Stephen R. Graves's Blog

Spent and focused. Those two words describe me in an airport on a recent trip back home.

Traveling home means I’ve spent the past 24-48 hours in intense meetings, problem-solving big issues with clients. So, when I get to the airport headed for home, I’m low in energy, brain power, and often patience.

My goal is to get home. I don’t need small talk. I don’t need a grab ‘n go sandwich from the airport Chili’s or 50,000 bonus miles if I’ll sign up for the new Delta credit card. I’m focused on getting home.

You can probably recognize the self-centered focus overtaking me.

A few months ago, I was in Naples, Florida, for a board meeting. I was rushing to jump on a 12:20 PM flight to get to Atlanta to get home at a decent time.

As I approached the gate, though, I noticed a lot of noise and movement around the gate. Pretty much the opposite of this:

The closer we got to the boarding time the more movement, noise, and emotion. And for the record, our gate agent seemed to know less than the frequent travelers who were checking their phones.

Eventually, though, we got the “official” word of a delay. A mechanical problem required us to wait for a part to come from Miami.

So, I did what all savvy travelers do: I secured a backup seat on the next flight possible. I tried the 2 PM flight, but of course, it was overbooked. No luck. That plane came and went.

I finally found a seat on the 5:30 PM flight, but forty-five minutes before that flight was to take off, we got the good word—the part had arrived! I abandoned the 5:30 seat and jumped back to my original flight. Every minute matters when you’re trying to get home!

We loaded up, taxied out, and then the pilot’s voice came over the intercom, “There’s a level 4 thunderstorm, so we need to wait.” Long story short, I didn’t land in Atlanta until nearly midnight and had to overnight there with our whole plane.

But this story isn’t about me. It’s about the three people I met along the way.

The young lady who had been off and on crying since noon in Naples. She was speaking in mostly German, and I learned that she was trying to get to Germany for her dad’s funeral. The twelve-hour delay was probably going to cost her that chance.The older couple headed to Amsterdam to spend years of saved money on the cruise of a lifetime. They were now missing the cruise departure and had no idea what to do.The middle-aged man with his blind elderly mother. They were visiting family in the Midwest but now they were going to have to find a hotel overnight and then come back to the airport early in the morning to find a new flight.

And that was just the three I noticed around me. Every single person on that flight had a story, a need. I got the gift of seeing a few of those. I experienced what Mother Teresa said, “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”

Standing there watching and listening to their stories literally changed my perspective, emotions, and heart. I jumped in to try to help them problem solve their situations.

What did I learn through this experience? Getting beyond your own narrative helps you widen your outlook, cleans up your perspective, and softens your heart.

Looking back, two things happened that facilitated this learning moment:

Be there.

To be honest, I didn’t want to be there, but the airline forced me to be present, at least physically. I couldn’t leave. I only had to be willing to match that physical presence with mental and emotional presence. There is a discipline to being present—a discipline that means putting away the phone sometimes and stepping away from the frenetic routines of life. A discipline that forgets about tomorrow or even later and locks down on this moment or this experience.

Look around.

This article lists six things that thoughtful leaders do—observe, explore, reflect, learn, consider others, and take action. Those words are pretty basic, but they represent a progression of sorts—a progression that can have big impact. As UN Ambassador Samantha Power said, “All advocacy is, at its core, an exercise in empathy.”

You could also just boil it down to the word thoughtful. Not thoughtful in the Hallmark kind of way, but thoughtful in the “full of thought” kind of way. The “I think about what I see” kind of way.

Now let’s be clear. I’m usually not a jerk or a Good Samaritan at the airport. I’m just self-focused. Which is exactly the problem sometimes. I’ve even written about this before, but clearly I still need the lesson.

It usually takes an external pull or nudge for us to lift our eyes outside ourselves. Our human problem is that we can’t get out of our own stories. That is the real epidemic we fight against. Whether your moment involves being in the moment with the person in front of you in line or to engage a world hunger crisis…don’t miss it.

Voltaire said, “It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.” I wonder what he would have been like stuck in Naples.

For years, I have quoted Abe Lincoln as saying, “You don’t measure a tree until it’s fallen.” (And then one day someone said, “Steve, I think Anne Morrow Lindbergh said that.” Oh well. I still like the concept.)

The idea is that our ultimate measure of influence can’t be known until we are gone, and the sprouts take root. Another generation of impact happens, in part, because of our seedlings of impact.

There is no truer example of that lately than the passing of two giants with whom I had friendships and life-altering, strategic intersections with over the last two or three decades. I wish we were sitting on the deck of my lake house and just telling stories the rest of the day. I could fill the afternoon with tales of how these two robust giants impacted me to my core.

Whether it was the magnificent days with our Life@Work magazine or times at Joe’s place in Carmel, California, or the numerous NFP board intersections with Peb trying to steer a kingdom enterprise toward its best version of the future, or just a quiet chat together catching up and sharing fishing pictures, or…

I think you get what I am saying.

