“There’s something about hearing someone’s voice.  One of the things I’ve learned over the years about collaboration is one of the most important elements is empathy.”

–     Ray Ozzie, creator of Lotus Notes and now founder of Talko, in a Wall Street Journal Interview 9/23/14

This is not like De Niro in the 1976 movie “Taxi Driver.”  (“You talkin’ to me?)

This is about today.

I hate text messages.

I hate e-mail 25 times more than I hate text messages.

Why?

Because I hate impersonal where interpersonal is an option.  And interpersonal is almost ALWAYS an option, even when it’s not the easiest, fastest, least committed option — it’s always an option, and it’s usually the better option.

Connecting.  Engaging.  Building.  It’s done voice-on-voice.  It’s done face-to-face.

And, it makes a difference.

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.”

–        John Allen Paulos, American Math Professor, Temple University

“Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life.  Don’t let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.”

–        R. I. Fitzhenry

All in The Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show are two of the most successful television series of all time.  (Yes, you youngsters, there were great shows even before….well….before whatever it is you watch these days…).  Almost everyone in the industry was certain they’d bomb.  Family was too edgy, and insiders were just certain that no one would accept a TV show about a working woman.  They were certain.

So much for certainty, and so much for the effect of over-analysis on instinctive action.  Fred Silverman, the head of programming for CBS looked at all the analysis, too.  But he went back to his first instincts.  He launched the shows.  He wasn’t certain about the shows, but he was certain about what his instincts told him about the shows.

How often do we trust our instincts?  How often, when we don’t, do we look back and realize we shoulda, woulda, coulda?

When we’re not sure, when mystery overpowers familiarity — trust our instincts.  Keeping boredom at bay and sparking creativity seem worthwhile pursuits for the difference maker!

“This world is no friend to grace.”

–     First sentence in Eugene Peterson’s “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction” (1980, 2000 InterVarsity Press)

There are times that this world, in a word, sucks.  This week has been one of those times.

In the last six days, a life long friend has passed, an 8-year-old daughter of a friend and co-worker entered the ICU and a 29-year-old friend and employee has received a difficult cancer diagnosis.

This world is absolutely no friend to grace.

In those times that the suckitude amps up, though, more than ever, we need to remember that it’s not about “this world.”

This is a way station.  This is a portal.  This is a temporary stop on some grander journey that we can’t begin to fathom.

Which is good.  Because I don’t understand why good people die before a**holes, why kids get sick and really good people face really bad situations, when there are really bad people living on easy street.

But, Easy Street is not on maps that get us where we want to go.

Grace is a gift, and while at times, it is hard to accept, to understand or keep in context, it is ours to keep forever.

Difference makers find a way to stay focused on Grace, even in times when it appears that they’re all alone.

“Children make your life important.”

–     Erma Bombeck

She’s 8 years old.

It started as a sinus infection, and then, this daughter of a good friend and co-worker found herself in brain surgery for more than five hours on Thursday.  The infection, it seems, had spread to her brain.

As important as my Faith is to me, it is times like these that challenge my Faith.  How can this happen to a little girl?  How can this happen to a loving, happy, cheerful little girl in a good home, with exceptional health care — I just don’t get it.  I could list a couple dozen people who deserve some sort of hardship — granted that’s not my call, but you get my point — some really rotten people who inflict harm and hurt and ickiness on the planet every day.  Why doesn’t this crap happen to them?

But I am reminded, by that same Faith, that it is not ours to understand.  It is ours to trust.  To know that His hand is in everything.  It is ours to pray that Lilly will be ok.  To pray that she’ll clear this critical, two-day period of time that will determine her future, and by extension, the future of everyone she will touch.  Everyone she has touched.

So, if it is our responsibility to pray, I am asking that you do just that.  For Lilly.  For her family.  (Side note:  I pray thankfully that I have never sat in Lilly’s parents place, and hopefully that I never will, and optimistically that He will bring about great things for this family by their trial…)

She’s 8 years old.  Pray for her, her doctors, her parents, her two brothers and for all who have been touched, are touched and will be touched by this precious child.

It will make a difference.

“The only thing that is assured is that we are going to live in a world where we cannot escape each other.”

     –     Bill Clinton in a commencement speech at New York University, Abu Dhabi

A college baseball teammate would often remind someone who was yanking his chain that “you can run, but you can’t hide.”

It’s more true than ever today.

Every phone is a camera and every camera is a phone, it seems.  Nothing stays private, whether it should or not.

Granted, Clinton was speaking globally in this speech, in terms of the “big we,” but the big we is made up of all the small we’s — and the point carries through for the difference maker.

It’s about mutual need.  Interdependence.  About cliches that aren’t cliche any more like “1 + 1 = 3” and the like.

Motivational speakers have said, “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me.”  And, while difference makers do have to master their own thoughts and actions — today, if it’s going to be, it’s up to us.”

When there are problems, we cannot escape, we have to establish a stand.  When there are decisions, we have to decide, not hide.  When there are opportunities, we have to seize them.  Together.  For the greater good.

“There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them.  But they are there for a reason.  Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there.”

     –     Paulo Coelho, author

There are times when it seems like it can’t get any better.  But of course, it can.  Euphoria is, by and large, there for a reason.  It’s to remind us that we just don’t get it.  The highest highs are usually just a blip on the radar, a moment in time.  A small smattering of perspective on a much larger canvas spanning a much broader frame.

There are times when it seems like it can’t get any worse.  But of course, it can.  Despair is, by and large, there for a reason.  It’s to remind us that we just don’t get it.  The lowest lows are usually just a blip on the radar, a moment in time.  A small smattering of perspective on a much larger canvas spanning a much broader frame.

