The Process

Everyone always talks about "The Process". I know it didn't start with Nick Saban, the football coach at Alabama, but I feel like when he started talking about it (while winning National Championships year in and year out) that the idea really exploded and now it is something I hear all the time.

Trust the Process
It's not about winning it's about the process
We are just focused on the process each and every day
If we focus on the process, then everything else will take care of itself

I'm sure you've heard all of the quotes. No disrespect to Saban (partly because I do NOT want to be on the receiving end of one of his butt chewings, and I'm sure he's reading my blog) but it seems easy to trust the process you've created when you have a closet full of National Champion rings to validate your process.

The question I'm asking myself right now is, "How do I trust the process when I don't know where it is leading?"

And I think that is both the frustrating thing, and the most valuable thing about "The Process". You get the most out of it, by sticking with it, staying true to your habits and areas of consistency, and focusing on what you are doing rather than wishing you were somewhere else. The difficult thing, however, is when you don't know where that process will lead, and when it doesn't look as if it is leading anywhere in particular.

This is not easy. There is no national championship at the end to allow me to assess my process or redirect as needed. Sometimes we are on a path, and we know where we would like to end up, but we aren't sure where the long and winding road will lead.

I don't know if this is encouraging or not, but the answer that I have arrived at, at least for now, is this:

It's not easy, but it's worth it, if you are willing to make the investment.

I'm in "the process" now. I'm working with a coach/mentor/encourager, and I'm 2 months in and I'm a better person already. I don't know where it is leading, but I know RIGHT NOW, I'm getting better. And I know that wherever I want to go (and I would guess the same is true for wherever you want to go) I'm going to need to grow and improve. I don't believe I can put myself and my family in a better position, without getting better (a better version of me, my best self). Even though there is nothing more than an outline of my future, my right now, is very clear. I know what I'm working ON, if I don't know EXACTLY what I'm moving toward. I know WHO I want to be, even if I don't know the WHERE or the WHAT just yet. I believe the WHERE and the WHAT can change unexpectedly, but the WHO will stay with me. My dad used to say, "Inch by inch, life's a cinch, yard by yard, life is hard".

The alternative to this challenge, is to stay right where we are. Follow the script, which someone else has written, remain frustrated, or continue to be something less than you are designed to be.

I'll choose the process, with all its' uncertainty and challenge.

Trust the process. One inch at a time. One day you will look up and be grateful that you did.

Much Love,
Bryan

More Man in the Mirror

In the last post, I offered the thought up about taking a look at your life, and the challenge of carving that out in a different way than "everybody else" or the idea of realizing that you want something different and having the courage to do something about it.

In this post, I'd like to take a different angle on the "Man in the Mirror" idea. Remember the last stanza goes like this:

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass

I've posted about this before, in "Whose Life Is It Anyway", but it was on my mind so I wanted to revisit the thought. There are so many of us, who, either during a few critical times in our lives, or throughout our lives, have attempted to "fool the whole world" just to "get pats on the back as we pass". What I mean is, how we made decisions in high school (popularity) how we made decisions in or about college (conformity) the type of career we pursued, etc. Many of us made decisions during these times that were safe, or appeasing to parents or "they" (like, what will "they" think), rather than scratching that itch that we felt deep within our soul, or answering that whisper that asked us, "what about this OTHER way, what about THIS path". I hope you've had some of those moments, as I have. I think it means there is a passion there, a curiosity, something to pursue. And chances are, you have those moments from time to time now too. If you are younger, you have those moments in dealing with your friends, or choices about college, or sports, where you think to yourself, "Is this what I really want to do" and many times you do it anyway, because it is what you are SUPPOSED to do. Or you think, "I would really like to do...." But you don't, because the timing isn't right, or none of your friends are doing it, or what would your parents/friends/society think. So we (or at least me) suppress those passions, those curiosities, and we go on with life. Don't rock the boat, right? Get those proverbial "pats on the back" so we don't draw too much attention and so we can take the path of least resistance. But the path of least resistance isn't very fun or rewarding. It's very safe, for sure, but also very cookie cutter and bland. I don't believe we were designed by our Creator to be cookie cutter and bland. We were designed in His image, and I'm no Biblical scholar, but I don't believe Jesus Christ was a real boring guy who was just trying to fit in, punch the time clock, go along with society to fit in, and grind his way to a pension at retirement. 

