Crazy Maisie

Maisie DeVore had a vision.  She wanted to build a community pool for children to enjoy.  She was worried that there weren’t enough positive and healthy activities for kids in her hometown of Eskridge, Kansas, and she felt that the pool was just the thing they needed.

But she had a problem.  Money.  Maisie decided the best way to earn the money was by collecting aluminum cans and turning them in for recycling.  She began searching for them all around town – in trash cans, behind bushes, along roadsides.  When that didn’t net enough cash, she began collecting scrap metal, then making and raffling quilts, then picking wild berries to sell as homemade jellies.

Her neighbors thought she was crazy.  “Hide the toaster!  Maisie’s looking for scrap metal again.”

Her family thought she was crazy.  Said one, “I never came right out and told her I thought she was nuts, but I said, ‘You know Maisie, are you gonna be okay with this if it doesn’t happen?’”

In truth, no one but Maisie thought she would ever see ground broken on the pool.  But that was all the belief she needed.  She collected cans, scrap metal and berries until she had earned $100,000 ($83,000 from the 90 tons of aluminum cans she found).  When the state of Kansas got wind of what she had done, they kicked in a grant of $73,000 to make up the difference.  It wasn’t long before the pool was going in right across the street from Maisie’s home.

As you may have guessed, Maisie didn’t raise that much money overnight.  It took her 30 years!  During that time, Maisie kept her focus on her ultimate goal.  She withstood the teasing and the gossip and put in the incredibly hard work required to see it through.  Now, her neighbors don’t call her “Crazy Maisie” anymore.  As dozens of kids enjoy playing in “Maisie’s Community Pool” each day, all the neighbors call her “Amazing Maisie!”

(S – “Making a Splash,” CBSNews.com, 7/14/02)

Common Goal / Common Threat

A few years ago, a documentary movie called “March of the Penguins,” was released.  If you haven’t see it, get a copy.  It’s a beautifully photographed movie with some interesting metaphors for teams.  For example, emperor penguins make a yearly 113 km trek across the ice of the Antarctic in order to mate in the exact place where they were born.  Each mother lays a single egg during the coldest time of the Antarctic year, when temperatures can reach as low as -80 F / -62 C.  First the mothers and then the fathers take turns incubating the eggs to keep them warm.  They do this by resting the egg on top of their feet and covering it with the lower part of their belly.

The mothers pass off the eggs to the fathers a few days after they eggs are laid so that they can return the 113 km to the sea for food.  (Both fathers and mothers have been without food for about two months at this point.)  The fathers then have the responsibility of protecting the eggs during the 62- to 64-day incubation period while the mothers are away.  They spend the entire two months standing with the eggs perched on their feet and under their bellies while 160-km-per-hour winds whip around them.

While the male emperor penguins can be fairly aggressive animals at other times, they lay their differences aside during the harsh Antarctic winter.  Thousands upon thousands of fathers huddle closely together to protect themselves and their eggs from the cold and the wind.  As the days pass, they take turns rotating to the warmest spots at the center of the huddle.  With this unified strategy, the fathers are able to protect most of the eggs until they hatch just a day or two before the mothers return with food.

The partnership of the mother-father team is incredible, but what really impressed me was the fathers’ teamwork.  Instinctively they know that trying to weather the winter storms individually will lead to disaster, so they combine their resources (in this case, their body heat) for the good of the colony.

Nothing seems to bring a team together more than a common goal or a common threat.  The penguins’ common goal was survival of the colony. Their common threat was the difficult Antarctic winter.  When a team is faced with a cause that they can rally behind, they set aside their personal differences and focus on the task at hand.

You can put this principle to work in your team by:

a) Identifying a goal that everyone on the team can get excited about. It has to be something that most or all the team members feel is worthwhile and possible (not to be read, “easy”…easy goals don’t motivate any more than impossible goals.)

b) Identifying a threat or enemy that everyone on the team can get enthusiastic about beating. Sometimes the threat you identify is a thing (like sin, poverty or even tasks that are pulling you away from your main priorities).  Sometimes it is a negative consequence (like losing funding, having to put restrictions on a project or being unprepared for an event).  And sometimes, it’s a person or group (like Satan and his armies).  Whatever threat you identify, it has to be something that most or all of the team members feel is worth beating or preventing.

