Leaning Toward Wisdom

I stare out the window. The trees have dropped all their leaves. Fall fell. Now it's winter. But I'm in north-central Texas so that isn't quite what it is to you guys who live in Canada or Minnesota or Maine. I'm craving a change of scenery. Not just the kind nature provides, but the kind that puts your head into a clearer space. 

So away we go to a spot we often frequent. About half-a-day away by car. Not bad.

Piney woods. They affect me in the most positive way.

Here I am sitting on the covered back porch with an overhead radiant heater. It's chilly, but I'm comfortable. I'm staring at a golf course, the 6th hole. I've got a clear shot of the tee boxes and the green. Almost a straight-on view, which allows me to track the balls the golfers hit from the tee.

I've been here before. Back in the summer when I didn't need a heater. Or flannel shirts.

It was then, during the summer, when I told my wife, "I could spend quite a lot of time here." She immediately responded, "Yeah, I could, too."

Then we engaged those dreaming wheels in our heads. They're not really just dreaming wheels though. They're more like pondering wheels looking for a path forward, working out a way to make it happen!

You daydream. Imagining what it might be like to be in your favorite place. Maybe a beach. Maybe mountains. Maybe lakeside. Your mind drifts to your life and where you're at versus where you'd most like to be. Some success that isn't reality. Yet. Some achievement that's unrealized. Some lifestyles you don't currently enjoy. You ask yourself the same question you've asked most of your life.

Wouldn't it be great if...?

Wouldn't it be great if we had a lake house?

Wouldn't it be great if our business were twice as big?

Wouldn't it be great if we got a new car?

Wouldn't it be great if we got married?

It's a question we ask ourselves about anything and everything. Like a can of lighter fluid on our wildest dreams, we engage parts of our brain that feel like we've neglected for too long. We easily embrace it and go with the flow of imagining what life might be like if our hypothetical were real.

Wouldn't it be great if...? 

You'll never say, "No, it wouldn't be great."

Your mind will always think, "Yes. Yes, it would be great."

Because during such times, in our head we work things out so everything works out beautifully. No snags. No problems. No downsides.

We do the same thing with the choices we didn't make but wish we would have. We assume the choice we didn't make would have worked out marvelously. We never think, "Good thing I didn't take that other path 'cause that would have been a disaster!"

In our heads, the choice we didn't make would have worked out fine. Or perfectly fine. Or terrifically.

We look back and think, "What if we'd made that other choice?" Again, in our heads, we iron out all the outcomes so they're better than the ones we now enjoy.

The reality is we only know the outcomes of the choices we made. Had we made a different choice...we think we know how it would have worked out, but we don't really know. We project a successful outcome in our minds. It feels real prompting us to regret the choice we made. Maybe. Or at the least, wondering if the other choices might have been better!

Fact is - maybe it would be great. Maybe it would be a disaster. Maybe it wouldn't matter. We'll only know if we pursue it.

So it makes sense that our brains would gravitate to the best-case-scenario. Why not think the best? Why not think, "Wouldn't it be great if (fill in the blank)?" That's better than thinking, "Wouldn't it be awful if (fill in the blank)?"

I’m battling my chronic insomnia. Again.

3 am brings out my best. Sometimes.

Headphones are on and I'm watching buskers on YouTube. YouTube has some suggestions for me. One is a video of a man holding an acoustic guitar. The title indicates he's covering a Radiohead song, No Surprises. Well, I have to click on that. Not because I love Radiohead 'cause I don't even like them. But this man does not look like he'd like them either. I can't imagine what this cover might be like so I have to find out.



Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Who is this old guy? He's been in my life all of the 3 minutes it took him to play this song and I'm smitten. I like this guy. Instantly. A lot.

This video has over 300,000 views. How have I never seen this man play before? Must be an outlier, but I'm thankful YouTube made the suggestion. I click on his name, below which I see 176K subscribers, which takes me to his YouTube channel's main page. A hundred seventy-six thousand subscribers? WHOA!

I look at the many videos he's produced and click on another one, a John Prine cover, "I Remember Everything." I do love John Prine. I'm still sad that John is gone. I click on that video and I'm fully smitten by this guy now. I click play who knows how many times before I finally stumble into bed.

