Spring has Sprung

In Charlotte, North Carolina this year, we had no winter. In fact, it rarely even got cold enough to snow. The flowers bloomed early and we've pretty much had spring-like weather since late February.


Still, there is something about Spring.The flowers bloom. The trees are gorgeous. The days are getting longer. It's basically just a wonderful time of the year.

The thing l like best about spring is that its all about rebirth and new beginnings. Trees that appeared dead months before are vibrant and full of life. Days that were dark and cold are quickly becoming longer and warmer. 


Spring has a lot to show us about the cyclical nature of life itself. We all go through our own personal winters. We experience our own long dark days, the cold chills of misfortune, and sometimes blizzards of bad news. Yet, eventually, spring does come. Things might be different but they will get better. Spring is on the way with its warmth and beauty.


Spring comes every year and you can count on it. Bad times don't last either, they pass just like winter. If you are experiencing a dark time, this blog is for you. 


Your spring is coming. You can count on it.

On the Way to Milk and Honey

We had a guest pastor in church a few weeks ago. Guest pastors are like a box of assorted chocolates, you never know who you are going to get. He was great, though. Personable, engaging and funny. So I have to tell you that this blog got its impetus in his sermon.

He talked about the Promised Land, a land described as the Land of Milk and Honey. This was nothing new but it was what he said next that set his sermon a part. He said that cows make milk and bees make honey. Again, nothing new here. BUT, he continued, just as cows make milk they make a whole lot of other *stuff* and just as bees make honey, they also sting.

Basically, if you want to get to the milk and honey, you're going to have to walk through a lot of stuff and endure a lot of stings!

He said, the only way to get to the milk and honey is to go through the stuff and the stings. You see, most of us, recoil and take a big step back, when we get a whiff of the stuff or feel the first sting, but if we want the milk and honey we have to keep moving through the stuff and stings.

We need to remember that the milk and honey are on the other side - that goal, that motivation - should keep us moving forward.

Whatever you are going through right now remember that the only way to get to the milk and honey is to keep moving. The only way to get through it is to go through it!

Take a Technology Fast

Cell phones, email, text messaging, status updates, tweeting, for many of us, from the moment we awake until we go to sleep, we are ‘connected’. On an episode of Dr. Phil, one woman was so addicted to texting that she stopped in the middle of intimate relations with her husband to read and respond to a text. Don’t even get me started on all of the near-miss accidents I have had because someone couldn’t be bothered to look away from the phone and actually watch the road! It’s getting to be a little much.

These technological wonders have become a part of our lives, mostly for the better, but still, our dependence is a little bit scary. So many churches and other organizations have started what they call technology fasts. The most practical ones for me are evening fasts. If you need emails and cell phones for work or to track the kids down, that’s one thing.

Yet the idea of an evening fast intrigued me. An evening fast starts when you get home from work, and ends the next morning. For those hours, there is no:

• Television
• Internet
• Phone usage (land line or cell)
• Texting
• Video Games
• GPS Systems

For an evening, you are technologically free. You can read. You can meditate. You can talk to your family members. You can take a walk. You can play with the kids. You can write in a journal. You can paint, sing, draw … but you can’t utilize technology.

Of course this does take some planning. You won’t want to do it when you have a project due or a test scheduled for the next day, but you do want to find some time to do it.

I did it for several days during a recent vacation. I found it to be liberating and calming. Perfect for a vacation! Yet, I decided to do it one evening a week when I returned home – that has proved a little more challenging.

Try it just for one evening and let me know how it goes.

What Would You Do?

I was thinking the other day about what I'd do if I won a ridiculous amount of money in the lottery. What would I do if I won $200 million dolllars?

Of course, I'd pay off my bills. I'd give a big chunk to my dad and pay for my sister's education. I would help all of my friends who are struggling. I'd pay off my house but I wouldn't get a new one. I love my house. It's perfect for me, so I think I'd stay. I also love my little Mazda 6. I don't need a BMW or a Lexus; but, I think I'd get the new Mazda 6 fully loaded.