These guys aren’t just trees in my life. They’re redwoods—giants. Redwoods are old (as much as 2,000 years old), tall (the tallest in the world is 350 feet), and strong (they’re fire-resistant with bark that’s sometimes a foot thick). But Joe and Peb weren’t redwoods because of age, height, or thick-headedness! These two were redwoods in my life because they were supporters and connectors.

Did you know redwoods stay standing because their shallow roots intertwine with the roots of the other redwood trees? They literally hold each other up. The trees grow in close proximity to each other so they can share nutrients and physically support each other. These guys helped hold me and many others up over the years. Many are different—better—because of Joe and Peb.

Strong as they are, redwoods do fall. And when they do, they create enormous sound and impact. Such as it was for Joe and Peb.

I am sad this week to think they are not journeying with us on this side. I miss my friends.

I am happy this week that they are truly enjoying the fulfillment of all our faith promises.

I am a better man, leader, friend, and follower of Jesus because of Joe and Peb.

300 feet. 2 seconds.

These numbers may not mean much to you, but if you were a pilot sitting on the deck of an aircraft carrier, they would mean a great deal.

300 feet. That’s the entire length of a runway in front of you. That’s all the distance available to take your plane from a dead stop to airborne, to gain enough speed and achieve enough lift to a safe takeoff. And it all has to happen in 2 seconds.

That’s less time than it takes to do nearly everything else in our lives. It’s less time than we spend pouring our morning coffee, buckling our seatbelt, or kissing our kids goodbye. It’s quite nearly the blink of an eye, but on an aircraft carrier, it’s all the time you’ve got.

In most situations and under most circumstances, these parameters would be ridiculous and the task would be impossible. Take any pilot to a football field and tell him he’s got two seconds to clear the uprights, and he’ll laugh you off the field. But aircraft carriers are designed for this very function—to launch planes. They aren’t built for speed, or for hauling cargo, or even for fighting. Their massive decks and elaborate catapult systems are specifically built to do one thing very well—propel a plane from zero to 170 miles per hour in a short time over a short distance. They are giant floating launch pads, overwhelming in size, yet beautiful in their simplicity and singleness of purpose.

Launching Our Children

This image of planes hurtling down a carrier’s swaying deck and launching into the open sky is precisely what graduation is all about. When the plane drops off the end of the carrier, with only 60 feet between the sky and the ocean, it all comes down to training and thermodynamics.

Springtime always signals a launch of high schoolers and collegians gassing up their planes and heading to the end of the carrier. Classes wind down, resumes get polished, and parents grapple with a new reality.

After years of car-pooling, chasing them all over the region watching their games and shows, and making their favorite dessert, it is time to let them go. The direct parental tutorials are going to shift to a new model. It is time to let them fly the plane.

The first child to launch carries a particular set of challenges—and so does the last child to launch. And now that I think of it, any child in the middle actually carries certain unique headwinds too.

Five Great Moves

I have written a short guide to help parents with the process. Included are five things to do and how to do them. Here they are:

Let Go, But Don’t Disconnect.
Inject Mighty Vision into their Soul.
Trust Yourself. Trust Them. Trust God.
It’s Time To Celebrate.
Double Down on Your Future.

For a FREE copy of the full eBook,  “A Parent’s Guide to Graduation,” simply click the button below.

If you know someone who would benefit from this post, simply copy the URL address and paste it into an email, or post it on Facebook!

One of the best things ESPN has done is its SportsCenter commercials, where top athletes show up in the workplace, like these.

Unfortunately for us, life and work transitions can often feel much like these fish out of water scenes. Whether it’s leaving a career and launching out on our own or simply taking on new responsibility in our current role, one thing seems to hold true: transitions rarely go exactly as we planned. The challenges tend to be more difficult, the hurdles higher, and our weaknesses more acute. Many a newly-minted small business owner has sat alone in his office and echoed the words of Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy, “I immediately regret this decision.”

So, how can you succeed? How can you smooth the transition and soften the landing?

It starts with identifying what kind of transition you’re dealing with. In my experience, nearly every transition falls into one of three categories: a road extension, a lane change, or a highway transfer.

Road Extension

Over the past couple decades, Northwest Arkansas (my home) has invested millions of dollars in the Razorback Greenway—a biking/running trail that snakes for thirty-six miles through four cities. Over the years, I’ve probably sweated out my body weight biking on that trail.

I imagine they could have done the whole thing in a year or so, but instead, they’ve simply added to the trail, a little at a time, extending the road a bit further ahead each month and year. In fact, for years I’ve driven past groups of workers in one town or another pushing the path forward. Same path mind you … just an extension.

This is exactly what happens when you take a promotion doing the same kind of work you’re already doing, only with a little more responsibility and a little wider scope. It’s what happens when you inherit a new wrinkle or nuance of your business. At the end of the day, despite the change, it’s really just more of the same.

A “road extension” is usually the lowest impact transition because nothing has changed in the core competency of your business. You’re still the same person, doing the same work, in the same place … just doing things a little differently. Don’t be fooled, though. These transitions still test your foresight and preparation.