Teams that are focused on personal differences are not focusing on team goals. If your team is slipping into this trap, start looking for something everyone can get excited about.

Arrive Alive

Three men led expeditions to be the first to reach the South Pole in the early 1900’s: Robert Falcon Scott (1902-1903 and 1911-1912), Ernest Shackleton (1908-1909) and Roald Amundsen (1911-1912).  Shackleton was actually part of Scott’s three-man party in the first failed attempt, and during the long, exhausting and disappointing march back, the two grew into rivals. Shackleton returned five years later with his own team and bested Scott’s first attempt by leading his men 366 miles closer to the South Pole.  Although Scott was the one who ultimately achieved the Pole, Shackleton proved to be the better leader precisely because he did not.

Shackleton’s journey toward the Pole was costly.  All four in his party were slowly starving to death.   Each time severe weather conditions (temperatures reaching lows of -57 degrees Fahrenheit with blizzard winds over 90 mph) and dangerous terrain slowed their progress, Shackleton had to reduce their rations to ensure that they had enough food to last.  The party originally had four horses to pull the heavy sledges full of supplies, but three horses succumbed to the elements and one fell into a deep chasm that almost claimed one of Shackleton’s men, as well.  The men were forced to man-haul the sledges, and the few handfuls of food a day were just not enough.

Shackleton got within just 97 miles of the Pole before he turned his team back.  It was a huge disappointment for all the men, but it was the right decision.  While they were only a few days’ journey away from being the first explorers to reach either of the planet’s poles, they would certainly have lost their lives in the attempt.  Courageously leading his men back to the shore, Shackleton kept them all alive through expert leadership, tenacity and skillful rationing of their remaining food supplies.

Shackleton never made it to the Pole, but Scott would not accept a second failure when he returned a few years later.  He was determined to do what his rival could not.  Like Shackleton’s party, Scott lost all his horses along the way.  Dog sled teams and their leaders were forced to turn back in December, and only five men were left to make a final assault on the pole.  He and his men marched a total of 1,842 miles before they finally reached the Pole on January 17, 1912.  But to their utter disappointment, they found that Amundsen’s team had already been there five weeks earlier.

Dejected and exhausted, Scott’s men began the long trek back to the shore, but they would never make it.  In February, one of the men died after a fall caused him to have a swift physical and mental breakdown.  In mid-March, the weakest member of the team realized he was slowing the others down (he had lost the use of a foot to frostbite and gangrene) and sacrificed his life for them by leaving the tent and marching out into the snow, never to be seen again.  A severe blizzard trapped the three remaining men in their tent a few weeks later, and there they all starved to death.  Conquest of the Pole had cost them their lives.  Ironically, they were within eleven miles of the next food and supply depot.  Their bodies were discovered eight months later by a search party.

When Scott’s diary made it back to England, he was celebrated as a hero and even knighted posthumously.  In the eyes of his countrymen, his failure was a success in terms of its boldness and daring.  Shackleton’s accomplishments just two years before were all but forgotten.  But Shackleton was not surprised.  He had counted the cost when the Pole was in reach, and he chose the health and safety of his men over the glory of accomplishment.

Leaders who are only interested in their own achievements see their team members as a means to an end.  They are willing to sacrifice their followers if their loss will bring them closer to their goals.  But the best leaders are not in it for themselves.  They can’t conceive of success at the expense of their teams, and the goals aren’t worth achieving if the team can’t celebrate the accomplishment.

Nose Position

When pilots are flying planes in conditions where visibility is low, they have to use their instrument panel to give them information about the plane’s position in relation to the earth.  One of the most important instruments is the attitude indicator.  It shows how the aircraft is tilted during flight, i.e., nose up or nose down.  Depending upon airspeed, an aircraft with its nose down is typically in a descent, while an aircraft with its nose up is typically in a climb.  So, attitude helps determine altitude.

Know where I’m going with this?  What a great analogy for life!  Your attitude determines your altitude (how high you’ll go).  You can’t always control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it.  Responding with a great attitude helps you rebound faster from disappointments; it helps you start problem-solving faster; it helps you build relationships; it helps you handle things with grace.  Respond with a bad attitude enough, and you’ll find that problems pick up speed as you hurtle downward, that people steer clear of you, that you get fewer opportunities.  Pretty soon, nothing seems to be going your way.

