What’s Your Sauce?

Yesterday I went to a funeral. Mary was the 94 year-old grandmother-in-law of one of my best friends, Michael. Mary is a fearless soul that left a big impression by simply being herself. Her life was the great American Dream. Italian immigrant. Little education. Came to San Diego from Chicago with her husband, Tony, in the 1940’s with zero money. Despite her and Tony’s lack of education, they did what they shined at. Cooked. They opened and ran Italian restaurants. Mary’s secret was her sauces. They were so good you’d want to fill up a hot-tub with one, turn on the jets, climb in and simmer so you could soak in the flavors. You think I am kidding. But once when she sold a neighborhood restaurant, the residents forced her to take it back because the new owner couldn’t get the sauce right even though he was using her recipes! Of course Tony and Mary saved, bought apartment buildings and built a comfortable life from nothing but their own work and mystical talent.

Mary’s funeral was not so much a memorial to her cooking, and it certainly wasn’t about her real-estate prowess. It was instead a celebration of a fearless woman. A woman unafraid to be who she was. To say what she thought with love and warmth, but most of all gusto. She understood how to create rituals for family and friends especially around food and talk. No one ever left her apartment without coffee, a home made pastry and a spirited conversation. Somehow our lives are most often a tapestry of small things that end up being the big things.

What I reflected on at Mary’s funeral is that so many of us are frustrated by our big ambitions: to be rich, influential, famous, or even just get promoted, recognized and appreciated. But life seems to have its own plan for us. I’m sure Mary didn’t know the difference she was making across the thousands of people she served, her friends, family, down to her great grandchildren. What Mary did was take the time to live her life in her way, at her pace. Her personal style was reflected in her total lifestyle. Mary was powerful. Inspirational because she was unafraid. She knew there was one thing she could not fail at if she chose not to. And that was to be herself. Her best self. The big loving self that comes from our deepest part. And of course to make her sauces.

When I work with powerful executives, the biggest problem I find is that they are afraid to be like Mary. So many expectations to meet. So easy to lose track of our own secret recipe. Perhaps our big ambition should be to live minute to minute more authentically. Surely at that we cannot fail. So what’s your sauce?

5 comments.

What is Life?

Yesterday I had a pretty severe “Mohs” surgery on the left side of my face! Yes, it turns out that a lifetime of surfing comes with a downside. Having my face directly exposed to the sun for five decades is a lot like sticking your head in a microwave. When I started surfing in the 1960’s, there was no such thing as sun block. Coppertone was for sissies. So I was tattooed with non-malignant skin cancer on my left temple which if untreated would take over my face like a wine stain on a white linen napkin.

“Mohs” surgery is a lot like “mowing” the skin off your face. My doctor explained that the surgery would take place in several rounds. Each time 2 millimeters of skin is removed and examined in a lab. The face scraping continues until all the bad-boy cancer cells are removed. It’s a lot like taking a John Deere to your face.

The lab time between each “mowing” is 2 to 3 hours. The doctor said 3 to 4 rounds of surgery are common. So the actual surgeries are brief but the waiting in between time is eternal. They told me to pack a lunch. Since this was virtually an all day commitment, I showed up with a briefcase full of work to pass the time and boundless optimism that all of this would be nothing more than a flesh wound. I felt like Jack Bauer. No problem.

Round One went as expected. But 2 ½ hours later the lab results revealed that the cancer was much bigger under the skin than on the surface. What was going to be nickel-sized lawn on my ace turned into a silver-dollar size cancer estate complete with potential nerve damage and skin grafts and sagging eyebrow. My Clint Eastwood evaporated into Napoleon Dynamite.

Fortunately my wife was sitting next to me. I had insisted she not wait with me. I had my work you see. This was nothing I had told her. “I’ll call you when it’s over.” She knew better. When she senses things my logic doesn’t see, she doesn’t argue; she just does what she must. She doesn’t ask my permission. So she waited with me. When I came out of the surgery room with a big pressure bandage on my head after learning of the global nature of the gang of terrorist cancer cells, she gave me her “love look” and closed her eyes and took my hand. I could feel her prayers. I could fill her grace. And finally, I could feel her confidence. We went outside and went for a walk. In her powerful, quiet way, she reassured me. I am lucky to have a wife whose fierce loyalty is irrational. If my face sagged like a bag of sand and I became clinically depressed, she would be at my side. Not out of duty or guilt, but out of grade-A, 100% pure love. She is my constant compassionate cheerleader.

