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Obstacle to Success

Do people change?

This is an unresolvable age-old question on the nature of man – Can a person change the essence of who he is or is he just fulfilling his already existing potential, for good or bad, large or small? As a coach and mentor to many a young man, this isn’t an idle question. In my lifelong epistemological search for practical meaning and here in this penultimate chapter on 2018 goals (BOOM! – I  just used epistemological and penultimate in the same sentence! Now me go back to small wordses), it’s a question we must confront – Can I change my trajectory?

Can people change? Yes. It is possible to make significant change to a disposition that has been set from childhood. There are 2 times in one’s life when change to one’s fundamental nature is easier – 1) as a young man out of adolescence embarking on establishing an independent existence; or 2) after a long period where errors in judgment have compounded into crisis and change is mandatory.

This letter is entitled Obstacle to Success and I’m talking about change because the clear fact is that your mindset is by far the greatest obstacle to your success and happiness. That statement is not an indictment against you of course, but is the reality mankind faces. We must figure ourselves out, learn to consistently be our own advocate, harness our mental, physical, spiritual, and social strengths in order to achieve our personal degree of well being. But you may say, “Davo, that may have been you, and I can see other guys whose thinking is weak, but I’m doing pretty well. To be candid, I’ve got it going on.” Indeed. Errors in judgment is an intractable dilemma. For some, after many years with a closely held belief of “being on track” do errors in judgment come to crisis. You can fool yourself for a long time in thinking that today’s casual effort won’t come to crisis, that there’s time yet tomorrow to get motivated to clean out your habit closet, that these small hidden frailties of drinking or porn or excessive use of smartphone won’t compound into a crisis down the road. Yes, you could be fooling yourself somewhere in some way.

Look at it this way – you leave adolescence at around 25 when your brain roughly finishes its physical development. Up till then your view of reality is 2-dimensional. As your life becomes more 4 dimensional, your mind develops in complexity (or vice versa) and you become more set in your ways. Think of a sapling tree that can be trained to grow according to external stimuli. The more it grows, the less it’s able to change its essential structure. Errors in judgment become set as you get older. Therefore, before those become calcified negative habits, as a young man you are most empowered now to set a path that will lead to power and well-being. Ignorance and arrogance are every man’s Scylla and Charybdis (Boom!).

Ok, today’s letter was a bit preachy, sorry. (Not sorry). Even the optimal path of your development is strewn with rocks on which you can easily trip without awareness. I know the dangers first hand of drifting along with smug certainty. This series is designed to make 2018 a powerful year for you. You must intend to stoke the engine (Motivation), that drives towards a direction (Goals), and develops a pattern (Habits) that manifest well being in your life. In the last Letter on this series, I’ll talk on Overcoming Obstacles to Success.

A sapling tree does not grow fruit. Only after years of development will that tree manifest fruit that represents the intention of the Gardener. Only then will you know.

To your spiritual path,

Dave Marr

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By | December 15th, 2017|Personal|0 Comments

Business Conflict

Conflict in business is everyday stuff.  People don’t like conflict, so they don’t get a chance to get good at its resolution. I like conflict, or rather, I enjoy the opportunity to get better at its resolution. As CEO, I deal with conflict all the time. By the time it’s made it to me, it’s festered into a rather significant boil. And if it were easy to resolve, it would have already been taken care of at an earlier stage. Therefore, unless I want to upset all parties and take a defensive stance, I need to get at the core elements of the conflict, soothe emotions, and come up with a solution that keeps the company’s reputation somewhat unharmed and the parties happy enough. I have a formula and style that has worked for me countless times.

First of all, my assumptions:

  1. People don’t like conflict and want to see it go away as soon as possible. Those that have been hurt by someone’s actions, usually don’t want to punish, they just want to see it made right. For those that have caused the conflict, they face a character issue on its resolution.
  2. 98% (made up %) of all conflict is a result of poor communication, miscommunication, an ambiguous communication, unrealistic expectations, or just everyday human error.
  3. Of the 2% that is genuine conflict, a negotiation or lawsuit may ensue. We’ll take this up some other time.
  4. Mistakes often get compounded by people avoiding responsibility and postponing notification of the parties that they made a mistake.
  5. Oftentimes there’s pain for one of the parties to resolve the matter. Postponing the situation won’t alleviate the pain and often makes it worse.

