A digital commonplace for a Regular Guy called Charlie Pharis
Man! Today started out great! I mean really great!
Then somewhere along the way, it just got out of sync. Nothing really bad happened, no major catastrophes, just a general kind of weirdness, a funk that just sort of set in around mid-morning. Go figure…
UPDATE, 10.29.07…My bad…I forgot there was one in between!
Sorry…reading the crow-and-humble pie posts now appearing on many FloriDUH fans’ blogs – and you know who you are! – reminds me…
OK, that’s it…I think…
I almost forgot…
Sorry…back to your regularly scheduled programming…
Just some stuff running through my head on game day today…
Those are my thoughts on game day. Of course, your mileage may vary…
Sometimes when you step up and take the initiative you should have been taking all along, you don’t get the negative response you were dreading. In fact, it works out pretty well!
Just some stuff from the last couple of days…
What are you hearing today?
Ah! Ironic coincidence! I’m sitting outside on a gray overcast day, having just picked up Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast from the little used-book shop down the street. Hemingway tells of sitting in a fine Paris café, writing in his notebook with a pencil, and Miller’s once-banned classic is set in the same city. And here I am, on the “sidewalk” in a suburban substitute for the cozy cafés of Paris, writing in my notebook with a pencil, and drinking the not-quite equal of Hemingway’s café au lait.
It’s quiet on this dreary day, even with the chiming church bells from across the highway, the constant stream of traffic, and the bouncy pop music blaring from the Starbucks speakers.
There are signs of life: commerce, travel, building, eating at the fast-food drive-thru window, the big box store across the way. People have computers inside. They are huddled around the tables, discussing this or that, reading the latest romance novel, and computing on important-looking projects. Not exactly the cultural center of the Earth, but likely a prime example of what passes for culture in our day and place.
I’m anonymous at the table. At least no one lets on that they know me, and I happily leave them alone as well. In my imagination, they probably look at my little notebook and little black pencil and say something like, “Look! There’s a new Hemingway, writing something profound in his notebook!” I could be a writer, I guess, except for the fact that I can’t write.
I wonder if there’s an Arby’s across from the fine Paris café where Hemingway sat and wrote and drank. I wonder if the fall of Miller’s second year in Paris included a Wal-Mart parking lot. I wonder if either of those observers ever thought of the kind of impression their presence was making on those around them.
I wonder which is more interesting – the traffic outside or the people inside?
Good mentors/coaches know…
What else do good mentors know?
Ken Blanchard says in Self Leadership and The One Minute Manager that the first “trick” of the self leader is Challenging Assumed Constraints. He defines an “assumed constraint” as…
a belief you have, based on past experience, that limits your current and future experiences. (p. 33)
So, if I’m going to challenge the assumed constraints in my life and my organization, and if I’m going to move beyond those past assumptions to a more productive and effective future, the starting place seems to be identifying what those assumed constraints are.
I started thinking about those assumptions this week, and as they came up, I started listing them in my notebook. I’ve got to tell you, it’s not a pretty picture. Especially when I realize that the assumptions I’ve placed on the people I lead and serve may be more detrimental to our mission than the assumptions I assume they operate under themselves.
And that scares me.
So, since you’re already praying for me after “I Quit,” you might as well go ahead and look with me into these constraints that have been holding me – and us – back.
Assumed Constraints for Our Church
What About the Constraints I’ve Placed On Our People?
What About the Assumed Constraints I’m Fighting Against Personally?
This week, I’m in the challenging mode…if you need to challenge your assumed constraints, share them. Let’s commit to praying for and helping each other with challenging – and overcoming those things that are holding us back. Deal?