What is your Plan?

I volunteered to help with a political campaign. My job was to call people the night before election day and simply ask if they had a plan for voting. We did not ask "do you plan to vote?" but "what is your plan for voting tomorrow?" Totally different questions. We asked things like, "Do you know where your polling place is?" and "Are you going to vote before work or after work?" Why did we do this? Someone who has a plan is much more likely to follow through and execute the plan. Through the conversation, voting went from an abstract idea to a concrete activity. The potential voters took time to picture themselves voting and made the necessary arrangements to make sure it happened.

We all do this. We carry around an abstract idea of something we should do, but we don't make a plan, so it never happens. What do you need to do? Make a plan. Where will you execute your plan? Are you going to take the first step before work or after work?

For help in making your plan, check out my New Year's Resolution Kick-Start. Get one for yourself and one as a holiday gift. Now is the time to take action.

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Waiting

I flew on the tail end of a blizzard. Bad weather leads to delays. Delays lead to long waits.

What do you do when you wait? Do you distract yourself from the situation by reading or doing puzzles? Do you disengage from the people around you by communicating with your social networks online or via phone? Do you get angry at the people in charge who may or may not be able to do anything about the wait?
 
As Americans, we don't have to wait for much. We can have almost everything almost instantly. My observation is that this leads to people having less and less skills for waiting itself. On some level, we don't even wait for Christmas, we half-celebrate it for weeks before the actual day arrives.

And yet waiting can be a spiritual practice.  In the church world, we are in a season of waiting called Advent. In a world of non-stop activity and instant information and cross country travel, waiting asks us for an entirely different set of skills. It asks us not to do, but to be. It allows space for quiet time, reflection and preparation.

This December, wait. Not in an impatient way, but in a meaningful way. How do you do that? The same way I did in the airport. I set up camp in a quiet corner. I ate lunch, finished some work, practiced some yoga (yes, I'm that crazy person doing yoga in the corner of the airport). Then I simply waited. I stopped "doing" and started "being."

Start being. Find meaning through quiet time, reflection and preparation. Not sure how? Contact me to set up a coaching appointment.

Discombobulated

Going through airport security has become a three act play. I have my system down, but by the end of it everyone is generally discombobulated.

At the Milwaukee airport, they realize that you are discombobulated. In fact, they have an area right after security called the "recombobulation area."

I love what this means in terms of customer service. Someone at the Milwaukee airport said, "yes, we need to take security procedures as seriously as possible, but let's acknowledge what that's like for the 99.9% of people who follow the rules and don't cause any trouble. Let's respect them and help them put themselves back together. And let's name it something that really captures the essence of what it is: a recombobulation area."

Customer service is simply a process of seeing things from the other person's point of view. And customer service matters even if you aren't working in customer service. You still have opportunities to see things from the other person's point of view and go to the trouble of making it easier for the other person.

So do that today. Make something easier for the other person.

As for me, I'll be in the Milwaukee recombobulation area today.

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Recombobulate your life. Contact me to set up a life coaching session.

Un-Distressed

On a recent layover, I volunteered to give up my seat on the second flight. It meant that I spent an entire extra day in Milwaukee. The airline gave me a voucher for a free flight, three meal tickets and a night in a hotel. When I called the hotel to arrange for their shuttle to pick me up, the front desk manager asked, "Do you have a reservation or are you distressed?"

Well, neither, really.

Apparently when a passenger has to be housed overnight they are called a distressed passenger. As an experienced Urban Nomad, I was anything but distressed. I had all of my things because I rarely check luggage. I was able to do all of my work from the hotel, catch a flight at the end of the day and still make it to dinner with a friend in my destination city. I bonded with the gate agent, who I look forward to seeing on my next layover. I even made a short video, which you can see here.

I realize that had I not volunteered, someone else may not have been able to board who desperately needed to get somewhere. He or she may have been distressed. I find it curious, though, that the default name of a displaced passenger is "distressed." Everyone from the gate agent to the shuttle driver to the hotel staff commented on how I seemed to have such a good attitude for being distressed. Apparently it is so rare that they do not expect it. Even those who volunteer to give up their seat are not necessarily pleasant, according to the service staff. Volunteers are caught in some in-between limbo and may not enjoy the reality of it.


Learn to be OK in the in-between times. Life goes so much more smoothly. Step one: prepare for the unexpected.

To learn to be OK in the in-between times, contact me to set up a life coaching session.

These are the the bags that I generally carry as I circulate around New York City from one apartment to another. I find it easier to have a series of small bags than to have one big, heavy bag. However, on a recent transfer between apartments I realized how unwieldy one of the bags was. Nothing impossible, but nothing that would make it easy to transfer between subways at 42nd Street during rush hour. I would be moving at a snail's pace while everyone rushed around me. A few stops before 42nd Street I began strategizing how best to make the transfer. I was not coming up with any excellent ideas. Just then, someone I know got onto the subway car. Out of all the trains and all the cars on my train, she got on mine. This was someone I met at a one-day event over a year ago and have only seen once since that day. Yet she immediately said hello. And we chatted. She'd left work earlier than usual to make it to a show that night. And she was making the same transfer at 42nd Street. I told her to go ahead because I'd have to move slow. She said she'd carry half the bags. And she did.

God often works in mysterious ways, but that day God's work was abundantly clear to me.

Signs of Life

Walk.
Don't walk.
One way this way.
One way that way.

Usually traffic signs are clear about what to do. They keep us on track. They keep us safe.

But there are times that you get conflicting messages. That's when you have to look around at the potential hazards and make a decision. You draw upon what you have learned in the past. You consider where you need to be in the immediate future.

Is it best to stop? Is it best to go? This way or that way? What will keep me on track? What will keep me safe?

Don't just stand on the street corner waiting for one sign or another. Sometimes it won't be clear no matter how long you wait. Assess the situation. Go or don't go. This way or that way. Make a decision. And then, whether it was right or wrong, learn from it and make an even better decision next time.

Pleasant Views

I visited a planned community in Texas that was deliberately built with no straight roads and no distinctive buildings along the main roads. None. It was a planned community, so they could do that. Driving through the area, all you saw were trees ahead as the road curved away. The buildings and homes were all tucked away on side streets, hidden among the trees. As a visitor trying to find my way around, this became frustrating. Apparently the developer thought it was more pleasant to look ahead and see trees. If the road always curves you always see trees straight ahead. If there are no buildings along main roads, you always see trees. So many trees! Where is the church? Where is the school? Where is the house where I am invited to dinner? Somewhere behind the tress. 

Pleasant views are great if you know where you are going. I didn’t. And all I saw were trees.

I understand the appeal of creating a world made up almost entirely of pleasant and consistent views, but sometimes pleasant views shield us from finding our next destination. To find a new place, you have to slow down and look among the trees. How often do we commit to pleasant views at the expense of missing important destinations that are hidden among the trees?