Confident, but not really sure.

I recently read this thought-prodding article from Harvard Business Review.

It is part of a blog series that I am following call 12 Things Good Bosses Believe. This particular entry rings pretty true to my experience with Dash & Cooper over the last few months and my life experience since starting my senior year in high school: we all live in uncertainty, which becomes somewhat more certain as time goes on. In my personal experience, mainly in football and entrepreneurship, you don't have very long to try to analyze all the details and different contingencies before you make a decision. You have to make decisions with what you know and what senses you have about where you are going. And then be ready to change your mind.

In the article, the author details a small excerpt from an interview with Andy Grove, longtime CEO of Intel. Something so simple about dealing with complexity that it shifts the way you think a little:

None of us have a real understanding of where we are heading. I don't. I have senses about it. But decisions don't wait, investment decisions or personal decisions and prioritization don't wait, for that picture to be clarified. You have to make them when you have to make them. So you take your shots and clean up the bad ones later. I think it is very important for you to do two things: act on your temporary conviction as if it was a real conviction; and when you realize that you are wrong, correct course very quickly.

Think about it. Read the article. Give me some feedback as to how this applies to your life.

Everything Matters

Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another. - Ernest Hemingway

I was once honored with a most inspiring lecture early last semester in one of my entrepreneurship classes. We were discussing the practice of skill development over time and were told how paying attention to the details of developing skills, framing certain thinking-patterns and hardwiring your personal decision-making model can, over time, allow you to do powerful things when the opportunity presents itself.

Since we were also discussing idea generation, a few of us mentioned how we had thoughts for products that very common today many many years before their time. The reason why we weren't able to act on those ideas was due to the fact that we just didn't have the skills and knowledge to make it a reality. What my professor said next, will stay with me forever:

"Laird Hamilton, as you may know, is a professional big wave surfer. He got to be that way because his biological father left him at the age of four, which caused his mother to move them both to Hawaii. Wandering the beach at a young age, he had a chance meeting with the man who would eventually become his adoptive father, pro-surfer Bill Hamilton. In wanting to please his would-be adoptive father, he took up surfing and continued surfing nearly every waking moment of his life. To the point that he was surfing in amateur competitions before the age of ten and pro competitions in his teens - later setting his sights on big wave surfing. After a lifetime commitment to skill development within surfing he went on to conquer a wave that was never considered possible to ride.

According to Moore's Law, technology will double every seven years. Subsequently, every seven years, a sinlge product will enter the market that significant shifts the paradigm in which society operates within. Shifts it to the point that the very discourse of society through history is altered permanently because the rules about what is possible have been rewritten.


I tell you all this because some time in your life you will come across one, if you are truly gifted maybe two, paradigm-shifting ideas that have the potential to rewrite the rules and shift the historical discourse of society. Often, that wave has formed before you even know that you are on it. To ride that wave, to make that impossible idea a reality, will require you to do something that could never be taught, something that could never have known to prepare for. Whether or not you succeed a combination of a few things: which skills you decide to develop, a lifetime commitment to developing those skills and your ability to come up with the perfect answer to a problem that no one ever thought possible."


Needless to say, my mind was blown. Shortly before walking out of that class room, wondering how I was going to possibly focus on my job at work, my professor showed us this video of Laird Hamilton surfing the impossible Teahupoo to further drill the lesson into us.

Go watch the video, think about what Laird says at the end of the clip about risking his life, and then think about what skills you are developing (whether you intend to or not). Are you knowingly committing yourself to skills that will prepare you for project that may very well define you? Or are you unknowingly developing a skill set that negatively alters your life (shifting blame to circumstances/others, avoiding anything unpleasant, not doing work and then complaining about why you shouldn't be held accountable)?

Think about it. Post your thoughts below.

20/20

Hindsight is 20/20 because the past is always easiest to see. - Bleeding Through

If I've learned anything since my last post. It's that execution of your commitments is the only thing that separates the exceptional from the mediocre.

I've made a lot of claims. I have not followed through on all of those claims. The differentiating variable between what I say I'm going to do and what I actually do is simply the clash between reality and my perception of reality.

Every week I know exactly what my completion rate is. As of writing this, I am at 16% for the week. I have only hit 100% a few times. The reason behind the discrepancies is that when I write out my management reports on Friday, my perception of what reality on that particular day hasn't factored in the things that I have yet to find out. By Monday, only half the list is relevant, by Wednesday, half of that is relevant. The Travis Corrigan that wrote the management report on Friday is different than the Travis Corrigan the following Wednesday. The reality of the space that you are operating in changes quickly in highly chaotic, complex situations. Priorities change as the environment changes, if you can't adapt your organization dies.

