Leaning Toward Wisdom

"A girl I became friends with on a school trip in high school fell asleep on my shoulders on the ride back."

"I'm still coasting on that memory."

 

Crimson and Clover and Crystal Blue Persuasion were on the same album. I was 11. It was one of my first and biggest music memories of "my" music...and perhaps it was the first record I wore out. Literally.

Listening to Top 40 radio was a constant in the car. At home, the biggest memory and influence was my dad's 1962 Ray Charles' record, Modern Sounds of Country and Western Music.

Side one

1. "Bye Bye Love"

2. "You Don't Know Me"

3. "Half as Much"

4. "I Love You So Much It Hurts"

5. "Just a Little Lovin' (Will Go a Long Way)"

6. "Born to Lose"

Side two

1. "Worried Mind"

2. "It Makes No Difference Now"

3. "You Win Again"

4. "Careless Love"

5. "I Can't Stop Loving You"

6. "Hey, Good Lookin'"

 

 

My early music experiences consisted of great rhythm and harmonies. My sister loved The Lettermen and later on, The Carpenters. For me, Ray Charles was hard to beat. For a little kid, not yet a teenager, I was falling in love with music.

The albums were played on a piece of furniture. Homes with music had stereo consoles.

Junior high brought on a new music-related interest, hi-fi stereo gear. That fueled even deeper and broader interest in records. Tons of music memories have provided a good coasting surface for my life.

Watching the documentary about Ben Fong-Torres, famous music editor for Rolling Stone magazine brought back lots of memories of the 1970s and the music that once dominated my life. But music is just part of the memories I coast on. Words increasingly mattered, and not just the song lyrics. I devoured Ben Fong-Torres' writing. And Hunter S. Thompson. And Cameron Crowe. Their writing wasn't like anything familiar to me. Ben wrote about music and musicians. Hunter, well, he wrote about lots of stuff. Popular culture. Politics. I didn't care that much about the topics, but I enjoyed how Hunter wrote. Crowe, like Ben, he was writing about musicians. I read their stuff regularly adding a new coasting surface for memories - words.

Music. Technology. Words. The convergence of these 3 things happened in the 1970s. The song remains the same.

Memories reflected my future. And my present.

Memories don't determine the present or the future, but they influence it. Our memories are part of us. What has happened to us helps define us.

The guy coasting on the memory of the girl who fell asleep on his shoulder indicates how something so small can linger for so long...and even fuel us along the way. It's not about coasting in the sense that we don't do anything. Not putting any effort into anything. I don't know what memories you may leverage for coasting, but it did make me think of what memories might be fueling me.

I began the conversation with memories of music because music has accompanied every era of my life so far. I don't suspect it's going to stop until my life stops. But I'm not coasting on it. Any of it. It's not a driving force so much as a soundtrack, a key but minor player in the grand scheme of things.

I started thinking of the memory this guy shared and wondering if I had any such memories. I'm not at a loss for pivotal memories, but I'm not sure I've got any single memory that fuels me like that.

One of my first thoughts was about family and faith. And not separately, but how connected they are for me. I've long thought that I hit the lottery when it came to being born into a Christian home where I was taught the Bible and where I learned about God. And myself. From grandparents to parents to old men and old women, I was fortunate enough to have great teachers. I didn't have to go searching for God or the truth. It was handed to me on a platter. I only had to read, listen, learn and figure out on my own whether I'd embrace it or not. It wasn't about indoctrination as much as it was about exp...

Last season I'm watching one of the grandkids play ball. My granddaughter plays softball and both of her little brothers play baseball. I can't remember which kid was playing, but I noticed a few players who would approach the plate refusing to swing. By the time I'd see these players come up to bat the second time around, it was evident they were hoping they'd get a walk. Stand in the batter's box, bat perched on their shoulder and the pitch didn't matter. Low, high, or right down the middle. They weren't going to swing.

The most quoted quote about such things has to be this one...

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.              - Wayne Gretzky

At least in baseball and softball, you have the chance of being walked. ;) No such luck in hockey!

I've long been fascinated - puzzled may be a better word for it - by kids who play sports, but are obviously afraid. Watching a 7-year-old step into the batter's box fully committed to keeping that bat on his shoulder makes me wonder, "What is he afraid of?" Is he afraid of striking out? Is he afraid of looking foolish? Of being made fun of? Of hitting the ball badly?