3 Questions to Ask:

Am I extending the road because I have nothing better to do or because it’s really worth it?Can I stay engaged and committed to this type of task for another run?What roadblocks and detours might lie ahead?

Lane Change

A “lane change” is what every successful television star does when they go from the small screen to the big screen. Some turn into Will Smith. Others don’t make it and turn into a “Remember that guy from _________?”

It’s staying on the same highway system, but changing lanes for one reason or another. It’s the marketing executive who changes companies but stays in marketing. It’s the EVP who becomes the CEO of a company she is very familiar with and has years of experience in. It’s an assistant coach jumping to a head-coaching job at a new school. It’s a business integrating horizontally, like PepsiCo moving into the sports drink business with Gatorade (it’s the same highway of drinks).

A lane change necessarily has more variables than a road extension. There’s an entirely new set of relationships you have to develop, new skills to master, and old ones to sharpen. Even if you’re using the same business muscles, you’re using them in an entirely new way.

3 Questions to Ask:

How clear is the new assignment in regard to expectations, roles, and rewards?How will my experience and capabilities transfer to this new lane? What is the same and what is different?What can I do to increase the probability of a smooth transition?

Highway Transfer

This is the most radical of the three kinds of transitions. A “highway transfer” is a person in one career jumping to a completely different sector or kind of business.  In other words, you exit your current highway system to travel on an entirely new one. This could be a new structure, new market, new setting, or new role.

In my coaching business, I’ve helped dozens of leaders navigate this type of transition. I’ve helped business owners leave to take a subordinate role in another industry. I’ve worked with corporate executives making the jump to launch their own business.  I’ve seen health care professionals jump out of the surgery center and try their hand at building the next technological breakthrough. I’ve even counseled academics walking away from tenured positions to chase their chance at business innovation.

These men and women have to learn skills they never knew or have long forgotten.  They have to pick tax structures and design processes from scratch. They have to learn the cultural, relational, and even political nuances of their new station. They may even have to transition from a steady stream of income to a bootstrap mentality and uncertain revenue. It’s a totally different ride!

3 Questions to Ask:

Who should I go to for wisdom? Who has driven this highway before?How much gas do I have? In other words, how are all my resources looking (time, money, energy, knowledge, etc.)?How does this highway change line up strategically with my calling?

No matter what kind of transition you’re beginning or about to approach, the key is to pause and ask some key questions before you make the change. Pause too long and you may miss the opportunity, but if you don’t pause at all, you risk calamity.

He could have told the truth the first time a reporter asked the question. He had multiple chances. He could have come clean during his famous Larry King interview. He could have owned up when a former teammate came forward. But he didn’t.

Over and over, cyclist Lance Armstrong defied and railed and stood indignantly. He connived and schemed and denounced. At every turn, he stepped deeper into his lie and pushed the truth farther away. And each time he did so, his lie became more elaborate and more intricate. Each time, he had to summon ever more righteous indignation.

How did it come to this?
It’s been nearly a decade now, but when I first watched his interview with Oprah, the same question kept gnawing at me. No, it wasn’t, “Why in the world is Oprah doing this interview? Were all the sports reporters busy this week?” Instead, I wondered, “How could he do this every day for over fourteen years?” While it would be easier to believe that Armstrong is some sort of sociopath with no concept of right or wrong, I think the more likely answer comes down to two simple points: 1) He allowed a character flaw—deception, in his case—to become embedded in his lifestyle, and 2) He allowed his original mistake, doping, to grow like a snowball rolling downhill until it was too big to stop. I call this the “doom loop,” which is the negative opposite of the positive flywheel.

It’s a story that is repeated over and over again in the public eye—from cyclists and CEOs to politicians and pastors. We’ve all heard the stories and wondered, “How could they keep up that front for all those years?” I think it’s easier than you’d think.

Mistakes and Failures
Before we wade too deeply into our topic, or make Armstrong out to be a stand-alone villain, it may first be helpful to offer a clarification of vocabulary, one that Seth Godin wonderfully once outlined in a blog, “The Difference Between a Failure and a Mistake.” Though Godin’s distinction may seem trivial, it is an important one in our discussion. It is important because Armstrong did not fail. He did not try a new training or nutrition program that proved ineffective. He cheated and lied about doping; he made a mistake. Failures are morally neutral. They stem from innovation, creativity, and often, courage. Mistakes are the fruit of pride, carelessness, and fear. Failure is often a necessary step in our growth. Mistakes, though they are sure to come, are never necessary. We should work hard to avoid mistakes.

Flaws Untreated
I sincerely doubt that Lance Armstrong was always a liar. I find it hard to believe that his entire life has always been an intricate web of deception. It seems unlikely that he was fixing spelling bees and kickball games as a second-grader. I think it is more likely that he first told lies that he rationalized as “necessary.” He then told lies to support the “necessary” lies, and so on. At some point, he lost all sense of what was “necessary” and what was not. Before long, the lies he told about doping had seeped into every part of his life, and along with it, the need to deceive.