About 90 minutes later I'm up for the day. I go to Frank's YouTube channel, to the about section. No details. No website. Just a place to click for an email address for business requests. I click it and shoot him an email.

Frank,

I have no idea what to even say. Except that stumbling onto your channel made me - yes, MADE ME - devote hours watching video after video.

I'm a business guy who began to podcast before it was even called PODCASTING. My passion project is a podcast called Leaning Toward Wisdom (https://LeaningTowardWisdom.com - tagline is "modern tales of an ancient pursuit").

Would you be open to having a recorded conversation with me for that show? A Zoom video call. Not an interview, but a conversation with a guy from Dallas, Texas who loves what you're doing. True confession: I've had a passion and love for the guitar for as long as I can remember, but I never learned to play. I learned that what I love most is watching/listening to others play. You're now added to the list. Thank you.

Think about it and let me know. I promise it'll be fun. More fun than that stunt of your daughter slapping you about the vegan remark. :D

Randy





Frank replied the same day.

Randy ,

Thank you for getting in touch, i don’t mind having a conversation with you i’m not sure if you know i am in the UK, so we would have to get the times right, i would probably have to take a laptop upstairs or something depending on whether anyone else is at home, my wife and grandson can get pretty noisy at times lol, you mentioned that vegan joke, funny how humour doesn’t always translate as quite a few people didn’t like the idea of a daughter doing that to her dad, but then you can’t please everyone, oh and i have family in Texas (San Antonio), never met them but still family lol, if i’m right i think you are 6 hours behind us, you mentioned you like guitars but never learned to play ……i didn’t either lol!

Frank.

Having watched the 2 videos with his daughter I was not surprised at the snarkiness of his reply. And the bromance continued. :D

Listen, when you get to be the age of me and Frank you rather enjoy seeing and connecting with people who have some notion of how you grew up in the days before the Internet.

Here's the original of a cover done by Frank. This will give you an idea of just how much Frank makes these covers his own.



I contacted about half a dozen business owners expressing interest in hiring them for a future project. Yes, they were all in the same space. I was hoping to figure out the best one to do what I wanted to be done. I sent cold emails explaining what I was hoping to accomplish. I contacted 7 companies. Literally, I contacted 7 business owners.

Right away I heard back from one who offered to schedule a phone call within the next 2 weeks. A few back and forth emails resulted in him wanting a 9 am appointment. I offered to send a calendar invitation, which would include a note that he was to call me on my cell phone, which I listed in the invitation. He accepted the invitation. Now we'd wait.

The morning arrived. My wife joined me here inside the Yellow Studio as we awaited the business owner's phone call. I was going to run the call through my podcasting gear so my wife and I both had mics in front of us and each of us donned a pair of headphones. Nine o'clock arrived. Then 9:05 am. Then 9:10 am. Then 9:15 am. I told my wife, "He's not going to call." At 9:22 am I called him. No answer. Voice mail. I left him a voicemail saying, "I apologize if I got our time slot wrong, but you offered and accepted the calendar invitation for 9 am. Perhaps I misunderstand. I guess we can reschedule. Thank you."

At 9:33 am he called. I was in another meeting so my phone went straight to voicemail. He left a message that he was calling, acting as though he was showing up on time. When I got out of my meeting I returned his call. Rang and rang, then went to voicemail. I left another message, similar to the first one.

And I never heard from him again.

Let's get one thing out here upfront. Business requires marketing - getting the word out. Elevating visibility as much as possible. Being top of mind and all that. Nobody will have a successful business without customers. And to attract customers, you need not only a good or viable product or service, but you need to make sure folks know about your good or viable product or service. That's just the start. You also have to have your act together. Whenever I'm dealing with business owners or leaders over at the day job (GrowGreat.com) I'm focused on the trifecta of business building: a) getting new customers, b) serving existing customers better and c) not going crazy in the process!