So, for example, this has happened many times: I’d have a loan originator (LO) employee that would take a loan application and set expectations with the borrower and, if a purchase loan, with the real estate agent. The LO would gather all the borrower information, look it over, and address anything that needed work. After working on validating the information in the file through processing, something would come up that would stop the deal from moving forward until resolved. The LO would need to go back to everyone involved to say that there’s a problem. If the LO made a mistake, or didn’t interpret things correctly, set the wrong expectations, or one of a thousand things, the agent and borrower would get upset. Any unwillingness from the LO to face the music and resolve the issue would just make matters worse as the deadlines got closer, and escalate the problem to my desk.

When this happens, my formula is:

  1. Talk to all parties and let them know I am going to get into it. I ask for a little patience and to stay calm of emotions. I will ultimately get to the right answer and, if my company is in the wrong, make it right. This buy-in from everyone gives me enough time to gather facts. Without facts, it won’t get resolved amicably.
  2. Tell everyone exactly what I’m going to do, who I’m going to talk with, the information I’m going to gather, and exactly when I’m going to contact them again. This is the most critical piece of the puzzle. Tell them what you’re going to do and do it. If you don’t, you’ve blown any real chance of restoring your reputation.
  3. Take responsibility for the problem. “I apologize that we’re all in this situation; we’ll get past this and we’ll get this problem off our plate so we can move on to more productive things.” I say this as a way to plant that idea in their minds rather than lawsuits. If there’s a potential for a lawsuit, I’m careful with my words so as to not admit liability, but still take on responsibility.
  4. Get into the situation. Most issues involve a couple of degrees of complexity. A human error that went unnoticed that put us in a corner which would result in the borrower potentially having to pay more money (we usually eat those). Or the plain reality that the borrower’s finances had a problem that went undiscovered for a time. This delay resulted in expectations that needed to be adjusted and now require the borrower to pay extra (we don’t eat those). I don’t own someone else’s problem, I just try and help them.
  5. Determine the salient facts and features of the conflict. I call the aggrieved parties back at the exact time I said I would whether I am ready to proceed or not. This is a big error that I’ve seen. When a borrower is told to expect a call, but the information just isn’t ripe for resolution, and the call isn’t made: Explosion.
  6. If I‘m not ready to proceed to the next step for resolution, I explain why and ask for some more time. I repeat the formula for the new expectation.
  7. In the resolution phase, I lay out the facts. I need to identify clearly what happened and why the train got off the tracks. I do not hide if or where we slipped up.
  8. At this point, I either eat the cost and make good on our error or identify the steps required to get back on track. I also address the cost to the borrower, if any. If there’s some good will gesture I can make by paying for some of the issue, I’ll generally make it.  But if it’s too large and is clearly in the borrower’s camp, I’ll just wait for their reaction.
  9. Silence at this stage is important to let the parties digest matters. Pain doesn’t go down easily, but sometimes it is what it is.
  10. Sometimes deals just don’t get done and sometimes you have to do deals that you don’t want to do because it’s the lesser of two evils. Those are just judgment calls. But at least jumping in to stop solvable problems from spinning out of control is a learnable skill.

As I said most people don’t like conflict. They just want to resolve issues and move on with their lives. And most of the time (Highlight this in your mind because this is a major takeaway): It’s not that a mistake was made, it’s what you do about it that matters.   What makes things dramatically worse is when people run and hide rather than admit and resolve. This is a character issue that is defining.

What I haven’t talked about here is what happens after this. I’ve run out of space, but quickly, punishment doesn’t make sense. Learning is important for all good intention situations.  Learn, fix, and move on. If someone makes the same error over and over, then maybe employment isn’t a good fit.

How comfortable are you with conflict? With customers? Employers? Spouse? Friends? Parents? Siblings? Others?  How can you be cool during conflict?

To your improving your ability to handle conflict,

Dave Marr

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By | December 8th, 2017|Personal, Relational|0 Comments

Disciplines, Habits, and Routines

Not every Ironmen Letter is a towering epistle soaring among those clouds saturated in wisdom that rain down on mere mortal men. No, not every one, ahem. Some are mundane, with feet on the ground, designed to cover territory that is hopefully familiar, but fundamental nonetheless and therefore worthy of repetition. Two such recent Letters covered Motivation and Objectives. And now as we approach that ever recurring starting gate of the New Year, honing your behaviors is today and will forever be a critical aspect on gaining traction in personal growth.

Ok, Time Out: Let me ask you to gauge your attitude right now as you read this. Are you getting through this Letter and moving on to the next item of the day? Or will you get FROM today’s message? Because what the heck are you doing? Let some messages into the inner sanctum where it hits home and creates resolve in you. Some messages should reach you and not be held at arm’s length. Let this be one.

