A Million Plus Thirty Miles

Here I am again in this mean old town
And you're so far away from me
And where are you when the sun goes down
You're so far away from me
You're so far away from me
You're so far I just can't see
You're so far away from me
You're so far away from me
~REM

Someone within touching distance can be a million miles away. If someone is a million miles away does 30 more make a difference? 

The right word can shrink a million miles to a hairs breadth while the wrong word can create a chasm and the unspoken word break a heart.

Sometimes the extra 30 miles actually brings you closer, bridges the black gap separating two hearts.

Sometimes Life Tastes Like Sawdust

It was like sawdust, the unhappiness: it infiltrated everything, everything was a problem, everything made her cry -- school, homework, boyfriends, the future, the lack of future, the uncertainty of future, fear of future, fear in general -- but it was so hard to say exactly what the problem was in the first place. ~Melanie Thernstrom

The males in my home are rehabbing the basement. The endeavor started when a crack in the foundation allowed water to leak in and saturate the carpet resulting in a mildew smell. I originally thought the mildew smell was the result of my son leaving his wet clothing on the floor. We had to tear down a section of the plywood wall to expose the crack for repair this our adventure began.

The son and son in law did most of the demolition then placed all the paneling sheets in my garage where they have been sitting for a few weeks. I spent a couple of hours today with the circular saw ripping them into bite sized chunks for the trash cans. During those couple of hours of ripping, the sawdust flew everywhere. Sawdust not only flies everywhere, it also gets everywhere. There was sawdust on the floor, in my hair, coating my sweaty body, up my nostrils and into my mouth. I blow my nose and fine particulate fills the kleenex. I cough up phlegm that's the dark brown color of the 1970s era paneling. For the past couple of hours, everything I have eaten has been punctuated with the flavor of sawdust. It's an unpleasant taste that lingers for quite some time because the sawdust was breathed in and just sits there stuck to the lining of the throat.

Sometimes, the messiness of life infiltrates all of one's existence just as the sawdust leaves nothing devoid of the fine wood particulate. An argument with a loved one can coat your mood in ways that the feelings can't quite be deciphered let alone articulated. It just sits there, a haze, obfuscating clarity, tainting one's ability to get understanding.

When life has the taste of sawdust, all existence is colored by the foul taste. It becomes difficult to understand the essence of the ongoing experience, become difficult to separate good from bad because the bad is a constant undertone.

The unfortunate thing is one can't just rid oneself of the taste. It is stuck there, stuck in the mucus tainting whatever is ingested. I takes time to work itself out of the system, time to generally dissipate, time until the foul taste is gone and life is again full of excellent flavor.

If You Ain't Fist, You're Last!

I'm the best there is - plain and simple. I mean, I wake up in the morning and I piss excellence. You know, nobody can hang with my stuff. I'm just a--just a big, hairy, American winning machine. "If you ain't first, you're last!" You know? You know what I mean? ~Ricky Bobby, Talladega Nights

I have pretty much quit playing sports. I have not completely for I do take part in the occasional mountain bike race.

Quitting sport was difficult because I have always been competitive, have always enjoyed competition. The problem, though, is that it wasn't uncommon for me to push the bounds of ethical integrity in competition as it also wan't uncommon for me smash through those bounds and end up with ethical integrity a distant vision on the horizon in my quest to win at all costs.

There were times in the heat of competition when I would get mean towards my opponent and, at times, toward my teammates. It was a regular occurrence for me to taunt opponents even when playing against friends, to rub victory in their faces. And therein lies the problem.

When I was mean, when I bragged and taunted, when I screamed and yelled, I would hurt relationships with friends. Sometimes my behaviors would damage relationships beyond reapir.

I was much older when I discovered the extent of the hurt I caused. It was during an indoor soccer game in an adult, coed league. I yelled at one of my female teammates for getting in my way when she prevented me from intercepting a pass going to an opponent, a pass that eventually led to a goal scored against my team. I was very angry and let that anger explode. After that, it was never the same between us.

That incident caused me to look deep and hard into my behaviors, into the silliness that drove me to want victory at all costs, no matter the cost. I eventually decided the cost of victory can be too high.

The Read List

To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries. ~A C Grayling


This year for Christmas, I received an iPad on which, I immediately installed the Kindle reader application. I have long been a reader and have stacks of books, boxes of books as evidence to support my claim. Some of these were given to me but most I have purchased. It is hard for to enter a book store and leave empty handed. Unfortunately, a number of the books I own are still virgin having never been read nor had their covers spread once they left the store.