Finally, I just finished a great book by Donald Miller called Scary Close. And pulled this quote from it. 

The quote is attributed to Bonnie Ware in his book.

"If we go to our graves with our feelings still in us, we will die with regrets"

Or, as the poem says, 

The final reward will be heartache and tears. 

There is no joy in living a life for someone else. I encourage you to spend some time discovering who YOU are and who you want to be and then get started living a life that reflects that. 

Much Love,

Bryan 

The Man in the Mirror

There is a poem titled, "The Man in the Glass" by Peter Dale Wimbrow, Sr. You can read the whole thing here
http://www.inspirationpeak.com/cgi-bin/poetry.cgi?record=155

But the last stanza says:

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass

I actually read this while I was reading a book called, "Season of Life". If you haven't read that one, I would encourage you to check it out, particularly if you are a dad, coach, athlete, but I think there is value there for just about everyone. But I've been thinking about this alot lately, how so many people are working jobs they don't like, or leading lives they don't want to lead, or they've pursued things or done things, or married people, or purchased things just because they feel like they should have, or because they didn't have a choice. And then, we look in the mirror at some point, and say, "who is this guy" or "what am I doing", or "is this what I really want". The point is, we need to be true to ourselves, not what everyone else wants. If we bend and morph into what the "right" path is or the "safe" path is, what happens when we get along down that path, and take a check in the mirror, and we don't recognize what we see. What then?

I asked myself this recently, mostly, "is this what I really want" And the answer was no. And "this" to be clear, is not all that bad. I've got a wonderful family, a good job, live in a nice place. That question doesn't come from a place of being ungrateful. It comes from a place, I think, of healthy discontent. Wanting something different doesn't mean you don't value what you have. And just because you don't want to live the current life you are leading, doesn't mean that you want to get rid of EVERYTHING.

I think there is a little bit of value for me, in asking that question, but not a lot. It doesn't take much courage to say, "I would like to pursue a different career" or "I want to have more financial freedom so I can spend time with my wife". Those aren't courageous statements, I don't think. They are thoughts, verbalized, and we all have those, and we all cry out sometimes, and we all say things and have ideas. Those are a dime a dozen. (I wonder sometimes, if there was ever a thing, in history, that was a dime a dozen).

For me, the challenge is, what are you going to do about it? Because for me, if I do nothing, it's like a double whammy (double whammy, I'm pretty confident, is a real thing. Check out an old game show called, Press Your Luck). The double whammy is this. I'm already frustrated by the fact of living like everyone else. For example, go to college, get married, stable job, kids, no time, work yourself to the bone, wait for retirement, reconnect with your wife, enjoy your kids once they are grown, travel when you get older. So if I express that frustration AND don't do anything with it (what most people do), I get the double whammy.

So I have to do SOMETHING.

Enthusiasm: Expressing Your Passion

I've been having some conversations with coaching friends of mine recently about the idea of enthusiasm. The conversations have ranged from some believing that enthusiasm is an overused and misunderstood term for teams and players, questioning the value of enthusiasm, wondering how to teach/instill it, and an uncertainty about how to define it. I don't have all the answers, but our conversations stirred up some thoughts and I wanted to share them with. Hopefully they provide some value to you.

As a basketball coach, the bench that you sit on is always directly in front of the opposing team during warm ups. So depending on what level you are coaching, there might be 15-45 minutes where you have an opportunity to observe the other team prior to the beginning of the game. There are a handful of times that I've been involved with where I look at the opposing team, and then down at our team, and feel like we were about to get out classed, based simply on comparing the level of energy and enthusiasm coming from our end of the floor and the opposing team's level of energy and enthusiasm. There have been other times where I felt like the other team didn't even want to be in the gym compared to the energy that our kids were warming up with, and I felt like we were about to run them right out of the gym. Most of the time, the intuition was correct, on both sides of the coin.

