GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY: It's Not about Happy!

Happy Monday Kids…

I want to close out month 5 of this blog by quoting the Seussian-style poem that I wrote for my first blog on my birthday:

I’m 60, and 60’s a beautiful time; I’m living the dream, and can say it in rhyme. I’m not without problems. I’m not without frets. I’m not without challenges, ailments, or debts. But I realized something at age 48, that has grown in me stead’ly since that crucial date. What if life’s more than simply a circumstance state?

Do you guys understand what it means?  Do you?

I’ve gone full circle here because today is the last post about change, and in some ways, it may be my most important insight on the topic;

IT’S NOT ABOUT HAPPY.

What the heck does that mean? Permit me a moment to slip into trainer mode.

Take a look at this graphic … I use it when training people about the stages of change. In many ways, it looks like the grief-cycle.

If we drill down a bit and include emotional states then the graphic fills in with some details that can be helpful in understanding what happens inside a human being when

change happens. The main point here is that unless a person has a brain dysfunction, every human goes through this full cycle … covering every single emotion … with virtually every change.

Change is what happens externally to us. The main truth about change is that it’s inevitable. Transition is the inner response to change. It is personal (different from what other people experience) and it is always emotional (can’t be avoided). Now the speed at which we work through the curve depends on us. This is where the personal-management stuff comes in and all the things we’ve discussed earlier this month.

When I myself was being trained on this subject I picked up this next graphic … and it’s the one that provided my biggest AHHA! moment. It shows the full-detailed emotions and thoughts of someone, typically in an organization, that is going through change, beginning with simply their thoughts about change through to 3 different outcomes. Look at it closely and then I’ll discuss a few key things.

The 3 different emotional outcomes are nicely depicted here:

First you have the people who are disillusioned and ultimately scared-off by change and end up escaping; they deal with it by taking the “flight” path.

Second you have the people who don’t have the guts to leave but they also don’t work through the curve emotionally, on the inside … so they remain … but they remain as a martyr or an enemy.

Third you have the “proper” path of transition where the person works through the emotions and emerges out the other end in what is referred to as “moving forward.

When I teach through this graphic I conclude by asking people, “was there anything in this image that surprised you?”  90% of the responses are the same response that I had when I first saw it; Happiness is not at the end of the middle “proper” path. In fact, it’s almost near the beginning of the transition-journey. The 10% who are not at all surprised by this are usually seniors. Life has already taught them this truth. I believe though that this is important to learn before you reach those years so that the entire tenor of your life will be different. Better!

Now both of you are smarter than me (ie: more raw intelligence). But this has nothing to do with IQ … this is completely about emotional intelligence and seeing the wisdom in this graphic. In an organization, sometimes things deteriorate and change is needed. Typically, the troops know this long before the leaders do, and people are hungering for change. The people might even be pushing hard on the leaders and demanding that things change. So when change is actually afoot and people get a sense that it’s going to happen, they get a sense of relief that, “finally, things are going to change around here.” They get a sense of happiness that life will unfold better and they even get a bit excited about it. But in almost all cases, when the changes actually start rolling out, they are never exactly what people had in mind and disengagement, disillusionment and discouragement come very easily.

However, when people marshal their own inner expectations and responses and cognitively move themselves through the curve, the journey to “acceptance” can come quickly (or at least quicker) so that they are not being crushed by the changes. It’s only then that they can actually “move forward” in their life and not be held-back emotionally by the changes that have happened (or continue to happen).

The goal of managing yourself through change is NOT to get to a state of happiness. This is an error that children make. The problem is that far too many people grow into adulthood while still carrying this childish emotional expectation. This becomes a huge dysfunction in their life.

The goal of managing yourself through change is so that you can move forward. Happiness is a mental state that comes through choice about how we interpret life’s circumstances. Happiness is by-product of choosing to move forward.

Much of that third diagram applies to most changes. But when we employ it with extreme situations such as the changes that result from the loss of loved ones or the loss of a job or the loss of good health, it becomes pretty clear that “happiness” is not waiting for us at the end of the curve. We need to deal with and “accept” the new reality so that we can “move forward” one again and live life effectively and productively rather than remaining stuck in an emotional valley.

My Dad died in an emotional valley … the place where he got stuck when his job situation changed. My sister-in-law Nancy died in an emotional valley … the place where she got stuck when Sidney died from diabetic complications at age 42. I’ve worked with dozens of people, and tried helping hundreds of others through training, who have become stuck somewhere in their journey through the curve (which we go through hundreds, if not thousands of times in our life). Your Mom’s big focus in the counselling she offers is to help people get unstuck from wherever they are in the curve … so that they can be free to move forward once again.

