a person you need to stand up to? Is there a challenge you need to face? Is there a job you need to apply for? Is there a phone call you need to make? Big living is learning how to stand up to your fear. It’s not easy but it’s necessary if you want your interior life to be healthy and strong.