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Ron Potter

BlogIn-Depth Book Reviews

Anyway

by Ron Potter

Anyway by Kent Keith is a small quick read book.  But, in spite of its small size, it is packed full of wisdom.

I’ll list all of the 10 Paradoxical Commandments here so that you can see all of them but then touch on a few that I believe are very powerful.

  1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
    Love Them Anyway
  2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
    Do Good Anyway
  3. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
    Succeed Anyway
  4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
    Do Good Anyway
  5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
    Be Honest and Frank Anyway
  6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest ideas.
    Think Big Anyway
  7. People favor underdogs but follow only the top dogs.
    Fight for a Few Undergood Anyway
  8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
    Build Anyway
  9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
    Help People Anyway
  10. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
    Give the World the Best You Have anyway

Love them, do good, succeed, be honest and grand, think big, fight for a few underdogs, build, help, give your best, ANYWAY!

So few of us do it anyway.  There always seem to be obstacles in the way.  I think some of the worst are personal fear and worrying about what others think.  I’ve often heard “what will others think?”  People who are driven by what others think never achieve their own satisfaction, desires, and goals.  As the book says, people always look for ways of stopping you and criticizing you.  Somehow it makes them feel better about themself or superior by stopping your goals and ideas even though they have either non or very small goals themselves.

Let’s take a look at a few of these that I believe have a major impact.

Do Good Anyway

The profound statement in this section is “People who act on their own selfish interior motives commonly accuse others of doing the same thing.”

I can’t say that I’m totally clear of selfish motives.  But I accomplish enough things without ulterior motives that I’m always surprised that other people think I’m only doing things for selfish reasons.

My first reaction is one of total confusion and amazement.  It seems the other person believes I’m doing something entirely for personal reasons when I feel that I’m doing something for the good of the whole or the benefit of another person.  I’m totally confused and taken back.  Then as I think about it, I realize that the person who thinks I’m doing something for selfish reasons runs their whole life on accomplishing things for totally selfish reasons.  Because of this, they assume that everyone does things for selfish reasons and can’t even comprehend when someone is not driven by selfish reasons.

There is no way for them to understand doing something for the good of others because they would never think that way.  Unfortunately, there are too many people in the world who think that way.  It’s good for us to understand who they are, realize that they would never understand our motives, and do good anyway.

Think Big Anyway

Only a few people seem to think big.  One of the reasons is that people don’t think of themselves as being “qualified.”  I’ve gone through three different careers and have never felt qualified.  Even though I had an engineering degree, it mostly taught me about the mathematics of engineering.  I never felt “qualified” to walk structural steel 160 feet in the air.

My second career was developing a software company at the beginning of the microcomputer industry.  I never felt qualified.

My third career was running a consulting business.  I called it TLC (Team Leaders Culture).  I never felt qualified to dispense wisdom in those three areas until a CEO client of mine told me one evening that I was good at all three (building teams by teaching leadership and transferring it down through the culture). But my real value was simply talking with him during our evening chats.  I now felt qualified to simply talk with the client about any topic.

Living the Paradoxical Life

Living the paradoxical life finds great personal meaning in loving and helping others find meaning in their lives.

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BlogIn-Depth Book Reviews

Management of the Absurd

by Ron Potter

As I continue the review of some of the books I’ve read through the years, next up is Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson.

Management of the Absurd

A dictionary definition of the word absurd calls it “wildly unreasonable or illogical.”  I consider myself both highly reasonable and logical so this definition didn’t make sense to me.  Which may be why I read it.  My notes alone for the book totaled up to 15 pages so I guess it caught my interest.

This book is written by Richard Farson.  In the book, he lays out eight parts.

  1. A Different Way of Thinking
  2. The “Technology of” Human Relations
  3. The Paradoxes of Communication
  4. The Politics of Management
  5. Organizational Predicaments
  6. Dilemmas of Change
  7. The Aesthetics of Leadership
  8. Avoiding the Future

I’ll quickly touch on each of the eight parts but I think you’ll notice the absurdity in the titles themselves.

A Different Way of Thinking

The most important discoveries come from taking a fresh look at what people take for granted.  They cannot see it because it is too “obvious” or is what they expect to see or not seen.  Farson calls this the invisible obvious.  I’ve often seen when the “expert” doesn’t pay any attention to the new person on the team or someone who doesn’t have the same “expertise” they do on a particular topic.  The absurdity comes from the fact that the best new creative ideas come from the person who is taking a fresh look at a topic.  This can come from the new person or, if you train yourself well, you can provide that fresh look no matter how much of an “expert” you are on a topic.

