“He must increase, but I must decrease.”  – John 3:30 

The day started off like this. Tee and I both rose early, donned some warm sweats and ventured out into the frosty air for a three-mile jog, after which I took a quick shower, got dressed and rushed off to the doctor’s office for my routine semi-annual checkup.  If that sounds like some sort of healthy lifestyle obsession, I assure you it’s not.  Instead, it was a premeditated act of pure defiance; for this occurred this past Thursday which, you see, was my seventieth birthday, and going for a run followed by a medical exam was my way of refusing to accept the fact that demographically I am now counted among the elderly.

The intention of my actions was to make a statement, that I am not ready to throw in the towel, and absolutely refuse to do so.  I’m not done yet.  I still have responsibilities and work to do.  Or as Robert Frost expressed so well in those familiar lines from his poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”                                                                                                           

But I do have to admit that turning seventy has caused me to be a bit more introspective than normal, and even a little anxious; for as much as I may want to defy being counted among the elderly, reality is that the time I have left to fulfill my responsibilities and complete my life’s work is limited.  If I want to finish well, I must be about it with vigor and determination.  But what do I need to do different, and where do I start?

So, as much as I may have felt a bit of anxiety when I awoke last Thursday, I also experienced this strange sense of freedom.  That freedom came from realizing I no longer have to prove myself, that my responsibilities will be fulfilled, and my life’s work completed simply by being me.  But that reality didn’t come about because I’ve reached a certain age, it’s always been true, I just never allowed myself to believe it.

Now, as I look upon my children, and especially my grandchildren, clients, friends, the upcoming generations, though I continue to work with vigor and determination, I must begin to decrease in order that they can increase.  If I can do that effectively in my – hopefully many – remaining years I will have fulfilled my responsibilities and completed my life’s work.  I will have finished well.  Thankful to be seventy and able to learn that.

“He who answers before listening – that is his folly and his shame.”  – Proverbs 18:13 

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make any noise?  Remember that little riddle?  Let me ask it another way.  If someone speaks and no one is listening, is that communication?  A business article I once read suggested that are “plenty of programs that teach people to speak – but few train them to listen.”  If that’s the case, then “what we have here is a failure to communicate”, to quote from one of my favorite Paul Newman movies, “Cool Hand Luke”.

Like a mathematical equation, communication is incomplete without speaking and listening equaling each other.  This imbalance is nothing new, of course; in fact, it is probably as old as mankind itself.  But perhaps it has become exaggerated in this age of electronic and social media that allows us to “speak” instantaneously to mass audiences any time we wish, which in turn creates an environment of everyone trying to speak at once and an ever-increasing noise level to overcome in order to be heard.  The screaming just becomes louder and louder in hopes someone will listen.  The end result is that there is a world full of people begging for someone to just listen.

The International Coach Federation (ICF), through which I am a Professional Certified Coach, considers “active listening” as one of the core competencies that must be mastered in order to receive certification.  That has led me to wonder if our profession, assuming the business article I read is correct, is not one of the few where listening skills are actually required, thus rigorously taught.  At the very least, what I’ve observed from practicing this profession over many years is that becoming a great communicator begins first of all by being an attentive listener, and that attentiveness often speaks much louder than words.

So, allow me to restate the riddle.  If someone speaks and no one is listening, is that communication?  If the answer is “no” then based on my observations “what we have here is a failure to communicate.”  And if that’s true, what’s missing in the equation, and what can you and I do to bring it into balance?  Here’s a hint:  there is a world full of people begging for someone to just listen.  Otherwise, “He who answers before listening – that is his folly and his shame.”

“You armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet.”

–          Psalm 18:39 

According to my airline pilot friends the periodic flight simulator training and testing they are required to undergo has less to do with the basics of normal takeoffs, landings, and flying their particular aircraft, and much more to do with responding to adverse situations.  Most experienced professional pilots can fly a plane practically blindfolded.  But what they must practice over and over is how to react when things go awry, of which there are endless possibilities.  More than anything else, and thankfully so, it is this preparedness that limits the number of mishaps to the small percentage it is.