Now, with an eReader, my books are always handy, always with me wherever I travel, always available to be read as the opportunity arises. I frequently have multiple nonfiction books in the actively being read category and hop between them as the mood strikes me. I find nonfiction to be a good for book hopping as the books I read frequently complement each other. Fiction, on the other hand, typically casts a spell over me and I read them voraciously leaving no time for other books to break the story line.

I was wondering about the number of books I read this calendar year so reviewed my ereader for the count. To my astonishment, I have completed 63 books to date for 2012. At this pace, I should easily achieve 100 books read by the end of the year. I don't recall ever reading so voraciously at any phase in my life.

In addition to reading books, I have become a devotee of Zite and Flipboard as a way of keeping abreast of news in the blogosphere. These applications funnel news and blogs to me in the categories that capture my interest. In the case of Zite, as I mark articles with 'like' the more of that type of article are aggregated in my main feed. With these apps, I read about 20 blogs/news articles every day. The tailoring capabilities of Zite and Flipboard have rendered newspapers useless in my world.

My reading world has expanded markedly in the past year as has my knowledge base. This is important to me because I am teaching a Leadership course at my company for which I am also the content creator. The readings have added greatly to the depth of my teaching and benefitted the people I am privileged to lead.

Recently, I acquired a new Product Development team. My reading has reminded me of the person I need to be to effectively lead a team, has reminded me of the character I need to have, the skills I need to employ if I am to lead this team with the leadership they need to succeed.

I believe my happiness with my life is positively affected by my reading, by my learning, by my application of the things I read to my work a day world. For the first time in my life, I find myself excited about going to work every morning, looking forward to the start of my work day, wishing my work day was still going full tilt ahead as I walk out the door 13 hours after crossing the threshold every morning. I chalk this work happiness up, in large part, to the person I have become from applying those things I have read over the past half year.




Books Read:

1. 
   
2. 1968 by Mark Kulansky 
3. 21 irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell 
4. 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene 
5. 5 Levels of Leadership by John Maxwell 
6. After Dark by Haruki Murakami 
7. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami 
8. As a Man Thinketh by James Allen 
9. Axiom by Bill Hybels 
10. Becoming a Person of Influence by John Maxwell 
11. Candice by Voltaire 
12. City of Bones by Michael Connelly 
13. Doctor Who and The Brain of Morbius by Terrance Dicks 
14. Doctor Who and the Giant Robot by Terrance Dicks 
15. Dracula by Bram Stoker 
16. Drive by Daniel Pink 
17. Echo Park by Michael Connelly 
18. Football's Funniest Quotes by Scott Porker 
19. Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry 
20. History of World Literature by The Teaching Company 
21. How to Think Like Leonardo Davinci by Michael J Gelb 
22. Leadership Methods of the Navy Seals by Jeff Cannon 
23. Lessons of the Chinese Masters by Thomas Clearly 
24. Love Poems by Pablo Neruda 
25. Love Poems of Rumi by Deepak Chopra 
26. Men of the Bible by Dwight Lyman Moody 
27. Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone by Eduardo Galeano 
28. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
29. Ordained Irreverence by MacMillan Moody 
30. Please Look After Mother by Kyung-Sook Shin 
31. Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman 
32. Running with the Giants by John Maxwell 
33. Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern 
34. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse 
35. Taking People with You by David Novak 
36. The 17 Indisputable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell 
37. The Ambition by Lee Strobel 
38. The Art of War by Sun Tzu 
39. The Black Echo by Michael Connelly 
40. The Black Ice by Michael Connelly 
41. The Bourne Betrayal by Eric Ledbetter 
42. The Bourne Deception by Eric Ledbetter 
43. The Bourne Sanction by Eric Ledbetter 
44. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka 
45. The Closers by Michael Connelly 
46. The Concrete Blond by Michael Connelly 
47. The Definitive Book of Body Language by Barbara Pease (started) 
48. The Draining Lake by Amuldar Indriadson 
49. The Five Temptations of a CEO by Patrick Lincioni 
50. The Illiad by Homer 
51. The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly 
52. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly 
53. The Lovers Dictionary by David Levithan 
54. The Matterhorn A Novel of the Viet Nam War by Karl Marlantes 
55. The Metamorphosis by Kafka 
56. The Moose Jaw by Mike Delaney 
57. The Odyssey by Homer 
58. The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence 
59. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo 
60. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield 
61. Trunk Music a Harry Bosch Novel by Michael Connelly 
62. Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield 
63. When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka 
64. Who's There by Seth Godin

