Letters to My Kids

It’s very, very difficult to get somewhere when you don’t know where you’re going. If you’ve decided you want to take control of the direction of your life and have an idea of where you want to be, the in-between steps must necessarily be planned to get you closer and closer to those goals.

One of the habits I require of myself is to construct a life plan that’s updated at least yearly; usually around the New Year when resolutions are a point of conversation. The idea behind it is simply ensuring that I take the time to understand what’s important, where I want to see myself and how I’m going to get there. I don’t necessarily advocate my structure above all others – it’s just what works for me at this point in time. I also don’t consider myself a failure if I don’t accomplish everything I plan every time. The important thing is getting a grip on where you want to be and how you’re going to get there. Looking at your progress every year gives you a better grip on how realistic your goals are and how much time it’s going to take to get there.

This is the way mine is laid out:

A personal mission statement, reviewed yearly. This is a basic statement of the kind of person I want to be, the values I cherish and what I consider to be my guiding principles. I relied heavily on Steven Covey when putting this together. I refer to this everytime I add or remove something from this document. This helps me to decide if what I’m adding/removing really needs to be added/removed, as well as to prioritize things.

Mine contains items like:

• My life is guided and ruled by principles. Circumstances, friends, foes, employers, society and my own emotions are influential in my life, but do not control it.
• Sacrificing one’s principles is the ultimate sell-out and an improper and unrewarding means to an end. Because I believe this, every action, decision and thought is to be filtered to determine if what I do is morally just.
• My wife and children are the most important people I will ever know. Our relationships are paramount – there are no situations in which another is greater. I will make our home a place of refuge, joy, education and integrity. I will help my children to seek independance, not entitlement.
• I will treat all men with the dignity they deserve. I will honor and lift up others whenever possible, and will seek to be the handrail on the ascent to excellence. Wherever possible, I will seek to have good relationships with all people. No one is beneath me, neither I them. I will forgive as often as I hope to be forgiven, but I will avoid allowing harmful relationships to continue unchecked.
• I will seek to be all I have the potential to be. I will be a lifelong learner. When it is feasible, I will seek wealth, acclaim, appreciation – because these things encourage and sustain. But this is not the end goal.
• Success is defined in terms of the struggle against myself. The prize is self-realization.

An extended goals section, with 5, 10 and “retirement age” goals. These are a bit more practical, outlining financial and career decisions and major accomplishments I’d like to have under my belt at this point.

Mine has things like

• Where I want to be in my career at the 5 & 10 mark
• Where I want my household income, investments, savings, etc. to be at the 5 & 10 mark.
• How I want to retire (working, second career, leisure, etc.)
• How I plan to retire that way (expenses, income, investments, savings, etc.)
• My children’s schooling and anticipated support
• Where I’d like to see my hobbies and diversions going
• Social circle and makeup – in terms of people and community
• Spiritual goals – what I want to understand, levels of discipline, levels of maturity

Accomplishments from previous year section. This is mainly to boost my morale. It’s a list of everything that went right, and any observations about why it went right.

Mine has things like:

• 30-45 mins exercise 3 times a week yielded a strength gain of nearly 15% and weight loss of 30 lbs.
• Read 14 quality books that expanded my knowledge and consciousness. Maintaining an Amazon list kept the items I found interesting throughout the year readily available when I finished a volume.
• Performed as a duo to a crowd of 600 with no hiccups. A lot of this was due to my new guitar rig which is free of the old one’s bugs.
• Purchased a robotic vaccuum that relieves me of about 30 mins work per week, or effectively, a extra day this year.

Lessons learned from previous year section. Each year I look at yearly goals that I didn’t accomplish, or things that really went wrong and try to figure out why they didn’t go as planned – and how that knowledge can help me this year.

Mine has things like:

• Did not accomplish the planned landscaping job because of timing issues. Attempting to delay this until it was convenient kept it from happening at all.
• Fell off my financial tracking in May, causing a big catchup effort in November. If I’d stayed on schedule, it was only around 15 minutes a month. Catching up in November killed an entire night I would have liked to have had for other purposes.
• Fell off my self-education plan because it was incompletely laid out. I hit a point of having to restructure the plan mid year and never got around to it. The initial structure needs to be complete before I begin, because it’s easy to lose motivation mid-stream.