My point is, that I do believe that enthusiasm is a very valuable piece to the success of a team. However, I think the collective "we" has developed a definition that paints an incorrect picture. So when people hear the word enthusiasm they think of something very specific. Usually, this means clapping and cheering and loud noises, etc. I DO believe that these are ways to express enthusiasm, but not the only way by any means, and not the way that we should be defining it.

Rather than using Enthusiasm (as we know it) my focus is on this: Expressing Your Passion
Maybe that's my definition. Enthusiasm: A visible or tangible expression of one's passion.

I've got a number of examples of stories that I could share, but here I will just list a few. My belief is that everyone is capable of expressing their passion, they may just need some help defining what that is. And this is passion in context, not necessarily their "life's passion". For example, I currently teach 5th grade. I don't know that I'm your typical teacher, in that I didn't want to be a teacher when I grew up, I don't live and breathe the profession, and there are more people who are passionate about curriculum and methodology than I am. However, my passion is creating a positive environment for students and giving them a great school experience, by loving and caring for them as their teacher. So that is how I express my passion as a teacher.

For athletes, this can look very different for everyone:

Monmouth's Bench: These guys are expressing the passion they have for basketball and their team by creating and displaying elaborate and humorous bench celebrations. This isn't for every player, or for every coach, and I know some people may have strong feelings about what they are doing, but I think it's great that these guys have found their way, and that their coach has allowed them to express their passion. https://youtu.be/I5iVrlvgEuU

Serious/Intense Guy: There are certain players, who never smile, never clap, never get really high or low, that you will never find jumping up and down yelling and screaming. They are very intense and focused at all times. These players show up every day and just go to work. They are seriously invested in their craft. Their passion is the game, their craft, developing their skill set, being great. And they express this passion through their intense focus and will to be their best. For everyone who is saying, "oh yeah, that is me, I'm super focused, like Kobe, I want to be the best ever, that's why I don't show traditional enthusiasm", just know, that there are very few of these plaeyrs, in my opinion. If you are claiming to be this player, be honest with yourself, it needs to be a true expression of who you are, not because you haven't figured out a way to express your passion. These are usually pretty elite players.

Encourager: Some people are passionate for their teammates and the success of and connection to others.
So they express their enthusiasm through high fives, slapping on the rear end, encouraging words, cheering, etc. There is a cool video on how often Steve Nash used high fives to "connect" to his teammates during games. https://youtu.be/koR2efE2alQ

Clapping, Stopping, Cheers, Volleyball/Softball: I used to love going to volleyball games, and I'm headed today to watch one of my former players play softball. The reason I enjoy these games, beyond watching my players, is that generally there is a very high level of enthusiasm on these teams. Volleyball teams have so many cheers after points, after aces, before they play, sometimes I wonder when they practice, because they have so many cheers. But I think it's really cool, and I always enjoy feeling the energy when they huddle up and do their cheers. And softball is similar, the cheers just usually occur during live play, as the players in the dugout cheer on their team that is on the field or the player that is batting. But, I know a volleyball coach who hates that, and doesn't allow his team to do it. Personally, I don't really want to go watch them play, because that is one of the aspects of high school volleyball that I really enjoy, but it just doesn't work for him, and that's okay. And that's part of the point of my definition: Express YOUR Passion. This isn't for everyone. There are players I've had and teams I've been on who were great at this, their passion was being full of energy, celebrating their experience in the moment, and they expressed this in a very outward fashion. If this is you, go for it. If this is not for you, then don't.

