When You Don’t Really Know What’s Next

When You Don’t Really Know What’s Next (Even Though They Told You)

Well, the doctor appointments were over and I was home. Now I waited for a few more test results before they told me what I needed to do. Everyone around me worried and thought about it enough for me, so I just tried to block it from my mind and go back to work, life, getting up every 1-2 hours, and peeing 7-10 times per night while I waited. When people keep asking you how you are doing and you are up all the time and not sleeping, you have plenty of time to think about that question and to start to get a little stressed. Why couldn’t they ask me, “What is your favorite rock band and why?” or “If you had to choose 5 things to go do in the next year and money was not an issue, what would they be?” That would have been awesome, but no, I was asked, “How are you doing?” “Have you heard anything yet?”  “Are you sleeping any better?” I know people were well meaning, but I felt like getting a T-shirt printed with answers on it to save time and energy. It has served as a great lesson to me to not ask questions of people who are medically struggling, but just make statements. 

They told me it would be 3-5 days and then the doctor would call to confirm any tests and to follow up on what would be needed next. Three days went by pretty quickly and I did not have any expectations, but something happened on day 4-5 when I did not hear anything. At first, anxiety started to hit me when I wondered when the doctor was going to call, and then when I did not hear from him on day 5, I started to worry and wondered if they forgot about me (a message I send to myself quite often from my past). Finally, I started to think if they didn’t contact me yet it must not be important and everything must be okay. The people around me were getting very impatient and pushing me to call and follow up through my medical portal. Honestly, I never had signed into my medical portal in the past 1.5 years of going through this, so I wasn’t even sure what that meant, but it sounded pretty cool. It sounded like I got to travel through some time dimension or something—“Let me enter into my medical portal—I will be right back.” I knew at this point I wasn’t dying, so honestly, I wasn’t too concerned about not hearing anything… but like I said, I had enough people around me who were anxious and overly worried that they were able to give me their extra anxiety and fears.

On day six I got an email that my medical portal had been updated, but again had no idea how to sign in so I forwarded it on to my wife/medical assistant (for tax write-off purposes I gave her this title) to check it for me. The doctor sent a message that everything looked good, but surgery would be needed to fix my frequent urination problem. The doctor finally called to go over the type of surgery I would need (don’t ask me the name of it—I can’t pronounce or spell it therefore I can’t remember it). It was a simple surgery the doctor said would only take about an hour. They would keep me in the hospital overnight for observation and to make sure I could pee after it was over and then send me home. Sounded simple. Awesome. Pee problem solved! I get to sleep again! Let’s do it.

I didn’t really understand what the surgery was except they were going to put a laser up inside my body and trim off a portion of my prostate. I also had a small cyst in my bladder and prostate that they would remove via the laser at the same time. Of course the only thing that came to my head was the Austin Powers movie when Dr. Evil said, “Are those frickin' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' heads?” - which made me laugh and I thought that would be pretty cool, but then quickly remembered how they have to navigate to get to my prostate. Suddenly sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their head didn’t sound so good! OUCH! After getting my mind back to what the doctor was saying (I missed a big portion of the conversation thinking about the Austin Powers movie), he asked if I have any questions. Since I didn’t really hear anything that he said, I didn’t really have any questions. “No, I think I got it—lasers—prostate—a little zap here—a little zap there—and I get to go pee like a 20-year-old again! I’m good…when can we do it?” He told me scheduling would reach out to me to schedule surgery, but it would be in the next two weeks. The doctor also told me that he was very confident that this would work, but he had to let me know there was about a 3-5% chance this would not work. Another movie quote from Dumb and Dumber popped in my head, “So you’re saying there’s a chance!” It’s hard being me!

Well, back to the waiting game to see when surgery would be. I returned to my normal life of no sleep and regular bathroom visits. I will be honest—during this whole process I began to sit when I pee. Before I lose a man card, it was because I was so tired and I was always there. I got tired of lifting the lid and then putting it back down (lazy, I know, but very courteous at least). I could actually rest in the restroom if I sat down. So, I embraced the feminine position to pee and IT WAS AWESOME. Some days I actually fell asleep peeing. Crazy, I know! I checked email, Facebook, returned emails, texts. I was taking multitasking to a whole new level but I embraced this new lifestyle—wondering how much joy I had missed in the previous 49 years of my life simply standing up and staring at the wall. It’s nice as a guy that I can be a switch hitter and stand or sit, but if I am honest I am going to stay true to a sitting lifestyle from here on out.

