Your Words Have Impact When You Least Expect It
And Your Actions Will Carry Even More Weight
Sarah & Mom, Mt. Helena City Park
I have moments in conversations with my children that I think: “That was good! Where did that wisdom come from?” And in my mind, I’ve said something so perceptive, so wise, that my boys are sure to remember it and apply it.
That’s rarely the way it works. They remember some of the most ridiculous things I’ve said, and most of the time when they tell me something deep that I shared with them, I have no memory of the conversation.
When my mother came to visit our family recently, I took the opportunity to have this conversation with her: Do you remember telling me these wise things that I’ve written about in my blog? At the time you shared these words with me, did you think they would have life-long impact?
I loved this conversation, partly because it confirmed this generational commonality, that our children remember things we don’t remember. And more importantly, that they remember our actions, the values we demonstrated to them, with even more clarity.
In our conversation we mentioned a few things related to childbirth and breast feeding, and I promised to include links to explain. Mom mentioned meconium aspiration, and her activity in the early 70s with La Leche League.
Also in the conversation, we talked about the Jewish holiday called Purim, the cookies we make to celebrate that holiday, and the act of delivering a basket of those cookies and other treats anonymously to people.
Sarah and Mom, Helena Regional Airport
Knowing that we think differently, and process information differently is critical to the health of our relationships, and talking through how we remember our family history helps clarify those differences. When I remember hard times, specific incidents that had impact on me, I vividly remember the people involved, and my feelings and experiences with those people. It turns out that when my mother remembers specific incidents that had big impact on her, she remembers her feelings about it, the emotions she experienced, not the specific people involved.
Having this conversation allowed me some insights in terms of her emotional response to things I say or struggles she experiences in her life. She simply processes things differently from how I process them, and there’s so much beauty in that difference.
Your Turn
Have you told people the impact they had on you? Do you share your memories with people, so they understand how much their actions meant to you? When you share these stories with people in your life, you have an incredible opportunity not only to be grateful, which has positive impact on your brain, and to thank people, but to see those same experiences through their eyes.
Not All of the Most Important Lessons Come from Struggle
We learned so much about ourselves and our relationship on that adventure. Our resourcefulness, silly senses of humor, and resilience was on full display.
Celebrating Lessons Learned from Joy - 50th Podcast Episode!
Karen & Sarah, Road Trip Warriors
I talk a lot about the lessons I’ve learned through struggle, I call them “opportunities for growth”, and many people believe the most important lessons in life are those learned during difficult times. I learn a lot about my strength, resilience, and courage through those obstacles and grief; I also learn a lot about myself, my relationships, and the world around me through happy experiences.
My sister and I decided to take a road trip in the last week I was in Colorado before moving to Washington DC for a paid internship after college. I had just graduated from Colorado State - Fort Collins, and she was a second semester freshman at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. It was early January, our dad was fixing my little Chevette to make the trip to DC, and we had just a few days before I had to leave.
We weren’t sure where we wanted to go, and as we drove to the AAA office to grab a map, we talked about maybe making it to Las Vegas. The AAA associate was concerned about this long trip, I think she assumed we were about 16, and she mentioned as she highlighted the route from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas: “That’s a very long drive, ladies, especially in winter!”
“That’s okay, it’s really not about the destination.”
Karen and I left with our map, stopped at the nearest Kmart for a case of oil, she drove an old Honda that burned through oil, and headed north and then west.
Always Great Travel Companions
Skirting Denver to head west, we passed the familiar sign “Buffalo Overlook”, and I couldn’t believe it. “Karen! There are buffalo at the buffalo overlook!” Puzzled, she smiled at me. “Um… yes, Sarah.”
“I’ve passed this sign a hundred times at least, and I look out every time, and this is THE FIRST time I’ve ever actually buffalo here!”
We drove into Glenwood Springs, a beautiful little town in western Colorado, where we had spent some time as young children.
“We could stop here and soak in the hot springs, and maybe see if they have a room for us here.”
Karen told me she was eager to get out of Colorado, so we kept on driving.
As we chugged in the little Honda up a hill just over the Utah state line, we realized the car was misfiring and having some trouble with acceleration, so we pulled off at the next exit with a gas station.
It was a gas station with a diner nearby - and nothing else. We filled up the tank and I put a bottle of dry gas into the tank, just in case there was moisture in it. Pulling around to the diner lot, I noticed the blinds of the diner pop open, and a few pair of eyeballs staring out at us. I went in to use the bathroom, which was a mistake, and when I came out, Karen was holding one of the spark plugs in a paper towel in her hand.
She asked if I happened to have some sandpaper with me that we could use to rub the carbon off the edges of the plus.