Yearly goals section. Specific things I’d like to accomplish in the upcoming year. These are definite, measurable accomplishments that I think I have a fair shot at completing. I usually split these up into categories so they’re easier to track.

Mine are seperated in this manner:

• Family – items like plans for school, time planned with each other, contact with relatives, education, vacations, etc.
• Household - home maintenance, improvement, projects.
• Personal – hobbies, talents, skills, reading schedule, personal habits, fitness, spiritual, etc.
• Financial - budgets, investments, retirement planning, education planning. I also like to stick small goals like “no new cars this year”, “no new computers this year”, etc. along with budgeting.
• Social - planned outings, calls and card planning, party planning, etc.
• Career – along with the employer-supplied goals, I try to take steps toward constantly rethinking a career, making myself marketable and keeping an eye on the job market – as well as working toward plans for future careers.
• Community – church and community related participation

Finally a rough calendar where I take all of the yearly goals and loosely plan when they should occur. This has to be really general and flexible, but it does come in handy for tracking progress and pre-planning.

Of course, the approach is only valuable when it fits your situation. I’d guess when you’re a student, it’d probably be sensible to set your review times around the school year, or half year perhaps. Any planning is better than none, but the best will cover your entire life – not just the obviously measurable stats.

It works well for me – it might for you.

This may seem like one of the simplest pieces of advice I’ve passed along, and it probably is. I’ve got a wonderful tool to share with you in your life’s survival kit. It’s an amazing enabler, with the capacity to procure what you desire, give you priority service, grant you V.I.P. status and provide vast amounts of information, some that’s beyond the priviledge of the everyday guy. The enigmatic thing about it is though it’s available to everyone, practically no one uses it.

The tool is… asking. Asking questions. Asking permission. Asking for favors. Just asking.

An example can be found in restaurants. Almost every low-cost restaurant has a phone number, email address or mail-in card to let you express your satisfaction. I use these religiously. Every time I have a shoddy experience or a great experience. Some people seem to feel they’re doing a disservice to the people on duty at the time to report dissatisfaction, or they make excuses (like big crowds, or off hours) for the treatment they receive. I figure the owner of the business is receiving a favor by understanding how his long hours and high investment is being sabotaged. And I nearly always receive an apology and a coupon for free product. And in nicer restaurants, the person in charge will often seek to correct the problem on the spot. Just because I asked.

I don’t go to as many small shows anymore, but it’s an insider fact that especially with small bands or performers, they are more than willing to give you special treatment at their shows. If they allow taping of the performance, many groups will allow you to insert your own recording equipment directly into their soundboard for a perfect copy. Many will allow you to “meet and greet” the performers after a show. Some even have promotional gifts available. But they can’t accomodate everyone – so it’s just for those who ask.

You would think that people who have an impressive skill – playing an instrument, public speaking, a job-related aptitude, etc. – would guard it like a trade secret. You would be wrong, at least with most people. I have learned so much about the world simply by asking “How did you do that?” “How did you learn that?” “Where can I get that?” A weightlifter wants to let you know his workout routine. A musician wants to show you what they’ve learned. An accomplished person will enjoy explaining to you what makes them superior.

So many people are ready to share their lives, their skills and their secrets with anyone who will listen, but no one asks. So many companies will make concessions to improve their standing with customers, but no one asks. So many insiders are looking for company, but no one asks. So many events and organizations are willing to let people get inside the events, but no one asks.

The rebate principle is even built around that premise. Many office product stores in this day and age give away items for free after rebate. Products are offered below dealer cost, after rebate. How can they afford to give away products? Because most of the people who purchase them don’t take the time to fill in the rebate. They just don’t ask for their money back. The stores understand this and profit from it. But the return of your purchase price is still there for the asking.

Why? I guess timidity is part of it. Maybe some people don’t want to put forth the impression that they think they are priviledged. Maybe it doesn’t seem worth the time, or the fear of rejection may come into play.

But people like to do other people favors. You may balk at this, because people superficially can seem rude, self-centered, out for their own best interests. And most people are. But people enjoy goodwill – the positive feeling they get for doing someone a favor. So if they can do someone else a favor and feel they’ve received a benefit, they will. If you ask someone for $50 from their own pocket, they will likely refuse you, because the $50 is worth more to them than your goodwill. However, if you ask for a $50 gift from their employer and the employer will not punish them for doing so, they’re getting your goodwill for free. If the event promoter is empowered to give people upgraded seats at a low attendance event, he’ll do it for you because he gets your goodwill for free (and because you asked nicely instead of trying to sneak down mid-show). And businesses will do you favors in the hopes that you will bring them more business.