All right, Time In: Presumably you are interested in creating a fantastic life. My discussion on Motivation two weeks ago gave 9 factors that generated positive energy in me that I could translate into motivation. Motivation towards what? Last week I discussed Vision and Objectives for next year.  The two combine to equate to an intellectual blueprint of my coming year. And when I was in my 30’s that would be the end of it. I would be motivated to write down my goals, but wouldn’t be disciplined enough to figure out how to act on them and thereby accomplish most of them. It took me many years of trying to learn the basics of my personality and behaviors before I could harness my motivation to gain traction on my more pernicious issues.

Some men are blessed with a default mode of action. I have many friends who are that way which is good for them. I am not that guy. My default mode is one of laziness. Not extreme laziness, but one of selfish “conservation of my energy”. So if I were given a choice of organizing my garage or reading a book, cha, not even close. But that base modality conflicts with my ego where I see myself as a man of consequence. Those two views don’t square, so I had to navigate that little thing we call “reality” and overcome some limiting behaviors.

I have no problem brushing my teeth twice a day. It’s part of my routine. If for some reason I miss a day, I don’t say, “Ah screw it. I’ll start again next year.” You don’t do that with routines. You do that with disciplines. Because routines are already inside your pattern where you are efficient and you move from one activity seamlessly to another. No doubt you have a morning routine and a nighttime one. You’ve probably got an eating routine, a driving routine, a toilet routine. Efficiency of habit. You don’t have to think about what comes next. That’s the key.

To make lasting change in your physical and personal life you must routinize the things you want to compound over a lifetime. You do that by structuring the habit you want to insert into your routine so that it fits easily into that efficiency mode. Let’s say you want to get in shape. The reason you haven’t done that in the past is lack of time and you weren’t experiencing negative consequences anyway. But now you’ve decided that it’s time to be intentional about your health. You decide that morning has the greatest shot at being consistent, so you plan to get up 30-60 minutes earlier and work out. Awesome! And, after doing it twice and you’re sore and it’s cold outside and the workout was just running a mile followed by pushups and situps, you decide to take a one day holiday because working out daily just isn’t “realistic”. Doing it every other day becomes a problem if you miss your workout day. Soon, the law of diminishing intentions kicks in and the idea of getting in shape remains just that, an idea. Motivation must be restored regularly during the time discipline is honing a habit. Let me say that again: Motivation is the energy to get going and must be restored regularly so that turning a discipline into a habit isn’t a vertical climb. Structuring how you’ll turn the habit into your routine by figuring out exactly what you’re going to do, what you’re going to need, what time you’ll need to wake up, and what time you’ll need to go to bed – are all the details of success.

Now, of course that example may not apply to you. It’s a template. Thus: Motivation is a positive energy. It needs a vision to become something. Your objectives are the plan to turn your motivation into reality. Discipline is the fortitude to stick with your decision long after the energy has dissipated. Habits are the patterns created by discipline that must be structured and thought out. And routines are those habits that are efficiently incorporated into your life.

One last thought – Nothing stands alone. All your behaviors – the disciplines, the habits, the routines – are part of the pattern of who you are. If you discipline one part of your life, it’ll affect the whole.

There. I saved you 15 years of struggle. You’re welcome.

To getting FROM the day,

Dave Marr

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By | December 1st, 2017|Personal|0 Comments

Next Year’s Objectives

Over the last 30 years or so, I have written down my goals maybe half the time and the other half just had them in mind. In assessing the difference, I’d have to give the nod to writing them down, as you’d expect me to say. The years I would continuously reference back to my written goals, the greater likelihood I wouldn’t drift from them. My best year that saw the most economic gains was the year I worked my plan the most consistently. Which makes sense of course – plan your work and work your plan.

The key to a successful year is a strong start, therefore, you need to start working on next year’s objectives now. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a great time to reflect on this year’s effort – where were you consistent? where do you need to strategize around your inconsistency? If you just drift from one year to another without extracting all the value of your experiences, then your trajectory will be less than it could be. Therefore take your most mature developed attitude and focus 4-6 hours on what you want next year to be like. That’s a lot of concentrated time, but maximizing your life might be worth a few hours. Now, I’ve done the casual goal setting that doesn’t last a month and is quickly cast aside. But to truly maximize your year you need to envision each part of your life: Family, Work, Health, God, Finances, Social, Giving – in your particular order of importance – and create a vision statement as to what you want to accomplish.