But beyond those basic things, I'd need to do something everyday. Of course I'd travel, but I don't think I'd want to travel all of the time. I'd want to be productive and do something, for others and for myself.

For others, I'd give to my favorite charities and I'd also give back some more. I've had a dream of starting my own mentoring program and college fund for kids in the middle, the ones who everyone ignores. We pay a lot of attention to the gifted students and we make a ton of efforts to help those who are in trouble and at-risk, but what about the ones in the middle? What about the C students who go to school everyday, avoid trouble and just want a decent life? I'd do something for them.

For myself, I would also take this opportunity to learn. I would take culinary and photography classes. I'd become the photographer I've always wanted to be. I'd take the fun I have in the kitchen to a whole new level. I'd also be free to write and not have to worry about making a living.

So the question I asked at the end of this protracted daydream is why not start creating that life now? Heck, I don't even play the lotto, so how can I win it? LOL!

Maybe I can't pay off the house or start a new foundation or travel the world. But I can make do more volunteering. I can make more of an effort to study my photography and get out more and shoot. I can enroll in a cooking class or even buy a few cookbooks that can start to take me from novice to accomplished home cook.

The life we want doesn't need to be relegated to flights of fancy and daydreams. We can start right now, right where we are and all of our lives will be better for it.

Words of Wisdom

As one of the few people in the country who do not own an Apple product, I still recognize the loss of a titan, Steve Jobs, who changed the way we live from computers to music and even movies. In 2005, he gave the commencement speech at Standord University. It's long for a blog post but very much worth the time it takes to read it. And who knows, there could be an iPad or IPod in my future!

****************************************
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course."

My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out.

What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Thankfully Thursday!

Today is Thursday, which has become in many offices across the country, Thankfully Thursday. You know, the day that comes after Hump Day (Wednesday) and just before Thank God It’s Friday. After that, we have two days away from work before we have to come down with a Case of the Mondays when we realize that we have to do it all over again. Is this any way to live?

Many of us, myself, at times, included, seem to trudge through the weekdays so that we can make it to the weekend, but what happens then? Many times we are overrun with weekend activities that have us exhausted by Sunday night or we squander that time doing nothing and complaining about how we wish there was more to do.

When I realized that I was spending five days of my week in anticipation of two (that I didn’t cherish that much once they were here), I challenged myself to be more proactive and started asking myself some questions.

• What could I do during the week to add some fun to my day?


• What did I have at work I could look forward to?


• What part of my job did I enjoy the most?


• If I’m going to look forward to the weekend, what am I going to look forward to doing with that time?

Asking these questions, and coming up with a few answers,  made the work days a little more bearable (and dare I say, at times, enjoyable) and the weekends started to become something to really look forward to.

Is every day full of meaning and satisfaction? Of course not, but I do have more enjoyment and satisfaction than I did before. Is every weekend a wild whirlwind of adventure? No, but what I choose to do with that time, I choose to do consciously, even if it’s just sleeping in or getting caught up on some house work.

Every day is a gift and it can’t be returned so we might as well make the most of it.

Helping Hands

Good and decent people believe in helping one another. We do it because we know what it’s like to need a helping hand. We do it because we hope, that if we were in need, someone would help us. We do it because it’s the right thing to do.

Last week, as I rushed from errand to errand, I ran out of gas. Ironically, my next stop was the gas station. As I waited for AAA several people stopped and asked me if I needed help. For many of us, helping is in our nature.

Recently a good friend of mine extended a helping hand to someone and he ended up getting that hand burned. He had made a casual acquaintance of a guy he’d see often at the track. Through their conversations, he learned that this guy, in his early 20’s needed a break. He was living with his girlfriend, who was expecting their child. Due to a few bad choices, he had a hard time finding a job and he really needed one.

My friend, who had been on his job for three years, recommended him for an open position. It wasn’t much but it was steady work. After one week on the job, he’d already been late twice. The second week, he was a no cal, no show. Both my friend and his manager talked to him and tried to impress on him the importance of showing up and being on time. The third week seemed to be better. However, it didn’t last. By week four he was back to his old way. And then, then a cell phone for one of the visiting executives came up missing. All signs pointed to the new guy as the thief. It turned out that he had stolen the phone and he was promptly fired.

