Last Chances Don’t Come With Warnings

We never really learn from the first mistake, second or third.  It only hits us when we're given the last chance.- Wiz Khalifa

Last night, I was reminded about the importance of finishing what you’ve started with a sense of urgency while you still have the time to do so.

Late last night as a small group of us stepped outside to wind down our evening, we noticed a lightning storm off in the distance.  The lightning was beautiful and approximately 4-5 miles away according to the old “one-one thousand, two-one thousand” quasi-accurate calculation of distance.

Assuming it was safe to proceed with the storm safely off to the south, we began walking when suddenly lightning struck the ground all around us with blinding light, phenomenally loud thunder and a strange, loud sizzling sound in the air.

It wasn’t just one flash but several.  I had fallen to the ground, saw it striking the ground all around us and I remember yelling “Get down, get down, get down”.

After the terrifying moment had passed, I noticed my colleague was still standing and shouting incoherently.  When I asked “Why didn’t you get down on the ground?”, their response was, “I couldn’t – I was frozen and too afraid to move.”

“You always hit the ground when this happens”, I replied, shaken and frustrated at the same time while feeling grateful having survived my third near-strike of lightning.

I later morbidly tweeted that the shareholders would have been ticked off had we been killed so close to the conclusion of a significant deal.

This morning, my colleague still wasn’t feeling 100% as we discussed how close we came to an untimely end.

It got me to thinking about close encounters in my Life.

Bear with me for a moment – there is a method to my madness:

I have survived:

• 5 aviation incidents - two RPM governance failures on takeoff, a near-miss on final approach, a structural integrity compromise during a violent storm (requiring an emergency landing) and a depressurization.  The lightning strike I encountered on a flight once is considered normal.  I mused about one of the incidents in the post The Last Hour of My Life.
• A bicycle crash that split my helmet in two when my temple hit the pavement at 25+ mph and left me with a serious concussion, a lot of cuts and abrasions and a destroyed bicycle.  I am an official member of the “Saved by the Bell” club, a designation where a Bell bike helmet was proven to have saved your Life.
• Another bicycle crash that occurred when I was clipped on the left by an SUV whose driver wasn’t paying attention to how close they were to me.
• Two near misses by tornadoes, including one that touched down half a block from where I had gone out for a walk and one that formed over me in Vulcan, Alberta and touched down a short distance later.  In the latter incident, I was so busy filming it over me that I didn't realize I was in significant danger.
• A strike by a vehicle from behind where the vehicle was carrying a piece of lumber sticking out the passenger side of the vehicle.  It was a rainy night and I was walking on the sidewalk when a voice to my left (right by my ear) yelled “look out”.  I jumped to the right, startled by the voice and at the moment, the lumber struck me across the shoulder blades, knocking me out.  A witness in a car behind the car that struck me told me later that he saw a flash of light right beside my head just before I jumped and thought I was jumping because of that.  I was informed by police that had I not jumped at that moment, the lumber would have struck me in the neck and likely killed me.  Who warned me?
• Two mini strokes, one in my teens and one in my early 20s.
• Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (stage 4) at the age of 30.
• A near head-on collision with a large snowplow.  I had come upon a single lane cut in a 20-foot deep snow drift, stopped, saw no one coming towards me and proceeded through it.  Unbeknownst to me, a snow plow had decided to take a second run at clearing the snow and had backed up around a turn in the road in front of me in order to get some acceleration for the second run.  As I was halfway through the tunnel, he came around the turn driving straight towards me.  In a flash, I knew I could beat him to the end of the snow tunnel and so I accelerated towards him.  I cleared the tunnel just as he entered it.  I escaped but the van driving behind me took the full brunt of the head-on collision as the plow entered the snow tunnel and the driver of the van was seriously injured.  People who witnessed the accident thought I was either lucky or crazy for accelerating towards the plow.  Maybe I was both.
• I’ve been attacked 5 times in New York City, 4 times by individuals and once by a group of 4 or 5 guys.  Of the first 4 incidents, 2 of the 4 guys were unconscious before they hit the ground.  Regarding the group, myself and another colleague were held up by a gang of miscreants who demanded our wallets as we headed home from Brooklyn late one night.  When I refused, the leader (I assume it was the leader) told me that I couldn’t take all of them.  I acknowledged the truth of this but said I would at least kill the first one.  They looked uncertainly at each other and left the scene.  Steve, my colleague, asked me if I would have done that and I said “Yes – we were going to die anyway.  I gambled that I had to look crazier than they were and it worked.”
• I was stabbed by a man with a mental health issue on a subway stop in Toronto who found a new use for the metal tip of his umbrella.
• I hit a patch of black ice on a turn one night while driving 65 mph and went into a full spin (I still remember each rotation in slow motion).  I missed all the oncoming traffic, bounced off an ice wall on the opposite side of the road, crossed the road again, missed traffic in both directions, hit the wall on the original side of the highway and then came back across the traffic.  I stopped in the middle of the road, facing the wrong direction.  My car didn’t appreciate the experience but I was completely unhurt.
• I was almost struck by a vehicle while crossing a street in Calgary during a rain storm but was saved when someone else saw it developing and blew their horn to warn me.  I mused about that in my post Angels Amongst Us.
• I was the passenger in 5 different high speed accidents in my second semester of college.
• I have narrowly missed many accidents as a driver, with the vehicle in front of me or behind me being taken out by various incidents.
• I was rushed to hospital last summer with a blood pressure of 190 / 130.  Doctors were impressed that I hadn't had a stroke or heart attack.  My blood pressure is now a normal 90 / 55.
• 15 minutes before the World Trade Center bomb exploded, I was standing on the very spot that was vaporized when the blast went off.

All of these came to mind as I reflected on last night’s moment, my third near-lightning strike.  The first one came as I stood on my lawn in New Jersey and watched a distant storm coming in.  I suddenly felt “strange” as if something was inside me and at that moment, lightning struck a playground set about 50 feet from me, with the intense light and blast of thunder knocking me over.  I was later told that a “streamer” was likely coming up through me, making me a candidate for the strike had it connected with a leader coming down from the storm cloud.  Another time, I was riding on a bike trail that cut through a car wreck yard, trying to beat a storm home, when suddenly lighting began hitting the junkyard.  I lay on the ground as lightning blasted all around me like artillery fire.

The funny thing is that I live a relatively low-risk life.  I don’t sky dive, smoke, drink or intentionally put myself at risk in any way.  I eat well, exercise and take care of myself emotionally, physically, intellectually and spiritually.  I drive the speed limit and minimize my risk in business.  I’m so uptight about obeying the rules that even jay walking is something not on my “can do” list.

And despite a low-risk Life, I have dodged a lot of things that many people succumb to on their first encounter.

As I discussed this with my colleague this morning, I made several observations:

1. We’re still here so let’s not spend too much time navel gazing about it
2. Either “Someone” thinks we are not finished with our Purpose or we are very lucky – either way, we have to do something with this second chance (or whatever number I was up to, I’d lost count until I sat down to reflect on the moment).
3. The shareholders are still happy.
4. Let’s finish what we started.

The reality is that once again, we’ve been given a reminder that our time here is borrowed time – we don’t know how much we are given to start with, we don’t know how much is left and once time is burned for good or for bad, it can never be reclaimed.

How much of your time are you taking for granted?

The Bottom Line

We exist for a variety of reasons, to love, to share, to learn, to teach, to grow, to lift / serve others, to create and for some, to be a lesson to others.

Whatever our Purpose, we may not have as much time as we think to accomplish it.

In fact, today may be our last day, with our final moments coming without warning (the blog post title is a quote from Rob Hill).

Are you willing to allow your legacy, your gifts, your talents, your family, your colleagues or your sense of Purpose to be allowed to languish or remain unfulfilled because you took your time for granted?

Do you need a warning shot for motivational purposes?

Don’t wait for such a warning because it may signify your departure, with anything in-progress remaining unfinished.