It's hard to know what a little kid is afraid of. It's hard to know what somebody is fearful of because I struggle sometimes trying to identify my own fears!

For months we've been navigating our own version of a Little League batter's box. We made up our mind we were not going to keep the bat on our shoulders though. But we're not little kids. As two adult, mature (a synonym for old) people - a married couple - we didn't step into the box until we knew we were ready. When it's your time to hit, you'd best get on with it and give it a go.

Will we get a hit and get on base? Might we hit a double? A triple? Will we get a walk or strike out? Or...might we hit a home run?

The courage to take a swing is the courage to patiently wait for the pitch we most want to hit and give ourselves the opportunity for any degree of success. There are multiple ways to get on base. Success isn't limited to just hitting the pitch over the fence in a homerun. That's the very best outcome, but it's not the only one. And if we strike out, it's not final. We can regroup and get back into the box for another crack at success.

So we're taking our swings...and I'm gonna share a bit of our batter's story thus far.

Please tell a friend about the podcast!

• Join our private Facebook group

• Email me

Marie: My Maternal Grandmother

Oatmeal Cookie Recipe By Re

Bessie Marie Burns was born April 8, 1906, near Sulphur, Oklahoma. She died on February 2, 1982, in Ada, Oklahoma. She despised her first name. Everybody called her Marie, but anybody who really knew her called her, "Re."

I just registered ResRetreat.com - there'd be an apostrophe if the Internet allowed them. It's Re's Retreat. I've been dreaming, conniving, and planning for almost 3 years.

I'm still working the controls as deftly as possible to land the plane, but I see the airport. The tower hasn't yet instructed me to land. I don't yet have an assigned runway, but I'm optimistic. And hoping I can land before I run out of fuel.

About 4 years ago we booked an Airbnb reservation to a place we had never been. It looked like our kind of place. Lots of trees, mountainous, walking trails, wildlife, serene, quiet. Woods. I love woods.

Best of all, it was just one state away, a 5-hour drive.

Now, four years later, and multiple trips - and a year of podcasting about the place (HSVInsideOut.com) we're leaning toward making another investment in the place - and in our future.

Three or four years of dreaming. And scheming. To make something happen. Time will tell if we can succeed with our plan. And land this plane.

Podcasting From Inside The Yellow Studio

It started in 2000 with version 1.0. In 2019, thanks to the addition of the Rode Rodecaster Pro - which was made possible by the listeners of Leaning Toward Wisdom during Project: Craving Encouragement - version 2.0 was born. That's still the version in use for today's show, but I'm planning to make dramatic changes - Version 3.0. I'm not exactly sure what it'll look like, but I have some very solid ideas. It's going to be less of a specific place and more of a here's-where-I'm-at kind of a place.

Our Encore Chapter: Writing It The Way We Hope Is Best

There are three priorities in our story writing: spiritual (which includes emotional and mental well-being), financial, and family. They're all intertwined.

Spiritual is number one because eternity changes everything! There are no dead atheists. Every atheist who dies quickly realizes God is real. And Heaven and Hell are, too. If you want to read a glimpse of life after this one, read the story in Luke.

Luke 16:19-31

New King James Version

The Rich Man and Lazarus

“There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and [a]fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ ”

Financial isn't about building wealth,

In 1975 Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks broke up. Well, according to the lore, Stevie broke up with him. In his broken-hearted angst, he wrote the song, Go Your Own Way.

But I'm listening to the song the other day and it sparked a different idea - one I've long thought. Rather than a breakup song where we're telling the girl she can go her own way...what if it were a song where we were admonishing ourselves to go the way we most want to go. "You've gotta find what works for you." It's a common statement, but I've found not that many people actually do it. This is why when I heard Lindsey's song this time - the millionth time or so - I wasn't thinking of the context he was thinking when he wrote it. I was thinking of how we're mostly busy comparing ourselves to others and attempting to reverse engineer everything.