From the vision statement, you need an action plan. How are you going to bring your vision into existence? Who can help you? What steps can you work on today that will move you closer? What milestones exist that would indicate you’re 10% there, half way there? What are you going to do to celebrate once you’ve accomplished it. How are you going to feel once you’re there? Is it a box to check off or is it a lifestyle that you’ll own? Not a small question. When I got my blackbelt in karate, a commonplace occurrence was guys would get their blackbelt and never be seen again. It’s like getting your undergrad degree and never learning another thing. How will you feel once you’ve created the reality of what you’ve envisioned? Because, that vision is but a milestone in itself. Who are you becoming?

The path to creation is: Thought – Word – Deed. (Rather Biblical, I’d say). But each must be consistent. To bring about a new and improved you that has a quality family life, great marriage, a valuable career that is stimulating and rewarding, a healthy body that exudes confidence and vitality, a connectedness with God and his creation where ego is appropriately placed, freedom to travel and enjoy life with friends, and enough substance and presence of mind to contribute back to God’s creation in such a way that makes you both bigger and smaller at the same time. Yes gentlemen, conceive of a vision, write it down, and act upon it with daily consistency.

If you are like me and pretty much everyone else on the planet, then this topic is not easily done. Because consistency is predicate on you resolving yourself to the task which waivers with each passing day. You go to bed and wake up a different person. That’s why it’s important to have a couple someone’s in your life where you can commit your vision to. An Ironmen group can do that. The power in this idea of creating a vision for your life and getting 2 other guys to hold you accountable cannot be understated.

Get motivated and get going on your life. There’s nothing to lose but a lower version of yourself.

To your abundance,

Dave Marr

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By | November 24th, 2017|Personal|0 Comments

Lincoln’s 2nd Inauguration

On Saturday March 4, 1865, a humid day with the Battle of Appomattox still more than 30 days away and Lincoln’s assassination 5 days beyond that, Lincoln gave this famous speech. Its structure and depth hold insights that we can apply today. It is instructive to our personal perspectives because from this distance we can discern and weigh without excessive partisan energy that always colors the present. Current partisan energy biases men’s minds, so looking back 152 years allows us the freedom of discernment without that bias.

“Fellow-Countrymen:”, he begins with the democratic ideal of equality. By addressing his listeners with this common salutation, he is asserting he is no higher and we are fellow travelers on this earth. In the speech, Lincoln treats combatants on both sides almost as if he were an impartial observer regarding the justifications and righteousness of their thinking and prayers. But it’s clear some thoughts carry more substantive spiritual weight than others, like the peculiar institution of slavery versus freedom. Lincoln is taken aback that men “both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.” Yet, “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces.” In other words, how could someone pray to a God whose very character embodies justice that slavery should exist? How could that be if God is just? But he continues immediately in the same sentence, “but let us judge not, that we be not judged.” 620,000 deaths and the near destruction of the country, 4 long years of life and death struggle, and the leader of the nation speaks of not judging his adversary. Instead of the hardened heart of vengeance that victors quashed the vanquished, Lincoln embodies a higher ideal, a more substantive spiritual quality, of charity. Lincoln offers grace to the defeated in response to their hatred.

Even though there is more to say about the speech, much more, my Letters are designed for easy bites – a quick Friday morning snack for your contemplation and discussion in your Ironmen group. But of the ideas I have promoted over the years, this is a bigger one. The notion that ideas have spiritual weight is largely the point of our existence here on this planet. In our travels from birth to death we grow physically, mature socially, and climb spiritually. Our daily efforts engage the world in a kind of battle for survival or supremacy only to find, as Lincoln did, fellow travelers doing battle and asking God for assistance against you. And you must, as they must, defend convictions. However, Lincoln makes a distinction – some would make war to achieve their ends; whereas others would accept war rather than let their ideals perish.

So where am I going with all this? The world, i.e. work, politics, society, friends, and particularly your wife and children, deserve your grace, your acceptance, your willingness to look at them as fellow travelers. Conflicts will arise in your life that gives you the opportunity to defend and define your convictions. But you must lift your own countenance, your own renewed center towards charity, charity and grace my friends, because you may one day wake up upon reflection and find that you fought for the South.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Isn’t that a sentiment that would serve well in the world today?

To grace in your life,

Dave Marr

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By | November 17th, 2017|Personal, Relational|0 Comments

Motivation

Are you born with motivation or is it something you can develop?

