The Vital Importance of Good Work

Too often we find ourselves "trapped" in a job, or even in a career. What a horrible feeling to dislike what we are doing day after day, but many of us allow ourselves to continue in these environments for years. What is it in us that creates this feeling that we have no option but to suffer in our professional lives? It is a far cry from the graduation speeches that we all heard, where we were told that the world of work was there for the taking, and all we needed to do is to use what we have learn to capitalize on any opportunity we wish.

I think that life catches up to us. When I say "life", I mean the variety of responsibilities and commitments that can make us woody and inflexible. Our children, mortgages, parents, cars, vacations, and schedules can turn us into robots that move from one thing to the next, all of them involving a need for money. But you have to ask the question - is this what I planned for years ago? Am I fulfilling the wish of the good life? Also, take a close look at the list that I wrote above. Virtually everything that I said are things that we looked forward to at one point in time!

The other part of the good life is gains in physical and mental well-being. While being woody and inflexible is a pattern of behaviors, it is also a way of being. If we allow ourselves to let the years tick by as we stand tied up in our lives, our bodies and brains become physically inflexible. Our hearts push harder against clogged arteries, our tired and under-developed muscles work to move our bloated bodies around. Our minds become a jumble of disconnected thoughts driven by the numbing sameness of our daily lives.

Now there's a pretty picture of the "good life", right? My Goodness no!

I am finding now in my "in-between jobs" state that there is plenty of good work out there, and lots of good people doing it. They have joy in their lives. They look forward to Mondays when they can be presented with new challenges that stimulate their senses and create a purpose in their professional lives. But, good work also creates increased satisfaction in their personal lives as well. They bring home the confidence of a job well done. They are respected for what they do, so they respect their lives outside of work. They love their partners and children better. They don't worry about their financial commitments because they feel confident that their professional talents will take them far, and produce gains in income.

So many people that have suffered real pain in losing their jobs during the recession are rediscovering their love of work. They have changed direction and are doing something that they have always wanted to do. Many have started their own companies. They are forging new pathways that may limit them financially in the short-term, but have high potential for paying off as time goes on.

But, you don't have to lose your job to re-create your professional self. Today I encourage you to remember the hopes that you had long ago, then turn those hopes into action. No one needs to suffer doing bad work. Create a way for yourself. Talk to people you know. Use LinkedIn and other social media to connect with people who have the same passion and goals that you do. Don't be shy about being forthright in your interest to improve yourself. It increases the chances that you will find something that inspires you.

Commit to doing this a lot. You will be amazed at the new world that opens up to you!

A Daily Dose of Inspiration

I don’t know about you, but sometimes just getting up and stating my day can be a challenge. I’ll hit the snooze button at least 2-3 times and put the pillow over my head thinking that it just can’t be the morning of another workday!

This is especially true now, in December when the sun doesn’t come up over the horizon until 7am at the earliest. Your body is saying to you, “I am getting up in the middle of the night to go to work. Why?” It turns into a mind over matter exercise, which is often not much of a battle because my mind is still dreaming!

Once I get through breakfast and start my 30-mile drive to work, I’m usually in pretty good shape. My brain goes from dreaming into the process of sorting through what needs to be done that day and prioritizing all of the many categories of tasks I have in front of me. Now, during Christmas week, the categories can stretch from mailing Christmas cards to writing a contract for a new client.

Through it all, I know that I can’t do all of this alone, that’s why I am so grateful in my prayers at night that I have God at the helm keeping everything in order. Still, I have to surround myself with an environment that promotes action during my day. In my office, I have filled half of one wall with motivational quotes from people as wide-ranging as Buddy the Elf to Leonardo da Vinci. I call it my “Wall of Inspiration” and I’ve invited people to come by any time they are feeling a little low in the motivation department.

One of my favorites is an Irish proverb that says, “You’ll never plough a field turning it over in your mind.” Any time I get stuck on something, I’ll look at that quote and convince myself to get the thought out of my head and act on it. Another good one is, “Obstacles cannot bend me. Every obstacle yields to effort.” That’s the one by Leonardo da Vinci. He accomplished a few things in his 67 years on this earth!

If you’re looking for more of these quotes, go to www.givemore.com. There are plenty of them surrounded by other good and practical tips.

No matter what technique you choose to use, I know that it has helped me to surround myself with positive words and images. You create an environment of energy that can support you just by being there. Just by you looking across the room and becoming renewed and inspired. Give it a try and see what happens!   

Claiming Victory!