I end my emails (and many meetings) with “Create a great day” or “Create a great day because merely having one is too passive an experience”.  Careful observers notice that I also always capitalize the L in Life.

I do it because I recognize that Life is a holy gift, without guarantees, and that we should create a great day because today may be our last.

Are you creating a great day right now?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

PS I am not a Nickleback fan at all but I was amused to discover that as I finished this post, their song, “If Today Was Your Last Day” is playing on the radio.

It’s just a coincidence, of course.

Isn’t it?

Problem Solving–Overcomplicating The Solution

Problem-solving becomes a very important part of our makeup as we grow into maturity or move up the corporate ladder. - Zig Ziglar

If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions. - Albert Einstein

I was sitting in a coffee shop the other day when I observed a family arguing over a Rubik’s Cube, the novel toy that was a huge hit in the 1980’s and which continues to be popular today.

The father was telling his son, who I would estimate to be about 10 or 12 years old, that the toy was practically unsolvable because it had “billions of combinations”.  Meanwhile, his wife was arguing with her husband that he should leave the boy alone and the son stared at the toy in silence.

After listening to everyone condemn each other for about 10 minutes I walked over to the table, pointed to the toy and asked “May I?”.

The father shrugged and handed me the cube.

“Don’t worry about the number of permutations”, I said to the boy, “You only have a few problems to solve.”

With that, I showed him how to form a cross on one side of the cube, place the corners on the same side, place the edges of the middle layer in the correct locations, position the edges on the final side, complete the corners on the final side and then align the last of the pieces of the final side.  The algorithms for each step are simple and the boy absorbed them quickly.

I mixed up the cube and handed it back to him.  I guided him through each step and he solved the cube in less than 5 minutes.  I mixed the cube up again and he solved it on his own in less than 3 minutes.

He was quite pleased with himself and when I left the table, his mother was mixing up the cube and admiring her son as he solved it repeatedly.  The father said nothing as he watched this interaction.

When the family got up to leave, the young boy waved at me, smiled and said thanks as he and his mother left the coffee shop.

The father came over to me and appeared to be angry with me.

“You ruined a perfectly good toy with what you showed my son”, he said.

“I respectfully disagree”, I replied, “You were teaching him that problems may be larger than they appear and that in many such cases, they are unsolvable or that he isn’t smart enough to solve them.  I taught your son to break a seemingly complex problem into smaller chunks and that by solving each chunk, each of which is exponentially smaller than the overall problem, that the problem as a whole can be solved relatively easily.  This is a lesson I hope he applies to other things as he gets older.”

“And besides”, I said, “It appears that he is enjoying the toy much more now.  If he never learns how to solve it, eventually he will cheat, break it apart and reassemble it as solved.  Cheating is not the way to victory and is rarely accepted in the adult world.”

“I disagree”, he said, still glowering at me, “although I already caught him taking it apart and putting it back together.”

“There you go”, I said to him, “And by the way, the next time you watch your son solve the cube, remember that there are in fact over 43 quintillion permutations to the cube.  Think about that when he solves it.”

The father grunted and walked out.

I’m not sure who needed a lesson more – the son in chunking down the problem into manageable pieces or the father who was teaching his son that easily solvable problems appear to be far greater in size and complexity than they actually are and that giving up is a viable option when the solution is at hand.

The Bottom Line

As a long Wall St. strategy guy and large-scale architect, myself and teams I work with often face projects whose scope and complexity are far too complex for the average mortal man to comprehend, let alone create solutions for.

However, solving a group of smaller problems is far simpler and in fact, is the only way to produce a solution that works for the overall problem.

In our haste to solve problems in Life, we often forget this and set about solving “the big problem” only to be frustrated or completely overwhelmed by it.

Do you have a problem that you are trying to solve, whether it be in business, in relationships or anything else or do you know someone who has such a problem?

Do you or they see the problem as an insurmountable one with too many nuances and complexities or are you / they able to break it down into sizable chunks that are much easier to understand and solve?

Remembering to do this and knowing how without focusing on how complex the overall problem is will mean the difference between solving it or being eaten alive by it.

Even if it has 45 quintillion permutations.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Connecting the Dots in Our Life

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them. - Dalai Lama

The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others. - Albert Schweitzer

I have long been fascinated with the notion of significant people / events in our lives, how they come to be, whether we choose them or they are chosen for us, how we measure their effect / influence, what their cumulative effect is, whether the order that they appear in our lives is significant, etc.

I have mused about such things many times and in many ways in my blog, including but not limited to the following popular posts:

• If You Could Have One Question Answered, What Would It Be?
• When Your Purpose Is Closer Than You Realize
• Are You Out of Time?
• The Reality of Statistical Improbability
• The Four Cardinal Virtues–Which One Are You?
• Who Defines Your Reality?
• Connecting the Dots – Valuing the Connections In Your Life

With this idea in mind, I drew a series of mind maps to express some thoughts around the significant “dots” in our lives.  I am publishing these mind maps for others to comment on, criticize or make additions to.  The content is copyright the author as noted unless otherwise indicated.

The Connect the Dots mind map series can be found on my primary site and on my mobile site.

I invite people who may have thoughts on these diagrams to email me at info@harrytucker.com and I will give them consideration for future releases.  I may consider a wiki as well if the traffic is significant.

Many thanks for your interest and to all of my many readers over the years, I say thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I am a better person for my interaction with thousands of you over the years.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

If You Could Have One Question Answered, What Would It Be?

Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work. - H. L. Hunt

Indeed, this life is a test. It is a test of many things - of our convictions and priorities, our faith and our faithfulness, our patience and our resilience, and in the end, our ultimate desires. - Sheri L. Dew

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

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In restaurants, coffee shops, parks and other public places around the world, a tall, nondescript man sought out people sitting alone, walked up to them and asked each of them the same question in their native language:

May I join you?

Some said “no”, some shook their heads without saying anything but many invited the man to sit down with a gesture, a simple acknowledgement or an equivalent response.

The exchange between the man and the person sitting alone began the same way for everyone he approached, with the man smiling at the other person before saying, “My name is Gabriel.  What is yours?”

In a restaurant in New York City, the woman sitting at the table replied that her name was Abigail.

“I am pleased to meet you, Abigail”, replied Gabriel.  After exchanging some initial pleasantries, he paused, looked her intently and directly in the eye and asked, “If you had one question and one question only that you would like answered, what would it be?”

Abigail paused for a moment before answering.  “I would want to know why my child died and was taken from me”, she said, her eyes misting up as she answered.

“Interesting”, replied Gabriel, “And what would you do if you were provided with the answer?  What if I could guarantee an answer for you?”

Abigail paused for a moment, frowned in thought and then said, “That’s a good question.  I’m not sure.  I don’t even know if I would even want or like the answer.”

Gabriel nodded in acknowledgement before asking her, “What would you be willing to do or to sacrifice in order to obtain an answer to this question?  Or in other words, how badly do you want an answer at all?”

“Wow”, Abigail replied, “these are also good questions.  I don’t know the answers to those off the top of my head.”

Tears welled up in her eyes as she reflected on the questions the stranger was asking her.

“Why are you crying?”, asked Gabriel, frowning slightly in concern.

Abigail shrugged and then shook her head in silence.

Gabriel nodded slightly, accepting that his questions had probably reintroduced some painful memories for her.

After pausing for a moment, he looked at her and asked “Do you not know what you would be willing to give for an answer to your question, Abigail?”

“I have no idea”, replied Abigail.

“Perhaps this suggests that you don’t want the answer bad enough”, said Gabriel gently, “and since you therefore can’t put a value on the answer, you don’t know what you would be willing to pay to obtain it.”

“I don’t know”, replied Abigail, disagreeing with his suggestion, “Maybe the question has no answer that is worth obtaining or has no value that can be determined.”