After several decades of observing, I don’t have conclusions, but maybe some insights that might help you with your motivation.  It’s a nature/nurture kind of question: Are you born with the maximum amount of personal energy that drives you to wake up early and get after each day or is it something that must be coaxed and coerced into life with various techniques of threats and rewards?

By my framing it as nature/nurture you already know that I think it’s both. We have a certain inherent disposition for energy that characterizes our personality, but we certainly aren’t fatally fixed at one level. We have choices if our natural state does not serve our long term interests. Granted it’s easier for some than others, but I strongly believe that everyone can be more consistent in the energy that runs through their minds, limbs, and lives. How to do that is the multi billion dollar industry question.

Keep in mind that, like you, I’m just a guy trying to figure things out. I’m no scholar. No preacher. No guru. Just a guy on the bus that has ebbs and flows in the consistency of my motivation. So these thoughts are puzzle pieces that when fit together offer me clues on how to read my own spirit. It seems prudent to begin with the idea that anything permanent must look at the whole of me – mind, body, and soul.

Puzzle pieces

Purpose: It’s the reason I act at all. I have purpose when I work out. It’s to feel good and project health. I want to lead my family by example in health. I diligently go to work because I don’t want to be mediocre (ego), don’t want to be in a negative position later in life (fear), and want to enjoy the benefits of money, power, and choice (freedom). I made a deal with God in my mid 30’s to lead in such a way to encourage positive growth in everyone I come in contact with and He would take care of my physical needs. Having a reason to push motivates me.

Workouts: I have never been able to work out fully by myself. So I’ve have worked out with friends, joined karate, hired a trainer, or set event goals (See Tough Mudder). Workouts give me momentum in other areas of my life. Committing to someone else that I’d show up motivates me.

Leadership: I am a hypocrite. I don’t want to be. So when I encourage people, I don’t want to be that doctor that smells like cigarette smoke or that financial planner that drives a 2005 Subaru. I want to be the thing I am leading: responsible, diligent, healthy, knowledgeable, caring, purposeful. Being able to present integrity to the world motivates me.

Resonate: The world affects me. When I see something that I think is cool, I get motivated for that thing. When I listen to certain kinds of music, I get energized. When I read things of quality, I get inspired. My mind then turns to my purpose and I ride the energy resonating from the source. Conversely, I am now more wise in the things affect me because I know that I can also be affected negatively. Nature and higher levels of humanity motivate me.

Fear: The concern that I will wake up one day and look back on what could have been and express regret at my actions as feeble, as prideful, as comfortable where I end up with a life short on choices. Fear has motivated me more than love in my earlier days. Love and purpose more so these days.

Events: I put things in my future to challenge me, inspire me, define me, and often to reward me. Travel, adventure, and uniqueness motivates me.

Bible: I have a natural tendency to relax. I know that if I relax too much, lots of bad things can happen. I find the Parable of the Talents instructive on four points: 1) You are given a certain capacity and must do with it what you can (faithful); 2) Slothful inactivity is an expression of fear; 3) There is opportunity cost in doing nothing (“I can even get interest”); and 4) Those that use their talents purposefully will be rewarded with more energy and those that don’t will lose what they have. Being in alignment with spiritual wisdom motivates me.

Habits: I have learned my tendencies. I know what affects me. New Year’s energizes me because it’s a fresh start. Springtime too. Mondays too. Friends energize me. Reading energizes me. Going to the right movies energizes me. I have learned that eating poorly sucks energy from me. Watching too much TV drains me. Focusing on the world’s problems saps my energy. On average, making good choices motivates me.

Feedback: I like praise. I enjoy it when someone says something nice about my effort. My wife’s praise is the number one motivator in my life though, weirdly enough, I don’t spring to action at every little request. I like positive engagement, but it’s not a top motivator. It’s more like the cherry on top of the others. But definitely, negative talk dispirits me.

Putting the pieces together

Nothing stands alone.  Every element of your life is a dynamic component with every other element of your life. Energize one area, it should energize other areas. Over time, you’ll arrive at a level of accomplishment worthy of your life. In your Ironmen group brainstorm the pieces of your puzzle:

  1. Identify the things that energize you – people, music, reading, TED talks, seminars, church, material rewards, accolades, father approval, economic rewards, safety, adventure, etc.
  2. Discuss how you can harness those elements into your plan. Start the day with prayer and meditation, watch a TED talk while eating breakfast, read a “How to” book before bedtime, workout with a friend, sign up for a marathon.
  3. Ask your wife, girlfriend (hopefully not both), and Ironmen to hold you accountable to eating right, working out, reading regularly, watching less TV, going back to school.
  4. Report back to your Ironmen group and wife how you’re doing. Energy will be high early, so prepare for the long haul. Consistency is everything!!!
  5. Send me an email as to how this process is going for you. I’ll report your successful techniques so that everyone can benefit from your insights. You matter to me. You matter to others.

