Mindset Matters

  Ruminants are mammals that have an interesting strategy of regurgitating contents from their stomachs and re-chewing their food to extract additional nutrients. That’s exactly how it sounds, they puke up in their mouths to munch on dinner for another go-around. The name “ruminate” even comes from a Latin root that means, “to chew over again.” Ruminants include cattle, sheep, goats, deer and several other species. It’s a process designed to maximize the absorption of nutrient content in food. Humans ruminate as well, although it’s our thoughts and experiences rather than our food we tend to chew on again. Unfortunately, it’s often the negative aspects of our past that we bring back up. As we regurgitate previous thoughts and experiences, we tend not to extract the beneficial aspects, but rather we end up squeezing extra negativity out of our past that should have long been eliminated and expelled. This rumination of negativity is believed to be a powerful destructive force to ...

  Matthew 18:4: “Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” That verse caused me to pause when I read it the other day. I have kids, and although they are wonderful, they are far from perfect. And “humble” isn’t always the first thing to pop into my mind when I think of them. But while kids can be moody and self-centered just like the rest of us, they do have a humble curiosity about them that is both refreshing as it is inspiring. And despite their inborn human selfishness, children also have a tendency to be outward focused rather than inward. The world around them is new and exciting and they are little sponges taking in all the novelty. They view their experiences with awe and wonder. They are seeking to learn from the world more than they are trying to prove to the world what they already know (I am assuming this is reversed in the teenage years). I think this is a part of childlike humility. But as we age, the marve...

I recently attended a function to support local law enforcement, seeking to encourage them during a time when their job is especially difficult. We had a great group of friends and family together as we cheered on the men and women who sacrifice a lot to protect our town. There was another group that formed just down the street in protest to what we were doing. It was clear, as one of my kids pointed out, that “they just want to be mad.” Unfortunately, members of this other gathering were able to engage a few people from our group and instigate an argument that went exactly nowhere. The problem with some people is that they aren’t interested in the truth or being enlightened, they just want to argue. Fighting is more important than facts. And that tendency is as prevalent today as any time I can remember since I have been alive. Whether it’s mask wearing, political affiliations, race, religion, or myriad other unfortunate dividers, so many on either side of those disputes seem far ...

  Yup, we are still on adversity for just a bit. Because we are a society that chases comfort as an end in itself, I think we (and especially I) need reminders of its dangers. We’ve all heard that we learn more from defeat than we do from victory, but it can also be said that we learn more from adversity than from comfort. Comfort lulls us to sleep. It causes complacency. It keeps us from pushing ourselves. It keeps us from being our best. It threatens progress and development because comfort wants us to stay put. Adversity heightens our senses. It illuminates what is truly important in our lives. It spawns creativity. It strengthens resolve. Adversity causes us to reach deep inside ourselves and find out who we really are as we seek a “why” behind our service and sacrifice. Adversity, if we let it, makes us better. Once again, adversity is the opportunity.   “Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship.” – Denzel Washington

  Beginning back in February, the Great Companies of America, represented by the S&P 500, saw their combined value slide 34% in just over a month. It was the most violent decline in US stock market history, according to Standard and Poors, and the “worst” 33 days in the history of the S&P 500 Index. Many investors panicked. They stopped buying the Great Companies of America, and what’s worse, many sold them at fire-sale, fear-induced prices. They gave away their life savings at a discount. Other investors, those with a long-term view who could look past the discomfort and uncertainty of the moment, made the choice to buy shares of those same companies on sale. They chose to see opportunity in adversity. Where others saw the end of the world, they saw a 34% off discount on the largest, most robustly capitalized companies in the United States. And what followed, in true storybook fashion after the market bottomed out on March 26 th (based on the S&P 500 Index), was t...

  I woke up this morning with a full to-do list already scheduled. As the day progressed, more items were being added to my plate: calls, meetings, emails, etc. All normal stuff, but I found myself trying to figure out how I would balance the day and get everything done. I was spending increasingly more mental effort on how I would complete the entire list of tasks and leaving less energy to focus on the task at hand. Maybe I am the only who one suffers from borrowing trouble at times, but I doubt it, so I will unpack this for just a moment. When we try to bear burdens not yet on our shoulders, we waste precious energy and jeopardize that which we are carrying in the moment. Now, I am not against planning and prioritizing, but sometimes we must narrow our focus to what is imminently important in the moment, and temporarily block out what we can worry about later. We must plan for the future but engage in the moment. It’s a delicate balance. And when the former begins to sabotag...