“I disagree”, responded Gabriel, “Every question and answer has a value and a cost.  Knowing what we are willing to give up to obtain the answer is what determines the value of it and the effort required to get it.”

He paused before continuing.

“Maybe if you can’t decide what you would be willing to trade to obtain the answer, that you may have asked the wrong question”, he suggested, “I will ask you again - if you had one question and one question only that you would like answered, what would it be?”

Abigail thought deeply on the question before replying softly.  “I don’t know”, she said quietly.

“Few people know what question to ask or they are afraid to ask their question”, said Gabriel,  “However, it is curious that almost everyone I ask this question of asks a question about their past and not their future. I find that interesting.  Don’t you?”

“Why is that interesting?”, she asked.

“Well”, he replied, “it means that we have many questions about out past and few of our future.  We seem to prefer to focus on potential regrets or mistakes from our past while we either fear our future or feel that we cannot or should not ask about it for some reason.”

Abigail listened intently but said nothing.

Gabriel continued.  “If we focus on our past”, he mused, “instead of our future, how do we know that we are focusing on what matters in our lives – the things that have yet to be that will leverage the potential that is contained within us?”

“Maybe”, countered Abigail, “that all questions have no value.  How can you put value on a question like mine?”

Gabriel took the glass of water on Abigail’s table and placed it in front of her.

“How much would you pay for this glass of water?”, he asked.

“I dunno”, shrugged Abigail, “a dollar, maybe two.”

“Fair enough”, replied Gabriel, “Now imagine that this is the only glass of water for a thousand miles in any direction.  Now how much are you willing to pay for it?”

Abigail’s face lit up.  “I get it”, she said, “All questions do have an answer and the cost of obtaining the answer is commensurate with the value the answer represents to each of us.”

“Correct”, Gabriel said, smiling, “There is always an answer and there is always a price to pay for obtaining it.  How much we are willing to pay for that answer is determined by how badly we want or need it.  The question is only unanswerable if we don’t know how badly we want the answer in the first place.”

“So”, he continued, “Do you know what question you would ask now?”

“I do”, asserted Abigail.

“Good”, replied Gabriel, “Do you know what you are willing to pay for it?”

Abigail paused, sighed and then shook her head sadly.

“Until you know that”, replied Gabriel, “the answer to your question will continue to elude you.”

Gabriel stood up from the table and touched her shoulder gently.

“When you know what you are willing to pay for the answer”, he said, “I will return.”

He turned and strode out of the restaurant …. as he did in numerous restaurants, coffee shops and parks around the world … leaving millions of people reflecting on “the question”.

To be continued.

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© 2015 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

I have always been fascinated by how people make choices in their lives.  Some claim to have planned their entire Life out while others prefer to live their Life spontaneously.

Some claim the destination in Life is what matters while others claim that the journey is what matters most.

The reality is that there is no one size fits all model.

However, what is universally true is that if we don’t know what our potential represents and don’t care where we are going, then we will not use our gifts to our ultimate potential and we will have no say in the direction of our lives.  This is true whether we are twenty-something or ninety-something.

It also brings another interesting thought to mind:

What would we be willing to pay for a question whose answer is not given to us until we have paid the price for it considering that:

1. Whether or not we liked what we paid commensurate with what we received would be irrelevant.

2. It may be too late for a second question / answer.

How would you answer the question that Gabriel was asking?

What are you willing to pay to obtain an answer?

Are the question and answer important enough to meet up to your potential or is it based on the trite, the mundane and the unimportant in the grand scheme of your Life?

What do your answers tell you?

What should you do next?

How do you know?

Alternate Ending

I mused about Gabriel asking Abigail what she wanted and she would have replied that she wanted to know how much longer she would have with her partner and that she would give anything for the answer.  Gabriel would have replied that the answer was an hour, that the cost of the answer was her partner’s Life (the ultimate cost since she said “anything”) and this would have stressed Abigail to the point where she would not have spent the last hour with her partner to the best of their potential because of sadness and worry.

Maybe this is what we fear – that knowing our future would not empower us to live better lives but instead would cripple us.

Would you want to know the answer to the question?

Are you sure?

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

When Your Purpose Is Closer Than You Realize

I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path for a purpose. There are no accidents; we're all teachers - if we're willing to pay attention to the lessons we learn, trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks or wait for some miracle to come knocking at our door. - Marla Gibbs

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

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Abigail awoke with a start, momentarily confused as she looked around.  Her cancer treatment had weakened her significantly and so she was always grateful for an opportunity to lay down and rest.  She looked around in confusion, wondering why she was no longer sleeping in her own bed.

“Do not be afraid, Abigail”, a voice spoke to her gently. 

She looked around apprehensively to determine where the voice came from but could find no obvious source.

“Do not be afraid”, the voice repeated.

“Where am I?”, stammered Abigail, slowly awakening from her slumber.

“That is difficult to answer in a way that you would understand’, replied the voice, “But you are safe and that is what matters.”

“Who are you?”, she asked, still looking around furtively.

“That is probably more difficult to answer”, replied the voice, “And is not important right now.  I am here to help you with your transition.”

“Transition to or from what?”, asked Abigail.

The voice ignored her question.

“Before you move on”, it said quietly, “I need to know what you have learned in your Lifetime.  If you could offer one observation or ask one question about your Life, what would it be?”

Abigail’s brow furrowed as she reflected on the question.

“Anything?”, she asked.

“Anything”, the voice replied.

“Well”, began Abigail, “I’ve always lived a boring Life and could never figure out what my Purpose was.  I read every book I could find, listened to all the experts, tried all the ‘magical cures’ for happiness and I still never figured out what my Purpose is.”

“What your purpose was”, corrected the voice.

“Was?”, asked Abigail quizzically.

The voice paused for a moment before replying.

“Did you ever feel that the advice of all the ‘experts’ made you feel worse?”, asked the voice.

“Why, yes”, replied Abigail, “They always made finding Purpose appear so easy and effortless that when I couldn’t accomplish it, I thought I was stupid, inferior or lacking in something that everyone else had.  When I had those thoughts, I always felt worse when I couldn’t seem to find my Purpose while everyone else claimed to have found theirs.  Even in places like social media, it seemed like everyone was living their dreams and I wasn’t”.

“Did it ever occur to you that they weren’t living a Life of Purpose either but they portrayed a story to the contrary in order to convince you or themselves that they were?”

“Why would they do that?”, asked Abigail.

“The human ego does unusual things to compensate for its insecurity”, replied the voice.

It paused for a moment before continuing.

“May I show you something?”, asked the voice.

“Yes”, said Abigail uncertainly.

An image appeared in front of her and she was transported back to when she was a young girl.  She saw herself cheering up a friend of hers who was feeling down.  She remembered Margaret well and had often wondered what happened to her elementary school friend.

“Your friend, Margaret”, said the voice, as if reading her mind, “Went on to become a doctor before going overseas to serve with Doctors Without Borders.  She once confided in a friend in medical school that it was the encouragement of a friend in elementary school who gave her the inspiration to become a doctor.”

The image was replaced by another from about 15 year ago.  Abigail observed the image with a mix of sadness and embarrassment as she remembered the scene well.  She had fallen on hard times and was begging a friend for financial assistance.  Her friend had hesitated significantly before begrudgingly helping her out.

“The lady you were asking for help from had stored up quite a nest egg in her lifetime”, observed the voice.  “Her intent was to die with it intact.  When you asked her for help, she didn’t want to help you but in helping you, something changed in her and she spent the rest of her years serving others in need.  So your moment of need became an opening to a greater Purpose for both of you.”

The image changed again to an event that had happened only last week.  She was sitting in a coffee shop, weak from her recent chemo treatment and fighting the waves of pain and nausea that had become part of her daily regimen.  She saw herself stand up slowly to leave and as she did, she turned and smiled to a sad looking young man seated at the table beside her.  He responded with a faint smile in return and she left.