So I'd love to tell you about the differences between a business and YOU, but then I realized that may be the foundation of the issue I'm talking about today. Maybe there is NO difference. Maybe we are all in business. Perhaps we're not selling products or services (or art, podcasts, or music) for money, but we're certainly vying for attention. And attention may be more difficult to get than money. As a business guy, I know this much - until you get their attention you won't get their money. So maybe there's no difference between your personal life and a business. For some reason, that notion depresses me though. And I’m a business kinda guy.

Why Don't The Best Blow Their Own Horn The Loudest? That was my original title, but the more I thought about it the less I liked it. So I changed it to what eventually was the published title - The Loudest Horn Blowers Never Are The Best Players.

The real point today is probably best summed up in the statement, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well."

Let's take it a step further. If it's worth doing well, then it's worth doing it as well as you possibly can. It's worth being great, remarkable, dazzling --- and if you've got the talent, it's worth being world-class.

So why don't those considered "world-class" toot their own horn the loudest? Well, there are exceptions. Muhammad Ali was an exception. Michael Jordan maybe. Tiger Woods in his prime. Maybe. What about a non-sports example? Can you think of one? Yes, me neither.

"Are we good?" I ask.

There hadn't been any tension. No drama. No strife. But there had been a bit of quiet. And how could you know if it was caused by the pandemic or something else? Well, you couldn't. Unless you ask. So I did.

"Yes, of course," was the reply. A 15-minute phone conversation followed, catching up on a few things. Each of us reinforced to the other that we'd just not been in touch like either of us desired because the pandemic had completely thrown us off our rhythm. One last time, before we hung up, I said, "OK, we're good, right?" Confirmation came immediately. "Of course, we're better than good."

I hung up the phone and wrote the phrase, "OK, we're good, right?" Truth is I had already been thinking quite a lot about how people - all of us - are prone to surmising.

supposing that something is true without having evidence to confirm it

When I was pretty young I became keenly aware of people's obsessions with other people. Maybe something prompted it, but I don't remember anything specific. Just a bunch of things - various situations where I'd observe people who'd make assertions about people without having any facts or evidence. It was likely the language that got my attention because I've always had this weird fascination with words. Especially the words people use. "I'll bet he...(fill in the blank on what they were thinking)." Lots of people would say that about somebody.

During my early teen years, I was particularly irked with what we now call "fronting." People pretending. I naturally found pretentious people unpleasant. Mostly, I was intrigued by why people would so desperately care what other people thought about them that they'd be fake.

Couple these two colliding youthful observations about people and I grew increasingly perplexed by why people weren't just forthright with each other - and why people wouldn't behave more honestly with each other. Besides, I'd grown up hating strife and tension. Unlike what I saw in many adults - avoiding facing it or confronting it - I was naturally wired to find out the problem because it seemed to me you couldn't fix something without first knowing what was wrong. Making peace seemed to demand to get to the crux of the matter so you could find some common ground so everybody could move on.

I've learned through the years that sometimes people may think I'm insecure about whatever relationship we've got. "Are we good?" likely smacks of "he's feeling insecure about our relationship" to some. I don't always word it that way, but in spite of knowing how it may sound to some, I've also learned that the same people who may feel I'm taking aim at my own insecurity about our relationship feel that way no matter how I make the inquiry. I know because I've asked. :D

Then, there are those of us who ask a lot of questions because of our desire to know. Some of us are more naturally curious than others. It's why for decades I've often told people, "I know what I know, but I don't know what you know." The only conversations that I hate - after the fact - are those where I feel like I've talked too much. It happens more frequently than I'd like and I'm constantly reminding myself to be quieter.

I’m genuinely interested. Well, let's be completely honest. I'm genuinely interested when I'm talking to somebody I really want to talk with. There's only a small percentage of people in whom I'm not that interested. Self-absorbed, full of themselves types. Know-it-all, smartest-person-in-the-room types. I find myself lacking even a small amount of curiosity about such types, but I'm fairly interested in most people. I'm the guy who will not likely give up on the conversation until after 2 or 3 uncomfortable questions - made only uncomfortable by the person's not being forthright to answer. NOT, by my asking some uncomfortable questions.

Today's show was prompted by an email from a new listener who asked if I had any episodes giving "my story." Well, I didn't have the heart to tell him this entire podcast is pretty much "my story," but I know what he meant.