Something that he may have rationalized as a “necessary evil” became a part of who he was. For me, that is the scary part of his story.

It is frightening to acknowledge that we might not be so different from Armstrong. We might, in fact, only be a few poor decisions away from becoming a person we hardly recognize. Though we may not tend toward deception as Armstrong did, perhaps we are inclined to laziness, anger, or greed. At work, we keep important information or sales leads to ourselves. We rationalize that it is a cutthroat environment, and, after all, we have to look out for the well-being of our families. Before we know it, the selfishness becomes part of our modus operandi. It’s second nature, and we don’t even notice it.

We must be self-aware. We must be honest enough with ourselves not only to recognize our strengths, but also to acknowledge our weak spots and stamp out those flaws when they creep in. Anthony Tjan aptly summarized this vital principle in his Harvard Business Review blog, writing, “It is self-awareness that allows the best business-builders to walk the tightrope of leadership: projecting conviction while simultaneously remaining humble enough to new ideas and opposing opinions.”

Just as importantly, we must also have people in our lives that hold us accountable. I doubt that many in Armstrong’s circle ever questioned him or pointed him in a different direction. We need people who challenge us and point us to a higher standard. Who are those people in your life?

From a Snowball to an Avalanche
Just as I doubt that Armstrong was born a liar, I also doubt that he set out to create a doping scandal unrivaled in scope and complexity. In fact, I think his initial aim was likely much more noble: He wanted to become the greatest cyclist in the world. At some point along his pursuit of that aim, he cheated and then lied to cover it up. After this initial mistake, he was presented with numerous opportunities to come clean, but he didn’t. Each time he failed to do so, the lie got bigger and bigger, until it took on a life of its own like an avalanche hurtling downhill.

We will all make mistakes. We’ll make them in the workplace and at home. Some mistakes will be more serious than others, but regardless of the severity of the mistake, we will face the same decision each time: Do I own this mistake, or do I hide it? If I own it, then I can try to fix it and learn from it. If I own it, then I face the consequences immediately. If I hide the mistake, I open the door to abundant uncertainty. Will someone notice my mistake? What are the long-term consequences if it isn’t fixed? What will I say if/when someone uncovers it?

The Uneasy Choice
In one of his most controversial works, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Leo Tolstoy wrote, “The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change of life or by a change of conscience.” Choosing the former is rarely the easy choice. It almost always seems simpler to choose the latter, to sweep something under the rug and to rationalize. Eventually, though, the rug becomes crowded because the junk we sweep under there doesn’t magically disappear. We still have to deal with it, only now it has gathered dust and dirt because we tried to hide it. It has become bigger and more unsightly. If we neglect it long enough, it will become too big for us to manage or correct at all. It will become the avalanche that started as a snowball. And when our mistakes reach that level, the only option left is the “tell-all” interview with the latest Oprah and the consequences that follow—consequences much worse than our original mistake merited.

We were 7,000 feet up in our twin engine Beechcraft Baron headed home from Denver. A strong tailwind was pushing us at record speeds. I was sitting up front in the right seat enjoying the peace and quiet. Then a light started blinking.

I looked over at our pilot who was always a cool customer under pressure and asked, “Should I be concerned?” He responded, “It’s not an emergency but I do need to look at a few things once we get back on the ground in Fayetteville.”

Warning lights signal something is out of sync.

It’s unfortunate but businesses and organizations don’t have engine lights that blink and flash when we need to pull over and look under the hood. We don’t always get an auto alert to missing information or needed guidance.

How do you avoid the ‘blind-side’ surprise, the ‘I never saw this coming’ moment? How do you pick where to delete and where to double down? How can you enter your next horizon feeling calm and confident of your outcome?

Over the last few decades I’ve developed a series of simple diagnostic questions to help answer these questions. They aren’t particularly profound or complex, but they get to the heart of some important diagnostic markers in business performance. Perhaps best of all, they’re versatile. You can use them when evaluating a strategy, a product, or even your own performance.

What’s Right? Leverage It.

Some things in your business have tailwinds and other things are fighting constant headwinds. Tailwinds are what give you ease and momentum. It’s the difference in push verses pull. It might be your people or your processes. It could be your customers or your core offering. It could be your culture or your physical address. Any number of things could be going right during this season. When I am leading an executive through strategic conversations, I am always looking out for what’s right. I guess I have Peter Drucker over my shoulder talking about building on islands of strength.

What’s Wrong? Change It.

This is the natural companion to our first question, only the opposite side. A few years ago, Fast Company did a quick profile of the top twenty corporate turnarounds, and company after company discovered good answers to this question.

What is broken, wobbly or grinding in your organization? Some things just need to be changed or stopped. Having the courage to say “It’s not working and we are going to stop” is often a hard step for leaders. A leader declares, “We gave it the time and money needed to get momentum and there isn’t any. We are going to stop it.”

Let me be clear—there is an immediate delete button and there is a phase it out and down button. Figure out which is best…but hit the button. Don’t stall. Precious resources are being consumed.