You know today there are a growing number of fundamentalist scientists and angry atheists who insist human beings are noting more than bodies. That what we call love is simply brain chemistry. But on days like yesterday, it seems like an atheist is a person whose eyes are tightly closed sitting on the beach at dusk. He insists there is no beautiful sunset because he can’t see it. Real love is beyond the feeling of love. It is life. In moments like yesterday, it is the reason for everything.

Oh yes, the second round of “mowing” cut out all those pesky, perverted cells. I was clear! I got 30 stitches and no nerve damage. That’s of course great, but not the point. I am old enough to know that a loving wife and heart-felt prayers don’t always result in getting what we want. My dad died of cancer in spite of my mother’s constant prayers and loving attention and in spite of my younger brother’s heroic help. What is the point is there is something more to real love than our material selves. In life’s most testing moments we experience life in a way that confirms we are human because of our spirit not because of our body. Perhaps that is the reason we have such moments. Love. Without it there is no happiness. With it there is no emptiness.

12 comments.

Above All…Be an Original

I recently returned from a trip visiting my son and daughter-in-law. They just had twin girls so life is good as well as chaotic. My son, otherwise known as “Fun Boy,” was asking for career advice. I reminded him of his college rock band days when he played bass for “Burley Paul” (the name of his band). Here’s the gyst of my advice.

A few years ago, Chris, a great friend of mine was attending a summer concert featuring a Beatles Tribute band. They were dressed up like 1965 version of John, Paul, George and Ringo. They had their accents and music down. They were an amazing group of musicians perfectly imitating genuine rock stars. And they were fake. After twenty minutes Chris couldn’t handle it. He actually left his family sitting on the grass and spent an hour walking home. He couldn’t stand listening to “fake Beatles.” To this day, Chris tells me that if were a musician, he would rather spend his life playing his music in small bars and clubs then playing someone else’s music to crowds of Baby Boomers’ trying to re-imagine their past. Chris is an original. He is not about to sing someone else’s song.

Turns out, this is great career advice. “Be the rock star of your own life!”

So, what if you were a rock star? What if you wrote your own music, sang your own songs, and enjoyed a unique identity that was the best expression of you at your core? “Remember,” I said to my son, “the people you most admire are all originals.”

Your career is not your job. Not the job you have now, nor your next job. Your career is your evolving means of self-expression, or better yet, soul expression. We are free to express our design and pursue our desires. We have permission to pursue our destiny. That’s the core idea of the American Dream. That’s what career should be all about.

Today, more than ever, it is crucial to be consciously aware of our unique design. As Americans, we don’t have the automatic job advantages we once had. We can no longer count on a safe thirty-year career at a booming American corporation. If we are going to succeed and be happy in the new millennium, we need to leverage our unique traits and talents to their highest potential. It’s our innate qualities that must be constantly expressed and developed throughout our careers. These are the qualities that turn out to be portable, that we take from job to job, that can’t be wiped out by a surprise new technology.

Over the past 25 years, corporate America has developed a new social contract with its employees. That is: no contract. We are on our own. So we need to figure out how to make ourselves indispensable. Otherwise, we are all just laboring in dead-end temp jobs with important-sounding titles. The key is to define and create Dream Jobs for ourselves. Jobs that fit our traits, talents and desires. Jobs where uniqueness creates value.

A lot of career counseling is lame. It’s based on trying to figure out where you fit into the world, rather than who you are. Fitting in will never make you outstandingly valuable. Rather, it is often where you don’t fit that you can create your highest value and reap your greatest success. It is called unconventional job fit.

If you took an assessment that revealed your personality and interests, most career centers would try to find you jobs that aligned with your test results. If you tested out as a math oriented, problem-solving introvert, for example, you might be told to become an accountant. But let’s look at the real world. The people who really put accounting firms on the map are gregarious, visionary and great at sales and client relationships. These are the kind of people that can add the greatest value to an accounting firm. They manage the mathematical introverts.