A key to this skill is learning how to ask. Being nice, being humble and finding an opportunity to ask that doesn’t intrude on the person you’re asking is paramount. Demanding priviledge gets people’s dander up, and they’ll refuse if possible – because your presentation has eliminated the goodwill. And you have to be prepared for rejection. Sometimes people just don’t have the resource to give you. Sometimes they would get in trouble for offering it, or cross a person they want goodwill from more than a stranger. And part of asking is learning to accept graciously and receive rejection graciously.

But the fact of the matter is this; the worst they can do is say no. Confirm that you don’t get any special priviledge. Everyone else in the same situation assumed this already, so no loss. The best they can do is hand you your desires on a silver platter, elevate you in the sight of your peers, expand your knowledge and advantage beyond your means. The risk is more than a fair tradeoff, and if handled graciously, minimized to the negligable.

Just ask.

Sometimes I see life as a canoe trip.

Some people float aimlessly down the stream, going with whatever current is guiding them, occasionally paddling here or there to keep themselves from capsizing. Another group take paddle in hand and choose their own journey. I suppose either choice is a valid one. Some people want to take the ride and enjoy the scenery. Some people want to see just how exciting they can make the trip. Most of us are probably somewhere there in the middle.

Everyone starts out just floating. For a while, it’s going to be beyond your power to influence the path of your life – especially during childhood. You just don’t understand that there’s anything beyond floating. At some point, you become mature enough to understand that you can take the paddle and go where you want.

Everyone isn’t on an even plane. Some people just have better paddling skills. Some have better equipment. Some people luck into the faster currents, or the slower ones. Some have a lot more rocks to navigate. Some people have an experienced guide to advise them about the best paths to take. Some people are just not exactly sure what kind of trip they want to make, or what kind of activity they can handle. Some people just have an easier time getting where they want to be. Some of these things you can change, many more you cannot.

It would seem to me that the best plan for someone who wants their ideal ride is to get started early. If you know you want to hit points A, B and C in the river ahead of you, you’re much more likely to be successful if you start heading that way farther upriver. It’s a lot easier to navigate to point A by steadily paddling for a half mile in that direction than it is to get within 50 feet of it and furiously churn against the current to move laterally – or even against the stream. And you can enjoy the scenery along the way.

If you ever hear grown-ups talking about wishing they could go back to childhood and do things over again differently, this is what they’re talking about. They find themselves looking back up the river at some place they really wanted to be, but don’t think its possible to get back upstream that far.

When I was in high school, I felt like I had a pretty good grip on life. I had a college and a major picked and a few ideas about things I wanted to do. Seeing the aimlessness of many of my friends, I thought I was ahead of the game. And maybe I was. But my biggest regret at an older age is not understanding at that point in time how limited my vision was. I had visualized myself as far as college and had vague intentions beyond that, but that was it. By the time I better understood some of the things I wanted to accomplish, I was having to overwork myself to get back to those points missed in the river. Some were so far back I couldn’t make it. If I had it to do over again, I like to think I’d have put together the skills, the contacts, the opportunities earlier – so that I was ready to get to those points more easily.

This is repeat advice, but maybe the analogy is worthwhile. Don’t wait for your future to drop in your lap. Get started early toward your goals. Even if it’s just the process of understanding what your goals are.

So, what do you want to do with your life?

Sometimes I wonder if grown-ups are quite as smart as they think they are.

When we took you to preschool for the first time and you got over your “I’m not sure I want to be here” jitters, the first thing you did was head for the nearest classmate and start asking questions.

• “What’s your name?”
• “Do you like Spiderman?”
• “I saw Star Wars!”

Draw that in stark contrast with your parents, who while friendly, have a completely different approach:

• “So the early drop off time is 6:30? ” (We’re rarely out of bed by this time)
• “Nice weather, huh?” (It’s 68 and sunny… really insightful dialogue)
• “What’s the menu like?” (As if you’d eat anything besides chicken nuggets anyway…)

The difference, of course, is that the child is having meaningful dialogue, collecting necessary information, determining compatability, forging partnerships. The parents are trying to appear friendly and looking for the exit. We’re doing “small talk”.