The “Technology of” Human Relations

Farson says that “The more important a relationship, the less skill matters.”  In both parenthood and management, it’s not so much what we do as what we are that counts.  It is the ability to meet each situation armed not with a battery of techniques but with an openness that permits a genuine response.

Effective leaders and managers do not regard control as the main concern.  Instead, they approach situations as learners or teachers or sometimes both.

My take from this section is the openness and genuine response that people respect and will be motivated by.  Trying to control or dictate situations will not motivate people.

The Paradoxes of Communication

Paradox is another one of those interesting words.  Webster says that it is “a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true.”

Listening can also be a disturbing experience.  All of us have strong needs to see the world in certain ways, and when we really listen, so that we understand the other person’s perspective, we risk being changed ourselves.

The best kind of listening comes not from technique but from being genuinely interested in what really matters to the other person.

This is what I have come to think of as listening to understand rather than listening to respond.  Often when we’re listening to the other person, we’re building a list in our head about how were are going to respond.  That’s easier and takes less energy than listening to truly understand what the other person is saying and the belief system they are basing their statement upon.  Listening to understand creates a different set of questions, often forcing the other person to expose their own belief system.

The Politics of Management

Fighting for the rights of special groups has contributed to an erosion of civility.  When people are treated as representatives of special groups, society is fragmented.  The achievement and preservation of the community must become our top priority.  Otherwise, the concept of rights has no meaning.

Organizational Predicaments

Organizations that need help most will benefit from it least.

I experienced this with one client I worked with many years ago.  The head of HR knew that the team needed help and convinced them to employ my services.  After talking with the head of HR, I decided to highly discount my services because I didn’t believe that would have been willing to pay my going fee.  In their mind, they just weren’t in that bad of shape.  After working with the team for almost a year I believed we had learned a lot and gotten much better.  If we were climbing a ten-step ladder, we had just successfully made it up to step one.  However, to the team this was seen as such great strides—they felt like they had reached the top of the ladder.  Because they were so much better than they had been a year ago they no longer had a need for my services.  In their mind, they had achieved everything they could have.

Dilemmas of Change

I’ve talked about the word “dilemma” before.  The foundation is “dilaminent” which meant horns.  Being on the horns of a bull put you in a dilemma.  You’re going to get gored either way.

Our author Farson makes the point that creative ideas are relatively easy to elicit.   Implementing them is a much tougher task.

Farson says that it’s important that we fail.  We need to fail ofter.  If we don’t, it means we’re not testing our limits.

The Aesthetics of Leadership

Farson says, “There are no leaders, there is only leadership.”

One of the great enemies of organizational effectiveness is our stereotypical image of a leader.  We imagine a commanding figure perhaps standing in front of an audience, talking, not listening.  The real strength of a leader is the ability to elicit the strength of the group.  Leadership is less the property of a person than the property of a group.

Avoiding the Future

Farson closes with “If absurdity is ubiquitous, if the most important goals are lost causes, why do we keep playing this absurd game?  We play it because it is the only game in town.  Of course, it is absurd.  Of course, it is only a game.  But it is a game well worth playing and worth playing well.”

Management of the Absurd is a long thought-provoking book.  I have not done it justice in the blog so I suggest you find a copy, read it, and underline it so that you come away with the greatest learnings for you.

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BlogIn-Depth Book Reviews

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

by Ron Potter

As I continue the review of some of the books I’ve read through the years, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni seemed like a natural fit after looking at Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline.

Lencioni pictures a nice pyramid with the following elements:

  • Absence of Trust (as the base)
  • Fear of Conflict
  • Lack of Commitment
  • Avoidance of Accountability
  • Division of Company Results

Absence of Trust

This comes from the unwillingness to be vulnerable and not genuinely open within the team.  This makes it impossible to build the foundation of trust.

The absence of trust comes from several issues but I believe the main one is a lack of being open about our belief system.  It’s good to hold strong belief systems.  But it’s important to remember that each of us is unique based on history and experiences.  While holding too strong beliefs, it’s also important that we be open to exposing our ideas and beliefs to others on the team for scrutiny and building a shared belief system.