Flip it around – who is the most valued worker in Hollywood? Not the one with the big personality who can sing, dance and act. Those folks are a dime a dozen in Hollywood. The value worker is the quiet, organized one who shows up on time and can get projects completed. The one who takes care of the details. Are you getting the point here?

Look for a career where your particular traits and talents make you a stand out rather than a fit in. (If you want to get a clear idea of your core traits, go to the VIA Signature Strengths website and take the assessment. Get acquainted with yourself.)

Figuring out what brings us our greatest satisfaction, and how we must make a difference is not easy and it’s never ending. In fact, it’s the journey of life. Go on the journey and never settle for being a fake Beatle.

5 comments.

Lifeology - An Online Magazine

Lifeology: An American Dream Project eZine

Our first issue of Lifeology was launched today. Lifeology is our new online magazine - “ezine” - featuring the ideas and ideals of our members who constantly blow my mind with their insights and courage. It also features key articles on how to navigate your career, enrich your relationships, seek education and live your happiest life. It’s a beautiful web publication, free to download and send to anyone you know.

Click Here to Download it Now: Lifeology - June 2007

To subscribe to future issues, enter your email address on Need-to-Know Updates on our homepage: AmericanDreamProject.org.

Articles Include:

CITIZEN: Volunteer to Do Things You Value
RELATIONSHIPS: Creating a Blissful Marriage
EDUCATION: Education, The Engine to Liberty
LIFESTYLE: Comfortably Buying a House Where You Want to Live
LEADERSHIP: REALeadership: Because Leadership Matters
CAREER: Where You Start in Life Doesn’t Determine Where You Finish

PLUS - Recommended Reading and What’s New with the American Dream Project

2 comments.

Change Your World, Change The World

I’ve been off the Grid for several weeks. We’ve been improving the website and extending the reach of our blog so I’ve had some time to think, really think. During that time someone asked me what our core message is. For someone who is an idea junkie, that is not as easy to define as it sounds. So, it took some reflection. And here it is in all its blinking simplicity: Change Your World, and The World Changes. We are not powerless. There are answers on the sea of uncertainty we find ourselves adrift upon. Our research partner, DYG, reports that since 9/11 our societies’ psychological self-confidence has continued to decline and that our individual response is to face the truth that in the end we are responsible. Responsible for our own lives, our own future, the quality of our relationships, and the moral culture of our circle of influence. This is not the time to throw up our hands, nor to exhaust ourselves over-defining our problems. It is time to choose our lives. In so doing, we’ll have a rippling impact that will make all the difference.

Consider this:
If we are sick of foreign wars, make peace with our personal enemies.
If we are concerned with our nation’s debt, save our own money.
If we are sickened by materialism, buy only what we really value.
If we are concerned with global warming, conserve, walk, telecommute.
If we are worried about the environment, recycle, plant trees, grow something.
If we are angry with our leaders, propose and post real solutions.
If we are worried about health care costs, eat right, exercise, and sleep.
If we are worried about crime, drugs, and violence, participate in a neighborhood watch.
If we are sad about the decline of marriage, make ours the best example of commitment and fulfillment we can.
If we are worried about terrorists, put some boundaries between ourselves and those who use or abuse us.

I hope you can see what I’m trying to get at. These suggestions are simply metaphors for thinking about our lives. They are not meant to be absolute or literal statements. These are simply reminders that for every big overwhelming problem in the world, there is a version of it in our lives. If we focus on what we can control, our own lives will bloom and our influence will spread. So right now, what big-huge world problem is most disturbing to you? How does a version of that show up in your life? How’s the ecology of your relationships, the sustainability of your lifestyle, the humanity of your judgments? More than ever I believe that when we change our world, the world changes. I am sure there is something we could each change for the better right now. I know there is for me.

17 comments.

Choose to Live the Life You Most Envy

How would you like to live on a beach in Hawaii while you’re young enough to enjoy your children? What if your nicely tanned family could live on one parent’s full time income on a 40 hour a week job? What if this was absolutely true right now, in 2007? It is. It?s what a young couple, friends of mine, are doing today. They have made some very mindful choices. A recent poll reveals that 93% of Americans agree that we are too focused on working and making money and not enough on family? (New American Dream Survey. www.newdream.org). 93% is a big number. It?s almost as if we’re hypnotized by our current work and lifestyles whether or not it brings us satisfaction, let alone joy.

