(and what you need to interject a little life into your life)

One of my long-time friends emailed me and said – “hey, I’ve got this cabin up in Hayward and I’ve got room for you. Do you want to do the Birkie?”

[The Birkie is a 50k cross country ski race]

I thought about it briefly. Looked at the dates. Nothing on the calendar (unusual). Thought, “hey, can’t be as hard as a marathon and I like the idea of staying in shape.”

Obviously I would need to get clearance from the home front. I asked my wife if she was cool with it. Well…she said yes, but a week or so later her comments made me think she didn’t fully understand what I was getting myself into when she originally said yes.

Anyway, that’s not the point.

The point is this – I agreed to do it because I believed I could do it.

I wrote my friend, said “yeah, I’m in” and I committed to it. Registered online just before the rates went up.

And then as I talked about it with my friends and family, they got all negative and doubty on me – “What? Are you crazy? Shouldn’t you start with something shorter? You don’t even ski!”

Then, last night, while the kids were practicing ski jumping, one friend who has done the Birkie 6 times talked about how he didn’t finish the first 2 times and how hilly it was.

(Hmm. . .ok, starting to sound like more of a challenge).

My wife still questions me about it now as do others.

My point is still this – I believe I can do it – I committed to do it – I am going to do it. End of story.

My advice to those you may be discouraging is this – don’t get all dark on people who are going after something, believe in it, are capable of it – regardless of how crazy you think it is.

My advice to those of you who think you can do something big, outrageous, and maybe even crazy? Go for it.

There’s a reason some experts recommend that you not share your dreams with everyone - they’ll just tell you how impossible they are! (to be clear, though - it’s not like I’ve been dreaming about the Birkie!)

Anyway, I’ve got 107 (+/-) days to get ready. Just got my XC ski poles today so I can practice with the inline skates. . .I’ll keep you posted.

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On the road for work. Parked at brother-in-law’s in suburban Chicago and grabbed a taxi to the airport. Interesting driver. Syrian medical doctor. Came to America to pursue the dream. Got married, nasty divorce and now his ex-wife is basically ruining any chance he has at grabbing the dream. (Screwing up his American residency.)

Obviously, I cannot know both sides of the story. (I’m sure he helped screw up the marriage too.)

What a crazy position I was in. I have the entire world in comparison to what he has. He is well educated, moved for a better life (took a huge risk, I imagine), and is at the bottom of the American food chain (or, perhaps better said, working a position far below his abilities).

He feels robbed, lied to by the American media, by Baywatch. . .(he brought that up, not me.)

His skin color continues to weigh him down in America – a land he animatedly referred to as 100% racist. (I politely disagreed with the full 100%, but do not deny that we have problems.)

He’ll likely be deported at his next immigration court date (April 13) because his visa is expired and because of some legal complications surrounding his ex-wife.

I’ve often asked myself (and God) why I was born into the (relative) wealth I was. A relatively easy life. A life that I’m so quick to complain about.

I’m trying to stop asking that question and simply give my life the best return on investment possible.

[time passes]

I finished Lawler Kang’s book, Passion at Work on the plane. In the last chapter he talks once again about all the “x-factors” that happen – things you cannot plan for – the unexpected – both good and bad. He also talks about avoiding the “victim” status. How it’s a dangerous trap that will steer you away from realizing your goals.

I wonder if I could avoid feeling the victim if I experienced the unexpected life of my cab driver.

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Dreaming about a thing in order to do it properly is right; but dreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong.

This quote is from a Christian preacher, Oswald Chambers, who lived into the early 1900s. The guy is intense. Real. No-nonsense.

I told my daughter last night to shower. 10 minutes later she was still clearly not in the shower. Why? She had chosen to do other things. She lost focus.

And she irritated me immensely!

But she also made me think about God. I wondered if God was irritated with me because He has told me to do things and I just get distracted with all sorts of other things, lose focus, and end up dreaming about doing those things instead of actually doing them.

Actually, I don’t really see God as getting irritated. Maybe more frustrated. Sort of like. “Look, John, I told you what to do – it’s right there. I’ve made you for this, got it all ready to go, now do it!” And then I see Him looking at me with compassion as I sit frustrated or depressed about not doing what I want to be doing because I am wondering “how will I be able to do this?” and “can this really be what I’m supposed to be doing?”

Basically, we don’t have faith. We don’t believe in the possibility of those dreams. (My daughter just didn’t care about getting showered, so clearly the similarities stop somewhere.)

So, for us to put our dreams into action, we have to first believe they are possible. Without that, we’ll never get anywhere.

Do you believe your dreams are possible?

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This is one of my favorite quotes from Jim Collins’ books. He is talking about business. I’m talking about life.

One of my friends and I talked about this a bit recently. He is between jobs and trying to figure out the right next step. One step would involve going back to school to get an advanced degree in a discipline that he says he “could get excited about.”

But he’s got something else that burns within him already – music. My question to him was

“are you settling for good, when you should be shooting for great?”

Damn it’s hard to be a good guy (or gal) and try to make a living as a musician (artist, writer – fill in your own creative passion here).

Over my career, I made a lot of choices that led to more money, more resume clout, and more bragging rights. But none of those choices led me closer to my passions.

A lot of those moves led me to jobs where I was good – even really good – but never great.

Like Collins, I believe passion is one key ingredient that enables us to achieve greatness. Sure, we have to be skilled, work hard, etc., but without passion we’re just posers, faking our way through life. I realize that may sound a bit harsh.

I cannot tell my friend what he is passionate about. Nor can I tell him how to feed a family while working towards his passions. That’s the struggle for most of us creative types - finding that balance of moving in the right direction and taking care of our responsibilities at the same time.

I don’t really have the answers to this. Just a hypothesis. And I’m still trying to prove that myself. It’s really a lifelong experiment.

Without encouraging you to take harmful risks, allow me to suggest that shooting for great, while likely involving some risk and surely some challenges, is worth it.

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My boss, Mark Morse, and I were hanging out at an American Marketing Association event in Minneapolis this last Thursday. As the event wore down, we found ourselves sharing a beer with Art Fry (he may have been drinking wine, but I digress).

Art Fry is the guy that invented the wildly successful Post-It Notes for 3M. If you’re interested, this link will give you more about Fry and the history of the Post-It Note.

We had a really interesting chat with Art about his long tenure with 3M, the history of 3M, and also about some of the leaders that influenced him while at 3M.

As we were all preparing to leave, he said something that I think we all need to hear. This is my rough paraphrase:

“None of us were really geniuses. We were just normal people who were willing to give something new a try.”

Have you been avoiding giving something new a try? It seems like Art’s attempt(s) turned out pretty well. Maybe yours would too?

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