I don't mind excuses

It's not really the excuse that's the real problem.

The real problem is that the excuse is our permission slip to not do the hard thing.

If you want to make excuses, go for it. Just do the hard thing anyway.

I think my telephone is broken

"My mom loves to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while watching soap operas."

Rember that old-school game of "telephone" in elementary school? The one where you get in a line and the teacher whispers something in the first kid's ear, then they relay it to the next person and the next person until it reaches the end of the line?

Inevitably, the message that came out on the other end would be nothing like the message that went in.

That lesson didn't teach us anything. We still relay messages through other people instead of telling them ourselves - and assume that the message will get there clearly and concisely.

It won't.

But it's even worse. You remember the kid in your class that always screwed up the telephone game on purpose? That kid grew up to be an adult. And he has friends. To this day they still get enjoyment out of messing up the telephone game.

In school there were rules. You couldn't just bypass the line and relay the message directly to the person at the end of the line. In real life, you can.

If you want to remove a lot of headaches from your life, stop relaying important messages through other people. It just doesn't work. And stop being the relay as well.

Oh, and if you're the guy or gal screwing up the messages on purpose, we need to talk...

The dichotomy of effort and art

My dad taught me quite a few lessons. The most important was the value of hard work.

I don't know anyone that worked harder than my dad to build his business. But, as much as I love my dad, he wasn't an artist.

Sometimes more work is the answer. You need to get that product out the door, finish those reports or catch up on some yard work? Sure. Get out there and do the work.

But when it comes to artistic solutions... solutions that don't have a definitive finish line, it's not about more work.

Let me be more clear. When is a painting finished? When is the conversation with your teenager done? When is that new product design as good as it can be? The answer is whenever you feel that it is.

So if you're feeling a little overwhelmed, first ask yourself whether this is a "more effort" task or an "artistic" one.

If the task is about more effort, schedule it and do it.

But if the task is about art, then it's harder to know when you're done. I would recommend setting a reasonable time constraint. And when the time is up, the project is done. Is it perfect? Nope. But neither is art. It's part of what makes are interesting. It's unique. It has your fingerprints on it and it is difficult to replicate the emotion that went into it.

Effort? Effort is replicable. Art is not.

There is no ninth inning

I was in 3rd grade, sitting in a tiny chair next to a round table with 7 of my classmates. My teacher pulled out our new reading book, "On the Horizon." I wasn't a very confident kid, but phonics and reading made sense to me. So, against my better judgment, I decided to say the name of the book out loud - 17 times in a row, as only a 3rd grader can.

There was only one problem. I was mispronouncing "horizon." I got it wrong.

Ouch.

For a kid with not much confidence to begin with, being corrected by a teacher in front of my judgey little friends was heartwrenching. It's probably the reason I still remember it 30 years later.

But that's what school is all about. You're either right or you're wrong. Right is good. Wrong is bad. And it sets us up with a mentality that being wrong is, by definition, failure.

But life doesn't work like that. You will be wrong. I promise. These are some of the things I've gotten wrong in just the last week:

• I forgot to get gas for the lawnmower.
• I yelled at the wrong kid when there was an argument.
• I forgot to ask how my daughter's day was at school.
• I didn't tell my oldest son goodnight.
• I got upset with my wife when I was the one that was wrong.
• I didn't call my mom back when I said I would.
• I laid awake stressing about things I can't control.
• I didn't get a project done on time.
• I forgot to follow-up with an email.
• I fell asleep before I finished the chore I promised my wife I would do.
• I wasn't mentally present for a conversation with my son.

All failures. All things that I know how to do and just simply didn't execute. And these are just the ones I've thought of in the last 90 seconds. I'm certain there are more.

But it's not a failure, because life isn't a zero-sum game. Life is a continuous game. And in a continuous game, there is no ninth inning. There is no last pitch. You just keep playing.

You'll probably mess up today. I know I will. But when you get it wrong, simply learn and move on. Beating yourself up (or beating others up) over mistakes keeps you stuck.

You gave up a home run? You turned the puck over at your own blueline? You missed the game-winning three? Yeah, that sucks. But get up, brush yourself off and keep playing. There will be a new game tomorrow and you'll be better for having lost that last one.

That’s just my luck

I used to say this a lot. I felt sorry for myself and I felt like the world was out to get me.

"Nothing ever works out."

"Nothing is ever easy."

"That's just my luck."