Thomas Edison, the famous inventor, lost his Phonograph Works plant to fire on December 9, 1914.  His daughter, concerned for his safety, rushed to the plant while it was still blazing to make sure he was okay.  When she arrived, Edison turned to her and said, “Where’s your mother? Go get her. Tell her to get her friends. They’ll never see another fire like this as long as they live!”  The next morning at 5:30 a.m., he called his employees together and said, “We’re rebuilding.”  To reporters, he said, “I am 67, but I’m not too old to make a fresh start.”

Edison treated the disaster as nothing more than a setback.  Better, it was an opportunity to fix some problems that existed in the old plant and rebuild the plant the way he wanted it.  His attitude allowed Edison to continue thinking about possibilities.  His attitude determined his altitude.

So, next time you’re in a tail-spin and headed for a crash, check your attitude and get your nose up!

The Fortunate Fall

I’m not speaking theologically here.  I’m talking about normal, everyday failure.  Oh, how we dread it!  How we avoid it!  How we guard against it!  How we try to hide it when it happens!  Failure is so…(if my international friends will forgive the expression)…so…un-American!  It carries with it the stigma of unworthiness, and we refer to those who have failed as the “losers,” the “has-beens,” the “also-rans” and the “one-hit wonders.”  Tsk…tsk…

No wonder we don’t want to fail.  There’s little grace for the “failure” in today’s world.  Failures are written off and disowned, and many take delight in pecking them to death like chickens do with their weak and wounded.  It’s survival of the fittest, and there seems to be a measure of justice accorded when the “imposter’s” sins find him out.  Besides, what if it’s catching?  Maybe his failure is contagious!

How short-sighted of us if we hold these views.  Failure is rarely the end of the story; oftentimes it’s just the beginning.  How many people have you known who have experienced a significant failure only to rebound in a spectacular way?  Consider these examples:

• John James Audubon, whose name is now synonymous with birds and bird conservation, didn’t start traveling and painting birds until his dry-goods business failed and he had to be jailed for bankruptcy in 1819.

• Joe Rosenthal, who received the Pulitzer Prize for his stunning photograph of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, wouldn’t have been there to make the moment immortal if the armed forces hadn’t rejected him for service because of his abysmal eyesight (one-twentieth of the average person).  Instead of going to war, he photographed it for the Associated Press.

• William Faulkner didn’t start writing seriously until after he was asked to resign from his postmaster’s job.  Within five years, he had written The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, considered to be his greatest works.

• Ulysses S. Grant failed as a farmer, as a real-estate partner, in a bid for elected office and in several key battles of the Civil War before he found his niche at the head of the Union armies.  Within a few years, he won the war and was appointed a full general –  the first since General George Washington.  Three years later, he was elected President of the United States.

Each of these men capitalized on their failures.  They learned what failure had to teach them.  They gained self-awareness and clarity around their strengths and their weaknesses, and then they used failure as motivation to operate in their strengths.  For them, failure was a fortunate fall.

When was the last time you had a fortunate fall?  Are you avoiding it because you fear the consequences?  Are you struggling in a no-win situation, because you don’t want to admit it’s a bad fit?  Are you trying to hide your lack of skill or talent or results from your peers or from your boss?  Isn’t that draining the life out of you?

When we try to be someone we aren’t, the stress and frustration accumulates until one of two things happen:

1.    We make the decision to make a change.
2.    Someone else makes that decision for us.

Wouldn’t you rather make the decision of your own initiative?  It could be the beginning of a whole new chapter in your life, a chapter of incredible self-fulfillment and achievement.  Stop focusing exclusively on the negative consequences of failure.  It has much to teach you, and it can be the catalyst for positive change.

One last note: if you know someone who is trying to be someone they are not, the kindest thing you can do for them is to hold up a mirror.  Tactfully, share what you see as the disconnect and encourage them to face the facts.  No one can be successful at everything that they do.  Help them to find that for which they were created, and you free them to reach their highest potential.

