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Monday, October 20, 2014

Kedging For the Modern Man

I am not a sailor, but I am about to ‘kedge’. 

The Royal Navy’s seamanship manual from 1904 describes kedging as a means for maneuvering large engineless ships in and out of tight harbours and tidal river entrances.  Historically it has also been (and still is) a method for sailors whose vessels are being pulled by tides or winds towards destructive shores or reefs. 

Here is how kedging works.  A team of sailors take one of the ship’s anchors and ensure it is attached to lots of rope or cable.  They place it in a small boat and row it out in the direction they want move the ship.  They would drop the anchor when they ran out of rope/cable, return to the ship and proceed to pull the ship up to the anchor’s location.  Repeat.


It is a slow, hard process. 

On occasion kedging was the difference between life and destruction.  If strong winds, tides or currents were pulling a ship in a direction that was going to ground or destroy it, or if the ship was otherwise disabled, you had to kedge to save yourself.

I am kedging to save myself, because the tides are taking me into the rocks.

For those who have been reading my blogs, those written in the past 4 years have held hints that this period has not exactly been the pinnacle of peace in my career or life experience.  Much pain, confusion, & questioning.  I have still managed to work, be creative and (I think) visionary.  Nevertheless, something has happened in those 4 years.  I've pulled anchor and have drifted. The anchors that served to root my life, such as physical disciplines, rituals around how I approach my work, and the relationships that sustain me, have been pulled up into the boat.  Ironically, my faith anchor is the only one in the water.  But as the Scriptures say – faith without works is dead.  And I am heading for death.

Maybe ‘heading for death’ is too melodramatic?  Not really.  There is a ring of truth to it.  When you faithfully do your job as I have, but in other areas of life you let go of the rituals and disciplines that give life to you, you are really dying.  Dead while alive.   I found my 'life' was comprised of only instinctual responses.  But usually our instincts (mine anyway) tend toward laziness, selfishness and whatever feels good to you at the time. 

This is when it is time to kedge to save your life.  How do landlubbers like us, kedge to save our lives?


Acknowledge you are adrift.   Wish I could give you the Three Threats or Seven Signs checklists that would clearly indicate your life is adrift.  It’s never that cut and dried.  I suspect that for most, there is an intuitive sense that above all else, we have lost something of ourselves. Something that was once there is missing or depleted.  What once brought joy and anticipation is lost to us.  The ability (even desire) to look ahead in hope is diminished.

 Stop the Excuses.  Excuses are legion.  We have an incredible capacity for self-delusion and rationalization.  One of the most insidious excuses is: “Well, this is just the way I am”.  That is both true and false.  History writes us, but we also write history.  Genetics, nurture, context and a host of other factors have shaped your historical story.  Yet you have an incredible capacity as a human being to also write your own history.  You can choose.

Tell someone. The attempts to change that are conducted in isolation are, frankly, doomed to fail. Those self-deluded rationalizations are like the proverbial devil on your shoulder. They will always be there to whisper, to keep you from the changes needed to keep your life from hitting the rocks.  You need some other, more positive and supportive voices on your shoulders to counterbalance and overwhelm the negative self-talk. 

Identify the anchors you need.  Of course, our society has self-help anchors galore to sell you via DVD’s, books, seminars, etc.  It is tempting to believe these off the shelf products will do the trick. It would be so much easier. However only you really know what you need and what will work.  IF you will take time to identify them, they will be the anchors that will hold and actually get you to safety.

Start pulling for your life.  There is common wisdom out there about creating change.  What I say here is no different:
  • Retreat & Rest – Pull away, walk away, drive away, and get away.  Get out of the dirty water in the fishbowl.  You cannot see clearly from there because you don’t even know the environment you are in is clouded.  Find a place of contrast, but also of rest.  Brain science supports that when we change environments, it helps us become more creative and make connections we otherwise might not make.
  • Realistic Future– Just be honest and ask yourself one key question:  If I did nothing about this, who will I be in 3 years?
  • Ritual – Kedging means you have taken an anchor, placed it out farther from where you currently are and then you start pulling toward it.  Create some rituals to ensure that happens. So, a few simple yet profound observations:
    • What are the specific anchors you need to help save yourself (physical, relational, spiritual, emotional etc.)?
    • What will you do to start pulling your life toward them?  This is the plan/ritual part of the equation.  Intentions change no one.  Rituals/Disciplines/Plans do.

If you can see the rocks, get out the anchors and start kedging. 


Sunday, June 1, 2014

When Today Invades Your Future

Its June 1, 2014.

4 years ago today my wife's father died very suddenly. The day prior we had returned from living and working in Kuwait – also a sudden, unplanned event.

Life and death march on. There is no reprieve from this cycle, no shifting of this course. Inevitable. Unchangeable. It is what it is.

This truth gives perspective to how we live. We all tend to fill life with an incredible amount of investment in futures that may not come to fruition, often at a cost of missing the moments that we possess today.

