Author Archives: Chris

About Chris

filmmaker, photographer, designer, writer, reader, guitarist, speaker, dreamer, small business owner, extroverted introvert, and a bag of chips.

The Worst That Can Happen Can Also Be The Best

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I often ask others: “What’s the worst that can happen?”

I recently had a scenario where the worst that could happen, did indeed happen.

The outcome was unexpected.

I felt relieved, as if I didn’t have to pretend to be someone else anymore.

Sure, life is a little more difficult than I would like it to be right now. But, I’m taking responsibility for living the life I want to live, as opposed to listening to the collective “they” telling me how I should be living.

As my friend Bruce Elgort tweeted earlier today: “Your communication is the response you receive.”  Life is similar, except that it is your response to the response of others. Or simply put, making lemonade when life gives you lemons.

Screw Business As Usual

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“The views of any person must be tolerated, not only because some of them may, for all we know, be on the right track, but because it is only through the conflict of opinion that such words as knowledge or wisdom can have any meaning.  For however depressing are the setbacks suffered in conflict, they are infinitely better than the sterile silence of death that follows when people are stifled and silenced.” – Richard Branson, Screw Business As Usual

The Desert of Fear, Failure, and Worry

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I’m reading two books that are inextricably linked:  How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie and Screw Business As Usual by Richard Branson. While the former is about overcoming worry so that you can enjoy better health and make better decisions, the latter is about overcoming complacency and the adoption of the status quo in our businesses, in order to impact the world.

Carnegie gives very succinct points on overcoming worry centered around a very simple premise:  do your homework. He describes the basic steps of problem analysis as:

  1. Get the facts.
  2. Analyze the facts.
  3. Arrive at a decision.
  4. Act on that decision.

Carnegie’s solution to overcoming worry is very similar to Branson’s advice for entrepreneurial success. Branson offers:

  1. Discuss your plans.
  2. Talk them through with a mentor.
  3. Achieve “something fairly substantial in the way of preparation.”
  4. Ignore the naysayers if your really feel you have something good to offer and have the financials worked out.
  5. Just do it.

Achieving success and overcoming worry or fear are built upon the same timeless advice:  Get the facts, develop a plan, and do it. Extremely logical advice, but how does someone overcome strong emotions tied to failure and fear? Talk with mentors, friends, and advisers. This is what is called relational currency. Without it, you’ll go emotionally broke before you have a chance to bank your actual financials.

Taking this advice from Carnegie and Branson, enter into the logic of what you are trying to achieve or overcome, but don’t forget to build relationships because logic only goes so far.

The Art of the Manifesto

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ChangeThis.com is a website devoted to supporting and spreading great ideas. I first came across a manifesto from Gapingvoid artist Hugh MacLeod entitled How To Be Creative and most recently found a great one called Shift & Reset by Brian Reich. Check out this great resource of mind candy.

Brian Reich writes the following in Shift & Reset:

“I am angry. There are real problems facing the world, and we, as a society, are not doing enough to address them in the right ways, not the ways we know are possible. The old way isn’t working, and we know it.

We continue to reward the same behaviors we have rewarded in the past while expecting different results. We profess interest in really doing things differently but settle into routines that are comfortable and safe, and we are fooling ourselves. There are lots of excuses for not making real, demonstrable changes in the way we live, work, and how we interact as individuals and engage in groups/communities. I have heard them all. I have used many of them myself. But they are bullshit. All excuses are. A person either truly, deeply, genuinely cares about changing things or he doesn’t. You can step up and do what it takes, in whatever way you can, or you need to acknowledge your limits and accept the results.

What might be possible if we were really committed, as individuals and as a society? I’ve thought a lot about this, and instead of remaining angry, I choose to embrace the question and figure out how I can use the anger to make things happen.”

So with that, read the PDF, realize that you don’t really care, and start caring.

Coming Up Short

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I often come up short, failing to meet the expectations of others.  This reality makes me human.  In my failings, it is the feedback of others which enables me to address and facilitate change.  However, in the past month, I have noticed an increased trend in criticism without feedback.

I am not opposed to being judged, critiqued, or graded according to certain standards.  As long as the standards of judgment are defined and shared.

It is the mark of a coward, not a critic, that takes a cheap shot without explanation.

It is my responsibility to ignore the coward, but the attitude of inexplicable superiority will eternally piss me off.

This anger drives me to act appropriately when I am in the position of grading someone else.

I will always tell you what I think and why.

Is it too much to ask for the same in return?

When Education Meets Reality

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I am just about to finish my second course in the master’s program in organizational leadership at Warner Pacific College and already I am learning concepts that I can directly apply to my business.