But then I realized something. I never said, "That's just my luck" when something good happened. If you believe in luck, doesn't it go both ways? In fact, I had never heard anyone say "That's just my luck" when something good happened.

I decided to change my focus. When you focus on finding the negative, you'll be sure to find it. But here's where the magic is. When you focus on finding the positive, you'll also be sure to find it.

Try something weird with me. If you're a "That's just my luck" kinda person, say it when something good happens. I think you'll be amazed at how many good things are happening right in front of you... if you'll just change your focus.

Here's your permission slip

You can start that business.

You can say you're a good mom.

You don't need that degree.

You can take some time for yourself to re-energize.

You can cry if you need to.

You can ask for help.

You can raise your hands when you praise Him.

You do have enough to start right now.

You can stand up for that person that's being bullied.

You aren't perfect.

You will succeed if you don't give up.

You can live that life you've been yearning for.

You can change the world, even though you're "just a kid".

You can go against popular opinion.

You can show respect when everyone else responds in anger.

You can show compassion when everyone else walks on by.

You can walk proudly regardless of your past.

You can be the first to in your family to break that addiction.

You are capable of being an incredible dad.

---

Sometimes, all we need is permission. So when someone tells you that you can't, you tell them that I said you can. When they tell you that you're not good enough, tell them that I said you are.

Stop beating yourself up. Stop procrastinating. Stop wondering. Here's your permission slip. It's time to move!

Golden tickets and pocket aces

I had never seen the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory until a few months ago. If you haven't seen it, it's quite trippy and weird and has a positive message. But there's one part of the movie that I think people miss.

Near the beginning of the movie, 5 lucky kids find a "golden ticket" in a chocolate bar wrapper. These five "winners" are rewarded with a behind-the-scenes tour of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and a lifetime supply of chocolate.

So, as the story goes, there are four problematic kids and one nice young man named Charlie that found the golden tickets. I'll leave the rest of the plot to you, but here's what I find interesting. It seemed there were 5 winners, but there weren't.

The golden ticket wasn't the end. It was the beginning. The kids that got them didn't win the race. They were simply given an opportunity to run.

If you were fortunate enough to be born in the United States of America or another 1st world country, you've been given a golden ticket... like it or not. You don't have to cash it in. You can sit on it and wait for your fortune to come. You can complain because the other racers are passing you. You can complain and moan because the race is hard.

Or...

You can come to the realization that you were given a golden ticket. You live in a place that will allow you to follow your dreams, where food and water flow freely, and where we can worship any way we want.

So, if you're reading this, take this blog post as your golden ticket. Take it. Feel it. Let it sink in. You HAVE a golden ticket in your hand right now. Not everyone in the world has gotten one, but you have. And it wasn't by accident.

Now I'm not much for guilt trips, but I am a realist. So I would be remiss to leave out the other side to this story.

Today someone is going to be born without a golden ticket. A baby will be born in a place where his or her mother isn't nourished enough to feed them. Where there isn't clean water within a 5-mile radius. Where their life will be threatened on a regular basis before they ever see their teenage years. Where they won't have access to even basic education.

It's not about guilt. It's about realizing that you owe the world something when you're given a golden ticket. When you're dealt pocket aces, you play the damn hand. Too many people are folding because they are afraid to play.

Play. The. Hand.

I can't wait to see what you'll do when you decide to get in the game!

Round Holes and Grand Pianos

We went through a marvelous innovation period in the late 18th/early 19th century. It was the first time in history that real resources were put behind the idea of interchangeable parts.

Eli Whitney, of cotton gin fame, landed the first contract in the US for interchangeable parts for muskets.

Interchangeable parts changed everything for manufacturing around the world. Prior to interchangeable parts every product needed to be made on its own, in entirety. And if that thing broke, it had to be taken to a specialist that could craft a new part for you.

It was truly an amazing time and a true industrial revolution.

Except...

It changed the way we think about everything. Including people.

We built an entire system around interchangeable people. They are called factories. You can't make it to work today? That's okay. We have someone else that we can pay the same amount to do the same job as you.

Then... we built a system to support that system called "education". So, we train people to become interchangeable. We are teaching every student (regardless of their interests) the same skills. That's the definition of interchangeable. Every person in a trained position can be replaced by someone else identically trained for the identical job.

It makes me wonder, what's the opposite of interchangeable?

I would argue that it's unique.