Don’t just repair it, patch it, or do a workaround – make a material change. Whether it’s a sputtering strategy, a misguided initiative, or a failing employee, make the change.

What’s Confusing? Clarify It. 

Jimmy Fallon jokes about confusing lyrics in songs (#misheardlyrics)

Somewhat like music lyrics, in business, there is inevitable uncertainty and there is unnecessary uncertainty. The former is an obvious result of our human limitations. There are simply things we don’t and can’t know. Unnecessary uncertainty, though, is entirely different. These are the areas of our business that cause unrest and anxiety not because we can’t know, but because we haven’t taken the time or made the effort to seek clarity. In order to move forward, to grow, and to improve, we must first establish clarity. Few things are more central to sound leadership as clarity.

This may mean simply taking the time to honestly evaluate an issue, but it may also mean asking and seeking answers to questions we’ve been avoiding. “Walk toward the barking dog” as one of my mentors used to say. If you’re really struggling to clear line of sight, consider inviting an outside perspective. Bring in an industry expert. Hire a consultant. Take a wise friend to coffee.

What’s Missing? Add It.

In our overscheduled, overwhelmed, over-committed lives, we usually think our greatest need is to remove and to simplify. While this is certainly often the case, we may just as often need to add something. Maybe you’re coming out of a rapid growth season and need to throttle back and add resources to sustain new business. Perhaps your leaders are stretched thin and you need to ramp up your people development to close the gaps. Or, maybe it’s silence and rest that you’re missing. Maybe you need to take your team on a retreat or just a nice dinner to relax. Whatever it is, it won’t happen unless you make it a priority. You won’t stumble into the thing you’re missing.

What are the Threats? Navigate Them.

Threats can be internal or external. They can be huge and monumental or small and like a tiny piece of kryptonite. They can be obvious or somewhat hidden. Harvard Business Review gets you started thinking about it here.

Ask the question, if we fail why might we fail? What could / would be the reasons our strategy doesn’t work? Changing market conditions? New competition? A disruptive technological shift? A deteriorating relationship with a supplier or customer? Too much risk with one customer or one key employee? These threats aren’t necessarily things that can be removed or completely avoided, but they are things that must be addressed, planned for, and navigated.

What are the Opportunities? Exploit Them.

Is there a new market or customer you can pursue? Is there an unmet need that your organization can adapt to and meet? Perhaps there is a partnership that can expand your reach.

Opportunities combined with ‘what’s right’ can be your best forward facing investment. That is where you take your risk and double down. I remember years ago launching the Life@Work Magazine. It was precisely that formula (opportunities + what’s right ((tailwinds)) = good investment and risk of resources.

A new year is always a good time to pull over and look under the hood even if the warning lights are not blinking. Be systematic and disciplined in asking the six powerful diagnostic questions, and enter the new year with incredible momentum.

“Everyone is trying to leave their mark on the world. That’s why there are graffiti and babies.”

Kristen Schaal

I wrote a couple of months ago that I’m in a season of studying and reflecting on the idea of aging gracefully. Part of my processing has been around the idea of legacy.

If I’m honest, though, I’ve been thinking about legacy all my life. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had a series of mentors in my life—ranging from near-father figures to professors I only knew from the sixth row of a college classroom but whose clarity of teaching shaped my thinking for life.

I think about legacy because I’ve been on the receiving end. I am part of the legacy of many different individuals. (I’ve needed a lot of help over the years!) And because I’ve been on the receiving end, I’ve always thought of legacy as a normal part of life.

That’s why legacy, for me, is not about leaving a bunch of money to my kids in a will. It’s about human impact. Who has changed for the better because I lived and interacted with them?

At the same time, in a sense, I’m of two minds when it comes to thinking about legacy. Or, put another way, I try to avoid two ditches about the idea of legacy: the zero-responsibility ditch and the obsession ditch.

The Zero-Responsibility Ditch

“Stop doing things you hope will make a good impression on somebody. Just go out and live your life the way you want to live it.”

The New York Times asked high school students to respond to the concept of legacy, and the above quote summarized one common response (to be fair, other students responded very differently).

Depending on how you say it, a quote like that one can either come across as having healthy self-boundaries or self-centeredness. But either way, the focus is on the self, which is unhealthy when expressed to an extreme.

It was in my early thirties that I realized how much others had influenced me, and so I decided that I wanted influencing others to be core to my life and legacy. I set a goal to have at least one person for each year of my life that I invested in as part of my legacy. In other words, when I was fifty, I wanted to have impacted fifty people; at age sixty, sixty people; etc. And how I defined “impact”: Has my influence consequentially changed the trajectory of this person’s life for the better? I have been chasing that goal for decades. Maybe that is why I have always loved the widely attributed quote, “Grow your fruit on the tree of someone else’s life.”

I don’t want to just worry about myself. I want to leave an impact on the lives of others for the better—for their betterment and for the betterment of the world.

