“Later in the evening as you lie awake in bed

With the echoes from the amplifiers, ringin’ in your head

You smoke the day’s last cigarette

Rememberin’ what she said 

Here I am, on the road again

Here I am, up on stage

Here I go, playin’ star again

There I go, turn the page.”

–     Lyric from Bob Seger’s “Turn The Page” circa 1973

It’s not lyric month, but this haunting song by Bob Seger has always drawn me in.  Partly because he wrote it on US Highway 34, while driving through my hometown of Fairfield, IA on his way from Omaha to Galesburg, IL.  Partly because it’s a cool little melody and easy to remember lyric.  Partly because it’s timeless in its appeal, and partly because it ties to times of transition.

Technically, I guess, each day is a transition, each hour a move from one thing to the next.  Every morning, whether the year at the top of the calendar changes or not, we turn the page.

Page turning has taken on a different perspective for me since I moved to the Kindle® app on my iPad, (but “push the button” wouldn’t have worked for Seger, nor for this DD!) yet the concept of each day beginning anew remains.  Whatever happened in 1973, or 2012, or yesterday, or five minutes ago has already happened, and there’s nothin’ we can do about it.  What we can do something about is what we set out to accomplish and how we set out to accomplish something next — NOW.  But the clock is always ticking.  Our success will tie somewhat to how ready we were coming in to this morning.  How much did we reflect on yesterday, and how well do we know what we want to get done today?

Turning a page on one day to go to the next provides us the opportunity to populate the new page with whatever we want to put down on paper.  Once we turn that page though, the best we can do is honor yesterday by making today better, somehow, some way.

For some of us, here we go, out on the road again (I’ll be doing planes, trains and automobiles for the next two weeks solid…).  For some of us, our jobs occasionally put us up on stage.  But later this evening, as we lie awake in bed, let’s prepare to turn the page, with a solid idea of what we want tomorrow to look like, to feel like and to be  – and then let’s sleep on that, with the comfort of knowing that we get to write tomorrow fresh, with the perspective of the day(s) that turned before.

In doing so, we’ll make a difference.

“The quality of the imagination is to flow and not to freeze.”

–     Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

It’s really about flow.

We’re either in it or fighting it.  We’re either taken by it or wanting to be taken by it.

The flow goes where it’s supposed to — and yet so often we’re trying to swim upstream, resisting the forces that are pulling us to our natural place.

We’re either flowing or we’re frozen.

The sales person who shouldn’t be, but who’s addicted to the income or the frequent flier miles or the “game.”  The accounting clerk who forces the numbers, all the while wishing they were putting the pictures in their minds on a canvas.  The doctor who’s going through the motions and the chef who long ago stopped dreaming about the creations they put on the plate and just started serving up some chow.  The banker who doesn’t really care about the customer or their dreams, and who just plugs away, meeting a capital ratio or a risk profile.  The flow is all around us, and so are the folks who are resisting it.  We can feel them, just like we can sense the ones in the flow, sailing past the rest.

When an appointment cancels or a flight delays, where does our mind go?  If a game goes extra innings, do we get more in to the moment or do we worry about what we’re going to be late for next?

It’s really about the flow.

Go with it.  It’ll make a difference.

“Be not angry that you can not make others as you wish them to be, since you can not make yourself as you wish to be.”

–    Thomas Kempis, as quoted by my dear friend, Kent Welch

We’re all works in progress, and once we get completely comfortable with the fact that we’ll solve problems best as a diverse set of individuals that are understanding of and accepting of the fact that we’ve all got some room left for paint on the canvas, Wow!  The dynamic for change and influence is exciting!  Especially when you consider the following quote from Bill George, who I saw speak about five years ago in a leadership seminar.

“Follow your compass, not your clock.”

It was his way of saying that doing the right thing by your moral compass will get one further faster in their career than racing toward self-imposed (or “other-imposed”) deadlines for promotion, recognition, etc.  The clock, and the demands of others who might not even “get” the concept of a compass, can get in the way of our difference making.

Using our influence to make something incredible happen helps us make a difference, no matter how difficult the “work in progress” part makes it! It helps us honor our compass, even if the clock is ticking.

“The saddest terms in life are “would have,” “could have” and “should have.”

–     Anonymous, so I’m claiming it

“I coulda been a contender!”

If we never try new things, we’re resigned to a life of regrets and second guessing.

If we never try new things, we’re stuck with the old things.

Even if we like the old things just fine, we risk a life marred by woulda, shoulda and coulda.

That’s no way to make a difference.

“Music is the melody whose text is the world.”

–       Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788-1860)

There are times I’m tempted to just let the quote stand on its own…but, what the heck…here are some thoughts on Art’s philosophy…

Think back on the truly great movies you’ve seen.  Great casting, great writing, great acting, great costumes, lighting, etc.

I bet the soundtrack was great, too, and not just the songs that got radio play either.

When something really cool happens – the kids do something amazing, or my wife and I have that awesome glass of wine with a perfect view of the sunset, or I hit that “perfect” golf shot or something in nature catches my eye “just so,” there’s a soundtrack in my noggin that helps imprint it permanently.  By the same token, when I am in a tough spot – a difficult negotiation, a “crucial conversation” with an employee, or someplace that I really need to focus and “nail it,” – there’s a soundtrack in my noggin that helps then, too, if I’ll let it.  There’s almost always some music in there somewhere for me, I guess.