The highest highs seem to go by like shooting stars.  The lowest lows seem to drag on like winter in the Great Lakes — too long, too cold, too gray.  But they are both simply brief stop-offs along the route our lives are set upon.

Today, I spent forty-five minutes talking to someone who thought they were experiencing the lowest of lows.  Less than five minutes later, I was talking to someone who really was.

For the former, I wish I could share with them the story of the latter — so that they might know that their “blip,” their moment in time, was one that their counterpart would sign up for.  Right.  Now.  As for the former, I am sure that neither one of us thinks the other one “gets it,” and we’re both probably right.

For the latter, I hope and pray will all my might, that they might soon look back and see today as a brief stop-off along a route through many more fields and across many more mountains, toward and through many more sunrises and sunsets.  I hope and pray with all my might that this “blip” might be just that – a moment in time, that will provide treasured perspective.

Regardless of how any of us come out of the other side of these conversations, we are here, now, for a reason, and my prayer is that we might — sooner than later — understand why the troubles and the conversations they led us into were there.

“If every one of you changed the lives of ten people – and each one of those folks changed the lives of another ten people — just ten — then in five generations — 125 years — the Class of 2014 will have changed the lives of 800 million people.”

     –     Admiral William H. McRaven, University of Texas graduate and Navy Seal at UT’s 2014 commencement

Small gestures.  Timely consideration.  A word of encouragement.  A challenge.  An admonishment.  A reprimand.  A moment of silence shared.

Too often we think of difference making on the grandest scale, on the largest canvas.  Too often we think there isn’t time, talent or virtue enough.  Too often, we think too small, paint too big and pale to the challenge.

Difference making on the grandest scale, on the largest canvas, is laid with the smallest stones, painted with the smallest brushes.

Think of the times someone made a difference for you — with the finest of subtle gestures, acts or considerations.  And think of the times that you have done the same.

Ten people.  Touching ten people.

Makes today seem at least a bit more exciting, doesn’t it?

“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.”

     –     Martin Heidegger, German philosopher (1889-1976)

“To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”

–     Paraphrased snippet often used in board rooms and presentations

Disclaimer:  Yes, I know that Heidegger was widely thought to be a Nazi sympathizer in the early 1930’s and that he was subsequently banned from teaching.  It doesn’t mean that his words aren’t particularly salient in these times.

And, yes, while I am “disclaiming,” one of Dad’s favorite “solutions” was to “get a bigger hammer.”  I often use it, and the bigger hammer often works quite nicely, thank you.

I simply can’t help but wonder though, what it is that makes us think only in terms of what we’ve experienced — what it is that makes that next “thing” look like a nail.  What is it that makes us resist blazing our own trail — and instead makes us choose to take the same road, hoping it leads to a different destination?

One of my closest friends, during the banking meltdown of 2008 – 2012 (is it really over?) sat in a room listening to his peers, many of them older, many of them 40+ years in the industry saying, “This is like the 80’s…” or “this is like the 60’s…” when he finally blurted out, “NO!  This is NOT like any other crisis our markets have endured, because WE did this to ourselves…”

It was the kind of thinking that needed to be done and the kind of statement that needed to be made.  For that firm, in that time, the willingness to think in terms of “here” and “now” made a difference.

Perhaps the biggest difference we can make, when there are big problems in play, is to simply make sure that we ARE thinking — and in the right context.  There may be a trail just waiting to be blazed.

“Doubt is the origin of wisdom.”

–     Rene Descartes, French philosopher, mathematician and write (1596-1650)

There are times that it’s just a lot harder than it feels like it ought to be.

“What’s always worked” doesn’t get it done anymore, and that calls in to play all sorts of questions, concerns and doubts.

When we doubt, the key is to ask ourselves more difficult questions.  Are we doubting because we’re coasting?  Are we doubting because we’re fatigued?  Because we’re in over our heads?  Do the doubts come from people second-guessing, or resisting, or otherwise cobbing up the works?  (“Cobbing” is a term used often by Dick Heston.  I am pretty sure it was a substitute for words that he didn’t feel were appropriate for a young boy.  On the other hand, he had a pretty colorful vocabulary….so it’s possible that it’s a technical term, meaning, “Completely screwing up…” but I digress…)

When we doubt, questions that start with “What if?” matter a lot, too.

“What if we tried this…?”  “What if we stopped doing that?”  “What is the worst thing that could happen…?”  “What if we have the courage to try this new thing, and we’re right!?”

Wisdom rarely comes from books.  Knowledge can, and does, but wisdom is more valuable, and therefore comes at a higher price.

When we are doubting, as long as we honestly answer some tough questions, we may well be really close to gaining the kind of wisdom that makes a difference.

“Listening isn’t just hearing; it requires the willingness to entertain other viewpoints — especially opposing ones.”

     –     Ram Charan, Leadership “guru,” in a November, 2013 interview with Harvard Business Review

There’s a marked difference between hearing and listening — no shocker there, right?

The will to focus on either, let alone both, however, is often lacking — in us, and in those for whom we seek to make a difference.

Perhaps even more important than open ears is an open mind — and the willingness to entertain the concept that we may be wrong, or at least that we may only be partially right.

When we listen for meaning, we hear more than words.  We hear ideas.  We hear concepts.  We hear with a level of engagement that simply gives us no choice but to be drawn in — and to focus on an outcome that is meaningful — that may well make a difference.

How willing are we?