Handicapped

hand*i*cap [han*dee*kap] n. any disadvantage that makes success more difficult

All of us are handicapped in some way. Some are fortunate enough to wear their handicap on the outside. (That sounds callous. I don’t mean it to. I know that there can be deep physical, emotional an mental pain connected to a handicap.)

I’m using the word “fortunate” in a relative sense. Those with a visible handicap are potentially more fortunate than those with invisible handicaps, because having a visible handicap forces you to deal with it. People know about it. They make comments about it or joke about it or tease you about it. Kids on playgrounds get picked on about it. Most get treated differently because of it.

But as counter intuitive as this sounds, public reaction/response to a handicap can be a gift, because it elicits a response from us. We either become bitter, or we become better.  Think of some of the inspirational people you know of who achieved great things despite their handicap.

• Theodore Roosevelt, Leonardo da Vinci, Aristotle and Michelangelo all suffered from epilepsy.

• Helen Keller, Harriet Tubman, Claude Monet and Louis Braille were all visually impaired.

• Tiger Woods, Jimmy Stewart, Moses and Aesop all had or have speech impediments.

• Joni Eareckson Tada, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Itzhak Perlman are/were all in wheelchairs.

• Howie Mandel, David Beckham and Donald Trump all struggle with OCD.

I propose that the success these people enjoy(ed) in their chosen line of work/ministry is connected to their disability. In dealing with their handicap, they developed strength, resolve, patience, faith, compassion, trust, perseverance, confidence, maturity, wisdom or any number of other positive coping mechanisms. Their handicap was the grain of sand in they oyster that produced the pearl.

Granted, many deal with their disability poorly. They become resentful or insecure.  Angry or depressed.  Discouraged or defeated.  Some retreat into the shadows to avoid the pain of public disdain. Some lash out and try to inflict as much damage as possible. Hurt people hurt people.

These are tragic stories, but we should recognize that there was choice involved.  No one forced these people to choose bitter instead of better.  Many have suffered with the same limitations and chosen to “prove the world wrong” or to “show what I can do despite this challenge.”  In life, it’s less import what hand we are dealt and more important what we do with the hand we are dealt.

For everyone with a visible handicap, there must be dozens of us with handicaps that no one can see. They are wounds on the inside or detrimental ways of thinking. They are experiences and pains that we’ve hidden far away from view. Because they are not visible, we aren’t forced to deal with them. And because we aren’t forced to deal with them, we usually don’t. But they continue to eat away at us. They continue to influence our decision making. They continue to hold us hostage.

There’s not a single person on this earth who isn’t hurting in some way. It’s a result of the sin condition, and it affects us all.   Often, the pains on the inside hurt us the most, because pretending that the handicap isn’t there lets it continue to have power over us.  Our coping mechanism doesn’t produce a pearl; it produces the neuroses of depression, stress, anxiety, obsessive behaviors, paranoia or fear.

The best thing we can do to help ourselves with an invisible handicap is to bring it out into the open. We should quit denying its existence, and expose it to the light of day with a trusted friend or counselor.  That begins the healing process.  Before long, we will find that God will bring someone else into our life who is struggling with the same disability, and helping that person to heal helps us to heal even faster.

Hidden in every handicap, both the visible and the invisible kind, is an invitation and a gift.  The handicap invites us to trust God more, to lean on Him, to depend upon Him.  If we accept the invitation, we receive the gift.  The gift is a tool to shape us more in God’s likeness, to cut away the parts of our heart that are our true disability – our pride and our selfishness.

Without the handicap, our self-sufficiency would carry us far from God.  When He allows us to be hurt (because even though God is not the author of evil, there is nothing that happens that He is unaware of or powerless to prevent), it is an act of love.  God’s purpose in allowing the disability is that we will come to the end of ourselves sooner and return to Him.

Give God thanks for your handicap, whatever it might be.  Then, let Him use it to bring you closer to Him and to bless the world around you.

It Takes Endurance

Ernest Shackleton led a doomed 1914 expedition to Antarctica aboard the vessel Endurance. The mission of the Endurance expedition was to cross a 1,800-mile expanse of Antarctica on foot. Just one day’s journey from its intended landing site, the ship became stuck in the polar ice of the Weddell Sea. The ice dragged the vessel for ten months and eventually crushed her, forcing the crew to abandon ship. The men salvaged Endurance’s lifeboats before she inevitably sank, but they were stranded with no means of communicating with the outside world and no hope of timely rescue.

