Category: life

The way to hire quickly and be a fast judge of character is to have fidelity yourself and thus quickly identify whether other people live with fidelity or with conflicting values and morals. You cannot recognize fidelity in others unless you have it yourself. You cannot have fidelity yourself unless you treasure it in others.

People are made if the same stuff all the way through. If a person can live in conflict with his own values then he can also live in conflict with yours and your company’s. Morals are a fast way to where where someone stands. Where fidelity is concerned, there are two types of people: the deviant who maintains internal moral conflict and the immature who seeks to expunge as many internal moral conflicts as possible. No one is perfect, but some of us want to be.

If you want to be perfect then you will run well with those who also want to be. But, if your coworker, supervisor, or employee is hiding some secret, ongoing scandal—and thinks that scandal is not immoral—then you are bound to have “teamwork” and “compatibility” issues when you work together; and you might never figure out why.

Just because we travel in the same ramp lanes on an expressway cloverleaf doesn’t mean we share the same destination. One might be merging on and the other merging off. Know where you are going, be honest with yourself about where you are going, then you will easily recognize whether other people know where they are going and are honest with themselves about where they are going.

Someone who is actually going where he thinks he is going is a rare person indeed—rare enough that he just might be the kind if person someone like you can work with. Don’t be like Samson who kept flirting with Delilah as she tried again and again to make him weak, vexing his heart until he let her take away his power. Had he been honest about where his foolish heart was taking him, he would have saved himself years of pain and would likely have lengthened his life. Know where your path leads, then lead others.

Things in life get done through four main ways: planning, preparation, habit, and the flexibility to live with spontaneity. Habits train our autopilot, governing things we do even without trying. They build skills and knowledge over time, seemingly without effort. Preparation is about meeting prerequisites, being diligent with due diligence, completing the reading before the meeting, and finishing the homework before getting to class. Planning is about scheduling and plotting out times and events.

God governs over us, dominating, ruling, sitting above us, by keeping all these different methods necessary. We must learn all of these different ways of working to have the best in life. Of all these ways to get things done, nothing gets done if it doesn’t happen. Actually doing something—taking initiative, getting off the couch, keeping commitments, steering priorities—the action of “doing” a thing is what delivers its results.

A pastor in Cabrini Green explained this to me, “That lady was supposed to meet me today, but she can’t because she had to go to the store. Going to the store only takes one or two hours. But, in ‘poverty’ mentality, a person doesn’t understand the idea of going to the store and keeping an appointment in the same day. That’s part of what keeps poor people poor.”

Planning and intentionally preparing allow greater and better things to get done. Anyone can write a good story or build a good house. But, an awesome story requires some outlining and probably a backstory for the author’s reference. An excellent house requires excellent structures, skills, and materials—and those things don’t happen by accident. Excellent buildings must be coordinated, which is why construction scheduling is literally an academic study all to itself. Habits keep us working when we don’t think about working. Yet, there are always those moments that come by without warning and, when they do, we must seize the unplanned, one-time opportunity or miss out forever.

Different things get done different ways. But, nothing gets done unless it gets done. Hard work will achieve more than a well-planned calendar full of “excused absences”. The “doing” is the common thread of many types of paths that life opens for us.

Dance between controlling your own time and rolling with the punches, even when other people don’t control theirs. Many times, crazy events converge to work out in the end, but this is no validation that craziness should become habit.

You might be late and your friend late also, but that doesn’t mean that being late will improve your life in other areas and with other people. Being late is generally a problem, but that doesn’t mean you should be rude to your friend over mild tardiness. Learn to expect the margins as they are; if they are intolerable, say so. Find a way to control your own schedule with flexibility.

Consider clothes made with stretchable fabric. Stretchy clothes have a defined form, but they can expand and retract as needed. Like stretch cotton, carry a book with you to read or keep important side projects ready in your pocket. Always have a way to keep your own time from being wasted so that you truly have no grievance against those who make you late.