Hopefully, this is my not-so-boring effort to provide him, and YOU, a bit more context about me. But as always, this isn't about me, but it's about US. All of us, who have an interest in leaning more and more toward wisdom...while simultaneously leaning further and further away from our own foolishness.

Mentioned in today's show, as a resource for those who care to learn more, is RandyCantrell.com.

I hope you enjoy this show. And I hope collectively and individually we devote ourselves to making 2021 a year where we live better lives.

He lost 75 pounds in 3-1/2 months. He admits it wasn't likely the ideal way to do it or the ideal timeframe. But he was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Here's what he did:

1. Gave up soda and sugar

2. Ate oatmeal every morning

3. He ate grill chicken every day and premade enough for the week, his only veggie was broccoli

4. When he got too tired of chicken he ate eggs instead

5. He ate special k bars for sweet cravings (high glycemic but it worked for him)

6. He did eat fruit but his overall calories were under 1500 calories a day

7. He was hungry at night so he would go to bed early

8. He avoided dairy and went to almond milk

9. He did not go to the gym but he did walk and run

I saw his video about a year ago and for some reason, it popped up in my YouTube feed again so I watched it again. He's just a good 'ol boy trying to get better. The minute he said it, I instantly remembered watching this a year ago - because it's such a true statement.



Lots of folks who are smarter than me had said it. We all know it's true. In our own lives. In the lives of others.

“We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change.”                   - Dr. Henry Cloud

Our slimmed-down country boy says it in a way I can completely understand.

"You have to be totally tired of who you are."

Why would I be totally tired of who I am?

Let me count the ways. ;)

Self-awareness is the ability to see yourself clearly and objectively through reflection and introspection.

That's how an article at PositivePsychology.com begins. The title of the article is, "What Is Self-Awareness and Why Is It Important? [+5 Ways to Increase It]."

Social media is overrun with people disparaging the opinions or viewpoints of others when it comes to YOUR life. It goes well beyond the seemingly wise admonition to ignore the haters. It presupposes that everybody has the ability and desire to see themselves accurately and that each of us is able to do that without any help. It also foolishly holds that none of us benefits from listening to others.

The truth is we all struggle to accurately see ourselves or to face the realities of ourselves. We likely lean toward thinking too highly of ourselves, or too lowly. It's too easy for us to overestimate or underestimate ourselves. Accuracy is difficult. Others can help provide just enough perspective where we're able to more accurately see ourselves. If we choose to ignore their help, it hinders us. We need the insights, experiences, and observations that others can provide.

But not just anybody can do that for us.

Those with whom we're fully safe serve us best. These are the people who only want our best. They have no other agenda. They don't want to live our lives for us. They don't want to make our choices for us. They simply want us to do the right thing by helping us make the wisest choice that will help us be our best. They love us enough to challenge us, nudge us, push us, question us, support us, and do whatever else they can to help us move forward. If we choose to ignore or banish these people, we do so at our own peril.

Self-awareness is not a solo pursuit. It demands we make wise choices in who surrounds us.

That's a critical component to succeed in growing tired of who we are when who we are has become destructive or detrimental to being our best.

Recently we learned that a business hero to many - Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappo's - was living a life most of us knew nothing about. Virtually every major news publication, including the Wall Street Journal, has written pieces that reveal Hsieh had a serious dru...

Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. I don't know him personally and until 2016 I had no idea who he was, but that's the year I read an article in The Atlantic entitled, "Why Luck Matters More Than You Think." It was intriguing me, but honestly, there wasn't anything new about my intrigue. The subject of luck has fascinated me for a long time.

Some people don't believe in luck. Or serendipity. Or chance. Especially when it comes to success or achievement.

By "late-life" I don't necessarily mean age, but it might include that. Most certainly it includes experience.

A person begins to learn something at an early age. Take a current professional ice hockey player. His parents put him in ice skates for the first time when he was 3. Since then he's spent almost as much time in ice skates as he has sneakers. By the time he's approaching 14, he's a decade into the learning curve. Off he goes to play major junior hockey - a high level of play for boys approaching high school. He moves to another town where the team is located and he begins to play the highest level of amateur hockey while living with a host family who has taken him in. Before his 18th birthday, he's drafted by an NHL team. He's 15 years into the learning process, but he's only 18.

