“Take me for a ride, through the backstreets of your mind, show me all the games you used to play; the clock up on the wall, refers the time before we fall, straight into the hands of yesterday… I’ll get to know you, you’ll get to know me, baby, some day.”

     –     Lyric from Familiar Looking Stranger’s “Get To Know You”

 “We’re friends!”  There’s a phrase that used to mean something.  You know — the kind of friends that got to know one another.  Not some social media, disengaged, hide behind the screen on a mobile device pseudo-“friend” or “connection.”

In fact, “connection” used to mean something, too.  If you “connected” with someone, there was a real…well, um, er, a real…..connection.

Look, I’m not going all Grandpa Stark on you.  I’m not even going all “old school” on you.

But I saw it in person this week.  Eleven people at a table.  Connecting.  Forging or improving upon friendships.  Seeking first to understand, then to be understood (thanks, Stephen Covey!).  Yesterday, today, tomorrow — those were all topics of conversation.  We got to know one another.

We’ll be able to make a difference for one another, I assure you, because every one at that table, and the two dinner tables later that evening, took the time to say, “I wouldn’t mind getting to know you.”

So far, we haven’t become social media friends or connections.  For now, we’ve settled for the real thing.  And it’s pretty danged cool.

PS  Check out this band — the coolest quartet to come out of Liverpool since those four lads with the bowl cuts.  Mrs. H got to help promote their first “US Tour” last summer and these dudes are goooooood!

“Everbody knows that the world is full of stupid people…”

–     Lyric from The Refreshment’s “Banditos”

If this is true, then first among the people is the guy that designs airplane seats, just ahead of the guy who came up with the idea to have the back row of the plane NOT recline.

Or, it could be the people who’ve created the entire airline experience.

Here’s a thought. If you really want to make a difference, prioritize with your customer’s perspective in mind.  And then stay there with your design process.

“I’ve tasted fire I’m ready to come alive
I can’t just shut it up and fake that I’m alright
I’m ready now
I’m not waiting for the afterlife”

–     Lyric from Switchfoot’s “Afterlife”

What are we waiting for?

There will always be reasons to wait, to hesitate (I could have gone with “Hesitation Blues” today, too…), but if we’re ready now, if we’ve tasted fire and are ready to come alive…

Well, let’s git’r done!

“Some people love to lead
And some refuse to dance.
Some play it safely, other take a chance.
Still it’s all a mystery
This place we call the world
Where most live as oysters
While some become pearls.”

–     Lyric from Jimmy Buffett’s “Oysters and Pearls”

It’s Masters Week, which is sort of a religious experience for me.  My wife calls my condition an “unhealthy attachment” to the game of golf.  She may be right, especially this week.  That said, Jimmy’s lyrics summon up a consideration of what makes one great.  It is something of a mystery, but consider the words of Alfred Wright in Sports Illustrated, circa 1963.

“Jack Nicklaus’ dominance is overwhelming and inevitable as nightfall.  He is absolutely too strong, too determined, too skillful to be side-tracked or delayed.”

Jack is still the best to have ever played the game of golf.  How can we learn from his example?

Strength can be built — of muscle or of mind.  Determination is a decision.  Skill can be honed.

Difference makers are as inevitable as nightfall.  They love to lead.

“So you’re a little bit older and a lot less bolder 
Than you used to be 
So you used to shake ’em down 
But now you stop and think about your dignity…

Come back, Baby, rock and roll never forgets!”

–     Lyric from Bob Seger’s “Rock and Roll Never Forgets”

A little older, a lot less bolder.

Sound familiar?

Remember how hard we tried to impress our spouse before we married them?  Remember how badly we wanted that promotion, and all the work that went in to getting it?  Remember all the things that got us here?

Now’s no time to think about our dignity, or what the neighbors think or whatever else it is that makes us get overly cautious as we get closer to the goal.  Now’s the time to shake ’em down, because what got us here is still a part of what gets us “there.”  What got us here is not all of what will move us forward, but let’s take care to not change who we are.  If we made a difference yesterday, the parts of us that made it possible also go in to making a difference tomorrow.

As a bidness person.  As a spouse-person.  As a parent-person.  As a person.  As a difference maker.

PS  I’ve seen Bob Seger in concert at least half-a-dozen times.  You’d like it.  Catch him, before it’s too late!  Yes, he’s a lot more older, but he’s no less bolder, even if he has to hitch up his britches before kicking off this song in concert — like in the video link above!

