When It Comes Together
“We need to slow down, I have the lung capacity of a six year old”, the trucker said as we loaded another airplane prop onto the trailer. The six complex props clung to the ground as I pushed up from my squatted position. However, the weight didn’t surprise me as much as the trucker’s statement did.
Yes, loading the two 48 foot trailers full of airplanes parts, tools, and derelict engines presented a fitness challenge, but not impossible. I began to pay more attention to the other individuals helping. Where I picked up engine stands and loaded them with ease, others struggled. The endurance stuck out most of all, I worked steadily yet the others seemed to take a knee more often than not.
The three hour ride home provided time to reflect. Why do I work out like I do? Outside of the military, I don’t know of anyone else that makes it such a priority. Why run 8 miles? Who cares if I am in the 1,000 pound club? Clearly, no one else seems to prioritize fitness in the same way. Perhaps I am the weird one here.
A new day arrived and I found myself in a meeting. This time with a powerful decision maker. “Like you said when we last talked, that organization is prioritizing it’s own interest and comfort, loosing sight of their intended purpose,” he said citing me to, well, me. We had previously talked about Russel Ackoff and systems thinking. Having a systems view allows you to sit back and look at what the product of a system is in order to understand what the system is for. “You will know them by their fruits”, is how Jesus said it.
I sat there, dumbfounded. This guy had actually listened and what I told him made an impression. An even more encouraging thought came when I realized I had arrived at that quote from my own self study, a reward of my curiosity. Hours of reading, watching, and listening now yielded fruit.
Still reflecting on those two incidents I stumbled into a 6 am men’s group. We read books of a spiritual nature and talk about them extensively. “Having the proper theology provides a lattice work to hang life events on,” I told them, “Without some sort of philosophical and theological framework, life simply overwhelms you.”
I simply shared experiences from my role as a chaplain. Over the years, I’ve noticed those that are spiritually healthy tend to take things in stride. Since they have some way to understand the world, they don’t get as stressed and make better decisions. Though it seems profoundly simple and obvious, I don’t know if anyone else seems to have articulated that.
One man, sat and looked at me with wide eyes as he mumbled the words “lattice work” back at me. Clearly, the metaphor of building a theological and philosophical framework for life struck a chord as he uttered, “wow that’s brilliant”. As a man who cares for people professionally, I’m glad that made sense to him. Others will surely benefit from that exchange.
Why do I tell you this today? Is this some self aggrandizing rant from an arrogant blowhard? Probably. However, that is not my intent. What I have learned this week is profound and I want to share it with you. I think those three exchanges really sum up what this newsletter is all about.
Self improvement matters.
Why “hone the edge”? Why all the early morning runs, cold plunges, and sweaty weight lifting in the heat and cold? Why the waste of money on old books from little known authors and perpetual podcasts, YouTube, and audiobooks? Why practice prayer, asceticism, meditation, and daily reflection? Why bother?
Simply this, you owe it to everyone else. You owe being in good physical condition to load the next thing on the trailer for four straight hours. You owe it to those that rely on your input to make good decisions to have your own mind fully equipped and squared away. You owe it to those God has placed in your life to care for to have your own soul healthy so they have a place to lean on.
Today ask yourself this one question, “how am I preparing physically, learning mentally, and growing spiritually?” Everyday, other people rely on you to do all three well, don’t let them down.
Preparing
The past few weeks have called for travel and extremely early mornings. At work, I have had Lear Jets, engines, tools, and even one CNC machine show up at odd hours. What’s worse is that I am a department of one right now with little to no help most of the time. Therefore, sacrifices are having to be made on a daily basis.
Sadly, my physical training has bore the brunt of this hectic schedule and that has to stop. I’m six months out from my first Ironman and I can’t show up there unprepared. Everyday that I don’t find myself sweating is one more chance I won’t make it across that finish line. Something has to change.
Therefore, I’m adding a new time block into my schedule. If I can’t make my early morning workout time for whatever reason, I will make it up during lunch. That will mean that some meetings can’t be scheduled or some people will be inconvenienced. However, at some point, you have to make your training a priority or it never will be one.
Learning
I time block my day religiously in order to get everything done. I’m always looking for points of refinement and tweaking things that just aren’t working. Something that has been disrupted for the past few months with a new baby is my reading practice. I’ve still managed to get most of it done, but I’m behind where I want to be.
Every night, I try to read one hour before I go to bed. However, that simply hasn’t happened. Family gets a vote and my reading hour is frequently the victim of a veto. Therefore, I have allocated one hour in the morning before I respond to any emails or get cracking on whatever my morning focus is.
This is one advantage of being a Director of something. You can do weird experiments in order to optimize your day. I will keep you posted if this fixes the problem or not, but if it works I will be requiring it for my employees as well. How cool would it be to have a boss that says “you will do one hour of self improvement per day, I don’t care what that is, but you will do it.” I want to be that kind of a boss.
Growing
I keep a few journals imperfectly. One in particular asks you to reflect on where you are weak and then pray on it. I complied with that prompt and asked God to help me be more patient. What happened next could only be expected.
The next week brought about fights with local pilots, a broken water main, and one bad transmission. The stimuli I asked for had arrived overnight and I will confess to you I found myself anything but patient. I snapped at people frequently and stewed at my desk multiple times to the point where I felt like I did something wrong despite not talking to anyone.
I’m anything but patient it seems. I’m far from perfect in any area. However, I suppose “the struggle is the glory” and all that jazz. Patience must be a divine trait as I don’t have any clue how to develop it or practice it. Frankly, over the past few weeks I have found myself run ragged simply trying to keep all the plates spinning in the air. Therefore, all I can do is pray.
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Weekly Chautauquas on Self Improvement
Great one today! Needed to read it.