A person matures past middle-age. She's spent her entire life pursuing art. As a young girl, she fell in love with painting and she's been at it ever since. It's never earned her much of a living. Until now. A while back she had a little showing at a local gallery. A blogger with a widely read blog happened to live in the area and visited the exhibition. And wrote a piece about this woman's artwork, along with posting some pictures of her work. About a hundred miles away, in a big city, an art gallery owner saw the blog post about this now older woman's showing. An email was sent and now after 4 decades of painting artwork in relative obscurity, she's achieving late-life luck. She's experienced at art and life.

There are many flipside stories that counterbalance these. Stories of people who began early and never found any success. People who persisted for decades and never found any luck.

Let's talk more about it.

In 2012 a musician Joshua Hyslop released an album, Where The Mountain Meets The Valley. Track 6 is "The Mountain." It contains a lyric that serves as the title of today's episode.



When I first heard it I wrote that phrase down. Often I'd remember it.

I'd consider the long list of things I set out to do as a young man. And those things I'd still like to get done now that I'm old. It's different now. Not at all like it was when I was 20 and my ambitions seemed more fantastic.

When Joshua's latest record was released, on September 11, 2020, I went back to listen to other music he'd produced, including this song, The Mountain. I hadn't thought of the phrase in a long while, but there it was marching its way to the front of my mind. Especially during early morning walks, I'd think about it.

Then, a few days ago, on September 29th my father turned 97. I thought about his life and the years he's experienced since 1923, the year he was born. For his birthday I decided to record a sort of year-by-year historical commentary from 1923 up to the present. It wound up being almost an hour-long, but the last few minutes being a son's message to his dad. I'm blessed that both my parents are still alive and doing well, living in a house by themselves. My mom is 88.

My folks have enjoyed long lives. They're still enjoying life. They're blessed. They won't likely reach the end before they're done - the blessing of living a long life. But you can never be sure. Time - our time - is tenuous at best. Which is why the admonition "make the most of it" is so common. But also why it's become so trite and ignored.

2 Peter 3:4 and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation."

It's the trap we all step into. The trap of thinking we'll have tomorrow. Or this afternoon. Or tonight. Why? Because that's how it's always been for us. We had yesterday. Now we have today. So we're fooled into thinking - believing - we'll have tomorrow.

I'm not trying to be a downer or be morose.

Today's show focuses on 5 words:

Curiosity

Understanding

Judgment

Criticality

Grace (compassion)

Also, here's an old episode you may have missed that speaks to one aspect of today's topic: the process.

Enjoy!

It's a few minutes past 5 o'clock. In the morning.

The sky is light thanks to an almost full moon. The city lights help, too. When you live in the city the sky isn't nearly as dark as it is out in the country.

I walk. Quite a lot.

You'd think I'd look like it, but you'd be wrong.

No matter. I walk 4 to 6 miles every morning. Often before the sun is up. But not as often as I did before this pandemic. 3 am and 4 am were favorite times back before life was disrupted by COVID 19. I'm not sure why that changed my readiness to hit the streets in the middle of the night, but it did. I suppose I figured people were more uneasy so I just haven't wanted to risk it.

Part of my walking routine involves traipsing through a field near a densely wooded stretch filled with all sorts of critters. I've seen a coyote-type creature a few times. And a cat of some sort. Not the domestic kind either. But I'm not a wildlife expert. You won't ever see my on reality TV...especially one of those survivor type shows. Unless somebody produces one of those as a comedy where morons are dropped into the middle of nowhere so the audience can laugh maniacally at them.

Mostly, in this stretch of trees are cottontail rabbits. I attribute this to the reproductive reputations earned by rabbits. But I'm not complaining 'cause I rather love them. I just wish they'd stick around a bit longer.

The path I walk is about 15 to 20 yards from the tree line of the wooded area. By the time I get within 30 yards or so of them, they quickly scamper into the woods. You can see a handful of little holes that serve as their escape routes. Each hole has a nicely worn pathway as proof that they frequent these routes to dart in and out of the woods. I bent down and took the picture shown below. To give you some scale, that opening is about 10 inches wide. It's not very big. What you don't see is the density of the wall of growth where this opening exists.