Where do we learn to start shutting potential relationships out of our lives with barriers of sports scores, meteorology and anectotes? We so crave human contact, yet avoid it for fear of finding the wrong human to contact. We would live and die by our friends, but do so little to make more of them. It seems we almost have to be forced into our closest relationships. Neighbors. Soldiers in foxholes. Teammates. Coworkers. Fellow students. We endure people uncomfortably until circumstance forces us to have something in common to discuss.

Be the mold-breaker. Avoid the small talk. Learn something about the people around you. Ask their names. Understand their interests. Learn their habits. Share their dreams.

Of course it’s a big world, and it’s not practical to know everyone. And frankly, you don’t need to know some of them. But you can know the people that you’re around regularly and feel safe with. You can share facts about yourself without sharing contact information or where you live or anything else that might be a safety concern. You can avoid limiting yourself to a couple of friends. You can talk to the others in line for tickets, or a table away at a restaurant, or in the foyer of a church.

A great exercise is to challenge yourself to learn one thing about a person you spend time around that you couldn’t determine just by looking at them. Maybe it’s their opinion, or some history, or some skill. Compliments work well if you can convince a stranger you have no ulterior motive.

At worst, you might make life a bit more bearable for a few minutes. At best, you might find a new best friend. And if you get in the habit young, you’ll be an expert networker before you know it. The old adage “it’s not what you know, but who you know” was never more applicable. You can get a real head start on life by knowing the right people.

Let the masses waste their times holed up in their little barriers. Get to know people.

I’m not sure what it is about people in my generation, but it’s nearly impossible to participate in an activity without a soundtrack. No matter where you go, music or other background noise gets pushed into your life. Supermarkets and elevators muzak you to death, restaurants blare local radio or television, the gym is pumping a little of each at you from every corner.

And we’re willing participants, too. It seems most everyone goes around with headphone music players, car radios and televisions turned up to ear bleeding volumes. We seem to feel a need to stuff every minute of our existence with some background noise to distract us from what’s in front of our eyes.

When you exercise, drive or study, don’t automatically tune in a station or drop in a disk. Give yourself some time to meditate, to think, to dream. It’s a standard cliche that most people get their best ideas in the shower. Know why? Nothing but the running water to distract your mind from wandering around, connecting a few neurons and coming up with ideas and thoughts that are uniquely yours. Music will relax or push you, but thinking and dreaming energizes you.

When it comes down to it, our thoughts and dreams are the only real advantage we can always count on. So few people actually take time to think about their actions, the consequences, the possibilities. You’ve got a natural advantage just by using the tools everyone else leaves dormant.

Think about the events in your life and how they could have been handled better. Dream about the person you want to be. Connect the disconnected clues life gives you.

Enjoy the silence.

Every salesman with some experience under their belt will tell you the secret to pushing a product is not the product, but the story. If you want to sway opinion, you never do it on the merits of the product. It’s all about the history, the romance, the mystery.

Pay a bit of attention to the promotion of politics, religion and relationships and you’ll see “The Story” played wherever there’s no clear-cut advantage to a position or issue – and often if there is. People are interviewed for jobs because they’re looking for the story behind the facts on your resume. Biographies sell so well no matter how shallow because people are looking to fill in the story behind the person.

Sometimes the story is implied. There’s nothing to a event t-shirt to make it any more desirable than your basic cotton undershirt that comes 3 to a pack. But you wear the logo proudly because of the story people assume is behind it.

Storytelling is an art, and at the same time a very effective tool that can be applied to a lot of situations. The right story is only effective to its particular situation, so it’s difficult to come up with general examples. Here’s a very specific one which you can hopefully catch the vibe and apply to your own situations:

Ex: the Gift

You are a little concerned about delivering your significant other a piece of jewelry, when you really think they’re expecting more. Give a story instead. Start with some cheerful (as in, don’t sound like you’re complaining), humorous descriptions of fighting the traffic and other shoppers and work in how long you agonized over just the right gift to find, because ordinary was just not good enough for them. Explain how you were looking for something really exotic that no one else would have and that as this gift caught your eye, all you could think about was how the blue in it was such a great match for the color of their eyes, and that the salesperson talked about how it was made by hand by a family in Hong Kong and each one was completely unique, and you just couldn’t get out of your head how this beautiful, unique piece of art was just like the beautiful, unique person they are. Comes across a lot better than a pendant in a “happy birthday” gift bag.