“The young man you smiled to was struggling”, said the voice, “Your smile sent him a message that he mattered just when he needed it.  Where he goes from here remains to be determined but your smile saved him from an end that I don’t care to discuss at the moment.”

“I don’t understand”, replied Abigail.

“You don’t?”, asked the voice, “Perhaps you would like to see more memories.  I can replay thousands of them for you.  I have as much time as you need.”

“But I don’t understand what these things have to do with my Purpose”, she protested, “I did all of these things but so what?  I still never found my Purpose.”

“You never found your purpose, Abigail?”, asked the voice, “I am trying to tell you that you have been living it all along.  That which you sought was something you lived every day. You were just so busy looking for it outside of you that you didn’t realize that it was living in and through you every day.  The truth is that you served and lived your Purpose perfectly.”

The voice paused before continuing.

“Your call to Purpose is not based on some book you read or some inspirational speech that you hear.  Your call to Purpose swirls around you every day.  Whether or not you answer the call depends on whether you are sensitive to what is swirling around you and if you observe such things, whether you say ‘yes’ to what they call you to do.”

“You said ‘yes’ many times, Abigail”, the voice concluded.

Abigail said nothing as she reflected on what was being said to her.

“But why doesn’t someone tell us this?”, she asked.

“If we did”, replied the voice, “Then you might try to cherry pick your Life experiences, seeking to find only those things that are good, useful or comfortable.  You would definitely seek to avoid the most important experiences in Life, those which are often uncomfortable, painful or frightening.”

Abigail nodded as the truth of that statement settled inside.

A light came on in her mind and she suddenly realized that she had spent years seeking something that she was already living.

“I get it”, she said excitedly, “I think I really get it.”

She paused for a moment and then stated with emphasis, “My Life will be different from now on.”

“Well”, said the voice, “That is more true and more complex than you realize.”

“What do you mean?”, replied Abigail.

“Your Life as you know it is transitioning.  That is my purpose here – to help you with that transition.”, the voice said, “The Life you knew is no more.”

Abigail sat in silence, afraid to ask what that meant.

“Don’t worry”, the voice said, appearing to read her mind again, “This is a natural step in the journey of your soul.  The lesson you have learned here today is important and here’s why.”

Abigail listened in silence, occasionally nodding as the voice explained what was to come.

To be continued.

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© 2015 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

With this musing, I am not suggesting that we should never strive for greater things when it comes to the creation and realization of Life Purpose.  I’m also not suggesting that we accept anything but our best effort in living Life to its fullest.

However, it is a suggestion that sometimes that which we strive for is closer at hand than we realize …. including our Purpose.

And when we think that Purpose is a monumental, grandiose thing as defined by the “gurus” of our age, it oftentimes is a collection of the smaller things in Life, creating a greater world than we realize.

Reflect upon these questions today:

1. What should I do?

2. Where should I go?

3. What should I say and to whom?

What do the answers tell you to do?

Create a great day, because merely having one is too passive an experience.

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

Are You Out of Time?

"Live life so completely that when death comes to you like a thief in the night, there will be nothing left for him to steal." - Anonymous

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." - Norman Cousins

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

---

“What do you want to do today?”

The question burned in Abigail’s mind as she drove along the highway, her mind occupied by the question she had asked Gabriel before setting off for the day.  It was part of their early morning routine – making love, breakfast, shower and then the inevitable “What do you want to do today?”.  Life had given her the freedom to do whatever she pleased but she found that the city she lived in was starting to disappoint her when it came to offering “things to do” and with that, the question had become difficult for them to answer in recent weeks.

Some days it was frustrating, other days they managed to find something to do and on other days, they just couldn’t see why they were here at all.

Her brow furrowed as she reflected on this and in her moment of total concentration, she also didn’t see the semi to her right that lost control and careened across four lanes before crushing her car.

---

Abigail awoke with a start and realized that she was sitting on a plush chair in a softly lit room.  “Wasn’t I just driving on the highway?”, she thought.

“Disorientation is normal”, a gentle voice on the other side of the room said, “Please relax.”

Abigail jumped slightly on hearing the voice and realized it had come from a person sitting opposite her. Try as she might, she could not make out any features of the person, being obscured by the soft shadows that fell around the source of the voice.  She attempted to stand up and realized that she couldn’t.

“Relax”, said the voice, “You are in no danger.”

“Where am I?”, asked Abigail, “I could have sworn I was just driving my car.”

“You are safe”, replied the voice, “That is all that matters right now.  I have something to show you but first I need to ask you this.  How well do you think you have lived your Life up to this moment?  Do you believe you have lived it to your fullest potential, Abigail?”

“What do you mean?”, Abigail asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.  “How do you know my name?”

“Observe”, the voice replied, ignoring her questions.

Off to her right, an image formed, holographic in form. Abigail stared at the “movie” that played before her.

She watched a woman sobbing, her head in her hands as her children stared at her helplessly.

Then the image changed and was replaced with someone else receiving bad news about their business.  “If only I had had the courage to take action earlier”, the person in the movie said.

The image changed again and Abigail watched in horror as a man savagely beat a woman.

Once more the image changed and she saw a young person sitting in a bedroom, a gun in his hand.  The person lifted the gun towards his head …..

And suddenly the images were gone.

Abigail swallowed hard and turned back to the mystery host.  “Who are they?”, she asked.

“They were people who were waiting for you”, replied the voice, “But you never showed up.”

“What do you mean, ‘I never showed up’?”, asked Abigail.

“Well”, the voice replied, “We spent years creating just the right experiences for your Life so that you would acquire the skills, knowledge and opportunity to help them but you chose not to honor the gifts or the responsibility we provided to you.  In not honoring them, you condemned to failure those whom you had been prepared to help.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about”, Abigail said earnestly, “I don’t even know these people.”

“That is true”, replied the voice calmly, “You don’t.  However, the gifts we had provided to you were intended to be shared with others who would in turn influence others and so on until the right people got to the people you saw at just the right moment.”

Abigail sat in silence, bewildered by what the voice was telling her.

“I suspect”, continued the voice, “That perhaps you may have been waiting for just the right moment to help others or to do more for others.  Would that be a lie?”

“That’s not a lie at all”, replied Abigail, “I’ve been very busy ….”

The voice cut her off.

“So if that’s the case”, it asked, “What would you consider to be the key things you need before doing more for others?  What is the one thing that, if it occurred, would enable you to do more for others?”

Abigail paused, struggling to answer the question.

“You can’t think of anything, can you?”, asked the voice.

Abigail shook her head slowly.

“And so the question becomes ‘If not now, then when?’”, observed the voice.

“If I had known what you are telling me, then I would have done something about it”, Abigail said, resisting the message that the voice was sharing.

“Are you sure?”, asked the voice, “How do you know?  Give me one definitive piece of proof to support what you just said.  We provided the gifts, the resources, the time and the opportunity.  What else did you need?”

Abigail was silent once again.

“We set everything up perfectly”, said the voice, “All you needed to do was your part.  By choosing not to do your part, you prevented others from playing their part for others.  How does this make you feel?”

Abigail felt her eyes tear up but she remained speechless.

“Do you not pray and read your Bible every day?”, asked the voice gently.

Abigail nodded quietly.

“Then either you believe what you practice and know that you have an Advocate in your corner who would not allow you to fail in the actions you take or you don’t believe such an Advocate exists, in which case you are wasting your time with empty words imploring guidance from a non-existent source of help”, asserted the voice.

“I believe”, said Abigail.

“If you believe but don’t take action, I would posit that you are either wasting your time or the time of the Person you are praying to when you ask for support or guidance regarding actions you never take”, challenged the voice.

Abigail said nothing.

“Then what are you waiting for?”, asked the voice insistently.

“I don’t know”, mumbled Abigail.

“All of these things you endure in your Life are for a reason”, the voice said, “If there were no reason for the things you enjoy and endure, then Life would mean nothing.  What would be the point of Life if that were case?”