Charles Darwin wrote, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Darwin was right … survival is about adaptability; it is about quickly assessing when reality has changed and adapting to the new reality in order to continue moving forward once again. When the road changes direction, only a foolish driver continues driving straight. That will get you killed. I don’t mean to make this sound melodramatic, but having a low adaptive capacity can kill you.

This becomes much much clearer when we realize that our goal is to get through change so that we can move forward, not to be happy. I was NOT HAPPY that I lost a year of university to illness … but I had to move forward. I was NOT HAPPY when each of my parents, my grandmother and my brother died … but I had to move forward. I was NOT HAPPY when I had serious curves thrown at me during my career … but I was able to move forward because I worked my way through the only curve that mattered: the one that ended with “moving forward.”

I love you guys. See you next month when I talk about my personal crap detector.

Dad

GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY: Hammer Time!

It’s Hammer-time baby!

Two weeks ago we looked at the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity …

… to accept the things that I cannot change
… the courage to change the things that I can
… and the wisdom to know the difference.

I have learned of the amazing wisdom behind those words. The point is that we have the ability to control the change process within us; in other words, our inner reaction to change. This concept keeps getting retaught in new and refreshing ways. For example, in the movie Black Hat (which, by the way, your Mom and I really enjoyed), Chris Hemsworth’s character had a line:  “I’m doing the time; the time’s not doing me.”  Some critics panned the movie and pointed to lines like this as being cheesy or less clever than they were trying to be. I disagreed with the critics (well, except for the lack of closure part at the end). The point that the antihero was making is that a prison cell can be a crucible of positive transformation … IF ... you take charge and decide that you are doing your own time, not theirs. He did that and used that time to transform his mind and body.

One of the points I teach in my coaching and training is that when it comes to the change process within ourselves, we can be either a hammer or a nail. We can author our own reactions (by being a hammer) or we can be victims to whatever life dishes up (by being a nail). Our hacker-hero (played by no less than Thor himself – the God with a hammer) chose to be a hammer rather than a nail. This is a righteous and noble principle. Be a hammer, not a nail. Hammers build things. Nails just get hammered. (aside - I guess the movie critics must be nails inside themselves because it seems that they can only feel in control when they hammer everyone else’s work).

My point? If you choose to use ALL of your circumstances as positive change-agents in your life, then you are a hammer. If you simply let ALL of your circumstances crush and defeat you, then you are a nail. My advice: Always Be a Hammer! 

Why? 

That’s really the point about this post … why being a hammer is a superior attitude for life. 

Hammers are people who proactively take charge of their mind and emotions, using them either to dictate their circumstances or to control their reactions to uncontrollable circumstances. They are tactical in using their natural fight and flight responses to their advantage. On the flip-side, Nails are people who react to life and let it control their mind and emotions, and are controlled by their circumstances. They use their natural fight and flight responses inappropriately, usually to their detriment.

OK, I’m clearly being reductionistic here because you can never break people into two cleanly divided groups … people usually fall along a spectrum. What I’m describing are the polar opposites in this spectrum. Let me continue then with an idealistic description of these polar opposites by giving them names;

Nails are the pessimists. Hammers are the optimists. 

And their orientation or temperament on this particular spectrum really comes down to whether or not they feel they have control … or even a sense of control. For the most part, pessimists believe they have no control … optimists believe they do. And here’s the kicker … the control doesn’t even have to be real … it’s completely about the perception of control.

To keep this post from being 100 pages (because there is soooooooooo much I want to say on all this), let me zoom down to a very narrow aspect of all of it: optimism vs pessimism.

Optimism and Pessimism

Optimism, and its counterpart, pessimism, are attitudes of interpretation. Optimism could be defined as “a disposition or tendency to look on the more favourable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favourable outcome.” Pessimists look on the less favourable side of things and tend to expect the least favourable outcome. Pessimists defend their attitude as being more “realistic,” while optimists believe in the value of being hopeful. The traditional metaphor for characterizing the difference between the two is a glass that holds half its capacity of water; optimists interpret the glass as half-full, pessimists interpret it as half-empty. Of course, neither are right or wrong. Similarly, an optimistic perspective isn’t any more truthful than a pessimistic one. So why does the attitude matter?

