…It’s who you are.

There is a perpetual, internal struggle between what is genuinely important in life and what we have chosen to prioritize instead. This struggle exists because somewhere deep within us we are convinced, at some moment in time, even if only slightly, that there must be something more to life other than what we have currently accepted as the norm, the status quo, the dream come true.

No matter who you are, or what you claim to be, you have a story to tell, and your story is enormously important. Each one of us has a message to share, and whether we know it or not, if we truly believe in our message, we implement it into everything we say and do. Your message usually parallels that which you believe most strongly in, and the stronger, more deeply rooted your belief is, the stronger more deeply affecting and apparent your message is. It’s easy to identify those with a strong, firmly planted message because their response to what they claim to believe is confident, robust, knowledgeable, trustworthy and powerful. Their message relays the characteristics of their beliefs in an extremely efficient and effective way.

In light of what is considered normal in this present age, that which is considered the safe, responsible path of least resistance, there must absolutely be something more. There must be something more than simply accomplishing what everyone else thinks you’re supposed to accomplish in order to maintain a good, fair and rich lifestyle. There must be something more than a “checklist life” which demands you follow the rules of American normality and simply fall into line; in to your fairy tale house; in to your dog and three kids; in to your 8am-6pm job; in to your BMW; in to your annual family vacation to the beach; in to your once-a-week-Sunday-morning-be-a-Christian-church-ritual; in to your 401K retirement package; in to your live a long life composed of luke-warm commitments instead of a full life characterized by passionate relevance and faithful hope, always willing to serve others ahead of your own self, loving people more than you love even your own life. There must be something more than this epidemic normality.

The definition of normality, what we are supposed to do, is vitally and intrinsically flawed. It is so flipped, skewed and slanted that we have lost site of what genuinely matters in life, of what is truly critical during our few, short, fleeting days here on earth. We have lost our vision. We have forgotten our first love. We have forgotten what is important in the end. We have forgotten that opportunities come and go and some day so will we. We have forgotten what it means to live, to really, passionately, live.

There are 2 points to consider:

1. What do you believe above and beyond everything else? Found your life and your message on that. Come to a fuller understanding of what you believe and why you believe it. Develop your message around it, devising an effective plan of communicating and spreading that message so that everyone you know has an opportunity to hear, understand, and support that message. Don’t allow your own shortcomings in communication to hinder your great message; make sure it’s clear, concise and understandable.
2. People are what matter. If you’re thinking about spreading a message or building a product or innovating from an idea that doesn’t in some way involve serving others, you are wasting your time. People, and the authentic relationships that you have with them, are paramount to any other endeavor.

Their success was not just of their own making.  It was a product of the world in which they grew up.  -Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

The great thing about the way in which information frolics about the universe today is that you simply do not have to know everything.

This recovering book addict–yours truly–used to read books solely in order to gain knowledge.  I believed that the more I read, the more I would learn, and hence, the better my life would eventually be.  Today, however, I read books for a deeper reason–to make connections and build relationships.  I’ve come to realize that the common ground held by multiple people or multiple groups, all of whom have a congruent knowledge base yet maintain their unique perspective, is more important to my gaining of understanding than any knowledge I may accrue from reading a book and keeping that knowledge to myself.  No longer is it about how much information I can process and store, rather; it is about the experience and information which I can share, teach and trade with others. I believe this is one of the greatest assets any avid life-long-learner can realize.  The personal gain acquired through reading and simply storing something revolutionary is far out-weighed by the joy and satisfaction gained from sharing your newly discovered insights and selections of wisdom.  Wisdom learned yet not shared, knowledge gained but never discussed, is of no benefit to anyone, and I believe that one of the most genuine ways to learn and to grow is to share and communicate what it is that you have gathered along the way.  That is why people write, why they communicate, why they spread seed and why they decide to tell their story.