I was sitting there going pee and checking my email and saw that that a message just came through to my medical portal. So I did what any man would do—I stood up after peeing and went and asked my wife to tell me what was going on. She soon signed on to my portal (by the way I still have never signed on to this modern contraption) and they had sent a date and time with an appointment for that afternoon to call me to confirm. They called and the nurse went over some of the game day details and used some more big medical jargon to justify charging insurance and then asked if I had any questions. “Well, only one. Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away?” (I had always wanted to ask a doctor this, but forgot every time I was in their office, but this seemed like the perfect opportunity.) She laughed on the other end of the phone and then said, “Only if you aim really well!” Awesome—I liked her.

So everything was set for my surgery in ten days. Now it was time to WAIT and WONDER and WORRY! These seem to be the 3-W’s of life, don’t they? We go through our whole life waiting for what is next, wondering what it will be, and worrying if it is going to be enough, or the right thing, or what I really need, or what my kids need, or will it be safe, or… (you fill in the blank of your life). It’s amazing how these three words continue to pop back into my life. When you find out you are going to be a parent, you wait for what seems like an eternity for the baby to finally get here. You wonder if you have what it takes to be a parent or even just wonder what it will be like to be one. Then we worry we will mess this kid up, or what will this do to our marriage, my life, my bank account, my free time, my… Or maybe you experienced these 3-Ws early in life waiting to hear if you made that team, that organization, got accepted into that college, received that job, to hear that health report, to receive those legal papers, the first time your teenager takes the keys to the car, the second time your teenager takes the keys to the car, and the list goes on and on and on. It seems we wait, wonder and worry most of our life.

I don’t know about you, but I hate waiting. Most leaders do, but wise leaders know, however, that it is part of a fermentation process. Waiting produces patience, and patience produces endurance. I have to remind myself often that I am in a marathon, not a sprint (even though sometimes I have to pick up the pace). Waiting is a humbling reminder that there is not too much in this world that I can really control. One area we can control are our thoughts during the waiting period. We are 100% responsible for the thoughts in our mind that lead to actions in our lives. Good or bad, we are responsible for them. And with each one of them come consequences—good and bad (and sometimes neutral). Waiting is an art form that is best illustrated in my mind by watching surfers. I am not a surfer. I wish I was, but I grew up in South Dakota where our water was frozen the majority of the year. Plus, I don’t want to drown or get eaten by sharks and surfing could cause both of those things. But I love to watch surfers—especially good ones. On one of my visits to the North Shore of Oahu I stopped and got some fresh shrimp and sat with about 50 people, three seals, and two sea turtles who came up on the shore while I watched four surfers paddle out to try to catch some 10-14 foot waves (relatively small for some of these surfers I later found out). They would paddle out and go to where there was a breaking point in the ocean—that place where the ocean floor shifted from deep to becoming shallow which helped push the water up causing what would become a swell and eventually a wave to ride into shore. These guys (sorry, ladies, it was four guys) sat on their boards and caught their breath. On their paddle out to the break they easily missed 3-4 great waves, but they weren’t in the right position to receive them so they waited and kept going. After catching their breath, they laid flat on their boards and waited and watched. Honestly, I can’t tell a good swell from a bad swell—they all looked swell to me! Somehow they could tell which ones were going to be great waves and which ones were going to break up too soon. Waiting creates wisdom! Finally, after what seemed a lifetime of sitting on the beach, eating shrimp, and watching the monk seals scoot closer to me as they made weird sounds, one of the surfers began to paddle like there was a shark behind him (I checked and did not see one). He followed the direction of the wave until the swell had risen out of the water just enough for him to use its momentum to push him and do the majority of the work. It was amazing. The swell got bigger and bigger and started to create a crest that was going to break at what seemed like 100 feet tall to me. Even though it was only about 14 feet high, it was going to be enough to create an incredible ride and a barrel that he would be able to go through and put on an amazing show.