I have three siblings.  We grew up in the same household with the same parents.  However, speaking to each other as adults it became clear that we each have very different memories and belief systems.  Think about that for a minute.  Today’s society assumes that if we’re in a particular category then we all must think alike and have the same belief systems.

Oh, you’re a white person who grew up in rural America, therefore you must have these belief systems!  Not true!  Yes, I am white and, yes, I did grow up in rural America, but as I just explained that even with those similarities I don’t have the same belief system as my siblings who grew up in the same household with the same parents.  Don’t let people (or for that matter yourself) be put into a category just because we have some broad-based backgrounds.

Fear of Conflict

The failure of building trust in a team can be damaging because it sets the tone for fear of conflict.

Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in an unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas.  Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments about people, never allowing their own belief systems to be questioned.

Lack of Commitment

Without healthy conflict, it’s impossible to reach team commitment.  If we lack trust because of fear of conflict, it’s impossible to expose our ideas and beliefs to passionate and open debate.  Team members may sign-up as being committed to an idea or position during the meeting but as soon as they walk out of the room and are questioned by someone who knew they believed something else going into the meeting they may say something like “I don’t necessarily agree with the team goal but I’ll support it until a conflict arises between the team goal and my true beliefs.”  This is not commitment, it’s compliance.  True commitment must be in place for a team to move forward together.

Avoidance of Accountability

This most often happens when team members are fearful to call out other members whose actions don’t align with their supposed commitment.  Not holding each other accountable to the team commitment will quickly break down the trust and commitment of the team.  Being a leadership team means you’ll need to make difficult decisions.  Without the accountability to the difficult decision, you’re not really a team, just a group of people trying to lead on your own belief system without the commitment of a team with you.

Cohesive Teams

Cohesive teams:

  • Trust one another
  • Engage in unfiltered conflict about ideas (not people)
  • Commit to decisions and plans of action
  • Hold each other accountable for the commitment
  • Focus on the achievement of team results
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BlogIn-Depth Book Reviews

The Fifth Discipline

by Ron Potter

I retired from business travel at age 70.  I just turned 74 and it seems impossible that it has already been four years.  During my business career, I did a lot of reading.  I read novels and business books.  I never talked too much about the business books I was reading because I assumed that most of the business leaders I was working with were also reading the same books.

I Was Wrong

Those leaders were so engulfed in running and leading their businesses they really didn’t have time for outside reading.  Although some of the books are old, they contain many pearls of wisdom about leading and running a business.  I’m going to spend the next few weeks sharing some of the wisdom I picked up from those books.

The Fifth Discipline

This is a book by Peter Senge talks about four skills of great teams then wraps it all together with Integrated Learning, the fifth displine.  He outlines this book into four categories:

  1. Personal Mastery
  2. Mental Models
  3. Building Shared Vision
  4. Team Learning
  5. Integrated Learning
    At the heart of a learning organization is a mind—from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world.
    From seeing problems as caused by someone or something “out there” to seeing how our own actions create the problems we experience.

Personal Mastery

Senge talks about people with a high level of personal mastery are people who are able to consistently realize the results that matter most deeply to them.

They do that by becoming committed to their own lifelong learning.

Mental Models

Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions and generalizations of how we understand the world and take action.  This starts with turning the mirror inward, learning to unearth our internal pictures of the world, to bring them to the surface, and hold them rigorously to scrutiny.  People expose their own thinking effectively and make that thinking open to the influence of others.

Building Shared Vision

We are hard-pressed to think of any organization that has sustained some measure of greatness in the absence of goals, values, and missions that become deeply shared throughout the organization.

The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared “pictures of the future” that foster genuine commitment and enrollment rather than compliance.

Team Learning

Team learning starts with dialogue.  To the Greeks, dialogues meant a free-flowing of meaning through a group, allowing the group to discover insights not attainable individually.

Dialog differs from the more common discussion which has its roots in percussion and concussion.  Literally a heaving of ideas back and forth in a winner-takes-all competition.

Fifth Discipline: Integrated Learning

The fifth discipline is the discipline that integrates the disciplines, fusing them into a coherent body of theory and practice.

By enhancing each of the other disciplines, it continually reminds us that the whole can exceed the sum of its parts.

At the heart of a learning organization is a shift of mind from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world, from seeing problems caused by someone or something “out there” to see how our own actions create the problems we experience.

