An Example Of Big Life Living – Ernie Johnson Jr.
Jane and I were recently out for breakfast when we were asked if we’d mind sitting at a community table. The table sat eight people. We like meeting new people so we said sure. To my surprise Ernie Johnson, Jr. and his wife, Cheryl, also were seated at our table.
Perhaps some of you don’t know who Ernie Johnson, Jr. is, so let me fill you in. He is one of the best sports announcers in the nation. I have listened to him announce pro baseball, NBA basketball, and PGA golf. As a sports fan, trust me….EJ is a star. And, since I am a huge sports fan I was pretty pumped about being seated at a table on a Saturday morning with Ernie, his wife and four other strangers.
The conversation flowed easily between the Johnson’s and us. Cheryl is a licensed professional counselor. She was warm and engaging as was he. We talked about our careers and our families. Ernie and Cheryl told us about their two biological children Eric, and Maggie. They also told us about their four adopted children, a son Michael, from Romania, a daughter Carmen, adopted from Paraguay and daughters Ashley and Allison adopted domestically through foster care. They talked of the joys and the difficulties they had faced as parents. Through the entire meal they not only displayed rare transparency with their story, but they seemed genuinely interested in Jane and me. They listened intently to us describing our family, our dreams and our struggles. It was just a beautiful breakfast. One of the best I have ever known.
Shortly before the end of the meal, Cheryl excused herself, I thought probably to go to the restroom. She returned to our table and we talked a little more and then it was time to go. When I inquired about our bill, our server told me the table had been taken care of. It was then I realized Cheryl had paid the bill when she had stepped away. The Johnson’s had paid for the six strangers that had eaten at their table. We were shocked. We thanked them, grabbed a quick picture and went on our way.
Ernie and Cheryl Johnson are big deals. But more importantly, they are really good people. When they met us they did not put on airs of superiority. They entered into community with us that Saturday morning. We started as strangers and left as friends. We genuinely felt a heart connection. Then, they picked up the tab for the whole table. They didn’t have to. It wasn’t for show. They wanted to. To me, they are great examples of people who get what it means to live the big life. They really do make everywhere they go a better place just because they have passed by.
A Chicken Fingers and French Fries Life
I have a friend who has a very small palate. When she is with us we know we have to pick a restaurant that has chicken fingers and french fries on the menu. It doesn’t matter how fancy the restaurant or exotic the food, if there’s a kid’s menu Sandra will be ok. I’ve known her for over 15 years and she can’t be shamed into trying anything that’s even a little different. I know – I have tried. Chicken fingers, french fries and a coke – mmmm mmmm good.
Sandra cracks me up because my whole life I have had a very broad palate. Even as a kid when my family traveled out of the country I would order the strangest foods possible. I truly love it all. Beef tongue burrito, yes. Oysters, yes. Snake, yes. Curries and goulashes, yes and yes. I could go on but you get the point.
It really doesn’t matter much whether your food palate is big or small. I joke about it, but it’s not a big deal. Sadly however, I have discovered people sometimes go through their life with a small palate for living. Their world is only chicken fingers and french fries wide. There is no diversity. It’s all pretty vanilla. If that is you, you need to work on opening it up a little. This is a beautiful world we get to live in. I have found friendly people on the six continents I have traveled to. I find most every person has a story that’s fascinating if you dig deep enough. In this life there is beautiful music to hear and stunning paintings to see. There are causes that need to be embraced. There are bullies that need to be stood up to. There are movies that need to be seen. There are lonely people who need to be hugged. There are dogs and cats that need to be adopted. There are great books that need to be read. There are great foods that need to be tasted. There are wonderful songs that need to be sung and there are majestic mountains that need to be climbed. We are given the opportunity to do it all. Big life means a big palate for living. Stretch your palate and live large my friend.
24/7 Mentors
I have had a few wonderful personal mentors in my life. I looked up to them, spent time with them and learned from them. I used to think that was the only way mentoring worked. Find an older person who is more successful than you are and learn from them. As I have gotten older I realize there is better way.
I need a mentor in several areas of my life. I need a financial expert to help me as I get older make wise decisions with money. I need a health and wellness expert to guide me into an always evolving healthier lifestyle. I need a business expert to help me become my absolute best professionally. I need a relationship expert I can learn from as I am always wanting to be a better husband, father and grandfather. I would like an expert on travel who can help me navigate domestic and international trips. I also need a leadership expert who will help me maximize my leadership potential. Do you see the problem? I used to think I could find one person who knew all I needed to know. I now realize that is short sighted. A person great at relationships may not know anything about finance. And a fabulous expert on leadership might have no interest in travel.