Much is written and said about how to do something. We're busy trying to replicate the success of others. "Hey, look at what they're doing. Let's do that." Then when it doesn't work we slink away in despair wondering what went wrong. To appease our despair we go off on a new hunting expedition to find somebody else who is succeeding. What we're really looking for is somebody else to copy. Another subject we can mimic in hopes we'll achieve whatever success they're achieving.

“If you don’t get lost, there’s a chance you may never be found.” ~ Anonymous

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Just because my path is different doesn’t mean I’m lost.” ~Gerard Abrams

Maybe people find it more appealing to find somebody to copy and give that a go rather than looking more deeply inward to figure out the way they should go.

Maybe people put too much emphasis and pressure on succeeding. Maybe it's a money thing. Or status thing.

Maybe people worry too much about what other people think of them. Or how others will judge them. Am I living in a nice enough house? Am I driving a nice enough car? Do I make enough money?

Maybe it's all of these things - and more.

As usual, life isn't so simple. Likely there are so many variables it'd take an MIT-trained mathematician to calculate.

“If you do not like where you are, move. You are not a tree.” ~ Jim Rohn

Maybe it's time to figure out who and what we are. And who and what we most want to be - while being congruent with the realities of our personality. The core of who we are isn't likely going to change. For instance, I’m an introvert. I'm not going to alter that, no matter how badly I may want to. There have been many times when I wished I were somebody different, but life has taught me it's a waste of time and effort.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” ~ Thomas Edison

Quitting too soon is a real thing. The problem of course is you don't really know when you've quit too soon. How do you know?

We just have to be sure we're diving into the correct pool, and giving it our best while understanding there are no guarantees we'll make it to the other side.

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” ~ Wayne Dyer

“A ship is always safe at shore. But that is not what it is built for.” – Albert Einstein

“You can’t reach for anything new if your hands are full of yesterday’s junk.” ~ Louise Smith

I'm not a tree, so I'm moving. Literally. And figuratively. I don't yet have the details, but I'll share them when I can.

“What feels like the end is often the beginning.” ~ Unknown

When A Son Becomes A Husband and Father

He was born early on Sunday morning, August 17, 1980. In this part of the world, the summer of 1980 still remains historical for record-setting heat. His mom had a miserable summer. Our first child, like all firstborns, was highly anticipated. There was no gender reveal celebration in 1980. It was a better world. ;)

As a first-time dad, I only had two concerns: for my wife and this new child to both emerge healthy and well. In 1980 there was a popular skit on Saturday Night Live, The Coneheads. When I first saw him I knew he had to be the offspring of Beldar (Dan Aykroyd) and Prymaat (Jane Curtin) - not us. The doctor assured me in time his head would appear more normal. Along with his color. He was a red conehead, but I was so thankful he was according to the doctor "normal." Turns out the doctor was incorrect. This kid wasn't normal by any stretch. He was extraordinary.

He was full of energy, the kid who never had a bad day. He was more social than either of his parents, making us wonder about those original moments where he could have easily jettisoned to earth from the planet Remulak. But no, he's ours. Or was, until he surrounded himself with a wife and three children of his own. Now he belongs to even more people. We've been proud to share him.

I've always watched him closely with admiration. Or frustration. But always with such deep love that transcends my ability of expression.

Proud is the word that best describes how I feel about him today - and every day. Proud because he's become exactly what I had hoped and worked toward - a better man. And nothing is better for a son or a father, providing the father isn't some piece of garage character who has set such a low bar that it's not gonna be hard for a son to be better. That's not the case with us. I've put in the work to be a good man. I hope I am a good man. But he's better. And I'm happiest knowing that he's put in the work necessary to be who he is. We just helped guide him on the journey.

Happy Birthday!

I love him. I love his family. I love his mom.

P.S. Follow him on Tik Tok and you'll see how awesome he is.

From 30 feet away a shotgun blast will disperse many dozens of pellets over a broad area. The greater the distance, the wider the spread of pellets.

A rifle on the other hand is a single projectile. It only creates one hole in the target, but it's able to do it from a much greater distance.

The energy behind a shotgun propels dozens of BB-like projectiles toward the target while the rifle focuses all that energy on a single bullet. Focusing on less is rifle-like. Multi-tasking like a madman is more shotgun-like.

