A Time to Work, and A Time to Play

Every week I ride the Amtrak train between Milwaukee and Chicago, as I live in Milwaukee but work much of the time in downtown Chicago.  The train ride, only 90 minutes in duration, is a great part of my week.  I look forward to my train time because it allows me 90 minutes of uninterrupted time to focus on work I need to get done.  There is even a “quiet car” on the train where no cell phone use and no loud conversations are allowed, providing working folks like myself a quiet environment.  Within a few minutes of sitting down, my laptop is out and I get in such a work flow that I hardly notice that ninety minutes has passed and we are pulling into Union Station in Chicago. My ride this week was a completely different kind of experience.  I boarded the train early and decided not to sit in the quiet car, as the train wasn’t crowded and seemed pretty quiet.  I was so engrossed in my work that when the train pulled out of the station I became aware that there was something very different going on around me.  I looked up from my laptop and there to my great surprise was a group of people I rarely see on the train, a group of young children and their parents!

School is out and nothing beats a day trip with children to Chicago to visit the museums, Millennium Park, the zoo, and the tall buildings. Now I love children, but I must confess that my first reaction on the train that morning was to get up and move to the quiet car, where surely there would be no children and I could get back in my work flow.  Something in me told me not to move, though, and so I stayed put and ended up having a delightfully different kind of train ride to Chicago.

I kept my laptop out, but didn’t  work more than ten minutes throughout the entire ride.  Instead, I sat back and just watched and listened to all the children that were all around me.  I never did learn whether they were all riding the train for the first time or not, but I’m guessing they were, as they shrieked with delight almost the entire way.  “Look, look we are crossing a river right now!” “Hey everybody, I see horses out the window over here!” “Whoa, look how tall those buildings are!” “I wonder how strong the engine must be to pull all of us.”

I loved watching the kids and soaking in their unbridled enthusiasm for all that they were taking in.  Without realizing it I had soon entered a different state of flow, a play flow as opposed to a work flow.  Here I was riding the same train I always ride, but I was now experiencing it through the eyes of children and it was therefore a completely different experience for me.  I didn’t plan this experience, it simply arrived as a gift.  It was a gift I almost missed by moving to the quiet car, but thankfully I listened to that voice that told me to stay put.

I share this experience with you because the reason these children were on the train is that school is out and summer has started. As we all travel into this season of summer, perhaps my experience can be a reminder of the many opportunities that summer uniquely provides for all of us to play.  If there are children in your life, or just children whose presence you get to enjoy the way I did on the train, perhaps they can help you, as they helped me, access the spirit of wonder and play that is within us all and is so important to our well-being.  Or perhaps it is just as simple as taking time to connect with the inner child within each of us that in years gone by filled our summer days with seemingly endless spontaneous play.

Of course for the rest of the summer now, I will have to make a choice when I board the train.  Do I head for quiet car so I can maximize my work flow, or do I choose to sit where the children are and maximize my play flow?  I imagine I will sometimes choose one and sometimes the other, because we know, “to everything there is a season….”  Yet summer seems like the perfect season to remember the importance of spontaneous play and to choose it more often than not.

Leading Well

The news was not good this week for two leaders in the public eye. First we learned that Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House, was indicted for allegedly structuring bank withdrawals to evade bank reporting requirements and then making false statements to federal investigators all to cover up a thirty year old act of sexual misconduct with a minor. A few days later we learned that Sepp Blatter, president of the world soccer organization FIFA, announced his resignation in the midst of an investigation involving accusations of immense corruption and scandal for the organization he has led the last seventeen years. Such stories of corrupt leaders are not uncommon, but as a person who thinks a great deal about the topic of wellness, when I hear stories like these, I always pause to wonder about how and why such leaders end up becoming corrupt. When a leader is exposed as having engaged in unethical behavior, whether it is in the field of religion, politics, education, public service, medicine, sports, or public service, I often hear people exclaim, “This person had to have known that what he or she was doing was unethical.” Most leaders have probably completed numerous courses on ethics and are well aware that their actions are unethical. They are simply hoping not to get caught.

I believe that what causes leaders to fail ethically is not a lack of knowledge about what is unethical, but a lack of wellness and integration. When a leader is not well, when he or she is experiencing a hidden sense of inadequacy, shame, or emptiness, he or she is vulnerable to developing an addiction to money, drugs and alcohol, power, or sex. The pattern of leading an unethical life does not usually emerge overnight, but develops gradually through months and years of making small, dishonorable decisions, at work or at home. This process is then minimized or denied by the person who, if they were well, would certainly “know better.”