The voice paused for a moment before continuing.

“Think of this”, it said, “Think of your time like money in the bank.  You can go to your bank and ask for an account balance – how much you have earned, how much you have spent and how much you have left.  You can always add more money any time you want.  Time is nothing like that.  You can’t ask what your initial deposit was, you can’t add more to your time account and once you have spent it, you cannot earn more.  Once the account is empty, it is too late to do anything with it.  Do you understand?”

Abigail nodded, still saying nothing.

“You must leave in a moment”, said the voice, “But first, it is important for you to understand the gifts you have been given, to understand what they are capable of producing and to understand the importance of exercising them vigorously every day.  They will provide a means of creating outcomes you are meant to produce for yourself and others.  Does this make sense?”

“Yes it does”, replied Abigail.

“Good”, said the voice, “Observe.”

Once again, a holographic image appeared next to Abigail and she saw images of herself.  One moment she was talking to a group of people, another time she was writing to someone, another time she was serving food to the homeless and finally, with some shock, she observed herself chatting happily with the President of the US.

“All things are possible to those who believe it to be so”, noted the voice.

She shook her head, not comprehending what she was watching.

“For those to whom much has been given, much is expected”, the voice continued.

Abigail started to speak but she was interrupted.

“Wait”, ordered the voice.

The image was replaced by the image she had seen earlier, of the young person lifting the gun up to his head.  As tears flowed down his face and he mentally said goodbye to the world, his phone chirped and he saw a text message scroll across the top of the screen.  “You are a great person”, it read, “I need to give you a hug today.”  The person dropped the gun beside him and as he wept in gratitude, he picked up his phone and texted back “I would like to get a hug from you today.”

“Now you understand”, said the voice as the image faded, “Our actions, good and bad, touch thousands of people we will never know.  Now I have one question for you before you go.”

Abigail returned her attention to the direction of the voice.

“You asked Gabriel earlier today “What do you want to do today?”.  Now I ask you, Abigail,  “What do you want to do today?”

Abigail opened her mouth to speak ….

---

“Blood pressure is stabilizing, doctor”, came a voice outside of Abigail’s peripheral vision.

Abigail suddenly found herself lying on her back, staring into bright lights and surrounded by masked people.

A masked face leaned in to hers, looked deeply into her eyes, said “Hang in there, Abigail.  You’re going to be ok.  You don’t know how lucky you are today.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew.

To be continued.

---

© 2015 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

May this serve as an inspiration and not a condemnation.

Do something for someone today ….

While you still have time …

And while they still do.

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

True Confessions: I Don’t Know Why I Am Telling You This But …

If we knew each other's secrets, what comforts we should find. - John Churton Collins

Secrets are things we give to others to keep for us. - Elbert Hubbard

In the last 24 hours, I passed two milestones that for some reason I found to be curiously connected.

Yesterday I received my 50,000th email from a complete stranger around the theme of “I don’t know why I am telling you this but ….”.  Yes – I count them.  I put them in a special folder and marvel over their rawness, their honesty and the courage it took to write them.  For many, I say a silent prayer for the darkness that the writer faces or I am amazed as I read about the trials and tribulations that they have overcome.

Today I started the journey into my 50th year on this planet and was humbled as my phone exploded with greetings via SMS, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email and any other way that people could find me.

Now in truth, 50,000 such emails from complete strangers is nothing unusual if you’re in the business of self-help, psychology and the like or if you are Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey or some other public figure.

But I am a ruthless, cold, heartless Fortune 25 strategy advisor and large-scale technology architect and so I’m not supposed to receive such emails.  Well, maybe I’m not that cold and heartless but don’t tell anyone – I’ve got a reputation to protect.

However ….

When I reflect upon my humble beginnings in this house in a small town in Newfoundland, Canada ….

…. and then I think about the abundance of birthday greetings coming to me today that serve as a reminder of where a Blessed Life well-lived has taken me ….

…. and then I think about the people who wrote me these powerful emails confessing their innermost secrets, fears and desires, it reminds me of these questions posed by Dr. Owen Phelps in his powerful book The Catholic Vision for Leading Like Jesus: Introducing S3 Leadership: Servant, Steward, Shepherd.

• Why am I here?
• What do I want to accomplish?
• Who or what makes my life worth living?
• Who or what can I trust to help me?
• Who or what will I trust with my life?
• Who or what matters most to me?
• For whom or what might I die or kill?
• For whom or what will I live?

…. and then I think of this quote from the same book:

Love – which opens us up to the possibility of a truly large Life purpose – is the source of Life.  It is the creative force by which God brings us into existence.

…. I can’t help but wonder something.

My level of perfection

As a person who has been blessed with success in many things far beyond anything I could have hoped for when I was younger, I acknowledge that I have also made my share of mistakes in my Life.  While I have made some doozies (some public and some private), if I could take them back, I would not be the person that I am today.  In many ways, I would much more incomplete as a person had I not committed those mistakes.

When I think about my Life Journey, the successes and the failures, the victories and the defeats and the gratitude that overwhelms me every waking moment of my Life, it occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, these courageous people write to me not because they think that I hold the keys to Life, the Universe and everything but that in fact, they see me as I truly am – a fellow pilgrim who is not afraid to admit that I have been where they are.

And that maybe in that realization, they see hope for their own situation.

The Bottom Line

In the imperfection that is your Life (and mine) and in all the mistakes and victories that you have experienced, has it ever occurred to you that you are the perfect embodiment of something that someone else looks up, admires and needs to speak to right now?

For those who haven’t given this much thought, maybe if you were more cognizant of it, you would be more open to the Universe sending people in your direction to confess their innermost fears and desires.

And maybe, just maybe, as you feel overwhelmed with amazement as you read their confessions and innermost secrets, you will also have an opportunity to feel overwhelmed with gratitude for who you are, what you have accomplished (and survived) and where you are going.

In the course of being awash in such gratitude, it is possible that you will find a new or better Path before you for your remaining years.

And maybe you will help others find a better, brighter Path as well.

The world is waiting for you.

What are you waiting for?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS Here is a long distance dedication that some of you need to hear right now – Pilgrim by Enya.

The Value of A Second in Time

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. - William Penn

You may delay, but time will not. - Benjamin Franklin

I was reminded of the value of a single second yesterday as I drove behind a limousine in Calgary when suddenly a vehicle approaching from our right ignored a stop signal and t-boned the limousine.

After stopping to make sure that everyone was ok, to provide witness contact information and the like, I left the scene reflecting on the value of one second and I realized that if I had been one second further ahead or the driver had been one second slower, I would have been the one t-boned by the wayward driver.  Driving a much smaller vehicle, it is unknown what such an event would have produced but likely it would not have been very good.

In talking to a few people about the incident, most of them expressed the idea that “nothing happened so I should ignore it”.

However, I see it differently.

I see such moments as reinforcements or reminders for maintaining an attitude of gratitude, that it is important to never take anything for granted.

Such incidents also remind me of the value of a single second and how that one second can make all the difference in our world or the worlds of others.

Now in fairness, there is not much that one can do with a single second and so maybe the people I spoke to are right.  Maybe in fact I am making too much out of the value of a single second in time.

But I look at it this way.

If I offer you something that weighs an ounce, it’s negligible weight is barely noticeable.  If I add another ounce, it doesn’t feel like much either.  However, if I add another ounce and yet another and keep on adding weight an ounce at a time, the negligible additions will eventually exceed your strength, either exhausting you or crushing you.

Time is like that.

A second doesn’t mean a whole lot.  A second second following the first won’t feel like much either.

However, as time accumulates, it suddenly has value, compounded by the notion that once spent, the time is not recoverable, what we have created with it cannot be undone and we don’t know how much time we have left.

The Bottom Line

Maybe we have years left.

Or maybe we have a single second.

And so maybe the folks I spoke to are wrong and I am right.