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BlogFacing AdversityRegrets

Regrets—Text to Corinthians

by Ron Potter

We started off these two blog series with Paul’s text to the Corinthians.  He listed the following items:

We then looked at Daniel Pink’s book The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. Pink identifies the four core regrets:

  • Foundation
    They begin with an irresistible lure and with incredible logic.
  • Boldness
    Thwarted possibility of growth.   The failure to become the person—happier, braver, more evolved, than we could have been.
  • Moral
    Deceit, infidelity, theft, betrayal, sacrilege.
  • Connection
    Meaningful relationships.

Together, they make some interesting connections.  In Paul’s letter, we experience great difficulties and painful points in our lives.  But in the end, they don’t break us.  We are not crushed, driven to despair, forsaken, or destroyed.

In Pink’s book, the four regrets of foundational, boldness, morals, and connection are capable of breaking us and in all cases are self-inflicted.  In Paul’s writing, the pain and suffering are no more or less than those identified by Pink.  However, in Paul’s letter, there is a sense that these things happen in everyday life.  While we should examine our own behavior and beliefs to determine if we are contributing to the affliction, perplexion, persecution, and personal destruction put forth by Paul—in the end, it may have nothing to do with our own behavior.  Daniel Pink says that it essentially has everything to do with our personal behavior.

Regrets: Self-Inflicted

If you look at each of Pink’s regrets, there is a self-infliction:

    • Foundational:  It starts with an irresistible lure.  This may be food, sex (also mentioned in the moral section), or materialistic desires.  I’ve mentioned that my irresistible lures are new cars (I’ve had a new one every three years over the past 50 years).  And watches.  The self-inflicted part happens when we let our logic run ramrod over knowing that certain things are just wrong.  I have an incredibility logical mind.  I can convince myself that almost anything can be explained through logic.  And I’m good at it.  My self-infliction is in allowing my logical brain to convince myself that my logic overrules irresistible lures.  I’m just too “smart” to be dictated by my feelings.
    • In the boldness category, Pink makes the point that we’re just not bold enough to try new things.  I’ve had three major careers since graduating from engineering school.  The first was walking steel 160′ in the air.  The second was developing a software company at the beginning of the microcomputer age.  The third was TLC (Team Leadership Culture) consulting all over the world.  A lot of people would say to me, “I couldn’t do that, I was never qualified.  How were you able to accomplish three different careers and work all over the world?”  It’s because I was bold and willing to try new and different things.  I never felt qualified either.  It just seemed like the new and bold thing to do at the time.  Our lack of boldness is self-inflicted when we feel that we must be qualified first.  If you’re bold in trying new things, you’re never qualified.
    • Moral.  In this one, I focused on sacrilege.  It doesn’t have to be a religious issue.  Sacrilege means “violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred.”  What do you consider as sacred?  Violating it will cause suffering.
    • Connection.  I have at least three groups of good friends.  Two of the groups are (or were) centered in Ann Arbor where we lived for 35 years.  One group is built around our GPS4Leaders App.  We’ve gone through good times and bad but have stuck together for several years.  The second ground of guys have given ourselves the name “Space Cadets.”  This is a group from several professions and we spend our time discussing clients and how to add the best of who we are to help them grow and become better.  I feel very close to this group.  We also moved to Grand Rapids, MI, a few years ago to be close to one daughter and our two grandchildren (our other daughter and grandkids live around the world and are currently in Tunisia).  We are now a part of a Grand Rapids church and have developed several friends there.  We’re very blessed with all of these connections.

Pain: Everyday and Self-Inflicted

Paul talks about the difficulties that we face in this world.  If we have examined ourselves and feel we’re seeing everything clearly, these are difficulties that we face just because we live here.

Pink, on the other hand, talks about regrets being self-inflicted.  We can avoid that by examing ourselves and our motives.  It often takes that close friend who we trust who is not afraid to point out our flaws and shortcomings.  But we must have someone that we’re that close to and who is willing to tell us what they are seeing in our behavior.  Avoid self-inflicted pain—the world is full of enough pains for us without the ones we cause ourselves.

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BlogRegrets

Regrets – Connection

by Ron Potter

In Daniel Pink’s latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, Pink lists four core regrets:

Connection seems to me to be one of the most impactful of the regrets.  It’s the time you never spend on those relationships.