What I am talking about here is the inner life of a leader. Because much of public leadership is, well, public, it is easy to get drawn into a leader’s public gifts and personality. It is easy to think that we know a public leader based on his or her public persona, but the truth is that the real character of a leader is revealed by his or her inner life and only those who are closest to the leader know if he or she is leading from a place of integration and wellness. Eventually, we will all find out if a leader is living an integrated life or not, because as with Hastert and Blatter, the truth always comes out.

Whether we are public leaders or not, the truth of this applies to all of us. Each of us has ethical values that help us make decisions, which for many of us are grounded in our religious faith. These values serve as a compass to guide the important decisions in our lives. The public failings of leaders are a reminder to us all that in order to stay true to these values we need to develop daily habits and disciplines that keep us emotionally and spiritually centered and well. We also need to be grounded in a community of relationships that provide honest feedback to us if and when we are starting to make decisions that are out of alignment with our values.

There is no pleasure to be found when it is revealed that a trusted leader’s life is not integrated and begins to unravel, but it does serve to remind us that living an integrated life, a life where our spirituality and values are integrated into and inform all of our daily decisions, requires humility and diligence for all of us.

Inspired By Our Graduates

I love graduations and graduation parties. While I won’t personally be attending any such gatherings this year, I love to see the pictures and hear the stories about the graduations of other people’s children, friends, nieces and nephews, and grandchildren. I find myself being moved just hearing stories about the graduation celebrations. As I reflect a little further on why I love graduations so much, I realize that I love them because they so clearly celebrate two values that I hold in high esteem. The first value is the importance of community. Of all the pictures I have seen of graduates so far this year, I notice that it is rare to see one that does not include other people standing with the graduate. It might be a relative standing with the graduate, or a favorite teacher. It might also be other classmates who have walked with the graduate toward his or her special day.

What these photos confirm is that graduates have not achieved their goals on their own. It takes a village to support a graduate. Others have made sacrifices for the graduate to succeed and without a community of support it is not likely the graduation that is being celebrated would be occurring.

The second value that graduations celebrate is the value of self-discipline. A supportive community, while necessary, is not sufficient in of itself to get a person to graduation. Each graduate also needs to develop the habit of self-discipline. Self-discipline can be defined as the ability to exchange the pleasure of short-term gratification for longer-term goals. So graduations are not just celebrations of acquired knowledge, but also of the fact that the graduate has acquired the habit of self-discipline.

Graduations are typically celebrated at the end of a multi-year process and thus indicate that the graduate has learned to practice self-discipline over an extended period of time. The graduates have formed the kind of daily habits that have allowed them to accomplish in this longer-term achievement.

Graduations are probably so moving to me because the two values that they celebrate are in fact two of the values that we all need in order to experience the fullness that life has to offer. Community and self-discipline are essential for all of us, not just for those attending school. With the combination of self-discipline and a supportive community, any of us can learn and grow in all kinds of ways. Self-discipline and a supportive community are keys to our spiritual, emotional, physical, relational, and vocational wellness.

So let’s celebrate with great delight the graduates in our lives! And as we do, may we also remember that these graduates can inspire us to reach for some of our own goals.   Is there an important long-term goal that you have? If so, then the chances are that you, too, can best reach that goal through a combination of practicing self-discipline and surrounding yourself with a supportive community.

Remembering Those Who Make What We Do Possible

David Letterman signed off the air this week after hosting 6,028 episodes of The Late Show over 33 years. The guest lists for the two nights prior to his final show were announced well in advance, but the line up for his last night was kept a secret, and suspense built throughout the week as to who would appear on Dave’s final show.  

I watched his last two shows in their entirety. I watched the second to last show because Bob Dylan, arguably the greatest songwriter of modern times, was scheduled to appear and I watched the last show because I too was curious to see who would be featured in his closing episode. To my surprise, the only famous celebrities that appeared on the final show were ten people, each of whom contributed just a single line to the final “Top Ten” list, “The top ten things I’ve always wanted to say to Dave.” Some of the guest celebrities that contributed to this list included Steve Martin, Barbara Walters, Tina Fey, Peyton Manning, and Bill Murray.

What impressed me most about Dave’s final show was that by far the longest segment featured a taped tribute to all the people who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes all those years to help him succeed. This segment was framed as a “day in the life” for the Late Show and showed Dave interacting with all the people who come to work with him everyday but are never seen on the air.

At first I wondered why he was taking all of his precious last minutes of air time showing us people none of us have ever seen before--air time that could have been used to parade more celebrities across the stage. Later in the show, however, as Dave thanked all the behind scenes people that he had featured in his long clip, he explained why he had given them center stage on the last show. Then I understood. He explained that without all of these people behind him he would have not been so funny and he would not have been able to enjoy the success he has enjoyed in front of the camera. He went on to say that these people, the ones we had never seen, deserve all the credit because, in reality, they had worked a lot harder on the show all these years than he had. Dave then thanked his wife and son who were in the audience along with his mother, now 94 years old, of whom he showed a picture as she used to make regular appearances on the show. He thanked all of them for being such a supportive family.