So what is a learner supposed to do? Here’s what I now know. I can have as many mentors as I like. They can all specialize in areas where I am lacking. They can be available to me 24 hours a day 365 days a year. They are never are too busy to teach me.
I have discovered great mentors in the books I read and the teaching I get through listening to podcasts. I have two or three people I follow who know way more than I do about business. The same is true with finance, relationships, leadership and travel. I listen to or read the wisdom they have shared and it is like having a mentor with me all the time. The great actor Denzel Washington said it like this, “Show me a successful individual and I’ll show you someone who had real positive influences in his or her life. I don’t care what you do for a living—if you do it well I’m sure there was someone cheering you on or showing the way. A mentor.” A big life is a growing life and a growing life needs mentors who can help us on our way. We never will outgrow our need for great mentors.
Handling The Hard Stuff
Perhaps your life is in a mess today. Your plan is not turning out like you had hoped. The business deal didn’t close. The doctor told you your test came back and the results don’t look good. The love story you thought you were in is turning into a horror story. Your child is really struggling and you don’t know what to do. Your company is downsizing and you are the person who is about to be let go…..
I want you to know whatever trouble you are facing today is an opportunity in disguise. Your attitude towards your situation will determine to a large degree what will happen to you as you navigate the rough waters. Just don’t give up. You are going to make it. A wonderful writer I follow on Twitter named Jon Acuff said it like this. “Adversity is a comma in our story, not a period. It is not the end, often it is the point at which the story gets good.” I believe that is true for you and me. People who live big lives have to handle tough situations sometimes. Often our greatest victories come on the heels of some of our most painful moments.
The Road Less Traveled
Jane and I had people stay at our house this weekend who were in town to attend a mutual friend’s wedding. We had not met them prior to their arrival.
Joel is a bright and funny 27 year old man from Switzerland who lives in South Africa and is a helicopter pilot. His job is to fly supplies into remote places in Africa. Hearing him talk about his life and passion for what he is doing was very inspiring to me.
Our other guest, Megan, is a quick witted 24 year old female pilot from Alaska. She had been a college basketball player before switching colleges and majors to become an airplane pilot and now instructor. She has tattooed on her foot the word Vagabond. It fits her to a tee. She would be equally at home in Africa, Israel or her native Alaska. She is adventurous and full of life.
Jane and I loved the time we were able to spend with these two young people. They had a passion for life that was contagious. They did not make safe predictable choices about their lives. They chose to live big lives that were definitely outside of the proverbial box we so often talk about. When they left our home, one heading to VA and the other heading to Johannesburg, my wife and I agreed there are some amazing young people in this world. We know, we just spent three days with two of them. May their tribe continue to increase.
A Larger Life Begins With You
The late great American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker Jim Rohn said, “Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.” Think about that quote for a moment.
I believe Rohn is right. I believe his words are not only true for business success but also for relationship success. What if we stopped trying to find the perfect job, career or life partner and we seriously worked on becoming the best version of ourselves. I believe we would become a magnet to better opportunities than we ever thought possible. It is easy to put the cart in front of the horse. It seems natural to go after the success we desire. Don’t do it. Work on you and see if better doors don’t open wide for you to enter.
The Big Life Can’t Be About Just Me
The big life can’t be just about me. As my heart grows larger, my compassion for people has to increase. To miss that salient point is to miss the whole idea of what true large living is about. I mention this because a video crossed my computer screen yesterday on social media that has given me serious pause. It is the video of a five year old Syrian boy named Omran Daqneesh.
The video begins with a man finding Omran and carrying him from the rubble of an unidentified bombed out building to an ambulance. He is dazed and flat eyed. The haunting video then shows little Omran run his hand across his face that is covered in blood. He looks at the blood and then wipes his hand on the seat in the ambulance. Throughout the video he does not cry or make a sound. He is totally silent. The five year old is in shock. It is one of the most gripping videos I have ever seen.
I have eight grandchildren. They are all within a couple of years of Omran’s age. They have been frightened about a few things in their lives like a shot at the doctor’s office or jumping into their dad’s arms for the first time in a swimming pool. But for the most part, their lives are easy. I am so grateful that is their story. They have not known bombs and war, but five year old Omran has.
Helping children like Omran is a pretty huge assignment. And truthfully I don’t know how or where to begin. But my lack of knowledge cannot lead to me ignoring the little boy in the back of the ambulance. While I am trying to see how I can help I want to commit to a few things I can begin to do now. I can make sure I really see the five year old in the video. I want to really think about and try to feel his pain. I also want my grandkids to see him, not to make them depressed or afraid, but to make them aware. I want them to know this is the condition of millions of people who live on this planet. And then I want to teach them it is our privilege and duty to get to do everything in our power to make sure fewer children have to be exposed to this kind of horror. I want to teach them that this is why we don’t believe war is good and we don’t believe bombs ever solve problems.