It was not only amazing to me how they know what wave to take, but also it was equally as amazing that he knew exactly when to stop because if he went too far he would hit a bunch of volcanic rocks. Not only was his focus on a hundred different things that he was doing to surf this incredible wave, but he also knew his exact location in the ocean. Amazing. In his waiting he watched and learned from the ocean and from others. He counted how long he had to get up and get going and then in his mind knew how long he had left to enjoy the ride before he had to get off the board and then paddle back out and start again. Waiting creates patience that creates endurance. These surfers were there before I got to the beach and stayed after I left. I was easily there for two hours and was worn out just watching them. But when you have a passion for something and you learn to wait for just the right timing, then time doesn’t really matter. You simply enjoy the ride.

“Wonder” is an interesting word. I can wonder what is going to happen in a particular situation and I can be in wonder of what is happening or is going to happen in a particular situation. I get to choose which way to approach the word and the situation, which will determine my thoughts and attitudes. If I approach it and wonder what is going to happen, most likely worry will be the natural outcome. However, if I approach situations with a wonder and amazement of the possible good can occur through this situation, the natural outcome is normally finding good in all situations even though it may appear to be bad on the surface. Whenever I speak to people who have had or who are going through cancer treatments, they speak about how hard it is. But the ones who look for good in a bad situation are always amazed and in wonder about the good that comes from it. A deeper spiritual faith. A priority of building relationships with those that we love. Focusing on the things that matter most. Realizing that even though I am struggling, I am still blessed. An understanding of how fragile life is and how important it is to live every day to its fullest. However, people I meet who wonder what is going to happen next live in a state of worry and anxiety and fear. Medical science actually proves that people who have positive attitudes experience less ailments and sickness than those who don’t. It also shows that recovery times are less, as well as the probability of fully recovering. Our minds are an incredible and powerful thing.

I wish we didn’t worry, but we all do. If you have ever had to take your child to the hospital, you have experienced this. You can have all the wonder (in a positive way) that you want, but you would not be human if you did not worry. If you didn’t, you might be considered a sociopath. I experienced this when my daughter was three and was diagnosed with a rare form of pneumonia. She was taken after three days to a children’s hospital where she continued to worsen and medicine was not killing the virus. She lost 10% of her body weight and became more and more lethargic. Her lungs began to fill with fluid and they had to insert a drain to keep them usable. They had to draw blood and take x-rays 4-5 times per day. I went from worry to fear to an anxiety that I had never experienced before. By God’s grace my little girl came through this experience after 2 ½ weeks in the hospital, but through it I learned something very important about myself and worry.

When we lose control of a situation or simply can’t control it, we oftentimes hold on tighter and try harder to control it, only causing our worry and anxiety to grow and oftentimes feeling out of control. Fortunately, I had people wiser than me come alongside of me and remind me that there was nothing that I could control in this situation, so to let go and trust the process. I needed to focus on what I could control, like my thoughts and actions, and let go of the process that I could do nothing about. This honestly was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but when I finally submitted to this, I was able to love my daughter more effectively, as well as those around me. I felt the burden lighten even though it was heavy and I felt more connected to those around me and not isolated like I did when I was trying to control everything. The tighter we hold on what we are trying to control, the less ability we have to grab onto other things that may be more important. When I let go of holding on to trying to heal my daughter, it allowed me to grab hold of loving her more. I was more present and available to her, others, and my own self-awareness.

Transferring these principles to our leadership, this is vital if we are going to influence others instead of trying to control others. Teaching and modeling to your teams how to wait effectively, while continuing to prepare is a skill that needs to be implemented. Most businesses fail because they either try to grow too fast or they wait too long to change. It is being wise enough to wait for that perfect wave to ride and being aware and wise enough to know when to jump off, so you don’t crash into the rocks! Teaching your teams how to have a positive outlook and to approach each day with wonder will unleash a creativity in them that is needed to keep your organization alive and new. Look at companies like Amazon or Google or Apple or Pixar who create spaces and time for their people to be innovators and to just sit and wonder what it would be like if their craziest ideas could come true. The 3M company did this by allowing just a few minutes a day for their teams to dream and wonder. Out of this, the post-it note was created and revolutionized the business. What ideas are just sitting on the shelf of your organization because you are more focused on what needs to be done, instead of what could be done? What about in your family or your personal life? Create a time and place to simply wonder and dream. Remember that worry will happen! It is what you learn to do with the worry that will determine your effectiveness and your vision. You will either look inward to yourself about how are you going to do this, or you will look outward to others about how you can effectively and creatively invest in them to create change in innovative ways.