I’m certainly not suggesting you lie or misrepresent yourself to make things look better. You want to stay rooted in the truth. But a lot of things go on in your life to prompt actions that you may not immediately realize. Something about the gift you chose reminded you of the person receiving it. Something happened in your life to bring about the achievements you’ve put under your belt. Something happened to influence you to make a deicsion. In many cases, it’s just a matter of thinking it over and understanding why you made the choices you did. And most of the time, there’s a somewhat compelling story around those shallow facts.

People are drawn to stories. We love to tell them and we love to hear them. And the older you get, the more valuable we find them. We tend to save them for social occasions among our closest friends, but they’re applicable in so many situations. The story is usually the difference in whether or not someone cares about an outcome; at the least, it’s a prime mover. It’s the heart that’s injected into the cold facts.

The flip side to this is receiving a story. Nothing is more disheartening than pouring out your story to an uninterested recipient. It’s a subtle statement that says that the other person’s experiences are not valuable, or that you just don’t want to seek a greater degree of friendship with them. However, you can often bridge this gap if you can get them to tell a story of their own, that you can relate to a similar incident in your life. It takes a sharp mind and a lot of thinking on your feet, but it can really be effective.

One of my job interview tricks was always to scope out the interviewer’s office space for pictures of themselves. If someone displays publicly a picture of themselves at a location, or with a prize or the like, you can be pretty sure a story along similar lines that opens the door for them to tell you their story will result in a great experience for both of you. If they held it in a generic conference room, I always asked if it was too much trouble to see the workplace. Once you’re walking their inner sanctums, you will come across a world of opportunities to spin tales. And if you had a somewhat stuffy interviewer, the more casual setting of walking the premises will often get them to open up a bit.

So in a nutshell:

• Tell a story to sell someone on your opinion, your offering or yourself.
• Be sensitive to signs of disinterest, and give them the chance to offer their own story.
• Listen to other people’s stories to endear yourself to them.

These are basic life skills. Everyone applies them socially, and often unconsciously. Apply them with purpose and you’ll be amazed what you can achieve.

Few things are more frustrating than making mistakes. In addition to whatever circumstances you inflict on yourself as the result of a mistake, there’s the additional dig to your ego. We like to kid ourselves that we’re somehow infallible. That if we focus carefully enough, we can make the right choices every time and enter some blissful alpha state of life.

There is a lot of value in making mistakes. The lessons you learn help you to expand your horizons and prepare for bigger challenges down the road. It’s a necessary component to growth. Most successful business owners have a streak of failed businesses that preceded the good one. Many multi-millionaires have been through bankruptcy. It’s a fact that you have to take risks in order to pull away from the crowd. The law of averages ensures that along with that risk will come failure occasionally. If you dig beneath the superficial, you’ll generally find that the people you admire generally came about those traits through a trial and error process.

The key to growth in your mistakes is this: Never make the same mistake twice.

Making the same mistake twice means you didn’t learn from the experience. You didn’t take a look at what went wrong and correct the problems for the next application. These are the persons that can’t find their way out of debt. That can’t hold relationships together. That spend their lives waiting for some miracle to pluck them out of the mundane and hand them a blissful life on a silver platter. Experience will teach you that these acts of grace rarely happen, and that most people blessed with a windfall tend to waste it away because they hadn’t developed the skills and habits necessary to preserve what they were handed.

When you find yourself in a situation of acknowledging a failure, take some time to review it.

• Why did I fail? What contributed to this undesired outcome?
• What could I have done differently to bring about the outcome I wanted?
• Who/what were the sources of faulty information that I relied on?
• What personality quirks of mine may have contributed to the mistake?
• What kind of safeguards can I put in place to avoid it in the future?
• How can I change my way of thinking to be better prepared the next time opportunity arises?

Someone I know makes an ongoing practice of keeping the mistakes he makes in a little book to periodically review. It’s a bit anal-retentive, but very effective. Before he steps off the deep end into a big decision, he makes it a ritual to re-read the “book of mistakes”, just to ensure he’s thought things through from every angle.

Mistakes aren’t something that many people desire, but they are good. As long as you receive them and learn from them. They’re the most effective educator around.