My friend is embarrassed and angry. Embarrassed because the guy was hired in large part due to his recommendation and now he looks bad. Angry because this guy took advantage of his trust and made him look bad to his boss. My friend says he’ll think twice before he sticks his neck out again.

And he should … but I do hope that this experience doesn’t turn him off to helping people all together. The lesson here isn’t that sticking your neck out for someone is wrong. The lesson is to get to know the person a little bit better first.

Community is about people working together and I feel that compassion is a vital part of community and a part that is too often missing. I’ve heard it said that all that is necessary for evil to win is for good people to do nothing.

We must be willing to do something.

It’s funny but after AAA showed up, I made a bee line to the gas station. As I was getting out of my car, a woman asked me for $3. She was unemployed and having trouble making ends meet. Her mother had agreed to loan her some money and she was on her way to her mom’s house but she didn’t think she had enough gas to make it there. I smiled and told her I knew what she was going through and I gave her $5. Hopefully, she’ll do the same for someone else.

Get Clear

What do you want? A job isn’t the right answer. A successful business isn’t the right answer either. Having a relationship, losing weight, going back to school, those answers aren’t working for me.

You need to get clear on what you want … exactly what you want. If you want a job, will any job do? Do you want to scrub toilets? How about picking up trash from the side of the road? That might be fine for some people, but if that isn’t your idea of a job, then you need to get clear.

When I graduated from college, in my youthful arrogance, I turned down a job, a good job. It took me another year to get my foot in the door at a radio station and when I did, I wasn’t getting paid. I toiled there for a year and a half. During that time, I got experience and made a decent demo tape. I also applied to any and every job I could. I applied to places I couldn’t pronounce. I sent resumes and tapes to places I couldn’t find on a globe. My goal was simple, find a job as a news producer. Any job.

Eventually, I got a job as a news producer in a small Midwestern town. The job was fine but I was miserable. Forget dating, I would have settled for just a friend. For a year, every evening, every weekend, I was alone. I ate alone. I went to the movies alone. I never made a local call because no one I knew was local. It was awful.

After a year, I left. I didn’t have another job. I didn’t care. I just had to get out.

I had not been clear about the job I wanted. I didn't want 'any job' 'anywhere', although that was the energy I was putting out. I wanted a job, as a producer, in a medium-sized city that would pay me at least $5,000 more than I ended up making. But desperation overtook clarity. I settled for anything and that's exactly what I got.

Knowing what you don’t want is a good start but you need to know exactly what you do want.

If you want a job, what job? Where are you working? What salary are you making? What are you doing every day? What is your boss like? How long is your commute?

If it’s a relationship, what are your partner’s characteristics? What activities do you share? What do you like about him/her? What does he/she bring to the relationship?

If it is a business, what defines a successful business to you? How much revenue are you generating? How many people are working for you? What are your days like? Who is your ideal client or customer?

Clarity is key.

Do What You Love?

I have a friend who we'll call Shelly. She and I met while we were fledgling writers in Los Angeles. I moved on several years ago and now she's getting ready to leave Los Angeles as well. Although Shelly's excited about her transition, she's also a little bit down. You see, she wasn't able to 'make it' as a writer in L.A. and she feels as though she let herself down.

Do what you love.

Shelly loved to write but she wasn't able to translate that into a career. So now what? Well, what I'm about to say might rub some people the wrong way, but I'll say it anyway. Maybe you shouldn't quit your day job.

Doing what you love doesn't have to mean doing it professionally. Doing what you love doesn't mean it has to be your career. There are a variety of ways to fuel your passions.

In talking to Shelly, she took the do what you love mantra literally. She loved to write. She felt should be writing all day and making a living from it. If she wasn't, she wasn't a success. Meanwhile, she's an award-winning property manager who enjoys her work. She is a success. Yet, that didn't even register for her because she was so consumed with her rigid definition of writing success.