Here is the most powerful part of all this. You get to decide and are completely in control of your thoughts, feelings, and actions during this process of waiting, wonder, and worry! Lead well and model that for your team, your family, and those who are observing you. Let me encourage you to be intentional about teaching others this and explaining it so that they can grab hold of these leadership principles. Use team meetings to demonstrate this. And of course, if you need help I would be honored to come alongside you and cast vision to your team and provide coaching to help you lead well!

When Good Isn't Good Enough

When Good Isn’t Good Enough

So, here I was at with the best doctors in our region and they were out of answers. I had screened them, check their references, asked friends and several of their colleagues who I should go to and they had done all that they could do. For crying out loud, I had even checked them out on Web MD. They were good, but not good enough. Kind of like how Doritos are good, but not as good as Pringles. Or how in the 80s Ratt was a good band, but not as good as Van Halen. Maybe this is better for the sports fans out there--the Colts are good, but not as good as the Patriots (and I am not even a Patriots fan).

Sometimes good is not good enough, but here is what I noticed. My doctors were the best in our region, but they did not have the resources of doctors in other regions. One of my doctors had practiced at MD Anderson in Houston and another one had done his residence at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Massachusetts. They were good, but not good enough.

I went to my appointment at the urologist and the doctor sat me down and said he has done everything that he can do except a surgery--which he normally only does on 70-80 year olds (I am getting old but not near that yet). I knew I didn’t want to do that, but didn’t know what else to do. The 7 different pills he tried didn’t work. The test that caused me to never be able to look my nurse in the eyes again didn’t really tell us anything new (see 2 blogs ago). I could never even come close to beating my doctor in how much pressure I could muster up to pee into the “cone of shame” (see previous blog).

I had exhausted every resource that the doctor had and he was good, just not good enough. It wasn’t even his fault. He did everything he could do with the resources that he had. I got it! I understood, but it didn’t help me get better. In fact, it only made me feel worse. I felt hopeless and like there wasn’t going to be a cure for this one and I needed to suck it up and just live with it. I left defeated and frustrated.

It had been over 1.5 years since I had slept well. In fact, I was up 8-11 times per night to pee now. Get up 11 times every night for just one month and tell me how you are feeling. Now repeat that for a year and tell me where you are at emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I would fall asleep driving on my way to work. It is only 14 miles from my house and 9 miles into the drive I would have to pull over and walk around the car a couple times and then finish the drive. Once I got to work I would fall asleep in meetings, typing at my desk, or just sitting and writing a list of what I had to do next. For the last 6 months of all of this I took a 30-60-minute nap in my office everyday as my lunch break (don’t tell my boss, but my team guarded this time for me).

I don’t know if you have ever been so tired you didn’t care what happened to you anymore, but that is where I was at. In fact, I was to such a point of desperation, depression, and hopelessness that I wanted to die if there wasn’t a solution to this. I guess there is a reason why they use sleep deprivation to interrogate prisoners. There is nothing that I would not have told you if you promised me sleep!

When I was told there is nothing else we can do, hopelessness set into my life and negatively amplified everything during this time. I did not hear, “there was nothing else THIS doctor can do.” I heard, “Welcome to the rest of your life and it is only going to get worse the longer it goes on, so I hope you are ready for a life of hell.” I was tired, and I was sick and tired. Everything frustrated me and everyone did as well. People who loved me and supported me were seen as too busy and just didn’t care. It is funny how your mind begins to justify things when the body can’t regulate things. I needed help, but didn’t think it was available to get. I needed better resources!