Airports are another story. Agree to call ahead the morning of; use a wake up call for an early rendezvous or quickly touch base before hand when preparing to leave for an importantly timed journey later in the day. Plan for lunch near the train station before departure or include time for a pit stop to freshen up a few minutes before your appointment.

While some simple scheduling gimmicks are useful, the important part is self control: don’t make other late and don’t be angry when others make you late.

An incompetent leader will truncate essential conversations and terminate tardy talent just to stay on schedule. But, the schedule itself doesn’t pay the bills; scheduling is merely a tool for efficiency. If your goal is to be on time every time, quickly fire everyone an end all projects, then there won’t be any chance of latency.

This “time” principle applies to needed patience with difficult people, such as the need to educate employees—fellow, subordinate, and superior—on how to cooperate, stay on task, mind one’s own business, or complete paperwork correctly. A smooth running machine needs both tuning and oil.

Everything “meaning something” is a terrible way to live life. It’s a mode with high stress, never able to say one’s true thought, always exhausting oneself trying to wiggle around one’s own meaning and figure out how other people are wiggling around their meanings.

Don’t be a “word bender”. It’s a choice, something grown up with. Shooting straight is also a choice. One choice runs away, making things much more difficult than they ever need to be. The other faces problems straight on, making them smaller in the long run.

Straight shooters and word benders both arise in every culture. The word benders defend their ways indirectly as if it is their “right”, all the while attacking straight shooters and trying to change them. Straight shooters don’t defend themselves, they just think how they think, talk how they talk, and live how they live.

Anyone can switch modes, but we all have a main. Word bending usually hides some kind of shame or unwillingness to “grow up” in order to face problems. Straight shooting seems offensive to word benders, which word benders use as evidence of “hostility” from the straight shooter. See it when it’s happening, don’t push, and don’t push back.

Much of the difference between the two types of people and their two main communication manners has to do with mission. Straight shooters tend to know their mission and just want to go for it. Word benders often don’t know the ideology behind their efforts, they merely have a “way” of talking, certain habits, certain cliches, but they really don’t know where their conversations are headed.

This can likely result from a brainwashed upbringing, an entire culture where everyone has that way of talking. When children say the right things at the right times, their local culture rewards them. It happens in schools and institutionalized religions. Such people don’t really know what they believe, they don’t know how to think critically, they only know certain speech patterns and “right answers” to give at the right times. In essence of their work or subject matter, they are akin to minions.

Straight shooters are different, they actually know their destination, so they just go there.

When curious people ask you why you do what you do, answer with wise life principles. You don’t need to give away detailed information about your trade strategies and people don’t want you to. People ask these types of questions because they are genuinely curious and want to learn something from you.

It doesn’t matter how famous or unknown you are. You never know when that moment will come when you are granted “flash fame”, your first or only interview on TV, the unexpected press gaggle when you outperformed at just the right spontaneous moment. More importantly, as you trek through life, wise people—especially the young—will decide that you have wisdom to offer and they will seek guidance from you without warning. Always be ready to bless them with wisdom.

You don’t need to share your life story. They don’t want to argue. They don’t mean to be nosy. And, they certainly don’t know how to ask “correctly”. “Why do you do that?” or “Can I ask you a personal question?” Such phrases are bound to come up, often at your inconvenience. If you can get good at answering fan mail on the street, you’re more likely to have fans for no other reason than you are good to whatever fans you have.

Sometimes people want entertainment, which is great. Children also like to be tossed up or to watch you do that one pathetic magic trick you learned when you were ten, but they can’t figure out. Don’t be afraid to do a hand stand or sing your signature song a cappella. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” …Practice. “Why do you work extra hard at the office?” …In general, it is bad luck to do minimals.

Don’t tell the part about how your cousin’s classmate’s teacher’s daughter-in-law’s dancing coach let you audition as a favor. It wouldn’t have worked without practice anyway, so tell that part. And, certainly don’t elaborate on your corporate business strategy, company inside baseball, trade secrets, or that you had some relationships to patch up.

Always give extra encouragement and everything will smooth over. More importantly, give a little friendliness with whomever you meet in passing.