“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”

–        Aldous Huxley, English author, (1894 – 1963)

That’s why it’s so important to learn from victories and defeats.  Granted we might learn more when we lose, but those can be painful lessons, so why not play to win, but learn no matter what the outcome!

It’s almost never about what happens to us, it’s what we do next that really matters.

What we do next provides our next opportunity to make a difference.  To learn.  To grow.  To move forward.

Today, what will we do with what happens to us?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on that!

“Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.”

–     Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)

Sunday night, along with my smokin’ hot wife, I’ll make my first pilgrimage to Antone’s.  Hadden Sayers is in the house.

With equal parts excitement and remorse (for never seeing the original Antone’s), this will be our first time enjoying one of the things that drew us to Austin.  The live music buzz in this city is so real that it’s almost surreal.  It’s everywhere — it’s palpable.  There aren’t many cities where one can be exposed to so much good music in so many unexpected places.

Even if the Blues is “hard to feel” for those of us living a Blessed life, it’s a musical style that has made a difference for me.  It’s connected me to history (BB, John Mayall, Clapton’s Robert Johnson tribute and then the “real” Robert Johnson…), it’s kept me awake for loooonnnnnng drives back to the farm from Wichita, Brookings, Lincoln and Milwaukee (not to mention a REALLY long drive from Cedarburg to Austin!), and it’s given me a chance to feel music.

Listen to Led Zeppelin’s first album, or early Rolling Stones.  Many of the greats started with a heavy Blues influence.

No doubt Hadden Sayers will mix in some hard driving country and rock and roll.  But the Blues will be there, and thanks to tickets from Live Music Sue, so will Jodi and I.

Happy Sunday!

“Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.”

– Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist (1795-1881)

Worth is hard to define.

For example, I am a bona fide owner of the Green Bay Packers. Yep, Aaron Rodgers works for me.  Sort of.

You see, my beautiful wife gave me a share of Packers stock a couple years ago for Christmas, during only the fifth offering in the 94-year existence of the team, and that single, $250 share makes me an “owner.”

An owner, admittedly of “worthless” stock. You see, Rodgers technically doesn’t actually work for me. (You’re shocked, yes?) Nor does Coach McCarthy or CEO Mark Murphy or anyone else officed on Lombardi Avenue. Granted, I get to go (at my own cost) to and participate in the annual shareholder’s meeting, tour the locker room, and buy (with my own cash) special “shareholder” bling. I also got to pay a frame shop to put a whiz-bang, really cool frame on my share of stock that just screams, “Look! I are a danged owner of the Green Bay Stinkin’ Packers!” But that’s it. There’s no dividend, no cash value, nothing. If someday, about 63 years after Hell freezes over, the Packers were to be (shudder) sold, I’d get exactly zero dollars. The Community Trust of Green Bay, Wisconsin would get every single penny.

So, my stock is, by definition, “worthless,” right?

Depends on how you define “worth.”

Is it worth it to hang a stock certificate on the wall to show that you support something that is truly one-of-a-kind in professional sports? For me, there is some worth in that. Is it worth it when people ask me “Are you a Packer fan?” to reply, “A fan? Heck, I’m an shareholder!” Yes, for me there is some worth in that. Is it worth it to know that for $250, my wife gifted me the ability to provide that same “something” to our son, and someday to his son? Yeah, for me, there’s some worth in that…

For me.

And worth exists in some unique places for you, too. And, most importantly in the “for profit” world in which we function, worth exists in different places for our clients.

Worth and value are closely related, if not synonymous. If we make the effort to know what our clients think our stuff is worth, that helps us help them. If we make the effort to know what stuff we think is worth a lot but that they think is “worthless,” that helps us price and package the “worthy” stuff more better. It might not be worth anything to some people to offer a really cool banking experience, or it might not be worth anything for others to receive whatever it is that we sell, represent or stand for.  But it might be worth everything for them to really amaze a customer with just the right offer at just the right time — the kind of things we try to do in our respective careers. Small distinctions if you do this every day. Dangerous distinction if we let it become too small.