Maybe that one second can in fact make all the difference ….. in personal relationships, in professional success and maybe in your Life itself.

With that in mind, I wonder what would happen if we treated every second with the respect commensurate with the value potential contained within it.

What would we do with our Life if we actually honored the true value contained within a single second?

Do you treat every second with such respect?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Destiny’s Director

Man is supposed to be the maker of his destiny. It is only partly true. He can make his destiny, only in so far as he is allowed by the Great Power. - Mahatma Gandhi

Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny. - Carl Sandburg

The #1206 “fiction” series continues ….

---

In a softly lit room on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, two men sat quietly, each studying the other.

“These dreams have been plaguing me for years and I couldn’t deal with them anymore.  That’s why I came to see you”, concluded the younger man.

“I understand”, replied the doctor.  “You did the right thing by coming to see me.  So let me see if I understand you correctly.  You claim that when you meet people in your dreams, that within a year or two, you actually meet them in person.  Is this an accurate understanding?”

“I know it sounds crazy”, the patient replied, “but I can prove it.  I’ve kept a journal of my dreams with complete descriptions of the people that I eventually meet.  Many of them whom I meet for real tell me that they feel like they have met me before.  But there are two things that are really bothering me about my dreams.”

“And what are they?”, the doctor asked in his monotone voice.

“Well”, replied the patient, beginning hesitantly.  “The first is that there is always a third person in the room who seems to be the one who introduces us.  Well, maybe introduces is the wrong word.  She is always present, she never speaks and she usually just stands there and watches us without saying anything.  She gives me the creeps.”

“Does this woman remind you of anyone you know?”, asked the doctor.  “Does she have any distinguishing features that make her stand out?”

“Her eyes”, replied the patiently nervously.  “She has very large eyes that look right through you.  They are not hostile, friendly, angry or anything else.  They are completely without emotion.  She just stares at us without smiling or anything.”

“That would seem unusual”, agreed the doctor.  “What is the other thing that is really bothering you?”

“Well”, the patient replied nervously, “The last person I met in my dreams where this large-eyed woman is also present was in a dream like no other.  In the dream, I was making love to this woman while the woman with the large eyes just watched.  She didn’t smile or say anything.  She just watched us.”

“Having dreams of making love to strangers is not unusual”, replied the doctor.  “Such dreams contain many messages about things the brain is processing.  Who or what do you think the woman you are making love to represents?”

“Represents?”, asked the patient incredulously.  “I met her for real two years later in a coffee shop and we hit it off as if we had known each other all our lives.  No awkwardness of any kind.  She even told me that she felt as if she had met me before and that she had known me for years.”

He paused before continuing.  “It makes me wonder if these are dreams or if they are really happening”, he said quietly.

“Well”, replied the doctor, “We must be careful that we don’t confuse dreams and coincidences or that we don’t accidentally retrofit the memory of a past dream to match a current event.  Such things are very common.”

“Maybe”, conceded the patient, “But I think there is more to it than that.  I wonder if someone out there is connecting me with others for a reason or purpose.”

“That is an interesting observation”, noted the doctor, “Why don’t we save that for the next session.”

“You’re right”, agreed the patient as he stood up.  Thanking the doctor for the session, he saw himself out of the office.

Two hours later, in the waning hours of the evening, he found himself reflecting on the conversation with his therapist as he drove down the quiet road to his home miles from the city.  Over his left shoulder, he casually observed a plane paralleling him and as he did so, confusion and then drowsiness suddenly overcame him.

He woke up startled and confused in a small room devoid of any furniture except for the small bed he was lying on.  Wondering how he got there, he stood up on shaky legs, walked slowly over to the door and opened it.

In the long hallway that stretched out of sight to his left and right, a flurry of activity attacked his senses, with people walking quickly in both directions.  He noted with curiosity that quite a number of them seemed to be in military uniforms.

As his confused mind struggled to understand what he was observing, he was startled by someone clearing his throat.  “I assume you have many questions”, came a voice to his left. “I will do what I can to answer them.”

As he turned, his eyes focused on two figures in front of him.

A short, nondescript man, clearly the one who had just spoken, stood before him.

But it was the other person that startled him.

The woman who had participated in the introductions in his dream stood before him, tall, unsmiling and with the same penetrating, emotionless eyes.

“Please step back into the room”, the short man said.  “Let’s talk about your destiny.”

To be continued.

---

© 2014 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Series Origin:

This series, a departure from my usual musings,  is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

---

Connecting the Dots–Valuing the Connections In Your Life

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

After a high-energy, frantic pace over the last couple of months (apologies to those who enjoy my musings, I’ve been light in content these days), I found myself reflecting on the nature of the “dots” in our Life - the significant events in our Lives that shape who we are, the results we produce and the legacy that we leave behind.

Many who strive for success believe that those who have found it have followed a Life journey that looks like this:

Others will tell you that the journey looks more like this:

In truth the journey theoretically looks more like the following, where the dots in our Lives and the dots of the Lives of others overlap for a duration that varies from brief to a Lifetime, with the overlap changing each person’s Life in known or unknown ways in regards to scale, duration and results:

In reality, the Life journey looks more like the following, with the “dots” of many people overlapping ours, enhancing or impeding our Lives as other people collaborate or interfere with us:

So what are the odds of two dots connecting?

I sat down the other day with someone and calculated, based on their Life experiences and mine, factoring in significant Life events such as surviving life-threatening illnesses, serious accidents and the like, that the odds of both of us surviving long enough to meet each other and being in the same place at the same moment to actually meet each other were approximately 1 in 38,500,000.

When I reflected upon that statistic, I compared the result to these observations:

1. I need to buy more Canadian lottery tickets, with the odds of winning the big prize being approximately 1 in 14,000,000.
2. I need to stay indoors during thunderstorms as the odds of being struck by lightning in a lifetime is only 1 in 3,000.

I could say that I need to stay away from airplanes, with the odds of dying in a plane crash being 1 in 11,000,000 but I have survived 4 airplane incidents in my lifetime so I will ignore that statistic.

The Bottom Line

While not every connection has the outrageous odds against that I calculated above, if the odds are slim that you will come into someone else’s Life (or that they will come into yours), I would think that such reality places an extremely high value on the coalescing of two people’s “dots” whether the “dots” overlap for a moment or for a Lifetime, since the result potential, good or bad, is not likely to be produced in exactly that form ever again.

If the potential for a unique lesson or result is that rare, I would think that such rare odds of meeting should serve as a reminder to each of us that each interaction has unlimited potential in value if we are open to seeing it, embracing it and exploring it.

And finally, I think if you have lost sight of the value of a relationship, you should dust off your old high school mathematics textbook and recalculate the odds that the relationship exists and having done so, rethink what this means in your Life.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS For those who prefer my very serious strategy, biz, Poli Sci and #1206 musings, I will return to them soon.  You’re not forgotten.

The Last Hour Of My Life

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. - Charles Darwin

Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments. - Rose Kennedy

Twice this week I have been asked to recount four airplane “events” I have survived in my many years of travel and after I shared the stories for the second time, something stood out that made me pause and reflect about how we spend the most valuable gift we have been blessed with – our time on this Earth.

Some years ago while returning from a business trip, I had an opportunity to experience some of the worst air turbulence in my 40+ years of travelling.  In the violent pitching and rolling that occurred, I suddenly felt a “bang” in the floor and for a moment I thought that we had popped a baggage compartment door and were spilling luggage all over the east coast.

The plane suddenly pitched up and after we had climbed above the turbulence, the pilot announced that he needed to speak to ops (flight operations) and that he would get back to us soon.  I thought “Ops?  That’s interesting.  That means we have a problem.”

For an hour we flew in a wide circle with no updates of any kind.  The pilot eventually came on the intercom and told us that we would be returning from whence we came and that we were to follow all instructions of the cabin staff.