2018 is going to be a great year!!!  Get motivated!!!!!

To your continued success,

Dave Marr

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By | November 11th, 2017|Personal|0 Comments

The 45 Foot Dilemma

A plane must gain 50 feet of altitude by the end of the runway or face potentially devastating consequences. If for whatever reason takeoff does not occur, it doesn’t matter to the passengers why it hasn’t happened, blame is hopefully for tomorrow, only that impending tragedy has arrived. And now, as the margin for error has vanished and life and death decisions play out in an instant, the pilot holds the key to the future path of many lives.

This metaphor has room to run. The pilot could be any one of us. As a young man, I can readily recall the instances where my ignorance and arrogance caused me close calls. The speed of my car, the level of my blood-alcohol, and the Grace of circumstances allows me to type these words today. Or another time, the depth of the water that separated me from the concrete slabs below the murky surface and the arrival of the police to shoo us kids away to live another day can only be given to God. Or how about the Providential timing of the parenting class that captured my motivations which saved my marriage. Yes, the pilot holds the throttle whereby man, machine, and environment come to the moment of risk where liftoff occurs or impactfully not.

Trying to find a metaphor that really does justice to the risks of life and welfare is difficult. My goal here would be to penetrate your current state of thinking and motivate you young men 1) towards introspection, 2) to reassess the risk of being wrong, 3) to strategically widen the field of inputs which increases the margin for error, and 4) to energize your daily action away from ineffectual momentum where the plane’s trajectory is blindly heading towards a fast approaching obstruction. The plane metaphor works because pilot error is the number one cause of crashes in the air and in life.

Every   single   young   man   must overcome the shortcomings of his mind in order to navigate his life properly. Ego, conviction, naivete, misperception, misplaced loyalties, untested skills, misunderstandings, underappreciation of risk, fear of risk, excessive humility, arrogance, and ignorance are qualities that every man has in some measure. Maturity often comes through pain and adversity- if it comes at all. The motivation, then, is to avoid big pain that will thwart your upward trajectory towards well-being. What I’m talking about is figuring yourself out – in time – to ensure a long life of happiness.

Many guys have been programmed by their past so as to be indifferent to the formula of happiness. On the surface you’d ask them if they wanted happiness, satisfaction, health, wealth, and marital bliss and the answer would be “Of course”. But their actions would speak more clearly than their words. Daily activities demonstrate the true path whereas mental justifications are just immature rationalizations. Again, this is commonplace. Everyone does this to one degree or another. Everyone. Those men that become wise to this self sabotage make a course correction and lift their noses to sail above the danger. Close-minded inaction causes pain. Hey, but on the bright side, you’ll grow…maybe.

Marriage is a great environment to clear up self delusion. A wife and children are passengers to the pilot’s maturity. A great marriage is one of the top reasons for a man’s success, and that’s not even scoring the impact he has on his children and generations down the line. The fun-seriousness a man brings to the marriage helps him see in the mirror his own mental shortcomings. Nothing is more health and wealth inducing than a good marriage; nothing more destructive and expensive than a divorce.

Another great vehicle for introspection and feedback is an Ironmen group. Two other guys you can set goals with, encourage, hold each other accountable, inspire, practice your articulations, and gain perspectives that strategically widens the field of inputs to help you assess your circumstances. This is the path of wisdom – being open to inputs before they’re necessary. And how old are you before you age-out of this Ironmen idea? I’d say early 40’s. Until then, you should widen your field continuously.

Gentlemen, if you’re at 45 feet AGL and you don’t know it, you have a true dilemma that only you can solve.

To gaining altitude,

Dave Marr

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By | October 27th, 2017|Personal|0 Comments

Projecting Success

The head jut. The way you carry yourself projects to the world how you feel about yourself: confident or insecure, disciplined or a little lazy, meticulous or possibly unaware. After 20+ years of being average in my awareness, I had average posture. The mid-thoracic area between my shoulder blades was weak, so I comfortably slouched in front of the computer. My belly sagged, shoulders rounded, and pelvis turned under. Even though I was working out in karate and running marathons, my posture sucked. I wasn’t projecting vitality. I was well on my way to some problems.