Are we allowing the financial-industrial complex, the Grid, to suck the life out of our souls? This morning I just read that 3 million Americans commute 90 minutes one-way to work. Three hours a day, 66 hours a month, 31 days a year. Millions of us are actually spending a month a year just to get back and forth to work. What are we doing? A brand new Harvard study labeled Americans the “unhappiest country on Earth” because we lead the world in clinical depression, stress related illness, and prescriptions to medicate us from our pain.

Well, the revolution is starting. Last week some Stanford law students started a campaign for graduating students to boycott law firms that don’t offer new associates balanced working conditions including a 50-hour workweek (Lattman, Peter. Wall Street Journal: Eastern edition, April 4, 2007, B2). While there are some of us who’ve become so addicted to never-ending work, cell phones, emails, texting, business travel, non-stop work related thinking and doing that we think it’s normal; it isn’t. Research is clear. Work without sustained breaks makes us stupid (HPinstitute.com). Ruins our judgment, clouds our ethics, and socially isolates us. (The guys at Enron loved to work.) The rat race is poison wrapped in success candy. And the race just gets faster.

It?s all a choice. If you doubt me, let me introduce you to Mark and Patria. Mark’s a 31-year-old father and Patria a 26-year-old mother of 2, Ruby and Atticus. Mark and Patria met and got married during college in Hawaii. Patria went on to get a Master’s degree in Social Work at Columbia University. After working in New York and northern California, they fulfilled their dream. They just moved back to Hawaii’s northeast shore. Patria is a social worker at a local hospital. Mark is a stay-at-home dad. Get this. They rented a home on the beach with a slide from their back yard to the sand surrounding a coral fringed lagoon.

They did all this without financial help from parents or permission from the Grid. They did it because they’ve been very clear on what they most valued, and they both agreed to “travel light.” They just choose to do what so many of us wish we could.

Well, you can. Our life is our choice. How’s your commute?

10 comments.

Make Your Difference Everyday

After spending the past three years giving speeches throughout our country, I have a powerful conviction that, deep down, we know we have the solutions to our own confusion.  Answers seem to be on the tips of our tongues, like a memory that has just slipped our mind.  The answers we seek are already embedded in our spiritual wiring; we are merely fumbling in the dark for the switch to turn the lights on.

Amidst the darkness of the evening news, the never-ending war on terror, the decline of the middle class, the tidal wave of national debt, and the corruption of our institutions, there is another voice calling out.  A voice calling for a rebirth of vision.  A vision in which the greatest good for each and all is once again the ideal.  It’s a new model of governing without the corruption of special interest and financial favors.  A new model of sustainable enterprise that aims for the Greatest Total Value for all.  A new model of free education focused on lifelong learning without the crippling costs of bureaucracy.  A new model of personal action based on understanding our own unique design and our most noble human desires.

This is all more than a dream.  It is The Dream.

The genuine American Dream.  Our research of over 12,000 Americans reveals that the exhausted refugees of Boomer World and our meaning-hungry children find themselves longing for the same five things.

We want enduring relationships and families that work. 

Love, loyalty and intimacy are our greatest needs because that’s what has been missing.  It’s time for a re-commitment to commitment.  For us and our children.

We want a lifestyle we both value and enjoy.

We want to live in a safe, attractive place we can afford.  We want to do things that feed our soul and engage our emotions.  We want community, meaning and sanity.  For us and our children.

We want a career that embodies our Dream. 

We want real work with real meaning and real rewards.  We want to make a meaningful contribution, express our talents and follow our interests.  For us and our children.

We want growth. 

We want the tools to reinvent ourselves as often as we choose to in this constantly changing world.  We want to learn whatever we need in order to excel at our priorities.  We want affordable, efficient, stimulating education and access to enriching experiences.  We want genuine spiritual growth.  For us and our children.

We want real leadership. 

We demand truth, not spin or hype.  We want leadership of vision, substance and honesty.  In our homes, factories, stores, schools, banks, and  churches everywhere.  For us and our children.

The change levers of the 4th American Revolution.  The first four dimensions of Relationships, Lifestyle, Career and Growth are the make-or-break factors in living the life of our dreams.  The 5th factor, Leadership, is the X factor.

We are that X factor.

2 comments.