So, I did what any irrational sleep deprived person would do. I gave up. I wanted to die and even began devising a plan to end my life. I started making a list of people I needed to write a note or letter to so that they would have a better understanding of where I was. I made a list of all of the justifications as to why this was the best way to solve this problem. I picked out a spot where my family would not have to find my body and a method that would be fairly peaceful—at least from my research. I researched online how to get the drugs to inject and the right amount for a person of my size and age. I even read reviews online of its effectiveness, fail rate, and after effects if you do fail. I looked to see if anyone left reviews of how it worked for them, but… well, you get the joke. It seemed like a pretty good drug so I bookmarked the website and went on to phase two.

Next, I knew I needed to read my life insurance suicide clause to be sure it did not hinder my family from getting the money they would need and that was good as well. Now for the real planning. When was a long weekend that I could get the family out of the house and out of town? I would list my car for sale a few weeks prior to that so no one would have to worry about it and if I sold it beforehand, I would make a clause that they could not pick it up until the date that my family left.

I figured out how I could empty my closet and drop it at the local Goodwill so my wife would not have to deal with that on top of everything else. I even made a grocery list of all their favorite foods that I planned on buying and cooking up for meals that I could freeze so they didn’t stress about what to eat. I know people like to bring food after people die, so I wanted to be sure there was something there after that was all over. I justified what this would do to my children and that they would be better off. My wife is young and she can remarry and they could have daddy #2 who would be better at all of this than me.

One of the last things I wanted to be sure was to leave everything financially organized so that life would be simple. This was going to take a bit of time and I developed a two-year plan for this to be implemented. I figured I had lived this way for nearly two years I could endure it two more. This would also help me step away from my job at the church to hopefully not damage it or put it in the center of the headlines. My plan was to leave my job six months prior to killing myself but have something else I could step into so not to arise too many suspicions from anyone. Looking back on this I can see how twisted and even humorous it is to have a long-range suicide plan, but it worked for me.

I was much like my doctors who didn’t have any answers--in that I had exhausted everything I KNEW TO DO. I didn’t have the right resources so I threw in the towel instead of finding someone with the right resources. This remained the case until I had to go to my general physician for a normal checkup and he began to ask me about all my other health issues. “How is your neck?” “How are you sleeping?” “How are you going to the bathroom?” “What is your doctor saying about this?” I answered all of these questions and about 20 more honestly … except the one about “Do you want to end your life?” I didn’t feel like getting Baker-Acted that day and I had read “One Flew Over The Coo-coo’s Nest.”) My doctor shook his head in amazement and said,  “I am amazed you are still standing and alive”—maybe he knew! He asked one more question, “Do you mind if I call and get you an appointment at the Mayo Clinic? They have much better resources than we do in our area.” I already knew this but just figured my other doctor would have sent me there if there was anything that could have been done.

He called and sent over electronic orders for me to see someone as soon as possible at the Mayo Clinic to see if there was anything else that could be done. I thought to myself, “If their resources are better, maybe that would help the doctors to be able to be better too.” Right before I left the doctor’s office he told me to “hold on… that help was coming, and something could always be done.” That was a strange way to end a conversation, but I tried to take it to heart--especially since he didn’t know my long range planning skills of “My 5-Year Suicide Plan.” I went home not knowing when the Mayo Clinic would call or if they would, but somehow for the first time in a long time I had a glimmer of hope.

I don’t know about you but most of the time in my leadership abilities I don’t feel like I am good enough. Sometimes it is old messages that I am still playing in my head from things that were said and done to me in my childhood, but sometimes it is simply because I met other great leaders and knew I would never be like them. It happens often when I am reading books from great leaders and they write something so profound, and I think to myself—“Dang, I have never had a thought like that!” I have served in small organizations and large organizations and one of the biggest limitations I had in my leadership was the lack of resources I needed to be able to lead. I was good, but not good enough. I am not just talking about financial resources either, but the ability to learn and be surrounded by others who challenged me and helped me to grow in my abilities. The people around me were good, but not good enough.

As a young leader in a smaller organization, I had a mentor who challenged me to go find the best in my business and ask them to mentor me. If they said no, then go to the next best until I could find someone to help me grow to be better than I am. I did just this and with some relentlessness (some would say I was annoying), I was able to get someone to mentor me that I never thought would talk to me. He spent an hour a week with me for a year that proved to be invaluable to stretch my vision and understanding of people, systems, and processes of growth and speaking skills.