Years ago while working with a client who was easily distracted because everywhere he looked he saw opportunities, I created a diagram to show him the power of focusing on fewer opportunities. Sometime later I created a 1:21-minute video (without sound) to replicate what I did in front of the client that day.

I drew a circle with a dot in the center. That center dot represented the starting point for any business pursuits my client might engage in. The outer circle represented profit or whatever measurement he wanted to use to represent success. And I began by marking an X somewhere on the circle, to represent that goal. A circle is 360 degrees so we'll assume there are 360 choices or pursuits (even though there are infinite number of them really). So our X represents just one.

I then began to advance one dot at a time from the center dot (the starting point) in a straight line toward the X, the goal. I put 3 dots in a line and told my client that each dot represented a step toward achieving success in that direction.

Then I drew a new X on a different part of the circle to represent a new opportunity - a new pursuit. And I put three dots in the direction of that X, telling my client that represented steps taken to achieve success toward that different goal.

I did it with a third X on yet a different part of the circle. Again, I put 3 dots toward that goal, representing different activities put toward this third goal.

Suppose there are 10 dots between the center starting point and anywhere on the circle. The dots represent the actions necessary to reach the outer circle or success. By now I've put 9 dots on the diagram, but they're divided by 3 different pursuits so none of them is even a third the way toward achieving success.

I explained to him that if his attention had been more narrowly focused on a single objective then he'd be 9 steps toward success. That meant, he'd be just one step away from achieving the goal, albeit a single goal. But instead, he was about one-third the way toward achieving success in 3 different areas. Which meant he wasn't even close to success at any of them. His history showed that he hardly ever reached the outer circle. With anything. When he did manage to achieve it, he struggled the sustain it...or improve it because something else grabbed his attention.

Over time, it was pretty clear to him what he most struggled with -- he mistook motion for action. As long as he was running around with his hair on fire he felt like he was driven, and ambitious. But he was wrong. Clarity was elusive for him. He didn't see it. Until he finally could see it. His lack of success had very little to do with much else other than his focused attention to it for long enough periods to make it a reality. He was busy traveling short distances in many directions, but the goals were all longer distances away. Short trips to the store do not a vacation trip make.

That's the power of less. It's the power of embracing or leaning into less - not more.

Throughout our time together he discovered that he had a fundamental idea that had never proven true in his life. Throw more stuff on the wall and something is bound to stick. Bet on more numbers and surely one of your numbers will win. Do enough things and something is bound to succeed. But it never did. Because he struggled to maintain enough focus fully exploit any opportunity.

The first real studio tour I did Inside The Yellow Studio was more than a decade in. It was 2015. At that point, I'd been laying down audio tracks online for years. Then when you guys helped me get the new (at the time) Rode Rodecaster Pro in 2019, I did a new tour. Click here to see and listen to that.

I won't rehash history because you can go back and dive as deeply as you'd like. Or not all at.

The broadcast workflow has always been how I've rolled. That is, I prepare in advance, then I hit RECORD, and mostly, I'm done. It's finished. My editing is pre-recording editing. It's a broadcast workflow because that's how live broadcasts work. There are no do-overs. It's out and done. Foibles and all.

That workflow was the genesis of The Yellow Studio version 1.0. It consisted of a sizable rack of gear, which I loved. It wasn't cheap, but my sound was consistently great - whether I was on a Skype call or recording an audio or video. Because all the sound was produced in real-time through all the hardware I had. Software is a much cheaper route to go, but you have to incorporate a recording workflow, not a broadcast one. That means, you record, then you process the file and fool with things after-the-fact. No thanks!

In 2019 the Rodecaster Pro ushered in The Yellow Studio Version 2.0. I ditched the full rack of equipment, replacing every bit of it with one device - the Rode Rodecaster Pro. It was a big shift - and improvement in the signal chain. Not just because the Rodecaster Pro is such a great device, but because all the cabling changed and became very straightforward. Now I was able to use shorter run XLR cables directly from the microphones to the Rode. No more going into the vocal strip (mic preamps), then into another processor, then into an interface...gone was the spaghetti of wires Inside The Yellow Studio. It was wonderful and the studio became so much nicer for me! Thanks to many of you who contributed money to help me buy the Rode!