That decision has shaped my life. It makes me spend my time and money and structure my career and conversations in ways that I think will drive impact.

The Obsession Ditch

“Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?”

Hamilton brilliantly captures the question we all ask. We humans have a love affair with the narratives of our story. Some of us don’t want anyone else to talk about us because we want to control the narrative. Others want everyone to talk about us because at least, then, we’re being talked about.

Either way, again, the focus is on “me.” How will I be remembered?

One thing that some of my mentors have taught me, though, is that when it comes to legacy, you actually want to push yourself off center stage. My belief is that God is both the author and the hero of history, so my impact on the lives of others ought to spring from the conviction that God is both the author and the hero of individual stories—mine and theirs.

My focus can’t be on being remembered, on creating a bunch of people who want to give me eulogies. As this article on legacy at work puts it, one of the keys to legacy is actually the idea of “Control less, empower more.”

What does this practically look like? Here’s one way I do it: I introduce people. When people ask me what I’m about in my life and work, one word I always use is “connector.” I love hearing about the needs of my friends and clients and connecting them with individuals who can help. I’m always saying, “Have you met _________? Have you read _________? Have you heard _________?”

If I can connect you with someone else, I can usually get you better help, and I’ve put a safeguard up against the legacy obsession that creeps up in me, too.

Closing Thoughts

Charles Spurgeon said, “Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.” I’m so thankful that many have carved their name into my life and character.

When I tell the story of my life, I’m always talking about people. Not surprising: I have created a list of those who have shaped my life for the better. It starts with Mr. Cherry teaching me the value of work as a youngster and has traced its way through dozens of others to the present. My legacy—and yours—is built on those who have poured into me. Like a theology professor who refused to let the study of God be removed and sterile but rather forcing it into the rigor of daily living. Like a business titan who shared his greatest learnings and frameworks with me. Like friends who chose to journey and live community with me. Like family members who regularly provide iron on iron reality in the context of sacrificial love.

We’re hard-wired for impact—both to impact and be impacted by others. I want my impact to matter without being manipulative, to count without being controlling.

I get paid to deliver strategy. These requests come through telephone calls or casual lunches or formal whiteboard sessions with business owners, entrepreneurs, or senior leaders, but the assignment is always the same: come in, analyze a situation, and provide useful information that will either reverse downward trends or accelerate improvement.

It’s always helpful to get an outside perspective. You’re simply too close to your business or organization or project, and outside help in strategic thinking can help you recognize holes and blind spots.

But not all strategy is equal.

There is a massive difference in strategy and useful strategy. And that one little word—useful—makes all the difference.

It’s the difference between a wheelbarrow of information being dumped on your head and spreading out the same material on the ground to fertilize growth. In other words, it’s not about volume and force.

As the name suggests, useful strategy is advice you can actually use. It comes in a form you can comprehend and provides benefits that are real.

And in my experience, three traits make the difference. These three traits can transform strategy into useful strategy: trust, context, and subject matter depth.

Trust

A while back, I was having dinner with a high-level businessman from Florida. He wanted to engineer his business to the next level, and we were talking corporate strategy.

I could have listened for 30 minutes and started spouting off case studies, best practices, and Harvard Business Review articles.

Instead, I listened a bit longer, asked more questions, shared some stories from my own past, and actually cared for the man.

Gradually, he began to let his guard down and to share the depth and breadth of his world hidden behind the first layer of information. Mixed up in the question of growth is the complicated friendship/working relationship he has with a partner and investor. Oh, and he is exhausted from being the lead duck flying against the headwinds with no one to pass the head spot to.

With this information, my strategy morphed from quick judgment (Why are you moving so slow?) to a nuanced strategy that took into account both the bottom line and the personal relationships.

My strategy offering was better and he was more likely to accept it because we had started building the foundation of trust.

There was transparency and honesty going both ways, and because of it, the strategy we decided upon became far more useful.

Context

In coaching, executives are often looking for a quick answer. How do I reverse downward sales figures? Who should I add to my board? When should I transition leadership? Should I upgrade my leadership team?

As a coach, however, the more I can understand the context, the better my answer will be.  So if I have an hour to spend, I’ll usually take 30-45 minutes trying to understand the context before we begin to work together to diagram a solution.

Michael Porter is one of the legends of strategy, and in this interview he talks about the factors that undermine strategy.

Interestingly, he is almost unable to draw conclusions because so many factors can trip up companies and strategies. It’s not simply about the competition or the organizational processes. You have to know the business, the market, the people, and much more. You have to understand the context.

Compare it to basketball. Tie game. 20 seconds left. You’ve got one possession. You call a timeout and the guys come over, looking for the play from you, the coach.

You’ve got a couple of tried-and-true plays you could call. They might work. But good coaching considers the context. Who’s got the hot hand? How many fouls does the other team have? Where do you have a size advantage?

As a coach, if you consider the context you will vastly improve your chances for success. As a client, look for coaches who give custom insights, not generic ones. And that takes a skilled and proven active listener.

