Free Fall

Today was an awesome day.
Sorry, make that A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

The Ropes Course at Leadership Lubbock has long been the day to fear because of all of its challenges. I knew some of what I was in for having completed a course over a decade ago. I was ready for the physical and mental challenges. I was not prepared for the emotional ones at all.

Sitting down to write about it all seems impossible. I've made a good start but emotions are overflowing one another to the point of putting them down on paper doesn't make sense. That's a first for me.

Briefly, the day was about leadership through team building. With today's lessons as confirmation, everything I've been taught since kindergarten about meeting challenges and being successful needs to be scrapped. I've suspected it for while, learning from a co-worker who lives the team concept.

The biggest challenge of the course for most people was climping up and jumping from the top of a telephone pole to grab a trapeze bar hanging in mid-air ten feet away. I felt excited to be harnessed up and hooked to a belay line. I felt like I couldn't climb up the 55ft pole fast enough. My jump partner waited at the top after his climb to the 1ft x 2ft plank we were to jump from. I vividly remember standing up on top of the plank and looking around the horizon. It was very pretty in the overcast of clouds. A cooling breeze calmed me. It was easy. Too easy. I was too calm.

Then it hit me. Jumping from that pole was one of the easiest things I have ever challenged myself to do. To have a whole team at my back on belay, jumping to essentially fall to the ground was not difficult at all. Difficult is the way I've been doing things for years, alone.

Months ago I realized I need to apply this thinking to my whole life. I'm reeling from dozens of lessons learned today but I've been in free fall long enough. That's what made jumping off the pole a breeze.

Walking In My Shoes

Plain
Sane
Brain

Rain
Vain
Mane

Insane
Pain
Mountain

Maintain
Inane
Campaign

Remain
Regain
Champaign

Remedy for a Bad Day: Laugh at Yourself

Everyone has bad days. I had a rare one today. It happens. Being overwhelmed with work didn’t help either so I thought I would go home at the end of the day and crawl into bed. But, something else happened; something that made my day.

I got my iPhone4, my first iPhone, exactly two months ago today. And, like most new iPhone owners, I can’t image what I ever did without it. During this time, I’ve read books on it, my Kindle, my laptop, and on paper (I can go vintage at times). But, I haven’t downloaded any new items to my Kindle since April. I have a serious backlog of material to read. I bought a paperback book in June I haven’t even cracked!

A co-worker brought a book to my attention late in the day called Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers and Transform Your Business by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler. For only one week, it’s a free Kindle download. After properly greeting my family when I arrived home, I went straight to my Kindle on my nightstand.

I turned on my Kindle and found where I left off in a book a couple of weeks ago (with a sweet message about how I had read to a particular point in the book on my iPhone app and asking me if I wanted to go to it. Okay, that was cool). I hit the menu button so I could turn on the wireless access (saves battery life to keep it turned off). When the menu came up on the screen, I did what I have learned to do in the last couple of months: I touched the screen. I immediately busted out laughing. I laughed so hard at myself, I cried. It felt so good because the day had been so bad.

Oh, how quickly the iPhone’s touch screen has spoiled me! If you know anything about a Kindle, you know it does not have a touch screen. Thus, you can see the humor of the situation and why my day ended on a better note than I had hoped. Oh, I needed that laugh!

Who knew laughter could release so much anxiety and tension? The Mayo Clinic does and writes online about how laughter can relieve stress. Laughter produces endorphins and neuropeptides, and increases oxygen intake. Good stuff to stock up on for rough days.

I don’t plan to have another bad day any time soon, but if I do, I hope I’ll remember touching the screen on my Kindle and laugh out loud again.

(Thanks to James, Apple and Amazon for bringing this humor together for me!)

Tears Not Spent

Sadness and pain come in waves but I run back up the beach away from them. I know if I let the waves catch me, they will overwhelm me and I will be wet with tears.


I run back up the beach to the sunny spot you occupy. It is your magic blanket that holds nothing but happiness and calm. When I have to step away from it, I hold my breath, waiting for the waves to threaten, walking in the shadows of the day.


If I can sit with you on your blanket, the waves will stay away, the sun will always shine and the tears will not come. But, funnily enough, I will still hold my breath.

Mon Ciel

Il n’y a pas de ciel, mais vous la lumière de mon bonheur.
Vous n’avez pas besoin de porter ce fardeau et je le cacher.
Je reconnais mon addiction au soleil et à la chanson de la séduction.
C’est l’amour, à croissance lente plus, mon petit coin de paradis.

When the Gods Smile

When a day starts off beautifully and ends badly it always seems the world is conspiring against you. If things get off to a bad start but end fantastically, almost unrealistically perfect, has the world decided to be nice? I don’t believe so.

A day, or just a moment, is what you make of it. Call it karma, good vibes, God, Vishnu or whatever; it doesn’t matter. How the world is and how your day turns out, is part reality, part perception and part reception. How you perceive and receive reality is how your day will go.

The key is to stay positive even when something less than perfect happens. If you hit a bump in your day, smile. The gods just might smile back at you.

Don't Fight the Riptide

Living just half an hour from the ocean as a child, I spent weeks and weeks of summers at the beach. Moving into the middle of the continent as an adult was not easy but I’ve learned to love my new hometown. Still, I miss the beach, the taste of the salt on the air, the sound of the crashing waves and the endless horizon. Respect for the fierce power of the ocean was one ingrained in me very early, most especially its riptides.

Riptides, or rip currents, are currents that flow straight out from shore toward open ocean. They can move swiftly and alarm a swimmer unfamiliar with them. The currents themselves don’t drown swimmers, but swimmers sometimes drown when caught in riptides because they exhaust themselves trying to swim against them.

Experienced beach goers and ocean swimmers know to swim out with the riptide until you can get to the edge of it to get out of it. After swimming parallel with the shore to get away from the riptide, simply swim back toward shore. I know this works because I’ve done it.

Some days make you feel like you’re swimming against a riptide. It’s exhausting, demoralizing and frustrating. But, you can take the same survival strategies of ocean riptides and apply them to your day. Just let the current push you from shore, your goals and your desires. Literally go with the flow, swimming out towards open ocean.

It can be scary, but remind yourself you’re still in control by swimming with the current instead of against it. As the current slows down or you get to the edge of it, change direction so you’re at least tracking parallel to your objective. When you no longer feel the current pulling you farther out, turn straight at what you want and go for it. I know this works because I’ve done it.