“No, but I have an emery board!” It didn’t fit in the gap, so I peeled the paper off the board. One at a time, my sister pulled out the plugs, I carefully pulled the sandpaper through the gaps, and she put them back. At some point, one of the pairs of eyes from the diner came out to ask if we “ladies” needed help. His belly arrived significantly before he did, and when we said we were okay, he huffed, annoyed, and stomped back into the diner. We saw the blinds pop open again as all of them watched us finish our work.
“McGyver!” Karen shouted, and we high-fived.
We drove away and didn’t have any more acceleration problems the rest of the trip.
Our adventure was filled with hilarious moments, especially late that night when we had been on the road for 8+ hours and were tired and punchy.
Eventually we stopped in Mesquite, Nevada. I got us a room, then we walked into the casino to look around. We won $300, got ID’d at least 6 times in the hour we were wandering, and were compensated for the hassle by the manager, who bought us dinner in the restaurant.
Later that year, I took the map we used, wrote short stories and quotes on it along the route, attached some pictures, and gave it to my sister in a frame as a gift.
We learned so much about ourselves and our relationship on that adventure. Our resourcefulness, silly senses of humor, and resilience was on full display. Maybe we knew innately that we held those traits, but experiencing this together was great confirmation.
The next time you are experiencing an “opportunity for growth”, think about some of those adventures you loved, those stories in your life that brought you great joy, and really consider the lessons you learned from those experiences. And when you’re in the middle of one of those joyful adventures, take time afterward to find the lessons in it.
True Leaders Know They Always Have Something to Learn
Stories of Learning and Growth as a Leader
Just like many bosses before him, Rich Gassen was offered a management position without having ever been a manager, and without any training. Fortunate for his employees, he knew what he didn’t know, and took it upon himself to find the resources he needed to learn to do his job and do it well.
In my experience, the worst managers are the ones who think they have nothing to learn, and who don’t see themselves as their employees see them. Many take on the management style of someone they worked for, even if they disliked that manager, and complained often about their poor management and the disconnect with their staff.
But not Rich. Not only did he take advantage of the training opportunities and other resources available to him from his organization, he joined a group of managers that met regularly to share what they knew - and to complain. The dynamic changed in that group when they realized there were many other managers there who didn’t know what resources were available to them, and they decided to open up their informal group to create a more formal, active agency to help all managers improve.
Rich Gassen, bottom left, an unplanned, unexpected rock star.
In our conversation, we had a chance to talk about music, one of my favorite topics, of course. Here’s the link Rich promised to share, a song recorded in his time as a vocalist in a rock band called Madcity.
Connect with Rich on LinkedIn, and check out the website he created and manages for the Campus Supervisors Network at UW-Madison.
When Your Heart is In It, You Bring Great Value
Stories of Understanding the Value of Your Work
Going into the resume and job search business, John Sattler underestimated the impact he could have on the lives of others. His interest in starting this business had more to do with using the knowledge and skills he had developed as a recruiter to make his income, and less to do with the “why” behind it.
His “ah ha” moments came when he opened his mind and heart to really get to know a few of his clients. John realized that each client had a completely different and interesting story to tell, they just didn’t know how to tell it.
He’s not a soft-skills guy, in terms of how he approaches his work. John isn’t the guy you go to cry on his shoulder; he’s the guy who will tell you exactly what he thinks, and will not sugar coat his advice and suggestions. That’s why he won’t take on every client that knocks on his door. If he gets the impression that the client isn’t going to put in the work and effort it will take to get a job, and if he gets the impression that the client won’t choose to be self-reflective about his or her past challenges, he will refer that client to someone else. And that’s what makes him such an asset to the clients who retain him.
It’s magical when you realize that your skills and competence can make a real difference in a person’s life, and that they realize your value and will invest in themselves to benefit from those skills and competence.
Help Appears When You Least Expect It
He was driving a new, fancy car, living in a beautiful apartment, wearing expensive clothes, and living a life he considered pretty luxurious. So why was he sinking?
Stories of Friendship and Angels in Disguise
When he was struggling in a job that a was a terrible fit, Robert Downs suddenly developed a craving for a burrito - in a city more than 8 hours drive away. He arrived in the city where he had lived before, connected with a couple of friends, ate a burrito, and then drove back.
It took time for him to process the why behind his spontaneous craving, and a few other examples of that kind of behavior, for him to realize he was sinking. He was driving a new, fancy car, living in a beautiful apartment, wearing expensive clothes, and living a life he considered pretty luxurious. So why was he sinking?
Many of us have a skewed version of what we consider success in our lives, especially early in our careers. We seek out happiness based on that skewed version of what success looks like, and when it falls short of making us happy, we think something is wrong with us.
When he finally decided to truly follow his heart - and his familial roots in creativity and art, help appeared. Is it always easy? No, of course not. But when you know you’re doing what you were meant to do, the right people fall into your path to keep you company. And when you have the opportunity to give back into that system of support and encouragement, you take it.
I know you want to learn more about Robert Downs and his life as a photographer. My favorite way of keeping up with this guy and his adventures is his always-insightful blog posts.