So why make a plan if it's going to change? Because over time you get better at calling your own shots, knowing that there are a lot of cognitive blindspots built into your plan. You learn to execute better, you become disciplined and start recognizing work avoidance tactics (like writing blog posts). The practice of executing on a plan makes you become better at planning. It's cyclical: after a while you learn that it's hard to execute a soft, head-in-the-clouds plan. And you learn that you won't accomplish anything of merit with low-standard plans.

It's hard, it requires integritous accountability and dedicate time of reflection to review what you have done and what you have not.

Try it: Write down (yes, write it down) 10 things that you plan to do in a week. Then add 2 stretch goals (mark them with an "s" at the end). Put the document someplace that you can get to easily, preferably someplace that you pass regularly. At the end of the week calculate the following:

Commitments Completed/Commitments Made = % Completion Rate

The exercise isn't about getting 100%, it's about looking at WHY you didn't do what you said you were going to do. Were they not as important as you originally thought that they were? Did some unforeseeable hing that wasn't on your list pop up that took precedent? Are they worth carrying over to next week or should you drop them?

Do this exercise weekly for the next 4 weeks. Tell me your completion rates and any insights that you have about.

Letters

In the spirit of spring cleaning, I am in the process of purging my bloated closet. Chucking things that I thought I couldn't live without in a blitzkrieg, an activity that's surprising easier than I anticipated. I've run into a snag though..

I've stumbled upon an old wooden box, a gift from my grandfather, full of handwritten memories.

Old journals, notebooks with sketchings and thoughts, and manila envelopes stuffed with pictures of times I forgot that I ever experience. It's an odd assortment of mixed-emotions: warm nostalgia, a reawakening to the emotions as I'm transported back to the moments captured by the item in my hand juxtaposed with the knowledge of the less-than-perfect memories that separate the man I am today from the boy was then.

Then there are the letters. They are soft, a sign that a significant amount of time has passed since their inceptions. Letters that my parents wrote the night before my State Championship football game and graduation. Correspondence between old high-school flames that I was convinced I loved at the time. Letters from sisters professing their love just before I moved to California. Small notes I received from friends and family that despite their shortness carry an impact because of their thoughtfulness. Letters from former loves (the real ones), some I remember discovering on my windshield after I finished a work shift, some are printed emails, many I thought I had thrown away during the normal purging that occurs during the painful breakup. Correspondence, either handwritten or printed email, with almost-lovers, their words dancing on the line of deep friendship and wistful thinking.

Then there are the letters that I wrote. The ones which were never delivered. The ones that carry my heart, either in the moments of it's breaking or the heaviness just before breaking another's. Nostalgia takes a twisted turn, traced with a form of regret. An entire library of thoughts cram my head as I walk through those experiences as well as the alternate experiences that I wish would have happened or could have made happen but didn't have the foresight in the actual midst of it all. Oh wait, it was those experiences that taught me foresight.

Then I think about whether or not I should toss them, save them, or even.. send them. Seems like a good idea considering I'm in a state of purge right now. So I think about their effect: they may change the recipient's retrospect of my reality or how I felt during that time but it wouldn't change what happened. Some the recipients I talk to (kinda), some I don't, some I make a point to avoid. I wouldn't even know how to go about finding the addresses to send them along.

As all of this swirls and grows, I find myself taking one last look, a deep breath and listening to the sound as I rip them apart and toss them in the trash can. I don't throw all the letters away, just the ones I shouldn't be hanging on to anymore.

The point is this: That was then, I'm in now. Many of those experiences are buried in pine, six feet under time. My life is much different now than it was then. I'm a much different person too. Who I was when I wrote those letters is dead and gone. The pedagogy of trial by fire has burned the naivety and fear of the unknown. I've lived a little, experienced some and learned what is and is not love and loss. As such, the letters are like takeaway memos of a long meeting that I didn't want to be in. In the scheme of everything I deal with on a daily basis they are just trivial pieces of paper. The lessons are burned on my heart, and I am thankful for them because they came at such a great cost. Throwing them away is just the physical action of hammering the last mental nail to the coffin I began building long ago.

Challenge: Burn it all. Let it go. Don't wish for what should have been or could have been. You can't bring them back, they are chapters that have already been written. Take those lessons and write new ones to look back on, this time with a smile.

Of Boys and Men

"Around the world, boys endure strange and humiliating rites of passage before coming men.. like wearing skinny jeans."

Again, I think Docker's is on to something here on their 'Second Dawn of Men' marketing program. But as I flip through some of the articles in this month's GQ, I notice one that states the 'Is this the End of Male Vanity?', it seems that there is a movement back to the Natural Man (or whatever).

At least it feels like an undercurrent, a subtle movement that man is more than vanity and paper thin shells. There are those who are merely swimming on the surface and those who's waters run deeper. Common sense can easily identify people in the extremes of these two groups: one waxes his eyebrows and gets botox at 21 and the other, well... doesn't.