Pessimism is the Safe Bet

Pessimists are oriented towards an expectation of failure which aids them in protecting themselves from disappointment. They manage their expectations in a mitigative manner by lowering their expectations of almost everything. If truth be told, it is easy to be negative, whereas, optimism requires courage because we all face challenges, obstacles, and setbacks along the way. Plus, the ever hopeful attitude of optimists is often a naïve Pollyanna perspective that blinds itself to reality and sets them up for disappointment. Therefore, pessimism seems like a safer emotional bet. In fact, humans are wired so that pessimism is the default attitude when optimism isn’t intentionally chosen. On the surface this seems like a good strategy for managing expectations.

But this strategy, conscious or not, comes with a greater cost than benefit. Think about it. You know how it feels to be around a relentlessly pessimistic person; they radiate negative energy and you don’t want to be around them (and neither does anyone else). That alone might seem like a sufficient reason to choose to be optimistic, but there is an even better reason; your performance in life is greatly dictated by whether you are an optimist or a pessimist … and performance is greatly enhanced by optimism.

Optimism is the Smart Bet

It has been proven that optimists have an orientation towards an expectation of success … a preferred attitude in order to actually produce success. However, optimism must be anchored in reality, focused by results, and fueled by deep core beliefs*. To be effective, you must find a balance between looking honestly at the most painful truths and contradictions in your life, yet still engaging in the world with hope and positive energy.

Pessimists remain inactive and seldom leave their comfort zone because of a scarcity mentality: the belief that there isn’t enough (of whatever). Optimists inherently are risk-takers and are driven more by an abundance mentality: the belief that there is more than enough (of everything). An optimistic viewpoint is more energizing and empowering; optimism leads to action whereas pessimism typically leads to paralysis. It is an optimistic attitude that drives persistence. When it comes to the everyday challenges the face us, the energy of negative thinking is undermining and counterproductive. Realistic optimism better serves the challenges we face.

Look at the graphic and, from the discussion we just had, see if you can track through the logic (I’m hoping that it is self-evident).

Again, this is reductionistic and idealized, but it makes an important point … 

... those who say they can and those who say they can’t are usually both right.

But, we have to be careful to focus our energy only into the things that we can actually change or influence … and let go of the need to control or influence anything else, even if those things matter to us. Why? 

Because when we lose control over things that matter to us we become anxious … and anxiety diminishes us and drains our energy. That’s why the serenity prayer teaches us to courageously put our energies into the things over which we have influence and to serenely accept the things over which we have no influence.

When we courageously focus our energies, with discipline, into the concerns over which we have some influence, that effort expands our influence and we actually make a difference. It also energizes us. An optimist directed by this strategy can usher change into the world around him. Pessimists, on the other hand, while they may be equally caring people, are hindered by a negative and hopeless attitude about results and outcomes, preventing them from proactively investing their energies in any strategic way because they do not see their actions having a positive impact. The result is a self-fulfilling downward spiral of negativity; their efforts bear no results, justifying their negative attitude. It also depletes their energy as well as diminishing their circle of influence even further.

As far as I can tell, there seem to be 4 clear reasons for choosing optimism:

1. Optimism is synonymous with hope ... and everyone wants hope.
2. Optimism creates an abundance mentality and powers performance.
3. Optimism drives persistence and enables results.
4. People prefer being around optimists; pessimists are not fun to be around.

*Deep Core Beliefs ... my faith part

To be optimistic means to be intentionally oriented towards results. Results-based optimism has provided an inner target and mission to keep me working towards goals and outcomes. I have found that because the results are internally held, the emotional resolve to achieve the results is more readily sustainable because it is not imposed from the outside. I choose the results.

However, as a Christian I also know that I am not to strive towards human goals but towards heavenly goals. “Seek first His Kingdom, and His righteousness …and all these (other) things will be added as well.” I believe we are also taught to work hard towards every enterprise to which we give our heart, but do it all as if we were doing it for God Himself. Herein, then, lies the tension that I have learned must be maintained … we must make sure that our hearts are oriented not just towards results … but towards God’s results. There was a time when I saw this as a contradiction, but now, I see it is an essential tension that must be maintained and managed. What this ends up looking like in me is this … I strive, optimistically (hopefully) towards outcomes … but I cannot be crushed if the results differ from my expectations, because it is only God who can truly measure the success of my efforts and mission. This doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t set human goals and strive for human results. I must! But the mature Christian in me establishes those under the authority and purpose of God.

Therefore, I am not simply an optimist. I prefer to think of myself as a results/faith-based optimist. Optimism is a powerful mental state that is born out of choice.