My Friend

I had a friend who was the oldest friend of my life.  Our parents were friends after WWII.  We knew each other from the time we were months old.  Then our lives took different roads.  While I was off to engineering school, he ended up in Viet Nam.  While I didn’t think bad of those guys who ended up there, it did take our lives in very different directions.  Our paths never seemed to cross much after that.  Until one day he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  He ended up at the Univerisity of Michigan hospital near where I was living at the time.  After that, our lives crossed many times as I visited him in the hospital and those old feelings of friendship returned.

Then one day the doctors declared that he was in full remission and was able to go home.  Unfortunately, the cancer soon returned and other seemed to be nothing left to do.  But, I felt very blessed that we had connected again and many of the old memories of growing up returned.

Then I received a call from his son that my friend was dying and only had a few days left.  I immediately headed for his home and got there in time to be with him in his last days.  My friend slept most of the time that I visited and his wife told me that he didn’t recognize his surroundings or the people around him.  However, with I went in to see him and stroke his forehead it seemed to me that he recognized me.  It may have been wishful thinking on my part but I did feel like he knew I was there.  The next day his son called again to let me know he had passed away.

Connections

This is what Pink was referring to when he identified the fourth regret as connections.  They’re fleeting.  They slip away easily.  They take an effort to stay connected.  Here was my oldest friend and, just because our lives took different directions, we lost some of that connection.  I’ve made many new friendships around the world since then but, because I didn’t make the effort, I regret that I let one of my oldest relationships slip away.  Like many of these lists, the last is often the most impactful.  It’s that way with this list of regrets.  Letting connections slip away from us created the most regret in the end.  Don’t let it happen.  Evaluate your connections.  Some of them are shallow and the effort is never made to develop a strong bond.  However, others are worth the effort to put in the time, make that call, and keep the connection alive.

Worth the Effort

As I said, I have worked all over the world and made “friends” in many corners of the world.  But with a few of them, I have developed long-lasting relationships.  I was having dinner with one connection that I cherish and have developed over the years.  During dinner, he began to cry because of a tragedy in his life.  When we finished dinner and he got his emotions back under control, he admitted to me that I was the one person he had cried with about the tragedy.  I felt connected.

Another client was having difficulty talking with me about a certain topic.  She finally admitted that her boss (years ago) had raped her and she had never been able to share that with anyone except me.  I felt connected.

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BlogRegrets

Regrets – Moral

by Ron Potter

In Daniel Pink’s latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, Pink lists four core regrets:

Items included in Pink’s book on moral regrets include:

  • Deceit
  • Infidelity
  • Theft
  • Betrayal
  • Sacrilege

For me, I can eliminate infidelity from my life.  I worked all over the world with many leaders and never once was drawn to infidelity.  Part of it may have been my low self-esteem when it came to my own looks, not thinking about why any woman would be attracted to me.  Most of the time I just felt God made me invisible so there was no temptation.  In any case, I was never drawn to infidelity.

In My Life

However, the other four seem to have been present through most of my life.  Deceit can either be not telling the truth or not committing the truth.  I have several regrets about the commission of truth mainly as one of my regrets.

Theft is one thing that was not prevalent in my life but one of my earliest regrets is taking a candy bar from the local drug store fountain shop where we all seemed to congregate as kids.  I felt so bad about it that I purchased a candy bar and put it back on the shelf when no one was looking.

There were a few instances of betrayal when I would “throw my best friend under the bus” so that I wasn’t blamed for something.

Sacrilege is an interesting one.  Most of us think of it in religious terms.  But it’s not.  The dictionary says it is the “violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred.”  What do you consider as sacred?

Self-Examination

This one takes a lot of self-examination and honesty with yourself.

I once had a client that I had a hard time connecting with.  He then explained that he was a player!  I didn’t know what being a player meant so I asked him.  He said it meant that he had affairs with numerous women.  The number was astronomical to me.  When I asked about his wife, his response was that she knew the kind of person he was when she married him.  He had spent very little time self-examining.

Are you a truthful person?  If not, then what?  Does that make you an untruthful person?  A liar?  Then you should probably spend more time in self-analysis.  With a trusted friend if that’s possible.  Have you developed that kind of friend who can tell you anything that causes you to self-exam yourself?  If not, what have you been avoiding?  We’ll talk about this one in more detail in next week’s blog on connection.