So, yes, thank you very much. I am an owner of the 13-time World Champion Green Bay Packer Football Club. I am there, three times per year with my buddies JMart and Gelin, or my brother-in-law or some other pal, watching our – ahem, my team play on our – ahem, my frozen tundra, Lambeau Field. It is worth it to me to be able to say it, to pass it along to Wyatt and future generations — and to remind me that worth and value aren’t just in the eyes of the beholder — they’re in the heart of the beholder, too.

“Pop flies, in a sense, are just a diversion for a second baseman. Grounders are his stock trade.”

–     Jackie Robinson (1919-1972)

Knowing our “stock trade” is a good way to avoid the diversions in our day-to-day.

Knowing it, though, even executing on it doesn’t dismiss us from the need to execute as efficiently on the diversionary stuff.  We have to field the pop flies cleanly when they come our way, even though we train for the grounders, the bad hops, the in-betweeners and the skidders.

There are times that the diversions seem amped up — as if no one was every gonna hit the ball on the ground toward us ever again.  Pop fly after pop fly after pop fly.

Minding our stock trade though gives us the confidence to “snap back” when we have to.

Discipline gives us the freedom to “get back” when we want to.

PS  If you haven’t seen “42,” the biographical movie on Jackie Robinson, you’ll want to do that — soon.  Amazing story of perseverance and dedication — and of a culture turning a corner.

“Fools will be fools, and wise will be wise, But I will look this world straight in the eyes,

I believe in a better way.

What good is a man, who won’t take a stand?  What good is a cynic with no better plan?

I believe in a better way.

Reality is sharp it cuts at me like a knife, Everyone I know is in the fight of their life,

I believe in a better way.

Take your face out of your hands and clear your eyes, You have a right to your dreams and don’t be denied,

I believe in a better way.”

–        Lyric from Ben Harper’s “Better Way”

Lyric Month always either begins or ends with this song — that means about 18 or so Ben Harper callouts — but I do believe in a better way.  It’s a great song.  The beat will keep my heart rate right at 155 on the stair climber.  It’s a great lyric.  And, it’s a decent mode in which to approach any given day.

Even when things seem perfect (they’re not, you know…?), and even when things are going so well that you can’t imagine them going any better (they could, you know…?) when we always seek a better way, we dramatically increase the odds that we’ll find one.

That’s not a suggestion to stop every step of the way and second guess.  In fact, while we simply can’t afford to stop, we can make mental or written note of things we’d do better given the chance to do it again.  And, in our quiet time – the time we use for strategy and reflection, we apply what we’ve learned to begin to forge a better way.

My favorite line in this song is “what good is a cynic with no better plan?”  As I age, I find cynicism knocks on my door more frequently than it did when I was a younger man.  I find I let it in some of the time, usually when a better way is crying out to be found.  Cynicism is not, by definition, a bad thing.  It becomes a bad thing when the cynic has no better plan.  It’s a good thing when it challenges us to find that better way.

Look the world straight in the eyes.  Challenge the status quo.  Everyone we know is in the fight of their life, so don’t be denied.

Make a difference by finding that better way.

“I pick my parties, that’s what I do

I wish that I could hit ‘em all

But I’ve got to pick and choose

I’d be pushin’ up daisies

If I did it every day of the week.

So, I pick my parties, but

Sometimes, they pick me.”

–       Lyric from “I Pick My Parties” by Montgomery Gentry

We’ve got to pick and choose.

Mom used to say, “the hurrier she went the behinder she got.”  Growth in our business(es) presents lots of opportunities to hurry from one thing to the next – lots of opportunity for distraction.  In times of growth, if we’re not careful or smart, it’s less about which party we go to than how many parties we can hit in rapid-fire succession.  Unless we’re careful.  Unless we’re smart.

In times of growth, picking the right parties (tasks, targets, clients, segments) should mean going to the right party and settling in for the evening.  It might be fun to be seen at several different shindigs, but you might not get as much enjoyment from all the activity.  And the enjoyment ramps up when you know, at the end of the night (month, quarter, year) that you picked the right party!