The group camped out on the ice, sleeping in crude tents and subsisting on a diet of penguins, seals, and sled dogs. Knowing that they would die if despair and hopelessness took hold, Shackleton made sure that the men felt useful and productive. They had to believe that they were actively trying to get out of their predicament, and that if they worked together, that they would succeed. Shackleton had to balance negative and positive energy to make sure that the naysayers among them wouldn’t destroy the group’s fragile confidence.

To get the men working together, he dropped all pretenses of hierarchy and treated everyone, including himself, as equals. He set up work assignments on a rotating schedule so that everyone did the same tasks. On occasion, he even stepped aside and let another member of the group assume leadership. To encourage the men to remain in good spirits, he insisted that they play music, keep journals, create and perform skits, and otherwise engage their minds creatively.

After nearly six months of living on the ice, the Endurance crew braved the turbulent waters of the Weddell Sea and set sail in their lifeboats to Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton left with a small group to seek rescue, leaving the majority of the men on Elephant Island. After several months, he finally returned to rescue the men of the Endurance. Amazingly, there were zero casualties.

During times of major change, individual’s and leaders’ limits are tested.  When the changes stretch out over many months, individuals can become demoralized and lose focus on what they are working so hard to achieve.  They may become exhausted trying to keep one foot on the old ice floe (their old way of life) and one foot on the new (their new way of life) until they can leave the old ice floe behind. No matter what challenges you are facing, never let hopelessness take hold. In groups, it works from the inside out, spreading from person to person and destroying morale. Eventually, it will even affect you.

How do you do it?

· Focus on what you can control – even if it’s small.

· Allow those going through change to see how they are contributing to improvement of the current situation.

· Talk more about opportunities than about obstacles. (It’s okay to acknowledge that things are difficult, just don’t dwell on them.)

· Roll up your sleeves, and work alongside them.

· Take the risks necessary help your those going through changes realize short-term wins and breakthroughs.

If you want to know more about Shackleton’s incredible story and leadership, get a copy of Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.

Leaving the Cocoon

One day, a small opening appeared in a cocoon.  A man sat and watched as a butterfly struggled for several hours to force its body through the tiny hole.  But then, it seemed to stop making any  progress.

It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could not go any further.  So, in an attempt to help the butterfly, the man took a pair of scissors and opened the cocoon, allowing the butterfly to emerge easily.

Strangely, the butterfly exited the cocoon with a withered body and tiny and shriveled wings.  The man continued to watch, expecting that, at any moment, the wings would open, enlarge and expand.  But nothing happened.

In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its short life crawling around with a withered body and shriveled wings. It was never able to fly.

What the man did not understand was that the restriction of the cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were part of God’s incredible and mysterious design.  Through the butterfly’s early efforts, fluid was forced from its body into its wings.  The fluid would have enabled the butterfly to fly once it was free from the cocoon.

It’s hard to appreciate our struggles while we are going through them.  Often, our prayers are for God to release us from them, but we lack His eternal perspective.  When He allows them to continue, we can be sure that the struggles are exactly what we need – that they are the most efficient and effective way of producing in us the strength and character necessary to do His work.  Take them away, and our faith is withered and shriveled.  We might walk, but we’ll never fly.

Think about your personal “cocoon” at this point in time.  It’s whatever it is that has been causing you stress, worry or anxiety.  It’s what you’ve been praying for God to take away.  It’s the prayer that seems to go unanswered.  Now, give God thanks for the struggle.  Acknowledge that He knows all and that His will is best.  Praise Him for allowing this difficulty in your life that is preparing you for something greater.  Because a caterpillar is a neat thing, but it’s nothing compared to a butterfly!

The Loss of Dross

When a traditional silversmith works with silver, he must first remove the impurities from the rock.  He puts the ore in a crucible and then puts the crucible in a furnace.  The silver is roasted at over 1700^o F (926 ^o C) until it melts.  Dross, a waste material made up of impurities in the silver, rises to the top.  The silversmith then skims it off the top, leaving the silver more pure.  He might need to repeat this process up to seven times to remove all the impurities, each time heating the metal until it melts before the dross comes to the top and can be easily removed.  When the silversmith can see the reflection of his image in the silver, he knows that it is pure.