Brain surgery is a complicated thing. You know the saying, "well, it isn't brain surgery!" In my case it was! It was brain surgery to remove a brain tumor, a craniopharyngioma - a benign brain tumor that my surgeon believed could have been in my head since I was born, growing slowly over the years. Finally, the headaches and spots in my vision got intolerable in 2005 and after three or four different doctors, I was diagnosed by an vision specialist.

When my wife and I met with my surgeon before the surgery, he discussed some of the potential risks of the surgery. Regrowth of the tumor because they couldn't get it all, ongoing headaches, carotid artery hemorrhage, blindness and other "morbidity". Morbidity. That didn't sound like something I could have when I was alive. I just means health issues that I will always have as a result of the tumor and/or the surgery.

I did a lot of praying before the surgery. I don't mean just saying a prayer. I mean sitting in prayer. The more time I spent in prayer, the more I knew that I would survive the surgery, and I knew it would be more than surviving. It would be victory! I would regain a life of joy and health. I didn't know how long it would take, but I knew I would be victorious.

Sitting in prayer allowed me to hear God's Word (read “Paying Attention”). I didn't just imagine that I would be fine through the surgery. I saw it. The Lord told me that it would happen. I was so steeped in the realization of victory that I was smiling going into surgical prep. I was peaceful. 

After six hours of surgery, I woke up in recovery. My wife (then fiancé - that's a story for later!) was there, with my parents and my brother and sister. I wasn't sick, I couldn't see well, but I could see! I couldn't move well, but I could move! My mind was telling me it was a miracle. It wasn't a miracle. It was God's work. God's will. Me - God's Will. 

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.1 Corinthians 15:57

In the Doctor's Office

I spend too much time in doctors' offices. In fact, no matter how often I go to doctors' offices, I feel that I go too frequently. It's not like there's anything bad happening, or that I am going to have some uncomfortable procedure. It's just a sum of memories that I have, that we all have that makes me nervous.

I try to make the experience the best I can make it. I bring my own magazine or book. I go online on my phone. I close my eyes and think about what we're going to do over the weekend. Bringing your own things and your own thoughts helps to make the experience a normal part of life. Now, let's see what good articles are in my magazine!

I am the 100%

I have to say that I have been torn over the last several weeks. You know how strongly I feel about the power that we all hold inside us, but the last month or so has been filled with imagery of the powerless. The mass statement by the victims of the most recent recession speaking out as the 99%.

I'm stunned every time I hear those chants, "we are the 99%, We are the 99%!" Ninety-nine percent! That's just one percent short of everybody, but the 99% feel victimized. How can that be?

It can be because is always has been. ALWAYS has been. For centuries, inequality has reigned in our country, and before that, in England, and Rome, and Greece. There has always been the dominant one percent, and the less fortunate ninety-nine percent. In fact, now, as the recession draws to a close we hear about how the one percent has become even more dominant, on taxpayers' money. The money from the 99%.

It's almost hard to imagine. How could so few people dominate a culture? What about them perpetuates that power? Well, all of us do. We vote them into office. We ask them to manage our money. We buy their products. We push the one percent higher and higher into the stratosphere of our world so that they can make more and more and more.

I'll tell you why I have been so torn. I am one of the 1%, Or, maybe one of the 5%, but still, I am surrounded by the one percenters and I see it, but I don't believe it. I see the ease with which the money flows. Effort that is no more than someone that works in a grocery store produces hundreds of thousands of dollars! How vastly unfair it is! But, how amazing it is that it has gone on for so long in this country, and around the world.

I am the 100%. I'm not saying that because it makes me feel special. It makes me feel out of place and strange. I have achieved success in my life, but I want to walk out of my office and march. I want to promote that values of the 99%, and I want the 99% to have more of what I have been blessed to have.

For this one, I don't have an answer. If anything, I need answers to the injustice in this country. Sure, I could go on about the rampant greed in people that I see most days of my life. I could be disgusted by the financial hoarding that drove our economy into near ruin. All that I know to do is be a good person. To show everyone around me that it is us as a 100% that will heal this world. "We are the 100%, we are the 100%!"

The Professors

When I was diagnosed with my brain tumor and knew that I had surgery, radiation, and many other challenges in front of me, I unabashedly sought prayer from all those that knew and loved me. I knew that I had a mighty battle in front of me and I needed all of the strength that I could muster.

I used to work for a woman who was a born-again Christian. She had had a difficult life through her teens and twenties, and she decided to give herself to God to find salvation from all that she had done. She was renowned in the industry that I worked in as being a person who was very difficult to work with – mean and nasty. I have known people of faith like that who are so determined to succeed for God that they lose track of their environment and the people that occupy it with them.

