“Besides, do you think God put you on this earth to worry about how to keep people…happy?  Do your best, speak your mind, and stop worrying about things before they happen.”

–     Diane Bauer, Dick Bauer’s fictional wife in “Getting Naked: A Business Fable…” by Patrick Lencioni

Patrick Lencioni makes a huge difference for me.

Everyone of his books is a) worth buying and reading and b) easy to read and apply.

Important word that one.  Apply.

Think of all the things we’ve learned in life so far.  In fact, just think of the cool, powerful, impactful things we’ve learned.

And then ask, “Why don’t we apply them more often, more regularly or more passionately?”

Pleasing others feels good for a minute or two.  But when we do our best, speak our mind and stop worrying, well, the difference making comes more often, and lands closer to home.

“You only have a business if your product is either better or cheaper.  Everything happens through people – either your own or your customers.  Think about doing something that will make you happy rather than wealthy.”

–     Jim Koch, Founder and Brewmaster, Boston Beer, as quoted in the “How Did I Get Here” back-page feature of this week’s Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Twice before in the almost ten-year history of the DD, have I just left the quote to stand on its own merit.

SO tempted for this post to be the third time…

But, having spent a couple years in the beer business, Koch (pronounced “cook”) reminds me of much of what made the industry so awesome back in the day.

And, he reminds me of Three Simple Rules that could / should rule every company that wants to make a difference.

Product.  People.  Passion.

Cheers, Jim.

“I tell parents this:  If the best pitchers in the world don’t pitch year-round, why should your kid?”

     –     Tommy John, former MLB pitcher, in an interview with Dan Patrick in Sports Illustrated (May 26, 2014)

Repetitive motion injuries are up exponentially in youth athletes over the past decade.

Knees for girls soccer players.  Concussions for virtually every sport.  Elbows and shoulders for young baseball pitchers.

The cause is clear, in an era of “specialization,” where so many people think their little Jimmy or Sally is going to earn a free education on the pitch, diamond, court or gridiron.  If your 9-year-old is spending three hours a day on the range, she might become a scholarship golfer.  She might even become a pro.  But she’ll miss being 9-years-old.  If your gifted child sacrifices every other season to extend one sport year-round, you might want to remember that fellow who wore #23 for the Chicago Bulls was cut from his high school basketball team as an underclassmen.

Late bloomers?  Balanced athletes?  The way things are going, we’ll never know about the former because we won’t have any of the latter.

If the plan is for Jimmy or Sally to support your retirement with an NBA or LPGA paycheck, that’s not.  A.  Plan.

So, here’s an idea.  Wanna make a difference for your kid?

Let ’em be a kid.  Let ’em try multiple sports.  Align them with coaches that understand that you can learn the game, get much better and still have the time of your life doing it.

It’s not just in the Bible that there’s a time and a season for everything.

“Let’s have a hand for that young cowboy
And wish him better luck next time;
And hope we see him up in Fargo,
Or somewhere farther down the line.
This time he sure drew a bad one;
One that nobody could ride.
But by the way he pulled his hat on
You knew he’d be there for the fight.”

–     Lyric from Lyle Lovett’s “Farther Down The Line”

Sometimes the bull knocks us off.  Sometimes we ride him to the buzzer.

It’s in how we respond that we make our names, though.

The sooner we accept that it’s the fight — the ongoing challenge, the effort to make a difference and the willingness to learn and grow on our way to making it — the sooner we can focus on getting up, pulling our hat on, and getting ready for the next ride.

“One boy is a boy.  Two boys is half a boy.  Three boys is no boy at all.”

–     Loren Stark, my grandpa, who’d have been 113 on June 20

My cousins and I always thought “working” together was a good idea.

Grandpa, not so much.

His theory, and it’s been proven out hundreds of times, was that if three boys did three separate chores, and then all met up for tomfoolery afterwards, the likelihood that any of the three chores got done went up exponentially compared to if we’d all “work together.”

It plays out in corporate America, too.  Sometimes you need to get in a room and have quiet time.  To think.  To focus.  More opinions does not often equal a better outcome — at least not when those opinions come at the expense of clarity, speed and focus.

Decision by committee can sometimes be safer, but it’s rarely better.

When one person owns the outcome, it has ownership.  If two, three or more do, there’s no ownership at all.

Thanks, Starky.  Another one that made zero sense when I was 11 that I use every single day over 40 years later.  I miss you.  But I remember.

“But don’t be fooled by the radio, the TV or the magazines
They’ll show you photographs of how your life should be
But they’re just someone else’s fantasies  — 

So if you think your life is complete confusion
‘Cause you never win the game
Just remember that it’s a grand illusion
And deep inside we’re all the same”

–     Lyric from the title track to Styx’s 1977 album “The Grand Illusion”

37 years ago, everyone — and I do mean everyone — had to own this album.  And, the title track, all these years later, is still a great reminder.

So much of what we aspire to, focus on, dream about is simply — not — real.

Confusion is simply an absence of substance.  How much important stuff gets crowded to the margins by things that will not matter at the end of today, let alone 37 years from now?  If we’re torn between this or that, it’s likely that one or the other is just nothing.  Convinced we “never win the game?”  Look around at the 10,000,000 or so people who would trade places with us for every one that wouldn’t.