Amazingly, it opened the door for me to speak to people in larger organizations when I was still in much much much much smaller ones. Very soon after this I was recruited to go to a much larger organization that gave me more resources and a larger platform to stand on. What I found again was I needed mentors/coaches to help me see this differently. It was the largest organization I had helped lead and I was in my mid-20s. Before I started the job I took two weeks off and traveled a five-state region to talk with nine people who were doing what I was going to be doing at organizations two to 20 times the size of where I was going. I asked them to mentor me for a year and help me grow and help me grow the organization. Of the nine people, five said yes.

It was amazing over the next few years--due to the coaching of these five and the one before that (and the several others prior to that one mentor)--the same thing happened. My organization grew as did my leadership role. Again, I found myself speaking to larger organizations and even a couple Fortune 500 companies, as well as helping speak into the five mentors who had been resourcing me! What I found is when good isn’t good enough, maybe we are not asking the right questions or surrounding ourselves with the right people. Don’t get me wrong, there have been many times I have wanted to give up. In fact, there have been dozens of times I have given up and wanted to throw in the towel. Fortunately, by having allowed others into my life there always seemed to be one or two of them that would take time to speak into me and they echoed what my general physician said, “Hold on—help is coming and something can always be done.”

I know many of you reading this may be feeling hopeless in some area of your life. Maybe your family is falling apart and you are ready to throw in the towel. Maybe your job sucks and you just want to walk away (or maybe you need to—more about that later). Maybe, like me, you have just given up on life and you would rather be dead than keep on going. I get it! I have been in all three of these situations and many other thought patterns that are similar. HOLD ON—HELP IS COMING AND SOMETHING CAN ALWAYS BE DONE! If you feel like you have done everything you can do and good is not good enough, then let me encourage you ask some different questions. One of those hard questions you need to ask is, “Who do I have in my life who has been where I am at, that I can be honest with, who can give me better resources, advice, and insights than I have right now?” In other words, who do I have in my life who can get all up in my grill? We all need those people, but few of us have them.

The larger the organization that I have helped to lead, the harder these people are to find. What happens when you are at the largest organization in your region and there is no one to do this for you close by? THINK BIGGER. Chances are you DO have more financial resources at your present organization for travel and training than you did when you started a smaller organization. Use them for what matters most. I have found I can get almost any training or seminar on my phone any time I need it. What I can’t pay to download is someone who will invest in coaching me as a person that I can be transparently honest with, build a relationship with, and that will speak into me as a person and leader. Yes, I have peers that help, but let’s be honest—many times it is hard to fully open up with those who we work with on a day-to-day basis. It is not that we don’t need to work on that and build deeper trust so we can open up more, but that is a longer process (we will deal with that as well).

The bottom line is “When Good Is Not Good Enough—Get Better!” Do whatever it is you have to do to grow. The greatest things in life don’t come from doing the same thing or nothing. If you are a leader (and all of you are), open yourself up to speak into leaders that don’t have or haven’t had the same resources and opportunities as you have. Seek them out and don’t wait for them to come to you. If they come to you, push pause and realize there is a reason they choose you. You might not be able to say yes to everyone due to the amount of time you have, but you can say yes to some and then help the others find someone to help them.

Recently, I contacted the head of one of the largest organizations in my field to give me one hour of time to sit down and ask questions. I honestly did not think he would say yes, but I thought it was worth the risk. He didn’t even respond to my request, but guess what? He had one of his top tier executives agree to meet with me for over two hours and it gave me the opportunity to learn at a much higher level AND ask questions about his boss that I would not have had the opportunity to ask the same way. Don’t stop and don’t give up. It will get better.

The last thing I want to talk about in this entry is if you know someone is struggling in life right now, don’t stop asking questions and reaching out in care and love. Empathy is a lacking characteristic of leaders and people in general. Walk into other people’s world, as messy as it is, and help them see things differently and that they are not alone. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate friends and acquaintances speaking into me during the darkest times of my life. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but now I know that they loved me and wanted the best for me. And if this is you right now, know that you are not alone. I care and am here for you. If you are struggling with any of these feelings, I would love to talk with you and offer my support and encouragement. It will get better! It always does! Hold on and know that when good is not good enough, it’s okay, because something great is just around the corner! Keep leading!