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BlogRegrets

Regrets – Boldness

by Ron Potter

In Daniel Pink’s latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, Pink lists four core regrets:

While I haven’t fully read this book yet, it seems like the perfect next sequence after the series of being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down that I recently wrote from Paul’s ancient text to the people of Corinth.

In this second of Pink’s regrets, Boldness talks about the lack of boldness to “accomplish a few important goals within the limited spat of a single life.”  This lack of boldness seems a lot more urgent at age 74 than it did at age 24.  That’s not unexpected because of the age difference but it’s important to be aware that accomplishing some things will only happen at a younger age.  At some point, it becomes obvious that there is just not enough time to accomplish some things that you had intended to accomplish all of your life.  So it’s important to begin those things that you would like to or intend to accomplish in your life when there is still time to accomplish them.

Why Boldness?

It takes boldness to start early because:

  1. It’s difficult to carve out the time to accomplish something out of the ordinary when it seems like your everyday life is overtaking you at the moment.
  2. It also means that we must overcome the fear of failure when we start a new venture early in life.

You might be saying to yourself, “I’ll be more equipped to do something bold when I have a little more experience.”  Or you might be thinking, “Once I get through the busy part of my life I’ll have more time to dedicate to that bold idea.”

Looking Back

The subtitle of Pink’s book is “How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.”  This seems evident to me now that I’m in my mid-70s.  It’s easy to say that “This is something I might have accomplished 50 years ago.”  It’s more difficult to think that I should have started five years ago.  There’s still a lot of time left to step out and accomplish that bold idea.  After all, if I could accomplish the task in 40 years, I could surely accomplish it in 35 years.  This is just an excuse for not stepping out in boldness and pretty soon that 35 years turns into 30 years until it’s too late to accomplish it at all.

I have a grandson who is a world-class bicyclist and I would like to go riding with him.  But today that would be impossible.  And yet, I’ve seen some 70-year-olds who could at least stay with him for a while.  The difference is they started when they were young.  They didn’t put it off.

Moving Forward

Plan.  Start.  You want to be better athletically, pick your sport and start today.  You want to be better at chess, start today.  You want to be healthier, start today.  Whatever it is, start today.  Don’t put it off until next year or when you turn 40 or sometime in the future.  Don’t put it off.  Don’t expect to accomplish your end goal immediately.  Start small.  Pink says “accomplish a few important goals.”

This means you know what is important.  This means you’ve planned.  This means you’ve taken that first step today.  You’ll be able to look back a year from now and be astonished at how far you’ve come.  You’ll be amazed at what it looks like in a decade or two.  But if you don’t start today, you’ll be looking back on that year, decade, two decades from now thinking “what if?”  Or thinking “I could have.”

Decide, Plan, Start

First, you need to decide what will be important to you.

Then, you need to build a plan for accomplishing your goal.

Finally, start today.  Just small steps.  But start!

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BlogRegrets

Regrets – Foundational

by Ron Potter

A friend of mine recently sent me Daniel Pink’s latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.  (Thanks, Chris.)

While I haven’t fully read this book yet, it seems like the perfect next sequence after the series of being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.

Four Core Regrets

Let’s take a look at the Four Core Regrets that Pink identifies:

Foundational regrets begin with an irresistible lure and end with inexorable logic.

At the heart of all boldness regrets is the thwarted possibility of growth.  The failure to become the person—happier, braver, more evolved—one could have been.  The failure to accomplish a few important goals within the limited span of a single life.

Deceit.  Infidelity. Theft. Betrayal. Sacrilege.  Sometimes the moral regrets people submitted to the surveys read like the production notes for a Ten Commandments training video.

What gives our lives significance and satisfaction are meaningful relationships.  But when those relationships come apart, whether by intent or inattention, what stands in the way of bringing them back together are feelings of awkwardness.  We fear that we’ll botch our efforts to reconnect, that we’ll make intended recipients even more uncomfortable.  Yet these concerns are almost always misplaced.

Unavoidable Foundation Regrets

We start with the foundational regrets. Like the issues identified in Paul’s letter to the people of Corinth in the last several blogs, these seem to be unavoidable.  I believe I am an honorable person with good intent.  But as I look back over my life, the first thing that comes to mind is my many regrets.  I am reminded of regrets in each of the four core regrets identified by Pink.