You no longer have to know it all.  As Gladwell states, many times our successes are less dependent upon our own selves (the so called “making our own way” theory) and more dependent upon how well we utilize the environments in which we currently live, work, communicate and play.  For this simple reason, you no longer have to know it all.  Feel better?  More at peace?  Relaxed yet?  You should be.  There is little peace in knowing “everything” and there is rarely enough time to develop real relationships with others along the way.  And yet, it is the very relationships which we do develop which often times prove to be far more crucial to the evolution of our successful ideas than is the knowledge gained through the attempt to “know it all”.

Remember the kid in 4th grade who thought he knew it all and always walked into the classroom, head held high, believing that he really did?  I remember him.  I also remember that no one liked him. No one likes a know-it-all.  On the other hand, people do like those who seek out what they know, and who long to partner with them in order to benefit from their specific knowledge.  Great success is not about knowing everything. Great success is about putting the pieces together. He knows this, I need him.  She knows that, I need her.  We know this, they will need us.  Contrary to your popular belief, you are not the sole factor of your success.  The truth is, we need each other.  Why?  Because none of us will ever know it all, and we need each other to fill in our own missing gaps.

Success is not just about learning and storing as much as you can.  Success is also about spreading what you know, and partnering with others who know what you don’t.  It is not necessarily all about you, rather, it is about how well you utilize the environment of people all around you.

There was a time when sales department pep talks, employee rallies, motivating managerial sessions and corporate weekend getaways went something like this: Times may be hard now but just keep doing what you’re doing. Work hard, don’t give up; eventually things will get better. We will come out of this down time (together!) stronger in the end. In other words, demand for what we currently offer, how we currently offer it, will come back.

Rah Rah Rah and the crowd went crazy…kinda.

The effectiveness of perpetually doing whatever it was that we did yesterday in order to guarantee our continued future success tomorrow is quickly becoming, well,…ineffective.

We live in a world where demand for the old, boring and slightly unusable is nil. We interact in markets where doing the same thing over and over and over will not successfully endure. On the contrary, fortunately, we also live in communities where new, fresh and innovative ways of doing things are embraced and loved by an ever growing number. If you are exerting energy to maintain a status quo, trying desperately to solve problems and challenges from outdated and overused platforms, then you are going to disappear. You will be left where you currently are…in the past. We must be willing to embrace transition and change appropriately and accordingly, never sacrificing our values for a quick dollar or following, but always willing to change in order to get better and to help more people more efficiently and more effectively.

If you are (or quite probably now were) a newspaper company who believes you can just keep printing newspapers, and that eventually demand for your paper will go back up…you are going to lose. If you are a car company that believes it can keep manufacturing gas guzzling SUV’s, and that the demand for your vehicles will eventually go back up…you have already lost. If you are a small business that believes it can make do without an amazing website/blog, and that your customer base will continue to find you and use you regardless…you are going to lose. If you are a band who believes that your primary source of revenue over the next two years is going to be album sales, and that you don’t need to find a new creative way to generate cash…you should probably just stay in your parents garage.

Waiting it out until demand for your product or service comes back doesn’t work any more. Why? Because someone else out there is already figuring out a way to do what you do, better. Someone else is out there changing what you provide in order to make it easier and faster and more fun.

If we resist (aggressively fight!) change, then we are going to lose, and we are going to lose quickly. We must adapt. We must continually get better. We have to understand the ever fluctuating attitudes and desires of our followers, clientele, friends and co-workers, and we must evolve to meet them.

Embrace positive change, keep up with how it’s happening, leverage it to the best of your ability, come out of the hard times better than you were going into them.

I’m reading Tribes by Seth Godin and The Book of Acts from The Bible. Both of these books contain stories which pertain to amazing and courageous leadership and fighting the status quo in the face of adversity. I recommend them both for those who yearn to lead.

A good friend of mine once gave me this advice on getting rich (however you choose to define rich).