Doing what you love can manifest itself in a number of ways. As a writer, Shelly can fuel her passions by writing a blog, keeping a journal, writing freelance articles, writing for her church magazine or bulletin, writing poetry or trying her hand at writing a novel. There are a number of viable outlets for her. Likewise, a singer doesn't have to be the next American Idol or a Platinum-selling artist. He can join the church choir or other choral group, become a regular at the local karoake club. If the passion is singing, then the goal should be to sing.

Now, your day job should be something you enjoy; it should be something you have an affinity for. You spend too many hours at work to hate it. Your 'day job' shouldn't be something you endure until you get your big break.

All of us have been blessed with gifts. Some of us can find ways to join our passions and purpose with our professions. For the rest of us, the challenge is to look more broadly and find other ways to satisfy our talents and creativity.

Be a Giver

We’ve all heard that it is more blessed to give than to receive. But we live in a world where many are ruled by their wants and desires. When that adage comes up people think, “Yeah right, I’d much rather receive a flat-screen plasma television set than to give one away.” But there is some truth to this. There is a lot of truth to this.

Back in September, I lost my day job. It was completely unexpected. While I didn’t miss the job itself, I did miss my co-workers and I missed my paycheck. I get unemployment but it is not nearly as much as I had been making. Plus, I bought my first-house last year.

The first few weeks were fine but then the fear, the frustration and the anxiety set in. Add to that the admonishments from both friends and family that I, as a life coach, I should be beyond feelings of fear, frustration and anxiety.

But I pride myself on being honest and, honestly, I was scared and I felt like a fraud for being scared. Maybe they were right. If I were any kind of coach wouldn’t I be able to snap my fingers and banish these emotions in an instant? Shouldn’t I be able to be 100% positive all the time?

To make matters worse, I was alone. I live alone and that’s fine but with no job to go to, I was alone all day every day, all day. It was maddening. It was like being in solitary confinement. I had full days to dwell on my problems, my situation and myself. I would spend days operating on little to no sleep. I knew I needed to do something but I wasn’t sure what.

I reached out to a friend and she suggested that I find volunteer. It would get me out of the house and, if I found an organization that was a good fit, it would give me an opportunity to use some of my skills. “You can’t let your talents go to waste sitting at home,” she reasoned.

I didn’t hesitate. That night, I went online to Volunteer Match and I did a search on local non-profits. Jacob’s Ladder, a local job readiness training program, came up. It sounded perfect. I called the next day. I met with them later that week and started volunteering that next Monday.

I’ve been able to use my training expertise, my life coaching skills and what I know about job searching and interviewing. I have helped people with applications, resumes, getting professional clothes and interviewing. I have been able to help the students in the class become more proactive, develop workable goals and see things from a variety of different perspectives.

I have been giving of myself, my skills and my talents. It is, and continues to be, an amazing experience. While I have been giving, I’ve been receiving so much more. My outlook immediately improved. I began sleeping again. For the first time in weeks, I felt like myself again.

I also came to realize that feeling those feelings doesn’t make me any of a less effective coach. It makes me human. And now, I even believe that these kinds of experiences might even make me a better coach. I was down; but I didn’t stay there. I found a way to get up and I know that I can help others do the same.

However, my turn around started when I started to give.

What Are You Doing?

Stop, right now and ask yourself, "What am I really doing?"

Are you in a job that fulfills you or are you there just to collect a paycheck? Are you happy with your relationship or just going through the motions? Are you enjoying your kids or just running them around from Point A to Point B? When is the last time you laughed? When is the last time you cried?

What are you doing?

It's an important question and one we rarely ask. When you do stop to answer it, the first answer is usually a rattled off list of to-dos. "I picked up the groceries, got the oil changed, completed the presentation, helped the kids with the homework," and so it goes.

But as a life coach, you know I'm looking deeper than that. When I ask, "What are you doing?" I want you to get beyond the busy-ness. I want to get down to the heart of the matter. What are you contributing? What lives are you touching? Are you raising great kids? Are you creating lasting memories?