These are just a few examples. The encouragement is this: Don't fake it before you make it, "Try Before You Buy". If you try and fake it because you feel like you should or someone has made you then it will most likely come out just like that, as fake, and you won't ever get comfortable with something that isn't true to who you are. (If you are a coach, I encourage you to allow your kids to Try Before They Buy, rather than just telling them how to be enthusiastic). But, if you take the mindset of Try Before You Buy, then I think you can find something that works for you. Just try one of these ways, and see what matches with your roots, your core, the posture of YOUR heart. Try one. And if that doesn't work, try another one. It will still likely feel awkward for a bit, particularly when you try things that aren't aligned with who you are. But if you take this mindest of trying things out, until you find Yours, I believe you will feel better about the process not being "fake", and when you hit yours, you will feel good about what YOU have discovered. THEN, you can sell out to it, or "BUY" it, and take ownership of it.

Much Love,
Bryan

Frogs, Fleas, and Crabs

There are three parables that I've heard over the years, that I think are relevant when considering who we are, who we are becoming, and how we are treating ourselves and others. The stories are about frogs, fleas, and crabs, and if you are honest with yourself you have probably been involved in one or more of these situations in your life. At the very least, you have probably observed one or more of these in action.

Frogs
There is an old story that says that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out, aware of the obvious danger that the boiling water presents. However, if you put the frog in a pot of cold water, and slowly turn up the heat, the frog will not recognize the increasing danger and will remain in the pot until it boils to death. For many, the parable of the frog and the water (it's in the Bible I think, just search for it, after 3rd John) highlights seasons of our lives where we find ourselves in a bad place, not because of some unforeseen, unavoidable circumstance (though we may feel that way), but because of the decisions we have made, or the people we have spent our time with, that have slowly hurt us or thrown us off course, until we wake up one day and realize that we are in an altogether different spot than we originally intended.

One of the best ways to battle against this scenario, is to be intentional about surrounding yourself with quality people you can trust, who care about you, and who will not only be supportive, but who will be honest with you. There are two groups of people who can be of critical value in this situation. The first and most obvious group, is the friends or social group that you choose to spend time with. Much like the "What Goes In, What Comes Out?" post, the type of people that you spend your time with will directly influence your personal behaviors. If you hang out with kind, encouraging, positive people, then most likely you will display similar characteristics. If you hang out with knuckleheads, you are probably going to, at the very least, display knucklehead characteristics.

The second group that can be influential, is a group of mentors that you can trust to be honest with you, and who can help you grow along your journey. This could be parents, youth leaders, coaches, experienced people in your field of business, or just older, experienced people that you trust and respect. These people can answer and ask questions that will help guide you along, based on their experience in similar situations. it's good to have a balance between both friends and mentors to be sure that you minimize your boiling frog situations, and don't get to far off your desired path.

*Full disclosure, after looking it up, I found that an actual scientist tried the frog experiment to see if the parable was true, and sadly (or gladly?) it was not true. When placed in cold water, frogs did stay put, but as the water got to a certain point, the frog jumped out. The scientist did not test what would happen if he tossed a frog into boiling water, because, that would be some type of cruelty to animals or something. Hopefully this doesn't ruin the point of the story, but I felt the need to be honest with my reader. That's right, singular.

Stay tuned for part II: Fleas

Much Love,
Bryan

Ungrateful

My wife and I took a weekend vacation to St. Augustine, FL a couple of weeks ago, while the kids were with their grandparents. It was nice to get away and spend some time together. For those of you who don't know, St. Augustine is a beach town on the coast with some cool history and some nice places to enjoy the beach. We walked around downtown, ate out, did some window shopping, got a couple of free samples of beef jerky, and spent some time at the beach. While we were there, we road around and looked at some of the houses in the area, particularly those right on or near the beach. I'm in the very early stages of developing a real estate empire, so I enjoy looking at real estate when I travel, just for fun. While we were driving around, I found myself thinking, "man, I would really love to live so close to the beach, wouldn't that be awesome? One day I'd love to have a house close to the beach". This would be a totally logical line of thinking except for the fact that I live on a beautiful island that is a vacation destination for people all over the world and we are A MILE FROM THE BEACH!! I caught myself, and wondered what in the heck is wrong with me. We just moved into our home, did some remodeling, and now live in a wonderful home that is just a short bike ride to the beach. It's really an awesome spot, and as we drive around and look at beach homes in another town, it's like I forgot all that. I really am grateful for what we have, particularly as it relates to our home.