I’m not convinced that deep inside we’re all the same, but for the difference makers among us, there is less illusion, less confusion.  Even when we pay the price and get a ticket to the show, we remember that it’s just — a — show.

“The years teach much which the days never knew.”

    –     Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tony Gwynn died Monday.  Baseball holds a special place in my heart, and Gwynn was one of the very best hitters to ever play.  He was also one of very few to play their entire careers with one team.  And now he’s gone.  At only 54 years old, Gwynn, a true baseball guy, succumbed to one of baseball’s old habits, years of chewing tobacco.  Kids, take note.  The years teach what the days never knew.  That “thing” that “all the guys did” just reduced the number of guys by one more.

At my uncle’s funeral about ten years ago, my cousin said, “Look around.  There’s no one from the generation ahead of us left.”

And so it is with age.

When the generation before us moves on, it’s expected.  It’s part of the deal.  But when the guys we “knew” start passing, it hits closer to home.

Gwynn batted .338 for his career, and only Ted Williams had a better average during the modern era.

Gwynn, it is said, used to cut a small hole in the tarp behind the pitching machine during batting practice, and turn the speed on the machine down real slow.  Then, for twenty minutes at a time, he’d try to hit change ups — through the hole in the tarp.

Most of his peers just crushed fastballs in the cage.  Most of his peers would not have considered setting the machine for change-ups.  And none of his peers would have tried to hit them through a five-inch hole behind the machine.

That’s why he really didn’t have many peers.  And that’s why I loved to watch him play.

A recent post here touched on talent.  Tony Gwynn was a rare talent, and the game will miss him.  So will I.

“What the hell IS that CRAP you’re listening to?”

–     Dick Heston (1933-2002), spoken regularly after I got my first “real” stereo

“You just don’t find talent like THAT anymore!”

–     Kate Heston (b 2000), leaving the Ed Sheeran show at ACL Live last night

Yes, she’s 14.  The Eldest of The Three goes all sage on us at the ripe old age of fourteen.  Nice.

And, you know what?  She’s right.  We rarely find talent like Ed Sheeran.  My attendance last night was optional, but I went along, primarily because  I love music and also because time with The Three’s mom is too hard to come by — primarily thanks to The Three.  I also went because Ed Sheeran is The Eldest’s favorite “talent,” and she was taking to of “the girls” along for the show.

I am glad I went, for those reasons, but also, because you just don’t find talent like THAT anymore.

In business, we think we know what kind of talent we’re looking for.  We think we “get it,” and that we want someone who fits a mold or a type.

Difference makers have to be committed to finding and developing talent, period.  In that pursuit, though, we have to take care not to pre-judge and to be open to finding new, rare talent.

I walked in last night looking forward to a night with my wife and The Eldest and her friends.  I walked out an Ed Sheeran fan. And, committed to finding talent like THAT today, and everyday.

“The first step toward getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.”

–     Unattributed

Sure, we could have gone with “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end,” from Seneca, the Roman philosopher, or from Semisonic, the one-hit-wonder band that recorded “Closing Time.”

Or, we could have gone with Buddah’s assurance that the key to traversing the “road to truth” is to first begin along it’s path.

So, with all that in mind, in this season of “Commencement,” which dictionaries define as a noun, today’s DD will focus on commencement as if it were a verb.

The act of deciding to not stay where we are.

Seems simplistic, and, of course, it is.

But there is a difference between deciding and committing — just as there is a difference between committing and commencing.

Oswald Chambers’ June 11th entry in My Utmost For His Highest refers to being “stayed by the perfection of vital activity.”  He makes that claim in reference to God providing us “rest.”  And, while the concepts of “rest” and “vital activity” might seem to be in conflict with one another, there is a beautiful simplicity in the claim.

If we are commencing on that which is vital to move us from where we are to where we want to be, there must surely be peace in that commencement.

Graduates are encouraged by speakers to create the future.  At The Middle’s 5th Grade Graduation “Commencement” last week, the kids were reminded of all the changes ahead — biological, educational and otherwise.  On campuses across the land, graduates are celebrating their commencements.

As we graduate from where we are to where we want to be, the commencing, committing and focus on vital activity will be key to the directness and success of our journey.

“One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority.”

–     Napoleon Bonaparte

In these times, I wonder if it’s not a much shorter time frame…not ten minutes necessarily, but you get the drift…

It was about 7 years ago that I looked around, at the ripe old age of 45, and realized that I was “suddenly” (or so I thought) the old guy in every meeting.

The tactics that had got me there weren’t gonna bear themselves out any longer.  For Difference Makers, it can be extraordinarily difficult to consume and accept that the stuff that got us our first promotion, our first sale, our first serious partner — aren’t the stuff of progress.

Strategy trumps most everything else — except, I believe, talent.  But the tactics, direction and outcome toward that strategy are worth constant evaluation and assessment.  Superiority?  Viability?  Believe-ability?  Credibility?

They all might hinge on making sure we have clear synch in our tactical approach.