Here’s the quick version:  Build deep, meaningful, authentic relationships and help a lot of people.

That’s it.

Recognize a need (it’s an opportunity). Serve or meet that need. Provide a continual stream of service to perpetually meet that need in lots of peoples lives. Get rich intentionally while simultaneously freeing up your time.

For more fancy insights on how to break the old rules of business and happily embrace the new rules, go here and here.

From a distance, it can appear that leadership is the nail, and a specific, one time event is the hammer which drives that nail into the wood, thus solidifying the nail in it’s rightful place as leader within a given community. It seems as though a single strike sets the leader in her position, holding fast the rest of the community around her. Therefore, at times, watching tenured, successful leaders can be difficult. Their leadership status seems almost unattainable and far removed from your own lifestyle and current, personal leadership responsibilities. She’s the CEO. You answer her assistants, assistants phone. Get the picture? Leading large and leading well can sometimes seem practically unimaginable. Practically.

But wait there’s more!…You’ve also won a huge supply of patience and perseverance!

As most great leaders and visionaries can attest to, leadership does not commence all of a sudden with a loud bang and a TV interview, and it hardly ever starts with an instant, massive following. Leadership does, however, begin with the steady accumulation of many great moments: a lifetimes worth of wise choices, of deciding to serve others instead of your own self, of integrity, of perseverance through pain, and the pursuance of an outstanding goal. Great leaders who are worth following do not develop overnight or in a single instance. Great leaders develop with every decision that they make, with every conversation that they have, and every action (whether seen or unseen) that they partake in.

Society, in nearly every community, is in dire need of great, willing and humble leaders. If you want to fill one of the vacancies, start living every moment with purpose, vision and a mindset that is open to leading and serving others. If it burns within you to lead, then lead! You can start now. Greatness in leadership will develop over time.

I have started doing more in depth research when it comes to shopping for running shoes.  I suppose I could blame it on the economy…why not? Yesterday I knew exactly where I could get a pair of last seasons Mizuno’s for $95, quite a discount considering that I originally bought these shoes for $125 nearly a year ago.  So, I went to the shop, picked out my size, went to the check-out line, signaled for my wife; and we started talking.  We started talking about, of all things, money, and how we were going to accomplish everything we wanted to accomplish over the next 7 months on what we were currently making.  It wasn’t a discouraging conversation, money is not something we usually spend a lot of time worrying about regardless if we have a lot or a little, but there was a sort of tension associated with our words.  At that very moment, a young woman jumped into our conversation and changed the direction of our words.  She approached us from behind and very quickly proceeded to hold out her hand which contained a piece of slightly crumpled, white paper.  She asked us if our shoes were going to cost us more then $45, and after we responded, “yes”, proceeded to hand us the small piece of paper.  Before we even had time to look her in the eye and respond, she was gone.  I honestly didn’t even see what she looked like.  The piece of paper she handed us was a discount coupon for $25 off of any purchase greater then $45.  I wound up getting my $125 originally priced shoes for only $75.  

I will remember that young lady for the absolute rest of my life not because she was beautiful (although she may have been), not because she was exceedingly smart (although she may have been), and not because she was overwhelmingly wealthy (although she may have been) .  I will never forget her because of one reason, she chose to give.  She could have walked out of that store with coupon in hand, never helping anyone, never inducing a lasting connection, never making a difference.  It would have been easier to not have approached us, to not have started an awkward conversation, and to not have given anything away.  But, she chose to take a slightly more challenging path, a path of interaction, of care and of giving; and because of her choice she changed my life.

Times are changing, but much of what is important in life is staying the same.  One foundational aspect of life which I believe will never change is that it doesn’t matter how much you are able to keep for yourself, rather; it matters only how much you are willing to freely and genuinely give away.  I believe that history will adamantly remember those that willingly and joyfully gave away all that they possibly could, those that chose to  go out of their way to reach out a giving hand to another.

Today, I run with a smile.