For example, in the subject of leading change, there is a model of change illustrated by the following graph:

Disconfirming data are challenges to “self-concepts,” or in my case, how I have defined my business and how I operate. When met with disconfirming data, I learned all too often I am in the Deny/Distort/Discount/Ignore circle instead of going between Enthusiasm/Engagement/Learning, Search for Alternatives, and Experiment circles.

In a couple of weeks, I start Financial Environments of Organizations, a seven-week course focused on topics such as “an overview of the general business environment, financial fundamentals, budgetary concept, project analysis, and assessing the financial well-being of the organization. It will also enable students to utilize financial data for strategic planning and decision-making.”

The Individual Project is most interesting and applicable:

Each student will be required to complete a comprehensive financial research assessment of his or her own company or another company in which he or she has considerable personal or professional stake. This research project will require the student to gain significant knowledge about the financial position and functions of his or her own company and how he or she has impact on it. The student will be required to research his or her company using internal and external information including the internet, personal interviews, financial statements or annual reports, and any other data collection method appropriate to the project. The student will then write a 10–20 page paper analyzing the organization including:

  • An analysis of the current financial standing of the organization including information regarding how the organization’s financial situation is impacting its future planning
  • A competitive and industry analysis
  • A risk analysis for the organization
  • An analysis of the current financial strategy of the organization, and how they allocate financial resources
  • Recommendations for ways to improve the financial condition of the organization.

I’m looking forward to looking a little deeper at my business and how I can improve the financial standing of the work I do for others. It will be difficult, humbling, eye-opening, devastating, and completely necessary.

It’s Easy To Focus When…

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I just got back from a two week mission trip to Haiti where a few teams worked on a two-story orphanage. While it was amazing to see what was accomplished in two weeks, it was equally amazing to see how easy it was to focus on the task at hand when nothing was competing for our attention.

Each day was simple:

  1. Wake up.
  2. Eat breakfast.
  3. Be on the truck at 6:30 am.
  4. Work until 10:00 am.
  5. Break for 15 minutes.
  6. Work until 12:00 pm.
  7. Break for two hours to eat lunch.
  8. Work until 5:00 pm.
  9. Clean up.
  10. Eat dinner.
  11. Clean dishes.
  12. Group devotionals.
  13. Collapse from exhaustion.

Not a whole lot of room for distractions. And given the unreliable nature of electricity in the evenings, there was an absence of distraction and lure to be captivated by the internet.

As I get acclimated back to my daily life, I find a desire to maintain the simplicity of focus that was prevalent in Haiti. My schedule is drastically different, but what I have learned is that focus and attention to tasks is easier when there is nothing competing for my attention.

The Tin Man Metaphor

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There is nothing quite like describing an emotion or feeling with a metaphor, especially a well-constructed and timely metaphor.

Usually my metaphors are so complex that I spend more time explaining what I mean and less time sitting in awe of the connection between images and emotions.

But last night, I hit pay dirt with this simple metaphor for how I am feeling: I am the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, standing in the middle of the forest, with my axe in hand, unable to do my job because I am rusted in place, and the only way to be free is from the action of another person.

I am surrounded by possibility. I have the ability and the means, but I am frozen with fear and inertia.

I have rusted in place and all I can do is wait for people to oil my hinges while I ask this question over and over:

Why didn’t I leave when I saw the clouds rolling in?

2011: The Year Of Phoning It In

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I look back at this year and see how much I “phoned in” my performance all year long.

The numbers aren’t lying either.

2011 was a year full of stupid mistakes, a lack of interest, and a severe inability to take risks.

I’m not proud of much this past year.

I held on when I should have let go and I lost grip of what was important.

As I move into 2012, I need to remember one thing: Eventually I need to push all-in and risk everything. I will either win big or lose small. I will never know if I don’t.

If I write this same post next year, it is because I’m still sitting at the table, short-stacked, realizing I’m no longer getting free drinks.

But Will It Last?

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It’s amazing what happens in sixteen years: I graduated from high school, went to college, dropped out from college, went back to college, visited multiple countries, worked a couple of jobs, started my own business, got married, got fat then skinny then proportionate, started working on graduate studies, and about a million other milestones and mundane life markers.

Throughout each of these life events, I had a trusty confidant by my side (more accurately, in my mouth, cemented behind my lower teeth).

Keeping my teeth in line, I never really thought about my confidant, it was always there.

Until recently…

My confidant became loose.

My teeth slowly started to shift.

I think about how strong the cement was, holding a small piece of wire in place for sixteen years.

I think about how much food and drink I have consumed over the years.

Not much in this life is made to withstand the brutality food and drink had upon the poor little wire.

I could probably say the wire is a metaphor for life and the need for time-tested confidants to keep us in line, but the wire is not the metaphor, the cement is.

Without the cement, I would have choked on the wire long ago.