We were taught the brace position required for emergency landings and then were left with our own thoughts for what could be the last hour of our lives.  A lady behind me was saying her Rosary, a few people were crying, some people were talking quietly and I, in typical fashion of always acting in a manner contrary to worrisome circumstances, was intent on finishing a book that I was rereading – The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale.

The lady sitting next to me asked me “How can you read a book at a time like this?”

My reply was basically along the lines of “I have two options, both completely out of my control.  I might hit the ground at 500 miles per hour, becoming a grease spot on the runway but feeling no pain as I am killed instantly.  If that happens, my insurance is paid up, my family will be taken care of and I will be remembered as the only person in my family to have been killed in a plane crash.  How cool is that?  My other option is that I will walk away from this totally unscathed and I will have an awesome story to tell.  So given that both options are out of my control and I know what all possible outcomes are, I have nothing else to do but read my book”.

With a mix of anger and incredulity, she told me I was crazy.

About an hour later, as I turned the last page of my book, an announcement came over the intercom that we were approaching our destination and that we were to start preparing for arrival by placing our personal effects, including shirt pocket contents, eye glasses and such in the seat pocket in front of us.

As the ground got closer, I quietly said my thank-you’s to everyone and no one in particular, asked for forgiveness for the mistakes I had made in my Life and when the call came for us to brace for impact, we all leaned forward and prepared to die.

Spoiler alert

After we had landed safely and the applause and yells from passengers had subsided, I turned to the lady sitting next to me and said “In the last hour of my Life, I finished a great book.  What did you do?”

She didn’t reply.

In a subsequent conversation with the pilot, I learned two things:

• At the moment that the “bang” had occurred, we had experienced a structural integrity compromise (translation: something broke) and the airworthiness of the aircraft was unknown until we had safely touched down.
• The pilot, who had been flying for more than 25 years, said that this event was in the top 3 scariest events of his Life.

When a pilot with that much experience and who isn’t bothered by things that bother passengers says this, that’s when you want to go back to the lavatory and throw up.

The Bottom Line

During this flight, I was given a warning by the flight crew that the last hour of my Life had potentially been identified and that it was now.

But in Life we don’t always get such warnings and in that realization, I wonder how we would live our personal, relational and professional lives if we believed that the next hour was to be our last, regardless of whether we were given a warning or not.

Most of us don’t live as if the next hour is our last.

I wonder what would happen to us individually and societally if we did.

What do you think?

Do you recognize the value of your time, especially given that you have a finite amount of it, once it is spent it cannot be reclaimed and you have no idea how much of it is remaining?

Are you sure?

Are your actions in congruence with your beliefs?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

PS – The Importance of Gratitude

All the passengers went back to the airline counter to rebook seats necessary to carry us to our original destination and I couldn’t help but notice the guys in front of me giving the lady at the counter a hard time about the impact of the delay on them, how airline staff didn’t know how to run an airline, etc.

When it was my turn, I expressed to the lady how grateful I was to be speaking to her and how I thought the airline’s maintenance program, training regimen and professionalism were the difference between me living and dying.

She thanked me, pointed to the guys that I had been observing and said “See those guys over there?  I have them on standby for tomorrow.  However, I’ve got an executive class seat for you on the next flight and here’s $75 “airport dollars” that you can spend anywhere in the airport for meals, souvenirs or anything else you need.”

Her actions remind me that kindness pays … especially when unexpected or when it seems most difficult to express.

Someone is waiting for your kindness in an unexpected way today.

What are you waiting for?

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Addendum - February 9, 2017

I was reminded today that I have had five close calls (not four).  They include a cabin depressurization, a near mid-air collision on final, the structural integrity compromise noted in this post and two RPM governance failures on take-off.  In the latter, I've often considered them as one event because it occurred twice with the same aircraft on the same day.  Sound complicated?  On a flight some years ago, we experienced an RPM governance failure (which was explained to me later) on take-off that almost caused us to drop into the forest as we cleared the runway.  We made an emergency landing at an airport along the way, boarded a different aircraft and then proceeded to my original half-way point destination.  We waited for the aircraft that would take us to the final destination and when it arrived, I realized that I was seated in the same seat as on the original flight.  I knew this because I had noted when my journey began that someone had carved their name into the window shade and as I sat in my seat, I saw the name on the window shade again.  The airline in question had assumed that the aircraft issues had been addressed and had ferried the aircraft in to pick us up and take us to our final destination.  The assumption that the aircraft has been repaired turned out to be incorrect and we once again had an RPM governance device failure on take-off.  The resulting take-off, while completely successful with a dramatic acceleration, deceleration, acceleration (we were committed) finished with an equally interesting landing since the standard procedure for landing an aircraft with a failed RPM governance device is to land at full throttle.  It made for an interesting day.

For those who like to know technical stuff, the RPM governance device senses shaft RPM, and adjusts or controls the angle of the blades to vary the torque load on the engine. Thus as the aircraft speeds up (as in a dive) or slows (in climb) the RPM is held constant.  When this device fails, it is difficult to control the thrust of the engine (and thus speed of the aircraft) and so it is better to land at full throttle rather than risk diminishing the throttle and causing the engine to produce less power than desired.

The Courage To Do Nothing

Solitude is the place of purification. - Martin Buber

The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil. - Thomas A. Edison

I was reviewing someone’s reading list the other day and noted that the titles were themed around the 10 steps to this, the 5 steps to that and that all of his books were wired around action.

He and I discussed how the world lacked courage to do things and he indicated that by being constantly busy, he was demonstrating to the Universe that he had the courage necessary for success.

I replied by asking him if he ever had the courage to stop, do nothing and just be.  He paused, his brow furrowed and as he did so, I could tell that an answer to my question wasn’t coming easily for him.

In a text he sent me this morning, he’s still stuck on the question.

Those of us who are ultra type A spend our days learning, sharing, thinking (sometimes grinding), giving, expressing, creating (sometimes destroying) and executing but I believe that too often, we don’t take enough time for just being.

We receive thousands of emails daily / weekly from people who need help, advice, guidance or a connection to someone else we know.  We are bombarded with information and requests and in the cacophony that accompanies the activity that we are blessed to experience, we often neglect the greatest gift that all of us have been provided with – the gift that is the unique combination of our mental, physical, emotional and Spiritual selves.

And while a steady diet of knowledge acquisition and sharing matters, the cerebral part of our brain is not the only part of us that needs nourishment and rejuvenation.

Daring to do nothing

On the heels of an insane schedule that I have been told by people who know such things is not sustainable by mere mortals, I will be leaving the Earth as of Friday.

Well … not literally of course unless the line from the Styx song Come Sail Away is true.

I thought that they were angels but to my surprise
They climbed aboard their starship and headed for the skies

Many of us gauge our sense of self, our sense of value, our sense of worth, our sense of contribution and our sense of growth by how much we can accomplish in a day, how many people we can talk to, how many reports we can produce, how many Tweets we can make, how many Facebook likes we receive, etc.

I don’t.

On Friday, I will leave all my electronics at home and disappear for a few days.  Only one person will know where I am for the purposes of emergency contact.  If you attempt to reach me in any form, you will receive a polite notice that I cannot be found anywhere.

I’m taking four books with me:

• The Maxwell Leadership Bible – to reflect upon leadership
• The Stewardship Bible – to reflect upon service
• Spiritual Classics: Selected Readings on the Twelve Spiritual Disciplines – for Spiritual nourishment and inspiration from some of the greatest Spiritual thinkers who ever lived
• A Course in Miracles – for reflection on Spirit versus ego

They will be printed on paper and not in e-book format - I’m not taking electronics, remember?  There will be no books or papers on strategy, business, politics or technology – the worlds I live in about 20 hours a day, 7 days a week.

And of course, I will have my journal with LOTS of room for writing.

For three days, I will not know what the world is doing nor will I care. That being said, don’t blow it up while I am gone.  The world will not know what I am doing either which suits me just fine!  Please don’t ask others on social media if I have died just because I am not publicly visible (people have done this in the past).

