Hi Friend
This has been an explosive week! So much goodness in one week is incredibly rewarding. Since last I wrote you, I hung out with my mom, my brother and his family, participated in three days of the National Speaker Association conference AND emcee’d for the 12th year in a row, HoganyTaylor’s annual firm meeting. All of these encounters enriched my hear, mind, spirt and soul.
Mostly, I got to be around a bunch of people I like. I like my family, I like my speaking colleagues and I certainly like the team at HoganTaylor. So much transpired, but two men stand out from this past week. Mark LeBlanc, my business coach who I enlisted this past year and Randy Nail who has been the best of friend to me for over a decade. They are both integrity-centered, honorable men. I admire them deeply.
Mark won the CPAE award at the NSA Conference. It’s like the Hall of Fame for speakers. HE’D BEEN NOMINATED 19 TIMES BEFORE!! Somebody on the previous committee obviously held a grudge or something. On his 20th nomination he got in. I don’t know anything about the process, but to go through it like that seems annoying. He’s one of the finest humans I’ve ever met. He remained classy, smart, generous and kind. He’s so impressive.
Randy, is the CEO of HoganTaylor. His message this year was about being generous people. It wasn’t what you’d expect. It was him publicly wrestling with what generosity really means. He was so bold as to attempt to decouple it from giving. He had research and insights that supported his attempt, but it’s not conclusive. When people talk about being transparent and vulnerable, I doubt they would imagine the depth of effort a CEO would make in front of his 350+ employees. He didn’t have answers, but an invitation for them to help him discover what it would look like if they all embraced this bigger-definition-of-generosity.
Models of Grace
They both inspired me in entirely different ways, yet with a foundational through-line: Graciousness. Both of their public offerings were endearing, but it’s the private conversations with each of them that exuded humility and gratitude. I prodded them about their specific scenarios and they both maintained an elegance of character that is rare and incredibly attractive. They emitted grace.
You know how people refer to dancers as moving with grace? Strong character displayed in the wild is even more entrancing. “Behind the scenes” ALWAYS looks different than what’s made available for public consumption. I know integrity is “what you do when no one is looking” but what if the “when no one is looking” part is EVEN better than when people are looking? What if our private lives were more compelling and appealing than our public personas? Instead of putting our best foot forward to be seen, we put our best selves out when no one was looking?
Values
Both men live aligned with their values, consistently. How common is using our values as a filter for decisions in life? I suspect we generally tend to think we’re aligned with them… mostly. I’m curious though if we could give a specific description of our primary values? I’m asking this, because I’ve been reconsidering mine and putting definitions to them. It’s one thing to say “truth” is a value, it’s another thing to describe/define what that means and looks like day-to-day.
When working with organizations I position values as something we discover, not something we create. It has to pass the eye-roll test. When sharing it with all employees their response needs to be “yeah, that sounds like us” or it’s not actually a value. There are a lot of orgs and humans who aspire to be something, but actually aren’t. When we put in the work to find the right language to articulate our values it opens them up to be useful for us.
Instigating Ideas…
1. Do you have models in your life that are near enough you can see behind the scenes?
2. How congruent are your public and private lives?
3. Praise someone who exhibits a quality you desire to be realized in your life.
4. If you have values, define them in sentence form. If you don’t, start the discovery process.
My closest friends are all high caliber individuals who live aligned with their values. Whether parenting, finances, communications, the future, relationships, their calling – they excel at living on purpose. That’s why I’m drawn to each of them! Listening to how they think challenges and encourages me. Wouldn’t it be great if our lives did that for our friends?
Trickery
My 10 year old nephew, Slade is currently into card tricks. He’s good. It’s all about making me believe or see something that is not true. I was delighted with how he tricked me. He’d do the same trick over and over again, adding different levels of showmanship and storytelling.
A lot of people put a lot of energy into trickery; wanting others to see something that just isn’t real. Let’s be people who put all our effort and energy into living according to our values.
I hope this week finds you living a grace-filled existence. If you have defined values that you keep in front of you, I’d be honored if you’d send me a copy of them, so I can be inspired.