I think that sometimes we just "forget" or we get so wrapped up in wanting, that we don't take time to constantly pause and reflect on everything that we have. Maybe it's just me, and it means I'm not a good person. If that's the case, it's a good thing there are only two people reading this blog.

 It is so important that we take time to recognize what we have, and be grateful for all of those things. I really believe that our daily mindset, our approach, how we present to and love others, is a reflection of our gratitude for life, possessions, the people around us, etc.I worked with someone once who used to say, "Don't take for granted what other people are praying for". I thought that was a good way to phrase it. He was speaking to our basketball team, and was trying to drive home the fact that our kids had an opportunity to play, practice, travel, wear nice gear, etc. while others may not have those same opportunities due to injury, economics, lack of ability or opportunity. I'm sure most moms, at some point, have used the, "there are starving kids in Africa, you need to clean your plate" line. While I understand and feel badly that there are people who struggle for food, and also understand the perspective of the coach I worked for, I don't think our gratitude should be solely contingent on the fact that other people don't have what we have. I believe we should be grateful for the things that we have because we should be grateful for the things that we have. We should love our children not because someone else doesn't have children and we do, but because we love our children, they matter to us, and we want to express that. We should invest in the players that we coach not because other people don't have players to coach, but because we love and care about our players, and want them to grow into the men and women that they are capable of becoming. We should be thankful for all the things that we've been blessed with, and we should not be afraid to express this gratitude to others, to our Savior, to our family, or to ourselves on a daily basis.

The girls that I coached at Piney Grove would say thank you after almost every practice. It was the most amazing thing to me, not because they owed me a thank you, or I expected it, but because it was a daily expression of gratitude. They were thankful that someone was coaching them, investing in them, or recognized that I was putting time in there when I could have been doing something else. I don't really know each of their reasons for saying thank you, but it meant the world to me. I felt appreciated, and it made me even more grateful to be able to coach them. I encourage you to use the word Thank You frequently and meaningfully. I encourage you to be grateful for everything that you have . There could always be more, or better. Be grateful for what is in front of you. Much Love, Bryan

What Goes In, What Comes Out?

Have you ever noticed that when you burp, your burp tastes like whatever you have been eating? Like if you drink an excessive amount of coke, and then you burp, you will taste coke. Or, what happens when you eat a ton of mexican food?? I think you know. It never happens to me, but I've had friends who have told me about it. Or, if you've ever been sick, and thrown up, what comes out? Whatever you have been eating or drinking. I have a story about a bad burrito, but I'll spare you the details. What's the point? The point is, that whatever goes in, is going to be what comes out. Since this isn't a nutritional blog, we won't explore this area. The important thing to think about is this: What are you putting in? To yourself: spiritually, emotionally, what are you watching, reading, listening to, who are you spending time with? If we are honest with ourselves, we can answer these questions, and acknowledge that these areas affect what comes out of us. In other words, what we listen to, read, watch, who we spend time with, what or who we worship (religious or otherwise) affects how we talk, act, treat others, and spend our time. There is research that suggests that we are the composite of the five people that we spend the most time with. On some levels, we talk, dress, act, and even think like the people we spend the most time around, and probably not intentionally. I know it may sound lame or uncool, or "grown ups just don't understand" but if you are listening to music or watching movies that focus heavily on drugs, sex, or foul language, then those are the things that are going to be most prevalent on your mind. If your group of friends is constantly judging others, making fun of people, or complaining about their lot in life, then you will soon find yourself doing the same. It's just human nature. Whatever we put in, is going to eventually work its way out. Here is my encouragement: Give some thought to what you are putting in. Can you adjust what you are listening to when you workout? Is an edited version of a song going to push you any less than the X-rated version? Can you find people to spend time around that will pour into you positively? Can you find something to read that is encouraging and uplifting? Can you find people to follow on twitter or instagram that are going to build you up instead of add negative energy to your life? What are you putting in? Much Love, Bryan