“You are more than the choices that you’ve made, 
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 
You are more than the problems you create, 
You’ve been remade”

–     Lyric from Tenth Avenue North’s “You Are More”

As we head in to a Sunday, a Faithful reminder of a message that’s so very true.

But if Sunday mornings don’t float your boat, the message still rings true from a strictly secular perspective. In that case, it’s lower-case-t “truth,” rather than upper-case-T “Truth.”  Yet, the lyric rings true, all the same, because, if it happened prior to right now, we can’t do anything to prevent it and we can do precious little-to-nothing about it.  Faith dictates the tense (remade vs. remake), but the message is clear.  To make a difference, what we do next matters more than all the choices, mistakes and / or problems that came before.

“Well I know what I was feelin’, but what was I thinkin’?”

–     Lyric from Dierks Bentley’s “What Was I Thinking?”

Sometimes it’s good to go with our gut instinct — with what we’re feeling…

Sometimes it’s better to trust our experience and knowledge, and, Lord willing, our wisdom.

The really difficult part is discerning which time this is…

If we’re working too hard to justify one or the other, the other might be the right one…

“Now the seats are all empty, let the roadies take the stage, pack it up and tear it down…  But when that last guitar’s been packed away, you know that I still want to play.  So just make sure you’ve got it all to set to go before you come for my piano.”

–     Lyric from Jackson Browne’s “The Load Out”

If we weren’t getting paid to do it, would we still do it?

If no one was keeping score, would we still practice?

If the only people watching were us, would we still make our best effort?

If the answer is “Yes!” then we’re doing what we love.

Carry on.

If the answer is no, consider a change.  In the meantime, audience or no, nail it!

“You’ve got the wrong song, coming through your speakers, this one’s about a liar and a cheater, who didn’t know what he had ’til it was gone…  This ain’t a feel good, everything’s fine sing-along, you got the wrong song.”

–     Lyric from “Wrong Song,” from the cast of  the TV show, “Nashville”‘

OK, so most TV today sucks, but this show is really, candidly, pretty good.  And the music is really, candidly, even better.

We might want to pay attention to the tapes we play in our head.  So often, we’ve got the wrong song coming through our speakers — we want to believe our own shtick, our own revisionist version of what really happened — we long for the feel good, everything’s fine, sing-along.

But, so often, we’ve got the wrong song.

The good news is, we can play a different tune.  We can select the music coming through our speakers and we have complete control over the beat that we march to.

Difference makers are willing to march to a different drum and sing in a different key.

“Theres a place in a piney hollow 
that no one but me can find 
some choctaw built it in the hillside 
stone by stone in a simpler time
It’s a holy place my daddy showed me 
back before this land of mine 
on the blue side of the mountain 
where the sun don’t ever shine”

–     Lyric from The Steeldriver’s “Blue Side of The Mountain”

It was called “The Bathtub.”

A little, un-named stream ran through “the home place,” where Dad and my uncles grew up.  It was just across the road from the land on which I grew up  — the land he farmed for nearly 50 years.  As kids, my cousins and I met there almost daily in the summer.  It was halfway between our houses.  Tucked in the trees, the stream emptied in to a large pool (thus, “The Bathtub”) — never deep enough to swim in, but man did we have some fun there!  I can still hear the water running down that sandstone inlet — still see it seeping around the “dams” we’d build.  (Beavers in our neighborhood were never worried about their jobs, we’ll just leave it at that…)

We all have them.  Holy places.  Some where the sun shines, others in shady, or dark places that evoke different memories.

Finding holy places in our day-to-day lives is important, too.  Peaceful places that remind us of who we are.  Evoking the parts of us that run deepest — from and / or two simpler times — and maintaining ties to those places is worth the effort.  And maybe, just maybe, they’re places in time.  Maybe they’re a :10 block to just sit and reflect.  To breathe.  To be.

Pace is the rule of the day.  Like offsides in soccer, or the designated hitter in baseball, it’s a stupid rule.  And if pace is the rule, then peace has become the exception.  That’s too bad, because out of peaceful places come clarity of thought.

I’m goin’ back to a world of shadow 
gotta find some peace ‘for I lose my mind 
on the blue side of the mountain 
where the sun don’t ever shine