The fact that this cultural shift occurred around the same time as the Great Recession is not merely coincidental, it may acutally be causal. Men have this interesting connection with the control of resources and through the evolution of various currencies in our history, credit became the soup-du-jour of this past decade. While it was flowing like milk and honey, the vanity factor increased exponentially because we could 'afford' it. Everyone went metro, got spray-on tans and paid (read: borrowed) $120 for ugly t-shirts.

While some ignorant few are still playing the arrogant bit (sidenote, I think it's interesting how closely both of those words are in terms of spelling and meaning). There is clearly an underlying difference between those who still cling to their chunky watches and waxed eyebrows and those who have accepted reality, took a long enough look in the mirror until they understood what they really saw and moved on.

The difference, you ask? Initiation.

Initiation is a wonderful and terrible thing because it separates the men from the boys. It's wonderful (to most) because it ensures that those who come out the other end are really capable of handling great responsibilities while equally (and terribly, to some) ensuring that those who lack the ability to be counted on for anything, simply aren't.

In other cultures, a male is not considered a man until he kills a lion. Then he is able to have the honor of being bestowed the responsibilities of marrying and procreating.

Personally, I think about that and wondering how many idiots had never been born if we had that ritual in our society.

Initiation now, as the Docker's advertisement referenced mentions, is mostly passive. Many men now must seek it or at least be acutely aware that it's happening. The Great Recession has been a wonderful initiation. It's the Darwinist cleansing that capitalism so greatly relies on to expose who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

A man who has been initiated is one that is comfortable in his own skin. He doesn't need to be a poser with designer threads, chunky watches, massive lines of credit, and German cars that he can't afford. He doesn't need to flood his body with supplements and spend all his time being a big fish in a little pond at some gym. He doesn't need to pretend that he's an MMA fighter and look for fights wherever he goes. He needs to be himself and not anyone else. There are enough guys trying to be what the world tells them they should be and they aren't man enough to say no. Being a genuine individual that is conscientious of others and his relationship to them is, in part, being a real man. A real man realizes that he's one of a kind and let's the world deal with the weight of his presence.

Want to know whether or not you are comfortable in your own skin? Here's your challenge: go to a mirror, stand about 3 feet away and look yourself in the eyes for as long as you can. If you feel noticeably uncomfortable or can't hold the gaze for at least a minute, you may have some soul work that you need to do. As always I appreciate your comments and next time I'll be going a little more into the details of initiation.

Of Sacrifice and Significance

Why the hell am I here?


Have you ever wondered that? In the midst of all the frustrations, the responsibilities, the aspirations and the chronic tendency to measure the difference between where you are and where you think you should be, sometimes the thought creeps in. When it's all said and done is there anything that transcends the daily experience of inches that we tend to lump into weeks and seasons whenever we get a chance to look in the rearview mirror? This universe is huge, the population of this planet is about 7 billion, and here I am hanging on for dear sanity on my way to another meeting, appointment, day of work (fill in the blank). Why I am I doing what I'm doing? Why am I not doing something else? If I even thought about doing something different, would it make any difference? Is my life going to make any difference at all? Is the sum of actions and decisions made throughout my life going to impact anything in course of humanity given that so much happens regardless of my interaction? Did my brain just fall out of my head?


I know for me personally, I have a great need for significance. I live for a pat on the back and a "good job, sonny" at the end of the day. I yearn to do things I'm passionate about, do them well and hopefully gain some recognition. I guess that's why I'm a workaholic: I equate significance with productivity. The logic works like this:


1. I want to be significant, to be appreciated for what I bring to the table and how that achieves a "good job, sonny".

2. A job well done requires two things: a job (duh), and a commitment to doing that job excellently.

3. If I do those two things, I get told that I'm doing a good job at the end of some period of time. Corporate America calls this a Performance Review -their 'good jobs' equal a 14 cent/hour raise (hooray!).

4. If I do those two things longer and better than anyone else for a long enough period of time, I get to climb the corporate ladder and (hopefully) be in a position where my actions and decisions affect more people and if I develop myself to be a good leader then (hopefully) my decisions make a positive impact on people's lives and then my significance comes in the form of observing the positive effects of my actions and decisions on a grand scale (hopefully).

5. I die and I take nothing with me.


Pretty awesome huh? Yeah I didn't think so either. It's egotistical and leaves no real impact on anyone for any real period of time after I start decomposing. I'm also dead, so I don't anticipate caring about what people think of me at that point either. Which leads be to the following question:


Why the hell am I here?


I read something super interesting tonight, it's from a book called Wild at Heart, by John Eldredge:


"A young pilot in the RAF wrote just before he went down in 1940: The universe is so vast and ageless that the life of one man can only be justified by the measure of his sacrifice."