On a typical morning, I'll spot 6 to 10 rabbits out foraging for food outside the woods, within 5 to 10 feet of their wooded home. They don't venture out too far. I'm supposing it's because of that coyote-type creature and the cat. But I'm sure there are other predators who'd love nothing more than a rabbit for breakfast, lunch or supper.

That's why there is no rabbit in that photograph. The little buggers are really camera shy. They're the perfect creature for zoom lens photography, but all I have is my phone.

In 1925 Hugh Harman drew a mouse around a photograph taken by Walt Disney. Walt was inspired by this tame mouse near his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri. Mortimer Mouse was the name Disney gave the mouse until his wife, Lillian, talked him into changing it to the name we all know. Mickey Mouse.

From that cartoon began the modern small animal stories told in moving pictures. But the stories existed long before that.

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. Like rabbits. Or other animals.

Enter Aesop, a Greek storyteller credited with a number of fables. The timeframe? Around 564 BC is the date ascribed to his death. It's up for dispute whether there was a real person Aesop behind the fables. Somebody crafted the stories though. He was reputed to be a slave who passed from various owners until he was eventually freed. History or legend has it that he was executed by being thrown from a cliff after false charges were leveled against him because he had insulted powerful people.

No matter. Attributing human-like qualities to animals in his fables happened long before Walt ever imagined a mouse.

Frogs. Turtles. Birds. Foxes. I suppose somebody has anthropomorphized just about everything. Especially by Hollywood.

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My pondering began with Bible study. Not a big shock since you already know how important Faith is in my life. I'd heard the story my entire life, sitting in the pew as a little boy listening to old preachers tell the story recorded in Luke 15. The story of the prodigal son.

As a little kid I sat there wondering why this son got a wild hair to confront his dad and make such a bold request, but mostly I wondered why the father gave him what he wanted. The adults in my life wouldn't have so indulged me, I thought.

He takes the money and whatever else he got and left home. That baffled me, too. I'd never had the urge to run away from home. Well, not for long, any way. There were days, you know? But I figured I had it pretty well. And that's where it started for me. Wondering why this son didn't realize how good things were. Of course, I knew the end of the story. I know in advance how bad his life got. Mostly I wondered how long he was in that far country doing whatever he was big enough to do. I wondered why he had to lose everything before he gained clarity that things back home were really great.

That was likely my first serious pondering about delusion and my introduction to the fact - yes, FACT - that every human being is capable of self-deception. Seeing things inaccurately. Believing things that aren't true.

Some months I put my own sermon about this story online, but I approached it from the perspective of the father, not the son. The father, by the way, did not deceive himself. He was seeing clearly the entire time. And thankfully, his clarity served both his sons.

Self-deception and delusion is an everyday conversation in my work. Twenty years ago I bought and read a book, captivated by the joining of 2 topics I was interested in, leadership and self-deception. "Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box" by The Arbinger Institute.

Leaders of every ilk can be prone to self-deception. But leaders aren't unique. It's a complex issue and our quest to simplify things likely contributes to our delusion or false assumptions. We like neat and tidy things and most things aren't neat or tidy.

Fast forward and the topic of delusion and self-deception intersect with another conversation point, addiction.  In my executive and leadership coaching work, I often have conversations with clients whose families and lives have been horribly impacted by addiction. From people abusing prescription medications, to people not abusing - but people taking prescribed medications that have completely altered their personality, to people abusing alcohol and even people consumed by gambling or other addictions.

Almost weekly I have a conversation with people whose family is struggling to help a member of their clan get out of the pit. They tell stories of how the person just can't seem to think or see things accurately. Fogged over with chemicals that have impaired their ability, I'll often listen as they recite how smart, funny, and engaging the person was before they surrendered to some form of chemical dependency. Once in a while I hear about recovery. Like the prodigal son, it never happens quickly. In most cases, many years have elapsed before the self-deception and addiction are overcome.

Success stories are both rare and lengthy. I've yet to encounter a story of somebody who recovered quickly.