Books Being Read:

1. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (Active) 
2. Good to Great by Jim Collins (Active) 
3. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse (Active) 
4. The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane (Active) 
5. The Sayings of Confucius by Confuscius (Active)

Work As Art

Creativity has two parts: thinking, then producing. Innovation is embedded in the creative process. It is the implementation of creative inspiration. ~Linda Naiman

I work with a bunch of people I would classify as creatives types, as artists. These people are not recognized as creative types by society nor would I say they classify themselves as artists. They are Engineers people often viewed as left brain (logical) as people can be. However, what society and they frequently fail to grasp is that these Engineers are very creative in their solutions to solving problems. In fact, their value to the company is directly proportional to the extent they employ their creative gifts. It takes someone creativity to design a software component to seamlessly fit into a system with a minimum amount of code and maximum reusability.

If the work a person produces is a result of their creativity then they are artists. It doesn't matter that the medium is not one traditionally viewed as in the realm of artists.

In the modern world, the most valuable employees are artists that produce unique solutions to problems resulting in unique products that satisfy the needs of and appeal to end users. Their medium is the bits and bytes of software development, the ability to create test scenarios that shake out the most challenging of defects, leadership that nurtures an environment where creativity flourishes.

Creativity is so important in the modern work world that I will not even consider hiring anyone that doesn't relish being creative. My hiring criteria now requires that the individual views their work as art and themselves as artists.

Artists understand that their work, their art is a craft that forever needs developing and, if they fail to continually hone their abilities, they will lose the edge that allows them to perform at the highest levels, they may even lose their ability to create their art.

It isn't just Engineers that can be artists. Work as art is available to teachers, nurses, and craftsman. Work as art is also within the reach to those of us in Managerial roles. Work as art is a mindset.

I view my leadership skills as the medium in which I express my art. To grow my art, I have been on a quest for the past 21 years to improve my ability to lead people. I have immersed myself deep in the topic. I have read countless books on the subject, continually explore new leadership ideas by reading blogs and watching videos, and attend an annual two day leadership summit to learn from some of the greatest leaders in the world.

More importantly, I take those things I learn, separate the wheat from the chaff, and apply what I have learned to the groups of people I am privileged to lead. As I see it, my primary duties are to create an environment where the artists can flourish, where the artists are free to create the unique art each is capable of expressing and to help them view themselves as artists and encourage them to create masterpieces.

It is only by continually developing my leadership skills, my art that I can create my masterpiece in which others can experience their own work as art.

Book: Matterhorn - A Novel of the Vietnam War

I do not believe that the men who served in uniform in Vietnam have been given the credit they deserve. It was a difficult war against an unorthodox enemy. ~William Westmoreland

As a youth, I was fascinated with World War II. I read countless books about the war, about the evil empire threatening to take over the world, about the heros fighting for our freedom, about bravery in Normandy and Iwo Jima. The fascination followed me into college where I took a class my Freshman year on the history of WWII to satisfy an elective requirement. 

This fascination was an outgrowth of growing up with my dad who also had a fascination with WWII. We watched war movies on a regular basis, classics like, "The Guns of Navarone", "The Dirty Dozen", any war movie featuring superhero John Wayne.

Vietnam, the war closest to my generation, on the other hand, put a bad taste in my mouth, a bad taste that lingers to this day. The debate about that war was one of the first times I remember my dad and I being at odds about a subject. He was pro war while I was vehemently against this particular war. I distinctly remember this though I was barely a teen when the war ended.

Since my youth, Vietnam has been a topic that sets about a churning in my stomach. When I first saw Platoon in a theater, I was shocked. I remember sitting in stunned silence in the theater with tears running down my face. The movie was so difficult for me to watch that it was many years before I could muster the courage to see it again because the effect on me was so deeply saddening those years before.

This week, I read my very first book on Vietnam. It was a fictional account which, if I am to believe the reviewers on Amazon, captures the essence of that war, the senselessness of the war. Unlike my WWII books of old where 'We' won in the end, the end of this book did not have us winning. The end of this book had us still in the war. The end of this book left me feeling the futility that must have been a rampant, every day cloud hanging over the heads of the soldiers dying in battle.