The Yellow Studio is soon going to go away. Well, more accurately, Version 2.0 is going away. Not because of the new Rodecaster Pro 2, which I hope to get soon, but because I'm physically moving. Yep, moving! Lord willing, Rhonda and I will be finding some new digs where I'll have to erect The Yellow Studio Version 3.0. I can't yet tell you the details because I don't know them, but I'll figure it out.

Lord willing, The Yellow Studio Version 3.0 will include the new Rode Rodecaster Pro 2, but we'll see how it goes. Otherwise, I have no other hardware changes planned. At some point, I'll migrate to an Apple laptop and give up the 27" Apple iMac (circa 2017). I'll keep a big monitor, but I'm going to shift to greater mobility so a laptop will be vital.

Some Things That Will Be Different In Version 3.0

No books. Okay, fewer books. So few they won't likely matter.

The Yellow Studio Versions 1.0 and 2.0 had eight (8) bookcases full of books. And knick-knacks. Oh, the knick-knacks will remain! ;) Let it never be said I didn't have my priorities straight.

About 4 of those bookcases were filled with religious or "church" books. Bible commentaries and other books that I've spent my life collecting. And reading and studying. In my now "not so famous" document, When I Die...I had always written down that my son would get the entire library. Well, in my efforts to purge about 80% of my personal possessions, I asked him if he wanted them now. I only had 2 requests: a) make sure our immediate family, including the grandkids, have access to them and b) that includes me! He agreed so he'll be getting about half of the books. The other half of the library consists of secular books, mostly business and biographies. I plan to keep about 3 shelves of those and donate all the rest!

My life hasn't had this few books since I was a teenager. But I don't mind. It's quite liberating actually. I've already worked through the emotions and depression about it. ;)

No CD rack.

It's a line from the TV series, The Americans. In season 3, episode 3 FBI agent Stan Beeman is asked about his past undercover work where he infiltrated a white supremacist group. The colleague asks him how he was able to succeed in that assignment. Stan tells him you just keep on telling them what they want to hear, over and over and over again. Then he utters the great line, "People love hearing how right they are."

Years of coaching people -mostly high performers 'cause they're the ones most focused on getting better - have shown me how true it is. I've had a few non-high performers who resisted the process of coaching because they mostly wanted to hear how good they already are. Well, they thought they did until I challenged them to look more closely in the mirror and stop making excuses.

When we hear how right we are, we can avoid thinking about how wrong we might be. So I get it. The urge to constantly feel good about ourselves is real. It sure beats feeling bad about ourselves. But that's the trouble with modern culture - the assumption that it feels bad to realize we can do (or be) better! It's a lie though and most of us likely know it because we've felt tremendous pride in growing and improving ourselves.

Not Everybody Finds Value In Being Challenged - No Matter How Much Care Is Displayed

In 2007 a book was published that provided one of the biggest challenges to me - Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning. I loved that book because it challenged many things for me. It was invigorating. Immediately I started viewing business - the business I was operating - through a different lens. My curiosity soared, which is saying something because I was already driven by questions.

My experience with that book helped me better understand what had - up to that point - been a lifelong pursuit of seeking challenges. Challenges to my assumptions. Challenges to my perspectives. Challenges to what I had already learned.

It had begun from years of studying with older men about the Bible. Working hard to derive whatever wisdom could be passed on. Asking questions. Looking for areas where I could grow and improve. Turns out there weren't any areas where I couldn't grow or improve. ;)

In my 20s I developed a habit that was foreign to the industry where I worked. The business plan. I wasn't involved in the startup world. I was mostly involved in more turnaround work - taking an existing enterprise from one level of success to a higher level. I began to write detailed, in-depth business plans to answer questions I'd ask about the organization I was involved in. I'd spend hours digging for the truth - looking for facts and evidence from which to draw conclusions.

3M was a premier company at the time. Not that they're not today, but I knew some employees of 3M and it was clear their company was on the bleeding edge of innovation and fact-finding. These were the days of Jack Welch's General Electric, and I became a big fan. Those two enormous companies - 3M and GE - were very instrumental in my quest to challenge myself.

This was my professional life in the early 80s.