  • Irresistible Lure.  Irresistible means impossible.  Have you been drawn to something that just seems irresistible?  Fortunate for me, immoral things haven’t been irresistible.  However, two material things have seemed irresistible to me.  One is a nice car.  I’m not talking about super-expressive cars but I am talking about the top-of-the-line American cars.  I decided with my first new car in 1969 that I was not going to resist a new car every three years.  Both of my daughters and sons-in-law find that rather extravagant because they are into decent used cars.
    My other irresistible lure has been nice watches.  I think it was because my father bought my first new all-electric watch for my high school graduation.  I’ve been in love with nice watches ever since.
  • Inexorable Logic.  The word inexorable means impossible to stop or prevent.  I have been a very logical person all my life.  I can convince myself of almost anything.  The logic of my own reasoning becomes so strong and sound that it becomes almost impossible to resist or deny.  Unlike automobiles where I made the illogical decision to lease a new car every three years (knowing it is illogical), I talk myself into the new watch with pure logic (or at least I think so).

Convincing Ourselves

My regrets tend to be more materialistic.  But I know that some people deal with immoral issues.  Like the new car in my case, I openly admit that a new car every three years doesn’t make sense.  But if you reached an immoral decision and don’t openly admit it as being immoral, then it tends toward the evil side of human behavior.  You know that it’s immoral but you decide to do it anyway.

For those issues where you’re convinced in your mind (through logic or ignorance), you need that trusted friend who is capable of saying to you, “You know that’s wrong, don’t you?”

Dealing with Foundational Regrets

Don’t be evil.  The world knows it, and more importantly, you know it.  Evil will eat at your character and humaneness.  Evil will become one of the more painful things in your life.

Don’t let your bad logic overcome your wisdom.  You need that trusted friend who will say, “You know what you’re doing is wrong and unwise.”  Listen to them.  Examine yourself and your motives.  Allow them to be that trusted friend you need.

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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Ancient Text

by Ron Potter

Over the last several blogs we have been looking at a text written over 2,000 years ago.  A partial reading of the text says that we are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.

Notice that I said this was a “partial” reading of the test.  This text was written by Paul to the people of Corinth.

When I add the text that I left out during the blogs written over the last several weeks it says:

  • Afflicted in every way, but not crushed
  • Perplexed, but not driven to despair
  • Persecuted, but not forsaken
  • Struck down, but not destroyed

These added words bring assurance and hope.  While we will be afflicted, we will not be crushed.  While we’ll feel perplexed, we will not be driven to despair.  While we will be persecuted, we will not be forsaken.  And even though we will be struck down, we will not be destroyed.

Reason for Hope

These additional words provide hope.  It’s important to examine our source of hope.  In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he of course is speaking of our hope in Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the one who offers eternal life regardless of the afflictions, perplexities, persecution, and strikes in everyday life.  You may put your faith and hope in other things and they will likely lead to relief in some or all of the conditions.  But please consider where you place your hope and the full relief from being crushed, experiencing despair, being forsaken, or destroyed.

Where Is Your Hope?

The only answer I know of avoiding the destruction mentioned in this text is through putting our faith in something greater than ourselves.  Those sources of hope can vary over time and in the moment.  I know that as I reflect on my hope at any given moment, it can come from many different sources.  However, there is only one source greater than ourselves which keeps us from being crushed, experiencing debilitating despair, feeling forsaken, or being destroyed.  That source is Jesus Christ.  Please examine your source of hope and put your faith in the complete answer.

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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Struck Down

by Ron Potter

We’ve been looking at a text written over 2,000 years ago.  A partial reading of the text says that we are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.  We now come to the last word in the sequence, Stuck Down.

Being Struck Down is Painful

While being persecuted seems very painful and personal, being stuck down seems to be the ultimate of pain and suffering.

Maybe you’ve been struck down in the past.  It might have been a baseball to the head that knocked you unconscious.  Maybe you didn’t see the low beam or branch.  These are very painful and physical.

I was never a fighter.  However, there was a time in high school when the school bully decided to pick me out of the crowd and make an example of me.  He was a couple of years older than me and much larger and stronger.  He slapped me hard on my left cheek.  It stung and brought water to my eyes and nearly knocked me out.  But when I recovered and just stood there, he didn’t like that.  So he struck me on the other cheek with similar results.  I guess at that point he decided he wasn’t going to be successful in either starting a fight or knocking me down so he simply walked away.