I decided to take a chance and work for her. Her company focused on fundraising for the Christian market, and I knew that was something that would interest me. She and I made a good team when working with clients and helping them with their goals. I came to believe that she was a soldier of God, dutifully working for Him here on earth. When I was diagnosed with my tumor, she and others prayed over me before my surgery. She spread the word of my need for prayer all over the world (literally) and between the people that she contacted and my family, I had a chorus of prayer claiming my victory over my illness.

My surgery was a longer procedure than even the surgeons expected. It took 8 hours for my neurosurgeon to remove as much of the tumor as he could without touching my optic nerve or a major artery running through my brain. All in all, the surgery was a success but my recovery would be long; much longer than I expected.

When I was able to go home, I was not capable of doing much more than sitting and sleeping. I never knew such a feeling of helplessness in my adult life. Soon after I got home, I started to get a bad feeling about my work. Shortly before I became sick my boss and her husband (her business partner at the time) decided to eliminate any short or long-term disability for the employees – to save money. I didn’t think of it at the time and went on with my work, though I was having painful headaches and problems with my vision. I figured that they were migraines from a stressful job. Obviously it was not that.

Shortly after I got home from the hospital, my boss and her husband fired me because they couldn’t afford to keep me on if I wasn’t working. I was left unable to work, or to look for a job, and barely able to move for that matter! Soon she started blaming me for not saving a piece of business that she had ruined before I left, saying that the reclaiming of the business would have saved my job.

I was devastated. Not even so much by being placed in a position of not being able to pay my bills, but more by the betrayal by someone that I thought was a good and decent person. I had been lured into her company and then discarded when I was no longer considered worth keeping. It was a horrible feeling to have someone who professed to be a woman of God be so hollow inside, and bereft of morals and feelings.

I felt this pain of betrayal for years. In my desperation, I ended up going back to work for her after I recovered and she could afford to hire me again. After a year or so another company bought her company and I was promoted to work for the parent company, but I still worked on new business with her. After a while we sold two large accounts. I was thrilled because the commission payments that I got from this new business helped my wife and me to start paying down some of the debt we had accumulated while I was sick and out of work.

Well, these “good times” lasted for only six months. She had mismanaged both of these accounts and they both fired my company. She however refused to take any blame for this. She blamed all of the poor management on the president of my company and me, hoping to convince these companies to stay with her. Long story shot, the companies that used to be my clients both went with her when she started another company, after my company closed her company. Her mismanagement caused five people to lose their jobs, and caused me to lose 60% of my income.

I couldn’t understand why God would allow me to be hurt by her again and again. It wasn’t until I spoke with my mentor that I finally understood His reasoning. God knows that I love and have loved Him through everything that I have gone through in my life. I have always asked Him what He intends for me to do and be in my life, on my journey. My mentor told me that God intentionally placed me with this woman. He wanted me to experience first hand a professor, not a doer of faith. He wanted me to understand everything about what a professor of faith looks like. He wanted me to experience that hollow soul first hand for one reason – so that I could tell this story.

So, beware the professor! If you love God, stay away from people who profess their love of God with their words, and betray this love with their actions. The professors are scattered among us, serving themselves more than the Lord. Keep your wits about you always and stay clear of those who aim to do you harm. Keep close to our God. He will show you who can and can’t be trusted.

1 in 5

I wear a wristband that says “1 in 5″ on it. It is from my support of the Pituitary Network Association and I wear it proudly all the time – even in the shower. What it means is that current findings show that one out of every five people suffers from a pituitary tumor of varying size and complexity. Mine happened to be quite large, requiring an involved and lengthy surgery to remove most of it.

I’m typically a pretty private person, but I will always talk openly when people ask me what 1 in 5 means. Without going into a lot of detail I say that I had a benign brain tumor that took away the functioning of my pituitary gland, and now I supplement all of the hormones that the pituitary gland usually produces – ranging from cortisone to testosterone to desmopressin, which controls fluid retention.

I guess that I’m open about it so that people won’t be scared of it, and that they can see that I am still a functioning person that’s capable of doing most of the things that “normal” people do. I want them to feel the strength of believing in yourself and feeling that you can overcome difficult situations. I don’t do it to brag, I just do it to pass on strength.

I also happen to have a Myers Briggs personality type of ENFP – extroverted, intuitive, feeling and perceiving. In this personality classification I am 1 in 14 people. My Goodness, I could get caught up in being so out of the norm, but in reality, I feel special. I feel like God has deliberately challenged me to use who I naturally am to overcome difficult situations and help others to see that they can do it too.

Do you have something that you consider to be special about you? Tell your story. I would love to hear it!