The lesson for me in all of this is the importance of taking time to remember and to thank all the people who make many of the good things in our lives possible and those who support us in ways we don’t always acknowledge. This lesson seems perfectly timed as we, as a nation, prepare to celebrate Memorial Day. All of our lives are possible because of people who have gone before us, working and making sacrifices so that we can enjoy the lives we have.

Who are the behind the scenes people in your life, the people that make what you do and who you are possible? How might you remember them and give thanks to them for what they have done or what they are currently doing? Some of them may have passed on, but we can still pause, remember, and give thanks for what they have done as well.

Much like the crew at the Late Show these people in our lives may go unseen and unacknowledged. This weekend however offers us an opportunity to remember to thank others around us who help and support our successes. While we are doing this it is equally important for all of us to stop and thank the service men and women who now and in the past have served our country, often out of or sight, honoring in particular on Memorial Day those who have given their lives to make our lives possible.

There is an African proverb that reminds us “It takes a village to raise a child.” It also takes a village to create and host a life. What could be a better way to celebrate Memorial Day than to remember and thank those who have given so much to help us succeed on the stages of our own lives, those behind the scenes?

A Safe Place to Learn and Grow

I start this week with an invitation to you to play a quick round of Jeopardy, I will share several "answers" and see if you can come up with the correct question. This version of Jeopardy is slightly different than the TV version in that all of these answers are answers to just one question. Here are the answers-now see if you can come up with the question that goes with all of these answers.

• A place where some 82,000 Native American youth in 25 states can go for youth development programs.
• An organization with locations in over 1,500 schools, where youth can stay and attend after school program during the school year and benefit from programming over the summer as well.
• An organization that impacts over 4 million children and teens every year in 4,100 different locations throughout the US. A place where children of American military personnel on over 400 military bases can gather for care, and support while their parents serve their country.
• An organization with locations in over 300 public housing locations, engaging and guiding children and teens right in their neighborhoods.
• An organization that counts as some of its alumni people like Denzel Washington, Jennifer Lopez, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, General Wesley Clark, Martin Sheen, Usher, Ashanti, Shaun White, Shaquille O'Neal, and Jim Collins (a keynote speaker at this year's conference).
• An organization whose purpose is to provide "a safe place to learn and grow--all while having fun," for all of it's children.
• The logo for this organization appears at the top of the column.

And the question is..."What is the Boys & Girls Clubs of America?"

Excuse me if I'm a little excited about this organization, but my wife, Holly, and I have just spent two days at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) National Conference in Chicago and we are inspired! 2,500 leaders in BGCA clubs from all fifty states came together for two days of workshops on leadership and program development. A primary focus this year was how to best serve teens in our communities.

Holly and I had the joy of speaking with hundreds of BGCA staff, board members, and volunteers who have dedicated themselves to giving children and youth "a safe place to learn and grow," many for several decades. Living Compass is honored to be working with the Boys & Girls Club of Milwaukee, WI as they are using our Living Compass Wellness Program for Teens to support their work in helping kids make good choices and building strong character. They suggested we attend this conference so we could connect with other clubs around the country who are also working to help youth navigate their way to a better future.

One of the things I learned at the conference this week and that was most inspiring is that the BGCA has set a goal of getting the youth it serves to provide a total of 1 million hours of community service nation wide annually. I had thought that the BGCA solely provided community service to those it serves. In reality, the BGCA is asking the youth it serves to turn around and offer 1 million hours of community service to others. This service might include writing letters to troops serving far away, organizing a food or coat drive, distributing flyers for a community non-profit, or volunteering at an animal shelter. The Boys and Girls Club knows, and research shows, that community service is the ideal "curriculum" for character development and that youth involved in community service are more likely to graduate from high school and are more likely to avoid risk-taking behavior.

Now that is a wellness lesson for all of us, youth and adults alike. Community service truly is an ideal curriculum for character development. When we make time to serve others, when we give of our time, energy, and financial resources to make a difference in our communities, it makes a positive difference in our own emotional and spiritual wellness, as well.

The Boys and Girls Club of America knows that community service helps to create "safe places to learn and grow." Connecting with a BGCA in your community is just one way to be involved in community service, there are obviously countless others. What is one way you, with your unique gifts and talents, you can give back to your community?

It may not be in a Boys and Girls Club but, if you are looking for a way to make a difference in your community, or if you are just looking to be inspired to make a difference in your community, I highly recommend a visit to your local Boys & Girls Club. If your experience is anything like ours this week, you will surely be inspired to do more to serve and make a positive difference in your community.

Thank you Boys and Girls Club for the inspiration!