YOU CHOOSE your attitude.

Choose wisely!

Choose optimism!

I love you guys.

Dad

GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY: Breakdown Breakthrough!

“Hi Guys”

Why did I put the salutation in quotes? Because that’s how I greeted you in my first blog post on March 7 when I wrote about the tale of 2 storms. I wanted to connect those dots for you because today’s post is about the big picture lesson that came out of the storm … the lesson I call, “breakdown breakthrough.”

Back in the opening year of the Omega program, one of the participants told me of a concept that comes out of the engineering world called, “breakdown breakthrough.” The idea is that some of the greatest innovative leaps forward in engineering have come because something has failed so catastrophically that an engineer realized that the only path forward is through a different paradigm or perspective. In other words, a breakthrough in thinking often follows a breakdown in some thing or some system.

Breakdown breakthroughs aren’t only part of the world of engineering though. That term actually describes one of the dominant ways in which human beings go through change … sometimes overnight … and begin doing new things or they begin doing things in a new way. In most cases, what accompanies these are new reasons for what they do. The word most people use to describe this kind of change is “transformation.” Perhaps a better word is metamorphosis … the term we use to describe when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. Such changes require an almost “death to self” … the old version is replaced with a completely new version.

My 2001 personal storm ultimately led to a completely different approach to living because after a year or two of soul-searching, reflection and pondering, I came to the conclusion that I needed to live differently because my old way simply wasn’t working. I had a breakthrough in understanding about life that came because of a complete breakdown.

Pastors, psychologists, counsellors, mentors and coaches will all tell you that you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped … and sometimes, people have too much pride to be able to admit that they need help … until they have some sort of breakdown or until they reach “rock bottom.” Rock bottom is a strange place where life can become a true dichotomy of choice; they can get better or they can get bitter … they can find their reason to change or they can become despondent about the hopelessness of life. Rock bottom is where pride is broken, people stop fighting, and they “let go.” They almost “die to themselves,” making metamorphosis possible. Rock bottom is also where spirits are broken when people remain change-resistant … and despair and suicide become possible.

Breakdowns can be the door to a breakthrough ... even a transformation or metamorphosis. They can also be simply the end. The choice is ours. My 2001 storm was a breakdown breakthrough … I got better, not bitter. It was transformative, not hopeless. My reasons behind why I do what I do changed … hopefully forever.

I find myself hoping that someday you each will have a breakdown breakthrough. But, it is a nervous and cautious hope because in breakdowns, despair and hopelessness are also very real outcomes, and in breakdowns, bad things and bad feelings are part of the package. My Dad had that kind of breakdown; in his change-resistant spirit, rock bottom wasn’t a place of transformation … it was just a place of despair and bitterness. I don’t pray that for you. I guess what I really want for you is the breakthroughs but without the breakdowns. The problem is that I’m starting to believe that rock bottoms and breakdowns may be the best path to transformational breakthroughs. It seems that suffering is actually an important part of growing and maturity. No pain, no gain!  I pray that should you ever hit rock bottom … whatever that looks like … that you will not look down (because there is nothing below rock bottom) but only look up … and that you will see that it is Him, and not some generic “universe” who lifts you up, and that whatever work is required to pull yourself up from rock bottom will be accompanied by an equal realization that it is only through His help that you can fully emerge a new and better creature.

I love you both very much.

Dad

GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY: It's all about HERE!

Howdy Ho FAB and CWAB

You’ve undoubtedly heard about the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

These words contain a powerful truth about the strategy needed to navigate change effectively in life … meaning, it is a strategy for effective living, because change happens. There are things that are simply beyond our ability to influence or affect and we simply need to accept those realities and not be crushed by them. There are also things that are within our circle of influence and we should focus our energies in order to affect or influence those. This is an emotionally healthy mindset.

During a workshop on this subject that I was conducting a number of years ago, one participant shared with me a different version of that prayer that resonated very strongly in me:

God grant me the serenity to accept the people that I cannot change, the courage to change the people that I can, and the wisdom to know that that’s me!

This is also a powerful truth. We can’t change anyone else, only ourselves … and so we need to focus our energies on ourselves when it comes to changing people.

My Dad was more than just change resistant … he was incapable of change. When the technology in his workplace changed to the computer age he literally had a psychotic break; it was more than he could handle … more than he could bear. My Mom helped him retire on a disability pension and he finished out his days basically as an insane man … mostly harmless to all but himself … sitting in a delusional world that he had created to help him emotionally accommodate his dysfunctional state. Very sad.