May I suggest there is a different pulse to life which we need to join? Jesus Christ taught this when He pointed out that there's enough worry & trouble and unpredictability about tomorrow, so why not just live in and enjoy today? He isn't saying to not plan, just don't live in tomorrow as though it is today. Don't set aside the people and joy and tasks of today for a tomorrow that might never come.

Ultimately, whether you will acknowledge or believe it, God holds tomorrows agenda in His sovereign hand. If and when you wake up tomorrow, you will receive the 'orders of the day'. Only then will you know if the future you envision has another day.

I am learning to let God arrange what is needed to accomplish plans. My life has been one of future thinking. I love ideas, plans, possibilities. Too often the future has been my present and I have lost out on living IN today.

The events of 4 years ago – those sudden invasions into my well ordered plans – have been the best incursion ever.

I am learning to wait and to dwell in today, to be content with what that day brings. My current project. Encompass Partnerships (www.encompasspartnerships.org – website goes live June 6) by this September will have been 4 years in the making. I feel I should be farther down the track. I should have more partnerships. I should be pushing current partners to dream bigger dreams and lay tracks for greater things we envision for the future. I should be acting faster for the fulfillment of our future.

BUT instead I am exercising increased trust and willingness to join the pace of my God vs. pushing my own time-lines. In the process I am discovering (why I am so SLOW!!?) that He puts it all together in ways I could never have planned.

He also keeps His promise that His yoke is easy and His burden is light, because in the end He is walking with me into a future that only He knows.

So go ahead – live and love today. Its all you really have until and unless He grants a tomorrow.

A fellow nomad;

Harv

Monday, March 24, 2014

The Strongest Thing in Your Life is…



Growing up in my church the pastor had a saying that has always stuck with me:  “The strongest thing in your life is what you’re looking at”.  He was right.  Whether a material focus, a relationship, a career – whatever - if it is front and centre for you, it carries the greatest power in your life for either good or ill. 

Something else is also true – and more powerful.

The strongest thing in your life is what you are saying to yourself”.

Here is a great example of this that recently went viral on Twitter: http://t.co/RzvhJU1LUN
 
On this nomadic journey, our leadership (and personal) experience will enter dark places as well as bright, wide open plains.  Each context brings with it some default self-talk.  In the dark you doubt.  In the light you feel strong.  Both can be deceptive, but that narrative will influence your actions and reactions.

Two choices face you:

  1. Let the narrative take its course.  Believe it long enough and you will act on it.  Believe it long enough and the narrative will become your story.  The big question here is – is it the story you want? 
  2. Stop and listen to the narrative and ask yourself a few clarifying questions:
  • To what extent is this the narrative I want for my life? 
  •  If I were to live out of this story, who would I be a year from now? 
  •  Am I proud to be associated with this story/narrative?  Is it a legacy I want to leave?  Is this the life I want to live?


Like this kid’s poem, take time to look at the flip side/the reverse of your current story.  Maybe that’s the better narrative.

Harv Matchullis

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Are You Mundane?



1993.  The UN had just helped broker elections for Cambodia.  It was a new day, but a difficult one as the election result was so close a 1st & 2nd Prime Minister arrangement was created.  That did not play out well.  The country was also dealing with the ongoing evils of the Khmer Rouge.

I was there.  The times were interesting and frankly quite exciting. (Some of us expatriate, nomadic leaders find volatility and unpredictability to be a bit of a ‘high’). We lived under curfew for a while due to a volatile new government and the reality of continued Khmer Rouge incursions around the country.  Frequently we experienced this new government at odds with itself, often displayed via gun battles played out in the streets between opposing forces within the new ‘democracy’. We were living in a culture that was rapidly and often haphazardly emerging from the shadows.  Further, I was there as the first pastor of an International church comprised mainly of expatriate NGO workers who were flooding the country.  My role was to help this church get established organizationally & serve the spiritual needs of the expat community.  I also had a family of 5 to care for in all of this.

Though in my element, something was off…

In those days it was all about getting the job done.  We all faced so many issues to help develop this country that personal & leader-development took a back seat.  One day though I decided to receive rather than give and pulled out a "cassette tape" (Google it) and listened to a lecture from a leader whose style  I did not much care for, but I needed some input.  He would have to do.

I was arrested.  Arrested by one phrase:  “ARE YOU IN DANGER OF BECOMING A MUNDANE MAN?”

That was an AHA moment.  I was in my mid 30’s and by that time had lived in 3 countries and had a fairly impressive record (to me at least!!) of starting new ventures and demonstrating leadership in a cross cultural context.  A perspective had developed in me that without any further education or development, I could ride this career train for decades to come – perhaps all the way to retirement.

His series of questions perhaps apply to you today:
-“How content are you with where you are in your development as a person and as a leader?”
-“Are you seeking to go deeper, farther, longer?”
-“To what extent is there a desire in you to be a better leader, father and friend?”
-“Do you feel content with your status quo?”
-“Are you OK saying ‘this is enough’…I can make it without any further effort?”