The book explores the minds of the soldier as they slogged through the jungle frequently short of rations, short of ammunition, short of sleep, short of a deeper meaning for the tactics employed by the marine hierarchy handcuffed by politicians thousands of miles away on the home front. The book explores the racial divide, the conflicts between the 'splibs' and the 'chucks' that had them fighting each other, sometimes killing each other.

This is a book that will make you think and make you feel the contrasting emotions of admiration for the soldiers and disdain for the political establishment while giving a grunts eye view of the Vietnam war. It's a very good book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the challenges facing the ground troops in that horrific era of US history.

Sacrificial Investments

Any fool with a dick can make a baby, but only a real man can raise his children. ~Furious Styles, Boyz In The Hood


Some investments are made with the hope of personal gain such as a college education or purchasing stock options or spending hour upon hour pumping iron at the gym. Other's are made not for personal gain but for the benefit of others. These tend to be selfless investments rooted in love such as when one embarks upon a mission trip to aid the suffering in strife torn part of the world. For me, the most personally rewarding of all investments is the one I made in my children. It was an investment that required years of sacrificial love, an investment that has realized and is realizing priceless, intangible rewards.

I was 25 when my first child, the first of three, nestled in my arms. That was more than half my life ago. I have now lived more years with kids than I have childless. I have had kids for so many years that I have difficultly remembering what I was like BC, Before Children. The one aspect I do remember is that BC I was an arrogant SOB that cared for little more than my own happiness and saw the rest of humanity as a means to my ends. The result was that I was never really happy. My emotional investment in my kids has paid unimagined dividends in that the investment helped me to become more caring, more loving, more human. The personal transformation has led to me being a truly, happy person.

Despite my mistakes in raising them, and there were many, all three have turned out to be great kids with bright futures. They have grown up to be hard working, industrious, caring people with a keen sense of the importance of family and a social consciousness all which validate that I did a somewhat decent job coaching them into adulthood.

I do believe one of the best things I did in raising them was to rarely tell them what to do in a challenging situation. When they were at a crossroads, they often asked me for an answer. However, an answer is rarely what they received. Instead, we discussed the situation, the options, the benefits and consequences of each option and I allowed them to make the final decision. This is not to say, they did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. Of course, in matters of personal safety, I did utilize executive privilege and make unilateral decisions.

There were times when they wanted to engage in an activity with which I did not agree. The conversation was frequently along the lines of you can choose to do said activity but know that the consequences of making that choice will see you lose some priviledge for a specified duration. At times, they made a choice that resulted in a sanction. More often than not, they made what I would consider to be the judicious choice (i.e. my preferred choice).

Most situations we discussed were not borne of a situation where they wanted to do something with which I did not agree. Most were real life situations with friends or school or other activities where they had two or more good options and they had to decide which one they should undertake. Dad, should I play for soccer Team A with all my best friends or with Team B where I will be the only new kid but will learn a lot more?

In such a situation, the pros and cons of each choice from a variety of perspectives would be discussed. Which is more fun? Which aligns with your long term goals? What will you have to sacrifice for each choice? In the end, they would regularly ask which they should choose and my response was always that it was up to them. This way, they always had to own their own choice. Years later I was told they were mad that I would not make the decisions for them but, now, they were grateful because they have the ability to make decisions.

Raising kids this way takes courage. There will always be times when they will make choices which, from experience, we know will end in tears. As parents, we naturally want to protect them from pain and suffering. But this is doing them a grave disservice because, frequently, the greatest personal growth comes from experiencing the consequences of personal choices.

Raising kids this way takes courage because they will make choices that terrify us. At 16, my son decided he wanted to join the Marines. I was against this partly because I was a kid at the tail end of the Vietnam War so had a strong distaste for the military industrial complex and because I was terrified my child would be killed in action. We had challenging discussions about his decision but, in the end, it was his decision, one I believe he made with a solid understanding of his options. His choice was not the one I would have chosen for him. At 17, he enlisted.

During the raising of my children, I never looked beyond them to the next generation, never considered how the methods I was doing would influence how they raised their own children. I am blessed to currently have one grandchild. I am happy to see my grandson being raised with some of the same child rearing techniques I used and that his mom has surpassed my skill level in many child rearing areas.

The investment my parent's made when raising me has reaped dividends in my children and in my grandchild. I hope I am around long enough to witness the dividends in the lives of my great grandchildren.