If you’ve been feeling the heat lately, consider that you might be going through your own purification process.  The Center for Creative Leadership has studied leaders and what makes them successful, and they have found that Hardships account for 34% of a leader’s development experience.  In fact, Hardships teach us more than any of the other categories in their study (i.e. Challenging Assignments – 27%; Other People, like mentors, coaches and role-models – 22%; Other Events, like training, feedback, and success – 17%).

Some examples of instructive hardships include:

• Failures and mistakes
• Missed opportunities
• Conflict in relationships or with organizations
• Extended periods of stress
  
• Employee performance problems
• Personal traumas

Hard times tend to bring our weaknesses to the surface, forcing us to deal with them.  When we struggle, we find we need to abandon qualities that make us ineffective in order to get through the fire.  Being in the crucible teaches us humility, an essential quality in an effective leader.  Unchecked success leads to arrogance.  Failure reminds us that we are human and helps us understand the imperfections of others.

God allows difficult times of trial in our lives, because He loves us.  He knows that time in the crucible will surface some of our selfishness, independence, pride, meanness of spirit, impatience and any other quality that keeps us from reflecting His image.  Once He has skimmed this dross off of us, He  evaluates us to see how much of Himself He can see in us.  If the fire didn’t surface much dross, He sometimes needs to turn up the heat.

According to an old maxim, “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  It’s true, but only if you allow yourself to learn from the trial.  As a friend of mine often says, don’t go through the experience and miss the meaning.  What is the purpose of the refining fire in your life?

Remove the dross from the silver, and out comes material for the silversmith.

(Proverbs 25:4)

The Thrilla in Manila

On a hot summer night in September, 1975, two men met in a 20’ by 20’ ring near the city of Manila in the Philippines.  It was their third meeting, and it had the world’s attention.  Smokin’ Joe Frazier vs. Muhammad Ali.

Frazier had won the first fight on points in fifteen rounds.  It was Ali’s first loss as a professional boxer, and it was a slugfest.  Both fighters had to go to the hospital afterward, and Frazier couldn’t fight again for another ten months.

Ali had taken the second fight on points in twelve rounds three years later.  Then in 1974, Ali became Heavyweight Champion of the World when he knocked out George Foreman at the “Rumble in the Jungle.”  Thus the stage was set for the Frazier-Ali rematch.

In what has been called perhaps the greatest fight of all time, two boxers brought it all to the ring for fourteen rounds.  Most commentators give the first four rounds to Ali, with his precision hits to Frazier’s head.  The next five are typically said to have been dominated by the powerful and determined Frazier.  But during the last four rounds, Ali pummeled Frazier until he was spitting blood and almost blind because of the swelling around his eyes.  He could no longer even see the punches coming.

When the fourteenth round ended, both fighters stumbled to their corners.  Ali told his corner team to cut off his gloves and throw in the towel.  He had taken 440 blows from one of the best fighters in the world.  He was dehydrated by the heat and so weak that he could hardly stand.  Later he would say that the fight was “the closest thing to dyin’ that I know of.”  But instead of cutting off his gloves, Ali’s trainer ignored him.  He wiped his face and sponged him down to prepare him for the final three minutes of the fight.

Could Ali have gone one more round against Frazier?  No one knows for sure.  At the same time Ali was asking his trainer to “cut ‘em off,” Frazier’s trainer was evaluating his fighter.  When the bell rang for the fifteenth and final round, Frazier tried to get up, but his trainer, concerned for the fighter’s health, stopped him, cut off his gloves and said, “Sit down, son.  It’s all over.  No one will ever forget what you did here today.”

As someone has said, “Failure is the path of least persistence.”  You never know.  Sometimes the forces you are up against are just about to “cut off the gloves.”  Sometimes the Enemy is just as exhausted and discouraged as you are.  While you’ve been taking a beating, keep in mind that He may just be watching to see whether or not you will quit first.  A show of determination and persistence may be all it takes to convince him that you can’t be beat, that you’ve tapped into a limitless Power Source that guarantees your ultimate success.

Keep fighting the good fight, and encourage those around you to do the same.