He nailed it.  He nailed me.  I had allowed a measure of self-satisfaction to not only creep in, but take over the drive and energy that had brought me to this opportunity in the first place.  As a younger emerging leader I knew I had to work diligently to train and develop my abilities.  It seemed obvious at the time.  However now that I was well into the game and the system, I realized I could just ride the rails like some hobo-leader and continue to secure positions based on my record.  My PAST record.


Then and there I saw that I WAS a mundane man – a man who was feeding off his past and who would bring nothing new to the world’s table.  Merriam Webster describes ‘mundane best: “dull and ordinary”.  Ouch.

Preventing the mundane from taking over your psyche and habits takes some intention.  Here are 4 suggestions to help kick start you into an intentional ‘anti-mundane’ campaign for your life:
1.       Surround yourself with peers who will push you.  We all suffer from myopia and worse, self-delusion. Create a cadre of peers who all make a commitment to help each other be better.
2.       Take inventory of inputs.   When was the last time you:
a.      Read a challenging book
b.      Learned a new skill
c.       Took a course that pushed your limits
d.      Dreamed about something greater that you could be or do
3.       Do something that is beyond you. No stretch, no chance for growth. Don’t keep on doing the things you know you can do.  Take on a project or assignment within your current role that is beyond what you feel you have capacity to accomplish.  In Cambodia I remember starting a forum for the many NGO leaders based in Phnom Penh.  I observed they were leading in isolation from each other yet facing so many of the same personal & leadership issues.  I felt quite insignificant among that crowd but new it was a need.  I launched out and not only did it become of value to them but I gained so much in my understanding of leadership by just being among them.
4.       Learn ANYTHING new. Age is not an excuse.  Old dogs do learn new tricks.  The science of the brain reveals just how ‘plastic’ our brains are if we just keep exercising them via learning.  Furthermore learning new information/skills in one area benefits other capacities due to the intricate, integrated and holistic nature of our wonderful brains.  Yes, woodworking has a neural connection to strategic planning!

Finally, 2 questions I hope will push you beyond: ‘hey that was an interesting blog’ and into action:

IF NOT YOU, THEN WHO?

IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN?

Harv
Visiontracks Facilitation & Coaching Services 


Monday, January 27, 2014

Tomorrow Man



If I were a cartoon character, I’d be Tomorrow Man; able to see through the present and into the future;  capable of leaping from what is to what could be.  Yeah – I’d be great and have a very cool suit, kind of like this:

But Tomorrow man has a weakness. His kryptonite is ‘today’.

That’s the issue with my (your) character as Tomorrow Man.  His Tomorrow consumes his Today.  Now that’s not bad when you think about it in perspective of acting ‘today’ in order to create an envisioned ‘tomorrow’.  However it becomes a liability when a leader becomes so consumed with the future that they miss out on ‘today’.  
 
If ‘tomorrow’ consumes today and leaves it wasted and empty, an unrealistic perspective of life and leadership has taken over.  We often hear of the dreamers who are no practical good; of those who are ‘heavenly minded but no earthly good’.  There is some truth to that.

I acknowledge that I have missed out on a lot of the present; the enjoyment of the moment; the dwelling with others (and myself) in TODAY.  As a result I have learned (painfully) that spending too much time on envisioning and living in the future as your current reality will disconnect you from family, friends, hobbies, interests and even from knowledge, because you are so set on getting there you skim the surface of relationships & tasks.

A few thoughts & self-coaching questions from one Tomorrow Man to another Tomorrow Man or Woman:


YOU ONLY POSSESS TODAY.  
No one on this planet has any guarantee that they will have a tomorrow on this earth.  That being the case, take notice of ‘today’. What & who is in it?

  • How can you engage with someone so that if today was your only contact with them, they’d value and cherish it tomorrow?

  • How will the tasks at hand be accomplished if today was your only connection to tomorrow? 

ONLY TODAY GETS YOU TO TOMORROW. 

  • What practical steps need to be taken today that if not done, only postpone tomorrow?

STOPPING TO EMBRACE TODAY MAY HAVE CLUES FOR TOMORROW.  
If you are a leader working on implementing a vision, this is a critical attention-posture to take!

  •  Life and leadership is nomadic.  It is not linear.  As the journey progresses, the turns and twists of circumstances and real-time decisions lead to new and sometimes unfamiliar landscapes. 

  • Rarely will future plans ever turn out the way they were originally envisioned.  Instead of being frustrated with the changes, could it be that what happens in your today holds some clues/ideas/new contexts to actually create an even better tomorrow?

  • How can you create daily space to reflect on how the day’s events influences tomorrow?


Stopping to embrace today makes tomorrow worth it. 
You could lose it all tomorrow.
Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t waste today for a tomorrow that never came? 

Harv Matchullis