Being involved in leadership at church for so many years I have been put in the position of leading change … whether such changes were my own idea or they were the ideas of the full leadership team. I have been in the position of trying to help others move from HERE to THERE … wherever THERE is. My job as program manager of the hurricane centre also came with change-leadership requirements. After more than 30 years of having responsibilities to lead others through change … and after having read the top dozen or so books ever written on the topic … and after having taken certification training to be a change-management practitioner … here is one truth I want to share with you that may help you in your own leadership efforts (at home, work or in your community):

People care more about HERE than THERE!

Now bear with me … that statement may lie somewhere between a cryptic bumper sticker to a line from Captain Obvious in a Hotels.com commercial. But this is a monumental truth that make you look like geniuses at leading others once you truly understand it ... so let’s unpack it a bit.

Almost every book I have read on leading change talks about the importance of having a clear vision of the changes you want to make (individually, organizationally, culturally) and also about the skill needed by leaders to be able to articulate that vision in a clear and compelling way. The logic is that you need to help people see exactly where they will end up when they get to the change-destination and (most importantly) … how great they will feel when they get there. The reason for the need to clearly articulate how great THERE will be and how great people will feel when they get THERE is because you know that their elephants (May 25 post if you forgot) are driven 100% by fear and feelings … fear of everything unknown and feelings that scream yes-to-pleasure and no-to-pain.

The reason that THERE makes the elephant go wild is that everything about THERE is unknown … so he’s afraid of all-things-THERE. And in that scary unknown land of THERE he imagines that none of his pleasures will be present and all of his imaginable (and unimaginable) pains will be. This is why leadership books teach that a leader must cast a clear and compelling vision of how great THERE will be when we arrive … to help allay the fears of the elephant.

Here’s the truth I’ve learned. If this is all that a leader does to try getting all the elephants to start moving, he/she will fail abysmally because they will have fallen victim to a classic leadership error … by focusing all their dialogue around THERE. Why is this an error? Because THERE is a make-belief land … people live HERE!

Whether you are a trying to convince your spouse to move to a different city … or trying to convince your child to tackle a new challenge … or trying to get a group of people ready for a huge change that is coming to the team/organization that you lead … before you start talking in any significant way about how great it is THERE, you first have to demonstrate why remaining HERE is not only a bad idea, it is actually unconscionable.

People live HERE. And even when HERE is brutal (like a battered wife living with her abusive husband), the elephant convinces itself, “well, better the devil you know.” By the way, that expression, “better the devil you know,” comes from the truth that people are more afraid of unknown threats than known threats (it has been documented that if a person enters a room with a large number of people, they will prefer to sit beside someone they don’t like than beside someone they don’t know).

The future is scary. THERE is scary. But mostly, HERE is comfortable … or tolerable … and is “most certainly” better than THERE. It will serve you well to remember this truth about people that when you try to convince them about the value of a certain change that you must begin with carefully demonstrating how insanely bad it is to remain HERE. You must demonstrate that the pain of going THERE pales in comparison to the pain of remaining HERE. We are strange creatures that pride ourselves in our logic and rationality, all the while being driven very much by emotional responses. Don’t get me wrong guys … rational logical thinking is very much needed, but its use is limited and specific … and always begins with the logic that the emotions must be dealt with first.

No matter how bad HERE is, the elephant is keener to stay put rather than try moving to THERE

There will be times when THERE isn’t actually an exciting place to talk about … no compelling fantasies about a fantastic future are possible … all you have to work with is that the person/group simply can’t remain HERE because HERE has already gone. Some examples:

•        a work environment changes … it’s not an optional future
•      a wife loses her husband to a too-early death … he isn’t coming back
•      a person loses their job … it’s not a bad dream … the paycheques will stop
•      a teen is forced to go to a new school when the parents move to a new city

Until the age of 21, I was incapable of coping with change. I was my Dad. Nobody ever helped me understand that change is inevitable and moving forward to THERE wasn’t an option. It would have been nice to have some coaching about how THERE wasn’t as scary as I thought and that HERE sometimes sucked if I looked at it honestly.

When it comes to change … it’s all about HERE. I hope that you become skilled at helping people (starting with yourself) learn to honestly deal with HERE so that they can move to THERE. Why? Because 100% of every human-being’s future is in the land of THERE. 

Adaptive-capacity is the supreme human aptitude. Change is unkind to the unprepared, so prepare.

I love you guys.

Dad