If we listen for the “song cues” in day-to-day conversations, I wonder if there’s not some difference making that will occur more effortlessly, more efficiently… Oh, and it’s impossible for me to hear Muzak® in an elevator without seeing, in my mind’s eye, the scene from The Blues Brothers where Jake and Elwood are riding up to the Cook County Assessor’s office…

Let the music flow, as we cross another corporate milestone, and make something incredible happen today!

“I want my children to have all that I couldn’t afford.  Then, I want to move in with them.”

–     Phyllis Diller (1917-2012)

It’s pretty amazing, the impact a mother has.

Mine shaped who I am, and our kids’ shapes much of who I will become.

The responsibility is unreal.  The rewards substantial.  The pressure unknowable by anyone who hasn’t held “the job.”  Author Jill Churchill says, “There is no way to be a perfect mother, but a million ways to be a good one.”

With gratitude to Pat Heston, gone now for the last 7 Mothers Days, and to Jodi Heston, with whom I hope to spend the next 70 — I’ve seen more of the million than most will ever get to.

With lucky children and a Blessed upbringing of my own, thanks to these two Mothers, I leave you with this suggestion today.  Mothers make a difference, in general, and these two, in particular, make a bigger difference than most.

“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”

–     Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982)

We know we’d like more.  We’d like more money, more beauty, more wealth, more peace, more vacation, more rounds of golf or games of tennis.  We’d like more fancy restaurants, or more acres to farm or more tractors with which to farm them.  We’d like more, fancier cars and more clothes.  We’d like more stereo equipment, more tickets to shows.  We’d like “more.”

We’d like more time in our day.

What if we poured more day in to our time?

Would that make a difference?

PS On the topic of “more,” who couldn’t use more cowbell?!

“Experts often possess more data than judgment.”

–               General Colin Powell

“Most rock journalism is by people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”

–               Frank Zappa

Expert:  according to Dictionary.com, an “expert” is one who “has a special skill or knowledge in some particular field; an authority.”

Dad once said that an expert was someone who “should have known better.” Notice that neither he, Zappa, nor Dictionary.com gave any credence to journalists as experts, yet our society seems addicted to their dopey-ness.

What are the “experts” saying about the current business and financial services market?  Well, collectively, they go on CNBC and Bloomberg in their $3,000 suits and in their best Scooby-Doo voice, they muster a weak, “Ruh-Ro, Raggy!”

They don’t know.  It’s either a recovery or false exuberance.  It’s either the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning…or somewhere in between.  They’re just pretty much clueless, but they’re loud and well-dressed.

Now, in case you’re expecting me to step up and say, “HERE’s what’s gonna happen,” don’t hold your breath.  I dunno either.

So, whadda we do?

We plan.

We start with what we know, move to what we’re pretty sure of and then we factor in “what-if” scenarios.  There are, at last count, eleventy-three-trillion of those, and that’s where Judgment comes in (thank you, General Powell!).

We plan.  And we commit to the plan — with part of that commitment being the knowledge that the plan will change.  Several times.

If our plans are solid and our ability to question them relentlessly, without watering down execution, we’ll move forward.  Our judgment will guide us.  Our data will marry with our information and we’ll combine them with our experiences to make a difference.

“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.”

–      Jim Henson, Creator of The Muppets (1936-1990)

Why would we wait to only write the ending, though?

Don Shafer, the founder and Chairman of an awesome company, BancVue, evangelizes often about “RTB,” a reason to believe.

The reasons are personal and many.  No matter what we’re doing — and no matter how difficult it might seem — someone has had it harder.  My parents, like yours, perhaps, likely walked a mile, uphill both ways, to school.  Our kids have it easier than we did.

Those are the tongue-in-cheek, easy references.

The farmer plowing his field with horses.  The doctor treating diseases without modern science.  Those are more difficult.  Don likes the Mayflower story and the story of the American revolution’s early stages.  There are other examples of people coming together, with a reason to believe, to accomplish amazing things…

I am still amazed that when Abraham Lincoln promoted Ulysses S. Grant to be commander of the Union forces, he hand wrote a letter.  Then he handed it to a messenger who rode his horse from DC to Louisiana.  Did I mention that was enemy territory?  Grant, upon receiving the letter, hand wrote one to his wife.  Gave it to a messenger who headed for Galena, IL.  Then he wrote one to Lincoln, accepting the promotion, handed it to a messenger who rode his horse back through enemy lines to DC, only to be followed by Grant on HIS horse a few hours later.

The stuff we’re doing — whatever it is — is very doable.  If we give ourselves reason to believe, rather than focus on all the difficult things we might encounter along the way.

Making a difference is based on always having a reason to believe.

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; for everything you gain, you lose something else.”

–     Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Because there’s only so much room.

Dad always used to say, “You can’t get two bushels in a bushel basket.”

And, even in a day when fewer than ever use terms like “bushel” and “basket,” you can’t.

When we’re young, we can pack more and more and more in.  We have, it seems, infinite capacity for learning, for emotion, for stuff.  As time goes on, though, we start to reach capacity.

The Three Who Will Not Be Tamed often say that “their dinner space is all filled up, but there’s still room in their dessert space.”  We reach a point, though, where even our “dessert space” is packed.

When that happens, we need to cut something loose.  To make room.  To give us a chance to re-organize, re-prioritize and re-decorate.

What is it that we’re holding on to that prevents us from moving forward?  What are the things that we just “know” that we need to un-know, in order to make room for new knowledge, experiences and perspectives?

What stands in the way of making a difference, and why do we honor it with our time?