Likewise, there are a lot of excellent golfers around, but only an elite few become PGA winners.  The difference between the amateurs and pros is not that the pros necessarily hit the ball longer and straighter and sink more putts, nor do the pros do a better job of avoiding trees and sand traps.  What the pros do better, however, thus setting them apart from the amateurs, is in their ability to recover from the tree hazards and sand traps – dealing with the adversity they encounter.  Same is true for football.  Just watch the current top NFL or college teams play.  Certainly, the best teams tend to make fewer mistakes, but odds are the ultimate winners will be the teams who scramble out of tight situations most effectively.

In my youth I had dreams of a perfect life, perhaps you did too – perfect job, perfect home, perfect family, perfect everything.  But life doesn’t work that way, does it?  “In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus reminds us (John 16:33).  Adversity is inevitable.

In this life we will surely and unavoidably encounter difficulty, though some certainly more than others.  But what separates an abundant life from a tragic one is neither an absence of adversity nor the severity of it; rather it is how we deal with it when it occurs.  So, if you are living an abundant life it is because you know how to react when things go awry, or how to recover from the hazards of life and scramble out of tight situations.  On top of that, I’m willing to bet you know the One who armed you with the strength to do so in the first place; for “You armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet.”

“Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’, and your ‘No’, ‘No’.”  – Matthew 5:37 

For almost thirty years Jerry and I were the closest of friends.  We talked daily during the business week sharing information and ideas, and almost always having a few laughs.  Although we were in the same business we never worked together, in fact we were competitors – at least the companies we worked for were competitors, and bitter ones at that.  Yet, we were constantly engaged as partners in joint endeavors.  It was a great relationship; we were both like-minded and trusted each other without question, to the extent that in the absence of one of us the other had total authority to make decisions regarding the partnership.  In other words – now think about this!! – he had authority to make decisions on my behalf about my firm’s capital, and I had authority from him to do the same.  In all those thirty years not once did we have an argument, disagreement, or misunderstanding.  It was a relationship not bound by legal documents but rather by trust between two honest gentlemen.  We simply let our “Yes” be “Yes”, and our “No”, “No”; and it worked without a glitch – for thirty years.

Establishing trust is not complicated.  It is simply requires telling the truth and doing what we say we’re going to do.  Why then do we trust so little?  Why, when we listen to all the political promises being made during this election season, are we so skeptical?  Why must every contract, agreement, or major transaction require reams of legal documents?  Why are relationships like Jerry and I had all those years so rare, the exception rather than the rule?   Why is trust between one human being and another so often violated?  I wonder, for trust is one of the most powerful assets one can ever attain in business and in life.

“Establishing trust” is listed as one of the top core competencies for executive coaching by the International Coach Federation (ICF).  Understandably so, because only by trusting can one person communicate openly and freely with another, which is essential for a coaching relationship to be effective.  I’m grateful for my old friend Jerry who exposed me to the meaning and power of trust.  For us it became second nature, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’, and your ‘No’, ‘No’.”

“A man’s wisdom gives him patience . . .”  – Proverbs 19:11

An old farmer once hired a buddy and me as day laborers to help haul some freshly baled hay from his field.  Our instructions were to walk alongside the trailer he was pulling behind his tractor around the field and load the hay bales onto the trailer.  From there we would go and stack the hay in his barn.  We were young and strong back then, so the problem we had was that the old farmer moved too slowly for us as we were capable of working at a much faster the pace.  Nevertheless, he continued to putter along at his own speed and we dutifully complied.  And guess what?  By the end of the day the field had been cleared, the hay neatly stacked in the barn, and we happily accepted our wages.

Why was it that when I was young time seemed so scarce, even though I had a lifetime in front of me, all the time in the world?  I always felt in a hurry, never enough time.  But as I’ve grown older, even realizing my days are becoming fewer, time does not seem so important, almost even irrelevant.  Why?  Maybe I learned a great lesson from that old farmer who never seemed to get in a hurry, that at the end of the day everything will get done.  Recently I came across a poem printed years ago in McGuffey’s Reader, ironically a book of the same vintage that would likely have coincided with the old farmer’s school days.  The poem went like this:

“The fisher who draws in his net too soon,

Won’t have any fish to sell;

The child who shuts up his book too soon,

Won’t learn any lessons well.

If you would have your learning stay,

Be patient – don’t learn too fast;

The man who travels a mile a day,

May get ‘round the world at last.”

Given the choice to either be young and strong like I was back then or have the wisdom of that old farmer, from what I know now I’d choose wisdom every time; for among other things, “A man’s wisdom gives him patience . . .”