No doubt you understand that your entire musculature is one big rubber band that runs throughout your whole body and that the fatty fascia that interlaces throughout carries water and nutrients to every cell in your body. Well I didn’t. So in sitting at my desk with my feet tucked under my chair, I shortened my hamstrings, curved my back, jutted my chin, and let my belly relax. I ran in the mornings without stretching where I eventually paid the piper. My T-Bands tightened, my legs turned slightly out, my lower back was unsupported, and my body got old quick. So I went to see a chiropractor for my lower back aches because I started to get plantar fasciitis in my heels. I wasn’t a complete basket case, but reality was providing a wake up call to my immortality mindset.

Your body is a powerful projection to the world, true, but it is even more powerful to your mindset, your attitude, your confidence, and your disciplines. A good understanding of how your body works and the pride it projects to the world pays dividends. You don’t have to stick your chest out and act macho, I’m not talking about being a poseur, I’m talking about being comfortable in your own skin. Confidence is projected through little things like posture. Your health starts with piercing the ignorance of bad habits.

Fortunately for me, I was blessed with an interruption. One year after trying to run my 3rd marathon by June, my right leg cramped and wouldn’t un-cramp for 2 weeks. That stopped my running and put me on a path to solve what I thought was a small problem but ended up being rather foundational. I was ignorant of just about everything. What I thought was good and right, wasn’t. Here’s my point: If you want to succeed in your whole life – business, family, and personally, you should invest in good posture. Do the small things today that will make this a non issue for you later. Project confidence by investing in your health and don’t assume you’ve got it under control. Just because you’re thin doesn’t mean you’re healthy. Take the few minutes to gather information from an expert.

To your confident projection

Dave Marr

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By | October 20th, 2017|Personal, Physical|0 Comments

Adventure Mindedness

I do not want to die having not lived. I don’t want to look back on my life having never mattered to the full extent of my potential. I want to take this life God has seen fit to provide me – my strengths and weaknesses, my insights and ignorances, my loves and my doubts – and do what I can to make the world a better place all the while having fun in the process. Is that too much to ask?

When I think of adventure, I think of travel to locations you’d see in a magazine. A bucket list kind of thing – running with the bulls in Pamplona, learning Spanish in Costa Rica, skydiving in Sydney, scuba diving in Cozumel, dove hunting in Argentina, sailing around Martha’s Vineyard and drinking beers in any number of cool, beautiful, faraway places. Yet none of the above would matter squat to the world if I were to check all those boxes and shuffle off this mortal coil because they’re all just personal pleasures. There’s more to the adventure-minded vision. But those things that I did do and many more besides have been hallmarks of a mindset of adventure.  And that mindset has not existed in a vacuum.

Where can I make the most impact and have the most fun? At home. As a current or future husband and father it is your job to set the tone of how you are going to lead your family. In taking your family on a trip you are the one who frames how everyone should embrace the experience. Wide open expectations and minds should greet each new day. The family culture will largely be defined by you – let it be one of adventure. But I don’t mean just exotic travel. Adventure mindedness is being open to experiences, foods, people, disciplines, and ideas. You must be a salesman at home from the very beginning by encouraging and inspiring your wife and children to look out of amazed eyes at the richness and beauty of God’s creation. You must cheerlead your family that it’s the best thing in the world to be alive RIGHT NOW and be a part of THIS family! When do you start doing that? Long before you have kids.

You start today. You allow yourself to get excited about the possibilities in front of you and the things you’re going to emphasize in life. Decide how YOU are going to live your life because apples don’t grow from a juniper bush. You need to become the thing you intend to harvest from. For me, I always thought I’d have money. I didn’t start with any, but I figured it’d work out that way. I also just assumed I’d have a family. I never really thought about taking kids on trips, but as I matured and my work life started to pay dividends, that’s what we did. We took our kids on trips instead of buying things. We were not ‘thing-oriented’, we were ‘experience-oriented’. Each place we went required an eager expectation and a willingness to suffer the slings and arrows of missing luggage, close quarters, and long waits. Those things create family unity – as long as the mindset sets the correct perspective. Don’t be a passenger in your family life by letting your wife and kids set the tone of how things will go. Drive. Lead. Set expectations. Adjust attitudes. Call time out and provide expectations and then monitor how it’s going.