You can also follow him on Instagram, and visit his website.
From his website:
ROBERT DOWNS
For many an artist, creativity is in the genes. For photographer Robert Downs that creativity springs from both sides of parental well. His mother was a graphic artist and father was a photojournalist for more than forty years with the Atlanta Journal and Constitutionwhich is where they met.
“I used to beg my father to take me to work with him on the weekends,” Robert remembers. “My job would be to carry all the staff photographer’s cameras to the football field and pick up film at half-time. My reward was I got to use a camera and dump my film in with the rest of the guys. Whether it was or cruel joke, or just fate, my shots started showing up in the paper. I was 13 when I scored the front page of the sports section. It was then I knew that I wanted to be a photographer.”
Over the past 10 years, Robert Downs has sustained that dreammaking a living combining art and commerce with clients ranging from the Los Angeles Times and Sony Pictures to Kaman Music, SKB, Audix Microphones and Gibson Guitars. His work has been featured extensively on covers and editorial spreads for for Drum! and Traps magazines, plus a host of the world’s top drum companies such as Pearl, Gretsch, Tama, Bosphorus and Zildjian. He’s also photographed some of the top musicians and bands on the charts including Incubus, Stone Temple Pilots, Deftones, Tommy Lee, Public Enemy, Hatebreed, Cult, Linkin Park, and many more.
Disruption Through Distraction: Adventures in Fighting Boredom
When Disruption Takes the Form of Self-Sabotage
Tara Bradford had everything going for her business, and the majority of her clients came directly from the video marketing she had been doing for a year. Suddenly, she decided to stop doing the videos. She was bored. And instead of finding ways to change her videos, and exploring other options in addition to the successful video activity, she. Just. Stopped.
This is just one example we spoke about in terms of the choices we’ve made out of boredom and being too comfortable, that ended up taking us in completely different directions - and not always in a good way.
Some of us just don’t recognize when we’re bored early enough to change direction with intention, rather than as impulse. Eventually, though, with enough self-reflection, we can start to see the symptoms before they become overwhelming. That’s the first step. The next step must be to consider our own roles in the scenario. And then? We must make the decision to take small steps toward digging us out of the situation, rather than rushing off into something we’re not really sure will take us where we want to go. Tara’s brilliant strategy was to put herself into situations that a) made her uncomfortable, and b) had her interacting with people and industries she would never have otherwise experienced.
How many times have you made a rash decision because you were dissatisfied, bored, or simply in maintenance mode in your life and/or business? What lessons did you learn from those experiences, and how do you choose to tell the stories so you’re learning from them, rather than being a victim of circumstances?
Tara Bradford helps individuals gain clarity on their goals and objectives, communicate confidently about themselves and their businesses, feel more understood in their professional relationships, and reach a global audience with their message so they can become Best Selling Authors, TEDx Speakers and, if we dream even bigger, Nobel Peace Price recipients.
Visit her website to learn more about what she can do to help you move forward - without those lateral distractions! And connect with her on LinkedIn to keep up with her extraordinary contributions to our global community.
Connect Beyond the Keyboard
NLV is a two day professional development opportunity designed with a full curriculum-style agenda to help you and your business thrive. It’s limited to 50 participants, so you have the opportunity to truly get to know every person in the room. Sessions range from brain-science and mindset strategies to building your brand across platforms, hosted by some of your favorite LinkedIn connections.
So why am I recording this video on a mountain in Montana? Because the overall theme of NLV is to connect beyond the keyboard, taking your online connections to the next level in an enriching environment, filled with relevant content.
We humans are designed to use all of our senses to maintain and improve our brains, and our capacity for healthy relationships with others. LinkedIn and other platforms have offered us incredible opportunities to meet, learn from, and collaborate with people all over the world, without ever meeting face-to-face. That’s pretty amazing.
But there’s a limit to what you can accomplish from behind your keyboard. At some point, if you want to build authentic, powerful relationships, you must experience the world in first person.
You can read about climbing a mountain, look at pictures, and even feel like you’re climbing by watching someone else on a big screen, but you’re missing 90% of the experience.
As I stand here looking out over my little city, I’m breathing clean, crisp, fresh air. I’m smelling the pine needles, the damp soil that will freeze soon. I’m seeing the details of the leaves that have changed color and are barely hanging onto their trees, ready to drop for winter. I can hear the breeze coming up through the trees on the mountain, and I’m feeling the crunch of the rocks and dry grass under my feet.
I can’t experience that through a screen.
Register for No Longer Virtual today; save yourself some money by registering before November 1.
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Join me, learn together – in the same room - with some of your favorite LinkedIn connections. Take your connections beyond the keyboard and create an even more powerful network. Visit elkinsconsulting.com to register, and for more information, and contact me directly with questions. I can’t wait to meet you at NLV!