Unique is what we pay for. Unique is what we admire. Unique is what makes you irreplaceable. Unique is the early days of The Beatles and Apple. It's the local coffee shop that everyone loves, the TED speaker that everyone listens to. It's Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. It's Derek Sanford and Steven Furtick. Unique is my daughter and this kid that had finally had enough of the system. It's Shane Koyczan and the kid that starts mowing lawns on his own at 10 years old.

We can't continue to "educate" our kids by teaching them that college is the only route and that doctors and lawyers are the only reputable careers.

I'm not sure if you got the memo, but a "travel blogger" is a real career now and people are making more money doing it than you and I combined. You know why? Because they are unique.

We have to stop the madness. We have got to teach our kids every chance we get that uniqueness is valuable. Uniqueness is what changes the world.

In a world of interchangeable parts, be unique. Make it completely impossible for you to be interchanged. In a world of round holes. Don't be a square peg. Be a grand piano.

Who's your favorite cover band?

Chances are I've never heard of them. Chances are most people never have heard of them and never will.

Have you ever bought an album by a cover band?

Think about it like this: If the cover band does their job perfectly, the best they can do is remind you of the band you really wanted to hear.

So many people are striving to be the cover band. They copy because they don't know if they can do it right on their own.

Here's a little secret for you.

That band you love... they didn't know if they could do it right either. But they did it anyway. They tried something. They actually tried a lot of things, most of which didn't work. But they were true to themselves.

No one wants another cover band.

I'll take unique and imperfect over a watered-down copy of the original any day.

You don't have to stay on the stupid board

No, I'm not talking about Jumanji. It's actually more dangerous than that. It's more subtle than that.

My daughter just recently got The Game of Life. It's awesome because our family can play together and my wife and I can be reminded of playing the game when we were our daughter's age. It's fun but incredibly unrealistic.

If you haven't played - or haven't played recently - here's how it works.

You start by picking a car and placing the appropriately colored peg (pink or blue) in the car representing you.

Next, you pick a career path. You have two primary choices: college or workforce. Once you make up your mind on the path, you pick two cards are random and choose the actual job that you'll have for the majority of the game (there is an option to choose a different path later).

Then the fun begins... you start spinning the wheel.

Based on the number you spin (1-10), you move forward that many spaces. If you chose the college career path it takes you longer to pass your first paycheck square, but when you pass those you get to collect on your salary.

You run into random things like spending money on a vacation, buying a house, getting married, having kids, etc. It goes on and on.

The purpose of the game is to get to the end the fastest and with the most money (the first one there collects more money).

As I was playing Life with my kids one night I kept commenting on how unrealistic it was... and then I laid down in bed that night and was terrified by the thought that it's extremely realistic. Most people live their lives EXACTLY like this. Here's what I mean...

We randomly pick whether we are going to college based on completely irrelevant information like whether or not our parents went, how much money we want to make, what our guidance counselor tells us... none of which hold weight in the real world. The only reason you should go to college is that you're passionate about something that you can't learn or be certified without going to college. Your lifelong passion has been to be a doctor (regardless of pay)? Go to college. Your dad is a die-hard Penn State fan? Don't go to college. But we choose randomly.

And I'm not just picking on college. What about those that don't go to college? Are they picking their career based on passion or because they have a relative that can get them a job somewhere? It's silly... and it's random. Just like the game.

Moving on.

We spin the wheel every day. We mindlessly work from paycheck to paycheck.

We get married when everyone says we should get married. "You're 32 and not married? You're running out of time!" It's absurd. Just like the game.

We spend money on things we don't need because everyone else is doing it. Just like the game.

We race to add up more and more wealth so we can "win" in the end. Just like the game.

The reason this terrifies me is that I know how I've lived my life and I see my kids growing up in a world not much different. There are still pressures to do things just for the sake of doing them. Just because you passed that square and the game said you should.

But there has to be a better way.

A life that's not based on pre-determined timelines and societal-driven events... but one based on passion and purpose.

I want my kids to live a life that says, "I will get married when I'm ready."

I want my kids to live a life that says, "I'm going to be a historian because I LOVE it and I'll figure out a way to make a living."

I want my kids to live a life that says, "It's not random and I'm not following the crowd. I'm changing the world."

Because in the end, it's not a game. No one wins and no one loses. We all get to play. And none of us have to stay on the stupid board. Build your own path. Go your own way. Make your own decisions. And in the end, the new path that you create just might be the one that we've needed all along.