For example, my family was on this incredible vacation in Italy. We’re staying at this renovated 15th century monastery in the Venice sound where we had to take a water taxi to and from St. Mark’s square. While we’re waiting to be picked up, my 13-year-old gets in a nasty funk. I take his picture and he looks like he couldn’t be more bored. So I call time out, ask for a re-do, get him to laugh at himself, and take a new picture of him smiling. Two almost identical pictures except for his attitude. These pictures are classics in illustrating choosing mindset. It will be your adventure-minded attitude compounded over the next 20+ years that will set the tone for generations to come and will define your family character.

Your current and future family needs you to fulfill your maximum potential in life, starting today, in capturing a passionate mindset of adventure. Tomorrow is fast approaching. Take the next month to write down what you’re going to do, exactly how you’re going to do it, and who you’re going to become as a result.  Get after it.  Life is short.  Rest when you’re dead.

To your adventurous life,

Dave Marr

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By | October 14th, 2017|Personal, Relational, Spiritual|0 Comments

Idiot

Ok, so I’ve grown up a little. I have a long, uncomfortable history of saying or doing something that if I had a little more self-awareness, I’d have been humiliated. But somewhat fortunate for me, I’ve had the self-awareness of a tree stump. It’s only somewhat fortunate for me because I’ve come to conclude that I have hurt my trajectory in life with my immature mindset. I’ll explain that, but first some examples of embarrassment and my thinking that went with them. I’m highlighting my thinking from back then to see if you have similar thoughts. If you do, it might serve you to reevaluate.

In general, older people want to see younger people grow and succeed. It would be prudent to honor that and foolish not to. However, helpful people are only willing to test the waters to gauge whether their helpful effort will result in anything worthwhile. If the water isn’t right, they’ll pull back. In other words, the question before these folks is: Is it worth the effort or be “Pearls before swine”? If the young man is too immature to appreciate their insights, they’ll just hold back maybe till you’re ready…or maybe not.

Mistakes
The time that I made a joke about body parts at a society event; the time that I made an off-color joke when introduced to a US Senator that immediately made me persona non-grata at the table; the time I was asked about selling my company and made a quick reference to something edgy…each of these instances I cringe as I think back on my foolishness. But at the time, long before I learned the discipline of running my commentary through my brain before responding, I thought that being funny was the best way to be accepted. I thought that being edgy was the best way to being funny. I thought that being inappropriate was the best way to be edgy and get other people to loosen up. What resulted instead was I just came across as a fool, as an immature idiot, as a crass boor. Eventually, I came to realize I was not respected among the group who I wanted respect from.

So many times I’ve caused my wife discomfort that she pulled me aside at a time of non-conflict (not when I was being an idiot, but later) and said in effect, “I love you, but when you act like an idiot, you dishonor me and everything you’re trying to do in life”, or something like that. That one got through to me. I came to realize in my late 30’s that trying to run slightly askew of the crowd with the thinking that I was being an individual was just being immature. I didn’t have to be edgy. I was unique enough that I didn’t have to monogram ‘Mr. Individual’ on my sleeve. The plain truth was inescapable, I hadn’t grown up yet. I was holding on to young thoughts that didn’t serve my long-term interests.

Being Appropriate
So what is appropriate? First, it’s situation specific, so you have to recognize past instances in your life where you were immature so you can identify how your mindset skewed your understanding of what was important. One mistake I made was taking my peer group behavior and applying it to situations that were above my maturity level. I told a dirty joke as part of my toast at a family function. Nice.
Second, I got in the bad habit of not being cautious in my remarks. I didn’t care what others thought of me.  I was so caught up in being bold and independent that I undervalued my reputation.  Reputation matters, I just didn’t know how much. Finally, I needed to grab hold of my compulsion to speak when I didn’t have anything to say. My need for attention was just plain immature.

“Better to look like a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.” – Mark Twain

“Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.”  – Proverbs 17:28

Immaturity is like a thick veil over your mind. It’s tough to overcome. You have to be open minded to see it; you need to invite feedback or you’re blind to it.  So my advice here is specific to those who suffer from the same kind of immaturity as me and not so much to those that suffer from some other kind of immaturity.  If you are too quiet, care too much of what other people think, and need a boost of confidence, then this message would be quite different for you. Here’s where having men who will sharpen your iron with honest feedback is enormously beneficial.

Discuss in your Ironmen group the different personas you present to different groups and how you should emphasize different aspects of yourself in each. These aren’t fake presentations of you, just different versions of what is appropriate.

To your maturity,

Dave Marr

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By | October 6th, 2017|Personal, Relational|0 Comments