I’ve always called it the “something shiny” syndrome.  We just start to get in to a rhythm and then “something shiny” flashes past us and we’re distracted – and off we go, in pursuit of that shiny something…wearing our “busy-ness” as a badge of honor.

Which parties are we really excited about?  Let’s hit those, and plan to stay until closing time.

Oh, as for that last line of the lyric, there will be times when a party picks you, and you don’t have a ride to the next one, or it would just be too much social risk to leave early.  For example, if your boss’s boss’s boss says, “This is the party you need to attend…” well, that’s where you’ll belly up to the bar for your Grape Nehi.  And, if that’s the case, you might as well enjoy it – ‘cause it can’t really be a party without you!

“Battered and torn, Still I can see the light
Tattered and worn, But I must kneel to fight

Friend of mine, What can’t you spare
I know some times, It gets cold in there

When my legs no longer carry
And the warm wind chills my bones
I reach for mother Mary
And I shall not walk alone”

–  Lyric from The Blind Boys of Alabama’s “I Shall Not Walk Alone”

And we don’t.

Battered and torn?  You bet.  Tattered and worn?  Yeah, in several different senses of the words.

Still, if you’re reading these words, there are about 7 billion people, give or take, who’d trade places with you.  With us.

Sometimes, our legs get pretty tired, yet we shall not walk alone.

Happy Sunday.

“There’s got to be something better than in the middle…

We can drive it home with one headlight.”

–       Lyric from The Wallflowers’ “One Headlight”

Non-commitalism (which should be a word, dang it!) lives in the middle of the road.  Weenie-ism, which again, should be a word, lives in the middle of the road.  As Jacob Dylan and his mates suggest, there’s got to be something better than in the middle, because it is easiest to get run over in the middle of the road.

Belief takes us in to one lane or another.  Belief puts us on one side of an issue or another.  Belief makes us strong, and belief makes us confident.

Belief is also not necessarily permanent, nor is it a moment-in-time thing.  Beliefs can and should evolve.  So, it’s not like we’re standing still on one side of the road or another just because we believe.  Belief sets our course and gets us moving.

Belief is the most base of all contexts.  “Based upon what I believe, then I think _____ must be true in this situation,” provides the context from which we ask questions.  Questions either reinforce or evolve our beliefs, and those reinforced or evolved beliefs form the foundation for our next set of experiences.

The same is true in our work.  What we believe guides us, puts us in one lane or another and gets us started down the road.

So confidently, in fact, that we can drive it home with one headlight.

“You love the thunder and you love the rain 
What you see revealed within the anger is worth the pain 
And before the lighning fades and you surrender 
You’ve got a second to look at the dark side of a man”

–     Lyric from Jackson Browne’s “You Love The Thunder”

This was one of the seminal albums of my generation.

For me, this song is about being genuine.  Being real.  Being vulnerable.  Being transparent.

There are so many influences that try to convince us to keep things bottled up.  “Don’t show your cards,” we’re taught.

I think that’s BS.

There’s magic in being real.  In genuine people and in genuine relationships, there’s a transparency that makes it simpler to have long-term connections with.

If we’re seeking to make a difference, getting deep, getting inside — being real genuine — will make a difference toward that end.

“Somebody asked me what it really mean to be true

Somebody tell me, tell me what it mean to you

You can’t find it in a TV screen, you can’t read it in a book no

You won’t see it in the future, no matter how hard you look ya’ll

You know truth ain’t hard to find, you know truth is sitting deep inside

And that truth can make you change your mind

You don’t have to go far; Truth is right where you are

–     Lyric from Ruthie Foster’s “Truth”

A friend of ours is Ruthie’s manager, which is how I got turned on to her music about five years ago.  This is a powerful song, and a powerful concept.  (The video reminds me that now that I live in Texas, I need to see Ruthie live…if only I knew her manager and could score tickets….oh, wait, never mind…but I digress…)

If we’re struggling to find truth, perhaps we’re looking outward.  Let’s hope we’re not doing that to avoid looking inward – no matter how hard we look, y’all.

We don’t have to go far.  Truth — and the ability to make a difference — is right where we are.