By 1982 I was beginning to gain some insight into how others viewed being challenged. I was forming my own leadership philosophy - and my own business viewpoints on how to best build, organize and grow an organization. The more people I hired the more apparent it became that the ideal candidate for my style of leadership were people who most enjoyed being caringly challenged. Heavy on the descriptor, caringly. Which in my mind didn't mean soft-pedaling, but meant you had to have the other person's best interest at heart.

I learned the hard way that sometimes it didn't matter how much I cared. The other person sometimes had no interest in being challenged. I sought answers to find out why. Sometimes it seemed the other person simply had little or no experience with the sensation. Sometimes I could explain. Sometimes I couldn't.

Psychology Today says this about loneliness...

Loneliness is the state of distress or discomfort that results when one perceives a gap between one's desires for social connection and actual experiences of it.

First off, I'm not a psychologist. I'm a lifelong student in human behavior and psychology, but that hardly makes me an expert. But I notice things. I notice people. I notice my own behavior. I'm in good touch with my feelings, even though I don't always love how I'm feeling - or know how to go about altering them as quickly as I'd like.

Like now.

Did you know that according to one BYU researcher, extreme social isolation can have the same negative impact on health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day? If that's extreme isolation, then I wonder what moderate isolation - or moderate loneliness - produces. The equivalent of smoking how many cigarettes a day? Do you suppose we could equate our degree of loneliness - feeling isolated - with a specific number of cigarettes smoked in a day? Curious minds would like to know.

The research makes a distinction between isolation and loneliness. Isolation is objective. Loneliness is subjective. You can measure isolation. It's hard to gauge the subjective feeling of being lonely. No matter, most of us just know whether or not we're lonely.

ZingInstruments.com has a list of the top 20 songs about loneliness. See if you agree with their list. I've not researched it enough to argue with it.

‘Only The Lonely (Know the Way I Feel)’ By Roy Orbison

‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’ by Bob Dylan

‘So Lonely’ by The Police

‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie

‘Lonely Boy’ by The Black Keys

‘Lonely’ by Tom Waits

‘Eleanor Rigby’ by The Beatles

‘Pictures of You’ by The Cure

‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ by Hank Williams

‘Tired Of Being Alone’ by Al Green

‘Lonely Avenue’ by Ray Charles

‘The Loner’ by Neil Young

‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ by Elvis Presley

‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ by Green Day

‘How to Fight Loneliness’ by Wilco

‘Cactus’ by The Pixies

‘I Wish You Lonely’ by Morrissey

‘Lonely Girl’ by Weezer

‘Lonely People’ by America

‘Solitary Man’ by Neil Diamond

 

There are lots of songs, poems,  and stories about loneliness. Because it's such a universal sensation. More chronic for some than others.

I've examined my own loneliness for as long as I can remember. Even though I'm an introvert I'm not anti-social. I've never been extremely isolated. I've never really been isolated. Even during the shut-down days of the pandemic, I was with my wife. I jokingly say of my introversion and need to get away at times, "I'm just looking for a big rock to crawl under." That's much less about loneliness and more about my personal need to be left alone.

Sidebar, your honor. I wish some people had a greater capacity for observation and soft skills. See if you can relate to this. Think of people in your life who have little to no awareness of how others are wired. They go about their business treating everybody identically the same, as much as possible. That person who is extroverted or wants to be the most popular person around, works the crowd like a politician and then often - in my life - declares how we need more social interaction. But their constant intrusion in my life, which I politely (okay, sometimes not so much) grin and bear, saps my strength unlike anything else. Trust me, I know how to give off a vibe that even a blind person could sense. But these poor folks don't seem to pick up on it. I've watched it closely all my life and my conclusion hasn't changed. They're not watching for it. In me, or anybody else. Watch them closely. Those folks who work a room. Appearing to befriend all comers. Notice something if you will. It's not about the people they greet. Or interact with. It's about them. They don't notice the effect they have on you because they're not thinking about you. They're in it for themselves.

Let's talk about noticing. Or not.

Our soon-to-be 42-year-old son created this book when he was in grade school

Someday. Too often we declare we'll do things "someday." Well, somebody is here. The little boy who wrote this book is now a grown man, husband, father of 3, and business owner.

Let's talk about turning life upside down intentionally because we know that one side of life - our existing life - is done!