Granted, as adults, we know that life is about a lot more than doing what we want to do. Sure, I'd love to sit at home and write all day but pesky little things like a mortgage, lights and food have to be paid. Yet even as we live our day-to-day lives, I challenge you to do a little more.

I read a statistic that said that the average American worker spends less than 2 minutes in meaningful conversation with their significant other and less than 30 seconds in meaningful conversation with their children. Is that really what we want to do?

Smile more. Use the time in the car or in the kitchen to have a real conversation. Volunteer. Help a neighbor. Spend some time in nature. Spend an hour or two a week, doing something you love. Be present at work and give it your best.

Whatever you do, do it. Do it fully. Do it with excitement. Do it with love.

Gifts that Keep Giving

A few Christmases ago, I decided to give a truly unique gift to my Dad. I enlarged a few of my favorite photos, found a really unique frame and created a one-of-a-kind gift.

On Christmas Day, I was so excited when my Dad opened it. Then my heart fell. He said, “Oh,” carefully put it down and proceeded to get all excited about the next gift he received: a men’s grooming kit. He was especially excited by the nose hair clippers.

I thought about that incident the other night when I was thinking about gifts. Not so much presents, but the gifts that each and every one of us have. Some of us have a knack for numbers, or a passion for fashion, or an ear for music. Others are gifted teachers, counselors or engineers. We all have something to contribute.

What a shame it is when we put that gift aside. What a waste. Imagine all of the wonderful things we are missing out on because people don’t use their gifts. Imagine all of the joy we deny ourselves when we put aside that which only we can offer.

There are several reasons why we don’t go with our gifts.

Gifts aren’t effortless. They do require some effort and some dedication. A gifted dancer still has to master the basic steps. A photographer still has to learn about composition and lenses and the workings of the camera.

Gifts aren’t all-or-nothing propositions. You don’t have to quit your day job. There are other ways to let your talents shine. Volunteer. Become a mentor. Make it into a hobby. Do it part-time.

Give your gifts a chance. Experience them. Express them. Allow yourself to feel the joy that comes when you allow your special talents to shine through.

Obama, McCain, The Big Picture and The Little Guy

I live in beautiful Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the great things about my new home is that they make it very easy to do my civic duty. I voted early yesterday. And it was a beautiful thing.

This election season has been all about the big races – presidential (of course) and the races for the House and Senate. However, I think a lot of new voters will be surprised to find, when they step into that polling booth, that there are a number of other races going on — races that they probably haven’t heard a thing about.

The truth of the matter is that it’s those lesser-known races that will have the biggest impact on the average voter. Want better schools? You will get better and more immediate results by working with the school board than with the president. Your mayor, city council members and police are the ones who will defend your neighborhood. Commander-in-chief has the whole nation to worry about. If you are concerned about justice, pay attention to the judges you elect. The fact is, the closer you are to the government, the more direct impact it has on your life. These are the people who can affect change. Yet these little local races are the ones we pay the least attention to.

Kind of sounds like life doesn’t it? We pay attention to the big and the flashy while overlooking the smaller things to us that make the biggest impact. You want to impress your boss’s boss when he visits from the corporate office but have no qualms with treating your co-workers like crap … even though they have a more direct impact on your everyday work life.

It plays out in every area. We go all out to celebrate an anniversary, but can’t be bothered to spend a regular evening with our spouse or even really listening to them when they talk about their day. We go all out with toys for the kids at Christmas but then we don’t make time to play with them during the year.

Years later, when you look back over your life, you might remember those anniversaries and Christmases but its those little moments, the encouraging hug at the end of a bad day or that game of hoops you played with your kid that will be remembered and truly cherished.

In elections and in life, little things mean a lot.

The Road I've Traveled

In my newsletter this month, I said that I didn't have many regrets and I don't. But, I did have one pretty big one ... and then something amazing happened. It went away. Yes. It did. Just like that!

