I look back at this year and I can’t help but feel an over-whelming sense of gratitude.
I wanted to accomplish (or to help our company accomplish) some ambitious goals.
We wanted to make this merger happen with this great $ 20MM company on the West Coast to launch a whole new kind of synergy in our industry.
We wanted to win a 10 year $50 Million plus contract for the company we acquired in late 2012.
I wanted to resolve a long outstanding strategic relationship that has grown into a real liability.
Those three things required thousands of things to go right, for us to be successful.
In addition to that, and as a result of that, we have had our biggest year in the company’s history. Our combined revenues (with the merger) are almost 30% higher than the highest year in the company’s history. We had the biggest year in our strategic businesses.
We have two months left, and we have several great accomplishments already checked off.
I didn’t run the mile in under 6 minutes and do 10 pull ups in a row (that had been one of my personal goals). But, I am not done trying. It wont happen this year. I didn’t manage to live the year sub 220 lbs, but I managed to complete a second year sub 230 lbs which is the first time I have accomplished that since my freshman year in high school.
Life is full. My boys are wonderful and busy and growing. My parents are getting older and requiring more time and effort than they have ever required.
It’s all part of it.
The thought that comes to mind as I jump from one thing to the next is, how very smooth it all feels.
So many lovely people concerned about how much I am doing, how little I am sleeping, telling me how hard it must be to be an only child with aging parents, or to have my parents so far away, or to be juggling this merger on top of everything else…
And, I really feel like jumping up and down and yelling… PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don’t waste an ounce of energy feeling sorry, or bad, or sad for me in ANY way!!!
It is not rough to see my mother grow old. I am grateful that she has lived this long.
I continue to learn by watching my parents about the consequence of disharmony, and I am grateful for their example.
I feel so crazy grateful… that I am alive, that I get to live, that I have the means to deal with all of this, that I have the mindset to navigate it calmly (typically), that I get to learn from it, that I get to show my parents that I did love them all those years where perhaps they doubted my commitment to them as I was traveling the world with my job.
I am glad that I can get to show my kids the example of who I want to try to be as a son. Not perfect, by any means, but responsible and loving. And, they are already that.
I am living the life I have chosen to live.
I am living the life that I am fortunate enough to live.
The only thing that makes me sad is that not everyone gets to enjoy harmony.
My poor father, regardless of his massive efforts, has no ability to communicate harmony. He is incapable of getting anyone to follow his lead or his requests. He gets confused. He doesn’t understand why. I feel bad for him.
My mother fading in and out of rationality, is misunderstood, because so many people, include many who love her, can only see her now as irrational, despite the fact that so many of her thoughts are still so very, very rational.
It amuses me and exhausts me that so many people live in an OR world.
I will have to write about this separately but SO, SO, SO many conversations and situations can be resolved by just allowing multiple things to be possible at once and not trying to select one OR the other. We create so much disharmony when its not necessary.
I can be touchy feely and very rational at the same time.
The U.S.A. can be the best country in the world and can be trending toward disaster.
A teenager can be crazy committed to his work and be aloof and often distracted.
A company can be wonderful and still need to improve in many, many ways.
A life committed to learning (that needs to be another blog). So much is possible.
Why does every company want to grow, but so few actually do?
Why do so many people want to lose weight (yours truly included), but so few actually do?
Why do so many people wish for things or want for things but are never able to accomplish them?
I am convinced its because we either fail to acknowledge or fail to accept that the ONLY place we can make any of those things happen is in the immediate moment, in very small and subtle ways as well as bold ways.
We want for so many things… but we make them intellectual, complicated, “thought-out”, distant.
We want for so many things… but we don’t break down what it will take to do them into the granular action of the moment.
And, on the rare occasion that we do, we don’t commit to them moment after moment to actually make them come to life.
It takes ridiculous discipline to achieve anything worthy of achievement… and while we “want” things… are we really committed to them?
I don’t want for things I am not committed to achieving.
I don’t want to lay down plans for our company that I don’t believe are possible. I don’t want to lay down plans for our company that I am not COMMITTED to making come to life. I don’t want to lay down plans for our company and fail to act on them in every moment.
This conversation is a bit all over the place… and I will break down a few of these things in greater detail, but I will leave you with these questions:
1. What do you REALLY want? (They say that you have to write your goals down, and I think that’s because to write them down you have to actually be able to spell them out.)
2. How committed are you not just to WANTING them, but to ACHIEVING them? What we ultimately accomplish is not a function of our desire, but a function of our commitment, a function of our RESOLVE… day in and day out… week in and week out… month in and month out.
3. Are you ready to FAIL? Be ready, because you will, momentarily. Life happens in moments, failure happens in moments, as does success. Be ready to fail, be comfortable failing. And, when you fail, but learn from it… then success becomes possible.
4. Are you ready to succeed? When you actually do, smile enjoy it, and go again… life happens in moments. Success requires stamina.
I believe this is one of the subtleties of learning that over time is giving me an edge. I am so completely comfortable knowing that I have failed. And, despite knowing that I have failed, I am also completely comfortable (now at least – it took me some time) knowing that I am valuable and worthy.
You see – people tend to fall into two types of thinking…
“I am worthy and smart” – This mindset typically thinks that “if I failed, it must have been a result of external factors.” Or, in order to continue to believe that I am worthy and smart, I tend to not think about my failures, because they cause me pause and they make me doubt myself in some subtle and subconscious ways. “I am worthy and smart. So, I walk forward reminding myself of that, and I either try not to think about my failures, minimizing them or externalizing responsibility for them.”
I know that many are reading this thinking – “NOT ME”. Be careful. We all do it. Question is “how often do I do this”, not “do I”?
Or, there are those that struggle… “I am not worthy and not smart enough”. Those people often take too much responsibility for things. They are insecure. They think everything is their fault. They capture wonderful lessons about the places where they failed, but they can’t fully leverage the lessons because they believe themselves inferior, sometimes subconsciously.
Sometimes, we have both of these things in our personalities at the same time, but on different topics. We may think we are great businessmen and terrible dads, or vice a versa.
So, here is the truth. The absolute truth, where you should anchor your thoughts.
You can be worthy and amazing and have failed as a result of your own actions. If you can TRULY embrace that – you can feel the confidence of your worthiness while still bringing forward the LESSONS FROM YOUR MISTAKES. Then you become oh so very powerful.
Imagine if over time, you truly embrace the lessons of your failures while continuing to amplify your strengths. How amazing do you get to be year over year?
This is harmony. Truth is – both are true. In fact, truth is in most of the places where you failed, it was external factors AND it was things that you did or didn’t do.
It’s an AND world.
Why would you limit your truth – and as a result your ability to grow.
If our ultimate goal is to be the very best version of ourselves that we want to be, if the ultimate goal is to live a life that feels successful and happy, if our ultimate goal is to have peace of mind and feel good about our contribution to the world…
WHY, oh, why would we not want to accept the whole truth… that makes us strongest?
Because we think its OR not AND.
Listen to your words.
Probe your own mind.
Trust me.
It's been an amazing year, and
It’s complicated… AND its simple… ;-)
Yours in harmony,
Nestor