Subject Matter Depth

If you’re looking for an executive coach, there is a huge difference between someone learning it on the fly and someone who has learned from experience. One spent an hour on Google; the other spent years making mistakes and tasting victory.

Either one is willing to share their learning with you. Which teacher would you rather learn from?

No one has subject matter depth on everything, but if I have layers of experience and scars and wounds, my strategy is far more likely to be useful than what the Wikipedia expert brings. There are three reasons for this advantage:

Agility—“I’ve seen it before, so I can adjust to a variety of different challenges.”Confidence—“I’ve seen it before, so I know what works and what doesn’t.”Understanding—“I’ve done it myself, so I know this isn’t a game. There’s blood, sweat, and tears here.”

Over the years, I’ve owned a variety of different companies. Sometimes I’ve done well and other times we haven’t. I’m pretty quick, however, to use examples from both categories so that my clients know that I’m not just guessing here.

My strategy isn’t just something I’m making up. It’s something I’ve used (and am using) myself. Or it’s things I have watched and learned from friends along the way.

Closing

Winston Churchill said, “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”

It’s easy to make strategy sound profound but much more difficult to make it actually useful.

If you’re in the strategy business, improving in these three areas—trust, context, and subject matter depth—will transform the advice you give. If you’re looking for strategy, finding help in these three areas makes all the difference.

And at the end of the day, in general, you’ll know whether the strategy you’re getting is good or not.  How can you tell? You won’t have to convince yourself that useful strategy is useful. You’re already using it.

One of my mentors in faith used to say, “Trust that God is on the move and that He’s ahead of us.” Depending on your age and whether you have a faith background, you may have heard it a different way from Henry Blackaby, the author of Experiencing God, when he wrote, “See where God is already at work and join him.”

I call it “divine tailwinds.” Simply put, it’s the divine work at your back. And you definitely want divine tailwinds.

Divine tailwinds don’t mean that everything is easy, but it means there is momentum, something tangible that is pushing you forward in a significant way. If you’ve read the book of Acts, you get a picture of divine tailwinds. Even as the local religious authorities and the Roman government sought to stamp out the early adherents of Christianity, the faith grew and spread. The author is quick to say that it was the work of God that was moving the church forward.

In my experience, the same is true in all of life. Not on the same scale as the book of Acts, of course, but the principle holds true. Divine tailwinds exist in our world, and if your life and work are spent pushing against them, it doesn’t go well. But if they’re at your back, you’ll find yourself going somewhere—and often fast.

Divine Tailwinds in Business

I’m a big believer in divine tailwinds, but my working hours are not spent in a church. Most of my time is in the world of business and organizational leadership. What do divine tailwinds look like there? Can you spot them on an Excel spreadsheet, a P&L, or an org chart?

If you know where to look, yes. Definitely.

Business leaders may not know the phrase “divine tailwinds,” but they definitely know the word “momentum.” Momentum is like air conditioning in your house. You can survive without it but only for so long, and when it heats up, you’re looking for a way out.

When I coach business leaders, I look for momentum in the four wheels of effective strategy—customer, offering, people, and financials. I find myself asking this question over and over again: “Where is your momentum?” For example:

Are customers flocking to you?Are people easily attracted to your offering (service or product), or do you have to prop it up with a bunch of incentives for it to work?Do you have abnormally great employees and partners?Are investors attracted to your company or NFP?

Is there a place where your calling and gifting—and that of your team—matches up with the current demand of the market? If so, you may be sensing a divine tailwind.

Figure out where your momentum is and play to those strengths. Peter Drucker said, “A person can perform only from strengths. One cannot build performance on weaknesses.” For example, if your momentum is in people—if you have talented people in the right spots who are hungry and work well together—then get your people talking and collaborating and trying new ideas.

Momentum is particularly important at certain points in the life of a business. Businesses move from concept to launch to proof to scale, and it is particularly in “proof” that momentum matters. Proving a concept is hard enough. (The market has a way of proving up your concept and saying, “This is no good.” Doesn’t it?) If you hit proof with no momentum, you’re going to be forced to change something quickly to have any chance at survival.

But if you can make the necessary adjustments in proving your business building off your existing momentum, then you can create a flywheel. Once you get into the flywheel, linking your points of momentum, then the flywheel cranks itself, and you’re rolling.

Are you in the flywheel stage? Or do you sense that you are always trying to create your own momentum, dragging your business along behind you?

If you’re trying to create your own momentum, it’s exhausting. But what if, rather than creating momentum, you could identify where momentum already exists. That is the principle of divine tailwinds. Where is God already at work, before and beyond what you can control, giving you ingredients for possible success?

And yet …

Two quick notes of caution I must mention.

First, not all momentum is a divine tailwind.

There’s a song from about twenty-five years ago that said, “I get turned around / And I mistake my happiness for blessing.” People of faith can do that really easily, and we can do it in business. We can very easily mistake momentum (or profits, or a key hire) as God’s blessing, a divine tailwind.