Years later a friend told me how impressed he was that I simply stood there and took it.  He thought it took real grit, self-control, and humility to accomplish.  I had felt almost ashamed for many years for not fighting back or defending myself and yet here was my friend telling me how impressed he was with the grit and strength that I showed during that moment.

Last Word of the Four

Being struck down seems to be the most destructive and painful of all of the four descriptions.  It can either be physical as in the example I gave or it can be emotional and maybe not even seen or noticed by others.  But it will feel as if you’ve been struck down physically when it happens.  Maybe it’s a simple word said by someone in a team meeting.  It may have been intentional or completely innocent but it feels as if you’ve been struck down.

Being struck down is painful and destructive.  It may even cause you to change who you are.  It can affect your character and your outlook on life.  And yet, it happens.

Dealing With Being Struck Down

There is no good way for dealing with the feeling of being struck down.  My only suggestion is to endure.  Remind yourself of who you are.  Fall back on your character and belief system.  You may have been struck down physically or emotionally.  Either way, endure.  Live through it.  Become stronger.  Grow.  The text says that it will happen.  We will be struck down.  In our lifetime, we will not avoid it.  At some point, we will be or feel like we’ve been struck down.

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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Persecuted

by Ron Potter

We’ve been looking at a text written over 2,000 years ago.  A partial reading of the text says that we are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.

In this blog we’ll be looking at the third word on the list, persecuted.  One of the definitions from the dictionary is “Subject to hostility and ill-treatment.”  Another one says to “harass or annoy persistently.”  While being annoyed by someone can be humorous (for a period of time), the other words of hostility, ill-treatment, and harassment are powerful, personal, and damaging.

Dealing With Persecution

One of my favorite fictional characters is Jack Reacher from the novels written by Lee Child.  Reacher, retired from the Military Police, is simply walking across the United States to see it up close and in person.  However, his “simple” walk turns into some sort of personal persecution in almost every small town.  It’s interesting to me that even though he is unjustly persecuted in each novel, Reacher never seems to be too upset by the persecution. He simply starts some logical investigative work that he learned in the military to “get at” what is causing the persecution.

As our ancient text says, we will be persecuted for no apparent reason. Reacher lives with that kind of persecution everywhere he goes.  The text says nothing about justly or unjustly, it just says we will be persecuted.  Almost nothing makes us feel worse than being persecuted.

Tough to Deal With

Unlike the first two words of our text, persecution is personal.  It feels like we are being harmed.

I was working with one company for several years when my client saw me enter the office of someone he didn’t trust.  He immediately called me to his office and fired me.  He also began to persecute me.  He bad-mouthed me whenever he had the chance.  He identified me as a liar and troublemaker.  He said I could not be trusted and therefore should not work with anyone else at the company.  I was devastated.  I had always maintained a very high reputation at all the companies I had worked for and this seemed to be both personal and very damaging.

I talked with this person’s boss (whom I had also worked for and believed I had a good reputation with).  The boss gave me some advice.  He told me that when this person found out that none of the accusations were true (the boss still believed in me), he would never apologize (it wasn’t in his nature) but he would ask me to continue working for him as if nothing had happened.  The boss was right.  Within a couple of months, the person asked me to come to his office and began talking about what needed to be done next with his team.  He never apologized but simply went on about our work together as if nothing had happened.  In fact, I worked with him and his teams at two other companies when he took new jobs.

Persecuted

Persecution happened.  I almost quit consulting believing I had done something very wrong or bad, but just didn’t know what.  I was being heavily persecuted but it seemed to come from nowhere.  Our ancient text doesn’t say that we will deserve the persecution, it just says we will be persecuted.

Sometimes we’re persecuted for a reason.  Maybe we were the first to persecute the other person and now it’s payback time.  But that’s not what the text is referring to.  It doesn’t give a reason.  It simply says we will experience persecution.  To deal with the persecution there is reason to examine yourself to make sure you were not the instigator, but like my example above and the text says, “you will be persecuted.”  When that happens, the only advice I have is to be patient with yourself.  You may never know why you were feeling persecuted.  The text simply says “you will be persecuted.”  This takes a lot of humility and grit.  It’s not easy to remain calm during persecution—but be patient.  Eventually, things will clear up.

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