Continuing the theme from The Okay Plateau , how do we avoid the leveling out of skills and development? Well, all learning and honing of abilities begins in the brain. Whether it’s a musician, a painter, a soccer player or an orator, or even a father trying to listen better to his teenage daughter, it all starts with the neurological pathways in the brain. Think of impulses and signals being sent down neurons from the brain to other parts of the body like a mail truck traveling a freeway to deliver messages. The body begins to enhance the efficiency of those pathways most often used, just like a city might widen a popular highway and keep the pavement clean and smooth.   There are two triggers that cause this enhancement to continue, that create a continual improvement of signal transmission and thus learning: feedback and failure. In order to continue to progress and continue to improve, we have to push ourselves to face the two things almost no one wants to deal with. As hum...

  I had a conversation with some family members the other day about the concept of continual improvement. The idea that, regardless of the proficiency we have already developed in a particular skill or discipline, we are able to always improve in the areas of our lives that are important to us (I’m okay with my sub-par paper mache skills and not really looking to advance that “skill”). But the problem lies in the tendency to get to an acceptable level of competence and then stop advancing. We get complacent. Apparently, there’s a term for this leveling-off of development: The Okay Plateau. And evidently, it’s a quite popular place! Consider your driving skills: you are likely not significantly more skilled as a driver than you were five or ten years ago despite thousands of hours of “practice.” Or how about your typing ability? Whether it’s on your phone, computer or some other device, you likely spend several hours a day doing some kind of typing (yes, texting and browsing socia...

  “I’m sorry, I just can’t …”     I think we’ve all started an excuse with something along those lines. “I can’t meet you for dinner because I have to preen my duck (hey, it’s a thing!).” The excuse isn’t just a lie – well, I guess it could be true if you have a disheveled mallard on your hands – but it is also disempowering. We use “I can’t” when we often should be saying, “I won’t.”   The distinction is important. Not only is “I won’t” more honest with the person we are trying to let down gently, it’s also more honest with ourselves. When we say, “I can’t,” it positions us as victims. We are saying we have no choice in the matter. We are helpless.   But when we say, “I won’t,” we are in a position of power. We are making a choice. Even if that choice is foolish or selfish, we are at least taking responsibility for that decision rather than pretending it is being made for us.   Take back control and try inserting, “I won’t” when you would n...

  It is easy to be critical of someone who is always talking about what they want to accomplish, but their speech never turns into action. They never execute their plan. But the other extreme poses problems as well. The temptation to move too quickly towards a goal poses many risks, but one key danger is the pressure to take shortcuts. Ignoring the fact that many shortcuts won’t actually take you towards your desired destination (although the path may deceptively appear to do so at the outset), possibly the biggest problem with shortcuts is that they cheat you out of the growth along the journey. It is easy to be so focused on the target, on the desired goal, that you forget it’s the process and the path that prepare you for the very outcome you’ve been working towards. Far too often we see individuals who take shortcuts and miraculously, or by sheer dumb luck, achieve their goal, only to have it blow up in their face because they weren’t ready to handle the responsibility of a...

This morning did not start the way I wanted it to. Meeting with a plumber is never how you want your week to start, but it’s especially frustrating after waiting for an hour beyond the scheduled meeting time, only to hear back from the plumbing company that they don’t even have anyone available to send your way and to “just sit tight, we will get to you eventually.” I had already delayed my morning by over an hour for the meeting, but now I was set back two and a half hours with nothing to show for it. Frustrated and crunched for time, I resumed my normal morning routine of hitting the gym. Working out for me is much more than a health commitment. It’s my stress release valve. It’s how I clear my head. It’s how I set the tone for the remainder of my day. But here I was on this morning starting two and a half hours behind and having to cut the day short at the other end as well so I could get back to the house for when the plumbers rescheduled (I wonder if they’ll actually show up …...

Years ago, my mom made me a cowboy outfit (yes, we were homeschooled and made our own clothes). I remember watching her sewing it while I planned all the adventures I would have all decked out in my Clint Eastwood attire (side note: thirty-five years later these clothes still exist and my mom likes to dress my own son in them … we were homeschooled, it’s what we do). When the day finally came and the clothes were finished, I was devastated as I tried on the outfit only to learn it was too big! My long wait (probably a week, but’s that’s a long time when you are five) would now be extended even longer as I now had to grow into what my mom had made for me. I think our goals and dreams are a lot like that outfit sometimes. We wait for what seems like forever to see them come to fruition, only to learn we must still “grow into them.” If we “tried on” those opportunities and roles now, they would be too big. They would overwhelm us. So, we must patiently wait some more while t...