So, pressure-test your tailwinds. Is this a human-engineered prop-up, something or someone fickle that is going to quickly go away? Or is it momentum that you can build on? Is it momentum that is pulling you forward at an unsustainable pace (warning: personal burnout ahead), or can you figure out ways to slow down if needed? Sometimes, after all, you need to stop momentum.

Second, the call to look for divine tailwinds is not a promise of a silver bullet. In any organization or business, there will be seasons of endurance, picking up the pieces from the past day in and day out, slogging in the present, and researching for the future. Albert Einstein said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with the problems longer.”

You also can’t simply focus on your areas of momentum and trust you’ll figure out the rest eventually. You have to focus on your problems as well and stay there at times.

Conclusion

Even though I have my notes of caution, I’m a huge believer in divine tailwinds. Where is God, the creator of all things, including planning and strategy, providing things better than you could have with all your effort? That’s probably a good place to focus for now.

If you want to drive change in your life or work, the first question I’m going to ask is, “Where do you sense the divine tailwinds?” The answer to this question doesn’t always promise the path ahead, but it almost always points the way forward.

Thanks to everyone who submitted their feedback on Aging Gracefully. I received a ton of recommendations and added a few new books to my shelf.

Google “Meaning of life” and you come up with some quotes like these:

“Life is like an onion. You peel it off a layer at a time and sometimes you weep.”—Carl Sandburg“When I’m lost, I just look in your eyes. You show me the meaning of life.”—Kelly Clarkson“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.”—Leo Tolstoy“Life is continuously being hungry.”—Arnold Schwarzenegger

You can’t trust Google to give you the meaning of life though.

I’m not going to tell you the meaning of life (though I have an opinion), but I am going to argue that in some ways you’ve already answered that question. And not just that one. You’ve already got answers to the five big questions of life:

Where did I come from?Who am I?Why am I here?How should I live?Where am I going?

Peter Drucker once said, “My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and to ask a few questions.” So consider me the ignorant consultant posing these questions.

Ask yourself, “What does my life display as my answers to these questions?” Look at your life, peek into your mind and heart (if you know you’ll be too subjective, ask some close family and friends for objective feedback), and see what answers you’ve already come up with for these questions.

Origin – Where did I come from?

We’re fascinated by origin stories—Batman, P.T. Barnum, Han Solo, Cruella de Vil. Where did they come from? I think we need to go back even farther though. Does the story of life go back to a primordial soup? My answer to this question has major ramifications on my life. If the answer is “yes,” then my allegiance should primarily be to myself, to my survival and advancement. If, on the other hand, my answer is that we come from a Maker, then it’s worthwhile to ask questions like the ones that follow.

Identity – Who am I?

It’s been well documented that those under 30 struggle with questions of individual meaning and identity, but the question of identity is one we all deal with.

I’ve written about it elsewhere using terms like voice, center, path, and toolbox. What do you believe differentiates you and us and humanity? It ties naturally to the next question, which is one of meaning.

Purpose – Why am I here?

Increasingly, we demand purpose at work, but ironically, we often fail to ask the question of life as a whole.  Perhaps it’s because we’re so distracted by our buzzing smartphones and list of responsibilities to seek out an answer.

But even if you say you don’t know the answer, your life displays what you think the purpose of life is. Perhaps, like Ryan Harwood—the CEO of PureWow—your life says, “Happiness is the barometer.” Or maybe it says something else—to share joy and kindness with others, to leave a legacy, to win and prove yourself, to glorify God, to leave the world better than you found it.

It’s a question of meaning.

Morality – How should we live?

When asked about work-life balance, Ryan Alovis, the millennial CEO of the Stella Group said, “Having everything you want in the office and everything you want outside of the office.”

Is that the goal? Or are there more objective rules to live by? Every religion has its code of ethics, but even the non-religious live with a sense of morality. C.S. Lewis wrote, “Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five.” His point is that religious or not, we believe in concepts of right and wrong.

What is permissible? What is best? For you, if it’s the morality outlined in the Bible, there are some pretty tough commands there—love your neighbor as yourself, forgive whoever has hurt you, and so on. You can’t live up to it with a “I’ve never robbed a bank, after all.”

Destiny – Where are we going?

Even in a world where fewer and fewer people believe in God, people still believe in an afterlife. Even in a society where progress has led to pain and suffering in so many ways, humanity continues to push forward for progress. We innately think that we’re going somewhere, whether individually or as a culture and a species.

In other words, what is our destiny? What happens to you after you die? What happens to humanity as it moves forward? Are we on a march of progress toward a greater and greater society or are we walking toward an end in which we destroy ourselves? What you think of the destiny of yourself and others should impact the way you live today.

Conclusion

Asking and answering the five big questions of life soundly settles your life like a foundation sets a building. When storms come (and they will), the foundation is what you cling to and say, “If anything goes away, this is what I’ll build back up on.”

I think it’s your answers to these five questions. These five concepts root your thinking and steer your decisions which then delivers the kind of life you will have. Clearly some questions are more crucial than others. These are the big five!