Is trying to feel some of Omran’s pain easy? Of course not. But a big life person has to think about ways to help people like this little Syrian boy. To not think about it or care is to live the smallest life possible. The 20th century intellectual Aldous Huxley said, “Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.” If you just looked at Omran’s experience that could be true. But it doesn’t have to be. This life can be a beautiful thing. We just need more big lives working to make it better for everyone.
Interruptions
Dialetheism is the view that some statements can be both true and false simultaneously. These statements are called “true contradictions or non dualisms.”. Let me explain. You might remember the last blog I wrote was on the importance of managing your schedule and not letting people interrupt what you have planned for your day. That is an important principle and it is a key to successfully executing your agenda and reaching your goals. Therefore the following statement is true. For success you must minimize interruptions that pull you away from the scheduled task you have chosen to complete. And yet the opposite is also true. The greatest gifts in life are often found in small unexpected interruptions.
The trick is to know when to allow the interruption and when to stick to your predetermined schedule. Unfortunately, there’s no formula to this. You making the right choice requires being tuned in to what is all around you and trusting your intuition. You will look back one day and see those interruptions were some of the most important moments of your big life.
Interruptions
One of my first mentors was an incredible man named John Bisagno. He was bigger than life to me. I was green and inexperienced and he was in the prime of his life. John was sitting at the top of a huge organization. He was respected around the world for his leadership. He was the most gifted orator I had ever heard. To say I was in awe of him is a serious understatement. I studied every public move he made. I wanted to be just like him. And amazingly, when we met he saw something in my young, hungry heart that reminded him of what he was like 30 years before. To my amazement, he invited me into his world and he became my mentor.
While spending time with John one day, he asked me what I did when the phone rang at my house. (For my young readers, we all used to have only one phone and it was attached to a wall in our house). I thought it was a silly question, but I told him I answered it. He said but what if you were working on something else? I told him I would still answer it. He replied to me that I needed to get a different perspective. He said, “You pay for the phone. You get to decide if you want to answer it at the moment it rings or not.” He went to on to say the most successful people he knew set their agenda of what they wanted to accomplish in a given day. In their agenda, they set aside time to return calls. He was clear, “Every person is important and you should return a call within 24 hours.” But, he went on to say if you think you have to jump when they say jump, then they are in control of your life. “You have to be responsible for your schedule. Obviously there are times when schedules need to be changed. Emergencies do happen. But as a general rule most days need to be governed by the predetermined tasks that need to be accomplished.”
It has been 35 years since that conversation. I learned so many things from him. He was the perfect mentor at the perfect time in my life. But that one lesson never stuck. I have tried my whole life to be available at anyone’s beck and call. That has been a mistake. I look back and realize how smart he was. I wish I had adopted his philosophy on owning my calendar sooner. It’s a new week. I think it is about time to put John’s 35 year old message into practice. Schedule what you need to accomplish. Pencil in a block of time to return phone calls and check Facebook. Stop letting the phone pull you away from what you decided needed to be accomplished today. It’s your life. Be in control. Set the agenda. Work the plan. Stop letting the interruptions steal what you need to do to live your big life.
Hitting the Target
Knowing your target audience is one of the most important steps in growing a business. This matters as it relates to your product and how you will market it. In the 1980’s the A&W restaurant chain decided to introduce a hamburger to compete with McDonalds iconic 1/4 pounder. They did all the research and knew they had a winner. They would sell the ⅓ pounder but sell it at the same price as the 1/4 pounder. It would be a bigger burger for the same money. But to their surprise, when they introduced their burger it flopped.
A&W did extensive research to see why the burger had not sold well and their findings amazed them. They discovered most people aren’t good with fractions. You and I know ⅓ is bigger than ¼. But the average person sadly does not pick up on that. To them 4 is bigger than 3 so the ¼ pounder has to be bigger than the ⅓ pounder. I know that is hard to believe but it is true.
Alfred Taubman, the owner of A&W, described the marketing failure in his book, Threshold Resistance: “More than half of the participants in the Yankelovich focus groups questioned the price of our burger. “Why,” they asked, “should we pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as we do for a quarter-pound of meat at McDonald’s? You’re overcharging us.” Honestly. People thought a third of a pound was less than a quarter of a pound. After all, three is less than four!”
I write all of this to make a simple point. If you are going to use fractions in your advertisements, make sure your market understands them. Don’t assume anything. Question everything. If you are trying to communicate, then make sure the people you are trying to reach understand what you are saying. Talking over someone’s head doesn’t make you smarter. It just shows you don’t know how to aim very well.