I always wondered what would have happened if I would have made the decision to just stay in Cleveland. I could have possibly married my college sweetheart and had a couple of kids. When I would see women who had that kind of domestic setting, I would feel tugs of envy and tinges of regret. "Maybe, I should have..." I would say to myself.

Last Christmas I went home for a visit. While hanging out with a good friend, we made a stop by her sister's house. Her sister had it all - the hubby and the nice home and the beautiful kids. She was exactly the kind of woman that sparked thoses tugs and tinges within me.

I asked her how she'd been because we hadn't seen each other in quite a while (years). And she talked about the husband and the kids and the job and she seemed truly happy. And, I was truly happy for her.

As we prepared to leave, I had an epiphany. In that moment, I realized, that if her life had been my life, I would have spent years in quiet desperation. I would not have been happy. I probably would have driven myself crazy!

I realized that the road frequently traveled wasn't the road for me. I'd been on the right path - my path - all along. I thought about all the amazing things I'd seen and done and the insane variety of people I've met that never would have been possible living day-to-day in a suburb of Cleveland. Yes, I still want the hubby and the kid (not plural!) but I need to have that in my own way in my own time.

At that moment, I literally felt the weight being lifted from my shoulders and I knew that I would never again feel those same tugs and tinges. I can appreciate someone else's path without wishing it were my own.

You Might Have Just Dodged a Bullet

When I graduated from college, with a degree in journalism, I got a job offer for an entry-level job at a major news agency. Full of youthful ignorance and a healthy dose of arrogance, I turned it down.

As a result, I spent the next year and a half trying to get my foot in the door. When I finally did land at a local AM radio station, I was working for next to nothing. It was humbling to say the least.

Almost 20 years later, my family still talk about how great my life would have been if I had only gone to Atlanta. I’d be a major news anchor. I’d be married. I’d have a great family. And basically, my life would have been one long and magical walk in a beautiful park, on a bright sunny day.

Or would it?

Maybe my arrogance saved me from a worse fate than a year of menial jobs. Maybe I saved myself form an abusive relationship or avoided a terrible accident. I don’t know. I’ll never know. And, that’s okay.

We like to look at the path we didn’t take and romanticize it. “If I had taken that job, my life would be so much better!” Or, “If I had married the other guy, I’d be happier.” We might think to ourselves, “If only I had gotten that scholarship…” or “If I had moved to Los Angeles when I had the chance…”

The truth is that we will never know if things would have been better or worse. But painting that unrealistically rosy picture of the path not taken is a recipe for regret and frustration.

If you believe in God, karma or, even fate then you probably believe that things happen for a reason. Every decision I’ve made has lead me to where I am right now and the same for you. To tease yourself with dreams of what might have been or what you could have, should have or would have done is to perform an unnecessary form of mental torture.

Instead of ruminating over the past, look at where are now and figure out what the next step is. Yesterday is gone; but you can still do some with today and impact tomorrow.

Life on Purpose

Earlier today, I participated in a tele-class on finding your life’s purpose. There were hundreds of us on the call. In his introduction, the leader said something I found remarkable. Not everyone wants to know what their purpose is. Why wouldn’t you want to know why you are here, having this experience? Why wouldn’t you want to know what it is you are supposed to do or how you are supposed to contribute?

He gave two reasons. Some people are content to go through life from day-to-day, never realizing and never caring about doing something, or being something more than what they already are. Others are scared to know their purpose. If they knew it, they would have to act on it. Not knowing means not doing.

For those who want to know their purpose, the major obstacle to finding it can be summed up in one word: fear. As long as we fear our purpose - what it could be, what it could mean, what it would require of us and what we might have to sacrifice to get it - we’ll never know it.

Personally, I feel strongly that coaching is part of my purpose. I am passionate about it. Whether I’m working with a client, writing this blog, coordinating a workshop or a tele-class, I truly love what I do and I know that I've had a positive impact on the lives of my clients. I feel that has to be a part of my purpose.

I’m looking forward to delving more deeply into uncovering my purpose.

What about you? Have you found your purpose or your passion? Do you feel that kind of quest is even relevant to your life?