Between the meetings, the classes, the studying, the politics, and the constant churning to progress my life to the upper echelon of what America thinks is significance, I often think to myself: this is the hill that I will die on. I'm sure that at some basic level, we have all thought that. This life is Hamburger Hill, it's claiming the lives of good people and turning them into living corpses in their quest to get to the top.



But what about that RAF pilot? ..the life of one man can only be justified by the measure of his sacrifice.



Suddenly, the meaning of personal significance is no longer linked to just doing a job well done. Could it be that real significance is linked to sacrifice? What does that even look like? The core of human nature is arguably survival. At least that's what Maslow and Darwin think. Look out for number One. "What am I getting out of this?"


Sacrifice is significant because it doesn't make sense. From a survival standpoint, sacrifice is unnatural because it requires that you lay down something you hold important for someone else. And that's it. You do it because of your conviction that it should be done and that you are the one to do it. Period. It's not like you walk around thinking, "Gee, I hope something perilous happens today so I can get on the news." Acts of selflessness are so significant because that's exactly what they are: selfless. I'm sure martyr isn't an occupation that kids want to be when they grow up, at least not amongst the industrialized nations. We want to be Astronauts, Sports Stars and Actors, we want to be significant for our unique achievements on a grand scale, not lay them down for the sake of others without payback.


There was a reference in my last post that now, for the first time since bad guys the world needs heroes. What makes a hero? Sacrifice. Taking a few moments out of your commute and your tunnel-vision schedule to do something for someone else. You don't need to rush into a burning building. You don't have to become Batman. Maybe just walk an old lady across the street.


Challenge: Become Batman. I'm kidding. But just try to work in a little sacrifice into your life. And like being a gentleman, don't do it because you get kudos and recognition, do it for the sake of being a man, and largely, being a good person. I want to hear your ideas on how you can actually work this into your life (hint: Consider starting with the people you love).

Death of a Gentleman.

We are a nation of playboys.



I muttered these words to myself as I flipped through the first few pages of this month's GQ magazine. These fashion advertisements portray what these designers think the average American male should aspire to: overly-tanned, self-centered objects of sexually-ambiguous excess. I am in no way homophobic, I have a lot of good friends that are homosexual. But this blitzkrieg of pomp and arrogance succeeds in giving me a model on how to perfectly execute a meticulously-dressed shell. But what about the core?

Then comes one of the most profound advertisements I've seen in recent memory:

Once upon a time, men wore the pants.
And wore them well.
Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone.
Men took charge because that's what they did.
But somewhere along the way, the world decided it no longer needed men.
Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny.
But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for.
The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street.
For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes.
We need grown-ups.
We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar, and untie the world from the tracks of complacency.
It's time to get your hands dirty.
It's time to answer the call of manhood.
It's time to WEAR THE PANTS.

Thank you Docker's. You read my mind.

I recently sat in a group (I was the only male there), and it was a generalized complaint that there were no more gentlemen left. That there was no formality in dating, no courting, just a bunch of guys asking to hang out- hopefully thinking that it will eventually lead to sex. No leadership, nothing to offer, everything to take. All these women came from different backgrounds, they have different perspectives on their roles as women, but the simple aggreance was that they wished for more men to act like men.

Guys: Be a Man. Take charge. Don't be a flaky cop out. Live your life as if it existed before FICO scores, when your signature and your handshake was the only thing that mattered. Open doors for women, take your hats off inside, wear pants that fit, and wear them around your waist with a belt. Have some manners. And do it, not for sex or for "points" as I see so many marriages based on, but for the simple fact that you earn the right to upgrade from "Male" to "Man".

Women: Be a Lady. Let us be men. Shoot hard-lined feminists on site, for that's what they did to gentlemanship. They forgot that there is a difference between heroes and bad guys, thus producing a genderless society where no one wins. Women have more opportunities, but less pay (sadly) and men don't know which actions build him as a man and which ones he will be ridiculed for as a shovenist. Guide the protocol by reciprocating acts of Gentlemanship with acts of lady-like behavior. If you text during dinner on a first date and talk about all the "best guy friends" that you "love to death", don't let it be a surprise when we drop you off at the end of the night and don't call again.

I aspire to be a Man. I want to court a Lady. I want to be a part of a society in which there are basic manners that everybody knows and respects. Being civilized is not a function of enlightenment where you are the most amiable and adaptable man in the room, someone who has no presence. Being civilized is being courteous and having manners but knowing that sometimes you need to draw a line in the sand and stand for what you believe in in a way that is firm but respectful.

There are times to show courtesy and respect and there are times to stand and deliver when that respect has been violated. The more that the latter is emasculated, the quicker Gentlemen become extinct. Because manners and courtesy are derived from unshakeable masculine strength. That strength is only realized and defined when it is put to use. If you stop telling us to put it to use, then all you end up with are a bunch of soft "nice guys."

Gentlemen: It's time to be Men. For the sake of being Men.