I will read, write, reflect and contemplate but most importantly I will just be.

The Bottom Line

Henri Nouwen recognized the value of solitude when he wrote:

Solitude is very different from a 'time-out' from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other.

I hear lots of people talk about the courage necessary to do this, that or the other thing.

That may be so but I think for the busy, engaged mind, sometimes it takes even more courage to stop doing and start being.

And maybe, just maybe, by doing nothing you are actually accomplishing much more than you realize.

What do you think?

The Bottom Bottom Line

Do you have the courage to unplug from the world for a few days?

Do you believe the world can survive without you during that time?

Do you believe that you can survive without the world during that time?

Do you believe that you know so much that a few days of solitude would offer little of value or substance?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

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Addendum – The Result - June 8, 2014

When one takes time to go from meeting overload ….

…. calendar overload ….

…. communication overload …..

…. and social media overload ….

…. to nature overload (click on the image for a larger version) ….

…. I am reminded of a spa’s advertising poster that I once saw in NYC where they noted:

Come in feeling like a dominatrix and leave feeling like Mother Teresa.

Well … the gender is wrong but the transformational effect this weekend was the same.

By the way, the flower in the picture is one inch tall from the ground to the top of the flower and there was only one there that I could see.

There’s also a metaphor contained within the photo.

Can you see it?

PS Thanks for not blowing up the world while I was gone.  It was also refreshing to relearn that the world and I were both able to live without each other for a little while without significant damage to either.

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Confessions of a Gentle Arsehole

I am an impure thinker. I am hurt, swayed, shaken, elated, disillusioned, shocked, comforted, and I have to transmit my mental experiences lest I die. - Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost. - Chauncey Depew

If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good. - Thomas J. Watson

Of the many emails that I receive regarding my musings, there are three types that are very common.  They are:

1. How can someone who can make make me laugh or cry also write with such a sharp (cruel) sword about certain subjects?
2. For someone who writes such interesting (potent) stuff, especially about politicians or business, why do you write about “weak” stuff like motivational or inspirational subjects?
3. Who the heck are you anyway?

And so, without further adieu, I feel compelled to offer a confession.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned

As someone who grew up in a small town in Newfoundland, I learned the traditional things that one learns in such small places – the value of relationships, of knowing your neighbor (heck, we knew the whole town), of an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s effort and for appreciating the small things in Life.

Moving on to an award-winning career on Wall St., I learned new “values” and walked a fine line between the values I was raised with and the new ones – values that many might perceive as being in conflict with “normal” ones (whatever normal means) but which you must embrace to succeed in that environment or face being eaten alive.

This hybrid Life, commingling a relaxed rural setting and a frenzied urban one, created a hybrid human being – a New Yorker in a Newfoundlander’s body as I like to call it.

My heart beats to the values I was raised with, prompting me to write stories like:

• I Met a Man on a Journey
• Education – More Than the Three Rs
• Creating an “Oprah Moment”
• Blood Donations and Life Connections 
• A User’s Guide to Passionate People
• Boston Pizza – Master of Customer Relationships
• Overcoming Your Demons

They inspire thousands of people to share their deepest thoughts, hopes, fears and confessions with me and I am humbled, honored and moved by their sharing and their courage.

My head is driven by the values that I was exposed to on Wall St., prompting me to share musings such as:

• Strategy – Have You Hired a Million Monkeys?
• Quantum Physics and Problem Solving
• The World as Seen By the Objective Observer
• Solving Puzzles – Follow the Breadcrumbs
• Asking Questions That Get Answered

My exposure to “certain projects” and “special people” inspires “fictional” writing that I refer to as the #1206 series and includes stories such as:

• Financial Crisis (where I predicted the collapse of September 2008)
• Growing the Rot From Within (how to undermine a nation in one easy step)
• National Security – Arming Both Sides (growing my readership with the kind folks who monitor our security – hi guys!).

But when head, heart and experiences collide

Having been raised on one set of values while working in a world where values are merely a suggestion or a convenience in order to get one up on others has created a hybrid that motivates me to write about things such as:

• Newfoundland – A Leadership Crisis, Not An Energy One
• The Power of the Four-Poster Interview
• Politics and the Fortuitousness of Calamity
• Muskrat Falls – Mastering the Art of Communication Failure
• Bullies, Pink Shirts and Attaboys
• Mitt Romney, Bullies and Red Herrings
• Lip Service – The Solution to Everything
• Does Premier Dunderdale Like Pornography? (yeah, this one raised a few hackles)
• Will the Ignorant Inherit the Earth?

These are the musings that lawyers get all excited about but I know my boundaries and so while people get all excited they eventually give up realizing that to make an issue out of the truth will only make their client’s Life more complex (and more transparent).

The origin of the last set of musings are the most complex to decipher by some people as they seem out of character for someone who prefers to lead gently with the heart instead of aggressively with the mind.

But as with the strategic and tactical offerings I provide to clients, there is a method to my madness.

My Personal Philosophy

I believe that we live in a beautiful world of unlimited potential – a world that is simultaneously a complex, difficult chaos and a thing of simplicity and beauty that is perfectly orchestrated.

My personal vision and mission, as noted on my website, reads:

But such a world does not happen by accident nor does it evolve into its most beautiful potential when we condone or allow indifference, apathy, wilful ignorance, greed or one of the other “values” that many people embrace.

And sometimes when one comes across people who are either not guiding us towards a better world or are actively guiding us away from one, then one needs to make a stand.

Love and respect don’t always win.

For those who think that perfect love and respect can win over anyone or any situation, I agree …. most times.

But there are some people in the world that cannot or will not respond to such kindness.  In fact, to embrace unlimited love and kindness as the solution to everything sets some people up to be a doormat - one whom other people wipe their feet upon and move on as they seek their next victim.  Some of these people are like bulls rushing towards you with intent to tear you asunder in their anger or greed-driven need to accomplish their own objectives.

Such people cannot be reasoned with with love, respect or kindness.

They know only one way to treat people and so when they run into people like me who put up my hand and say “Sorry, your journey of greed, selfishness, wilful ignorance or indifference ends here” they don’t like what they see.  They don’t like the cranial defibrillator that I present either.  The idea that their irresistible force has finally met an immovable object presents a unique and potentially uncomfortable situation for them.

A mirror is a difficult thing to behold when we don’t like the image being reflected back to us.

And so while I don’t look for trouble nor do I go out of my way to make other people’s issues my own, sometimes karma has a way of placing me in the Path of someone else for a reason.

What matters at that moment is if both sides in the random or karmic encounter are prepared to explore and embrace the reason why their Paths have crossed.

The Bottom Line

To answer the final question as to who I am ties all three questions together nicely.

Professionally, I provide strategy, tactical and large-scale technology guidance to little, itty bitty, teen weeny companies and really, really, big, gigantinormous ones (sorry for the technical terms).  I live in a world defined by facts, data and measurable outcomes.

But in reality, I am a human being who seeks to lift those who need to be lifted, to defend those who struggle and to give a voice to those who believe they have lost theirs (or believe they never had one).  I am a passionate, respectful collaborator who seeks the best in people and opportunities.

I do so because I believe as a realistic optimist (or an optimistic realist) that a beautiful world exists and can be made even better by not ignoring the things (or people) that hold us back.

And while I confess to being a gentle arsehole (my apologies for so many technical terms here), I won’t apologize for it.  Maybe the ones who see me as an arsehole need to spend more time looking within.  Perhaps I’m not so much of an arsehole as I am a mirror, offering a reflection of their beauty or ignorance.

Being a gentle arsehole has its rewards and its difficulties.  In the end, what motivates me the most are our children and the legacy that we are creating for them.  Marian Wright Edelman said it best when she said:

If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much.

What do you stand up for?

Why?

Why not?

In service and servanthood,

Harry - an unapologetic, respectful, gentle (most times) arsehole (I mean mirror)