OLYMPICS – so much we can learn

The Winter Olympics are in full swing. Twirling, gliding, sliding, jumping, shooting (yeah, I know, rather weird), flying, winning, losing, falling, crashing and so forth. We are thoroughly entertained by some 3,000 athletes from a bunch of countries, and I am in utter awe. No, it’s not so much from the competitions; it’s watching the pure undiluted joy, energy and love for what they do, that I see in their faces. Those smiles and that tremendous show of exuberance, camaraderie and respect for each other is so inspiring – something that should really rub off on all of us; this is something we should all try to do – every day. Don’t you agree?

I have always respected people who are really good at what they do, excluding anything illegal, obnoxious, rude or pathetically stupid. It encourages me to do better myself within my abilities and at times beyond. So when I watch these, for the most part youngsters, show so much energy, so much enthusiasm for what they do, what they do so well and working so very hard at doing, I feel energized to improve what I do well and try even harder to improve what I don’t do so well (like going 80 miles an hour, on a small piece of plastic with blades, wearing a tight-fitting suit). What we are watching should inspire all of us – and I hope it does.

I was watching a women’s snowboard event and of course was totally blown away by what they can do and what they do so fantastically well; absolutely awesome. But what really blew me away was how these 'competitors' stayed around at the bottom of the hill after their own runs, waiting, cheering, screaming, encouraging and yelling for the other girls to do well. And when one by one they crossed the finish-line, they all hugged each other, laughed, smiled and hopped up and down. Surprising?

Yes, it surprised me, as this was a group of girls/women crossing international borders, all from different countries showing absolutely no signs of envy, jealousy or differences. It was only sheer joy between them – the utter happiness, support and excitement from being there, that very moment – for all of them, individually and together; something to learn, huh?

Torah Bright (Australia) Kaitlin Farrington & Kelly Clark (USA)

So I started to watch with that in mind; do they all participate in these games with the same attitude? And I found that they do. Cross-country skiers, both genders, would give their all on the course and fall down as soon as they crossed the finish line. And then they would bring on those fabulous smiles, hug and greet and congratulate each other for the effort, for giving everything they got – across international borders, no matter where they came from.

Of the 3,000 athletes who made it to Sochi, just a few will do that ‘winning’ thing. I am positive that a vast number already knew before they left for Russia, that winning any medals would be unrealistic. But then you hear them talk about, with huge smiles, how they aimed at other goals, personal bests, etc. Being selected to represent their country and their sport, for the most part seems to humble them, but with pride and determination, to do well, to give it all, leave everything on the track, ice or snow – wherever. And when we watch from our cushioned comfy-chair, pressing buttons on the TV remote, we can clearly see that they all do that, giving everything and then some – and that is just so awesome.

When we watch, keep in mind how much time, sacrifice, discipline, effort, (blood), sweat and tears have brought them in front of us. An American girl talked about how her parents sold a cow here and there for her to be able to afford getting to the local competitions to improve and ‘perhaps someday’ get to the Olympics. Her praise and total love for her parents and their dedication, was loud and clear. She was asked: “So how are you going to pay them back?” She smiled that fantastic smile, held up her gold-medal and said: “I think this might do it”, through tears of joy - mine too.

We are watching performances that blow us away. Try not to be blasé about watching, but try to observe with the full understanding that this is NOT about winning, no matter how nice it is to ‘win’. This has everything to do with simply being part of something so big and so awesome; it’s about participating, building friendships across borders and suck in all those fantastic moments that none of them will ever forget – how great is that?

Swiss skier Dominique Gisin is best friends with Tina Maze from Slovenia. They are both excellent downhill skiers and probably met through the sport they both love. They skied as competitors a few days ago, and what do you know; they both won gold - a first in winter Olympics. Both skied the time of 1.41.57. How about a friendship across borders and down the mountain – rather fast; and then hitting the same time, in a sport where one hundredths of a second is very big.

I am so in awe and utterly inspired by watching all this Olympic stuff (except curling – have no bloody idea what the heck is going on). I find that my daily exercise and fitness routine has been tweaked a lot, by pushing myself more, working harder because “they do” right there in front of me. 

I smile big as they smile even bigger – win or lose. They smile just because they are there and they fully appreciate it, the honor of representing their country, their sport, the camaraderie and the many friendships they find across so many borders. And all in spite of who wins or not – because they are also fully aware and do fully understand, as we all should and must do, that NONE of these Olympians, these wonderful athletes entertaining us with what they love to do and do so well, are losers to any extent – not even close. Their energy and exuberant smiles tell all. To me they are all winners, every single one of them; and isn't that awesome. I knew you would agree...

 No, this is not me. When I ski like that, I wear green.

FRIENDSHIPS – do not take for granted

A friendship is the mutual affection and interpersonal bond by association, between two people or many people. A close and high quality friendship makes us a happier person, creating higher self-esteem, confidence and security. Good friendships bring us to a better level of social comfort. That’s all great stuff, if you ask me. And since you are asking, I have to add the kicker: If you value your friendships, do NEVER take them for granted – please… 

I’m not writing about the social media’s fluffy friendships as I touched that subject some time back. No, this is about true friendships, including the very-best-friend category.

For the most part, we find our true friends by association. It can be same backgrounds, values, occupation, interests, hobbies, education, social circles, demographics and the list can be as varied as any combination of any friendship. But you’ll always start out by finding something in common, something that brings you together with that one special person.  

To me, finding or running into situations that would perhaps create a friendship, has never been easy. Early on I found that insecurities and anxieties made me more so stick to myself; this way not taking the risk of rejections while approaching other kids for possible friendships. Don’t get me wrong, in spite of my former awkwardness, I have been fortunate finding some superb friends through the years.

As a great example: Claus, a few years younger than I is my childhood friend. Though we stopped communicating for some 20-30 years (we are both in our sixties now) we finally connected again, and seemingly had not missed a beat. Now we enjoy great times and laughter when I visit Claus and his wife in Copenhagen. My friendship with Claus has always been very special and very warm.

During the last 10 years before I left Denmark for the USA, I was part of a group of 4 guys, very close friendships, always having an absolute blast – really. We rarely spoke about serious stuff, but we were more so able to see the humor in just about anything and everything – just an absolute blast.

But then I moved away, tried to keep in contact by mail (good old days, huh?) One of the pals tried too, but then it faded away and then the interest died – and in retrospect, as the wiser we get, that was a pity – it really was. But I would have been a lesser person had I not gone through those ten years of intense friendship – I really think so.

We must never take friendships for granted, the ones we truly believe in. Like so many other things in life, if we do not work at it, it will fade and die – and when we let that happen, we will certainly not get any richer in the process. 

You might have your own set of values that will create a strong friendship, what you call a true friendship. For me, friendships must be built on trust, honesty, respect, love, faithfulness, appreciation and here I go again: must never be taken for granted. No, Dear Reader, we cannot expect all these saintly values packed into one or any one friend. But it’s when we find a combination of what we respect and expect from our friends AND from ourselves that things line up, and friendships are created.

My wife and I have friends we have known since we met (my wife and I). Two couples, best of friends with all our kids growing up together, not many years apart – at all. With busy lives it has always been tough to find time to get together, and don’t get me wrong, this is not a complaint, it’s the simple reality of our lives, family and all. But when we get together it is wonderful, lots of fun and laughter – and every time we part, it’s always: ‘gotta do this more often’; and we mean it.

Having friends, getting together and enjoying the time and the stimulation rich friendships give us, cover so many emotional needs. It makes us feel so good and utterly fortunate – no doubts about it. But friendships can also fade away for many reasons, and perhaps reasons we don’t understand – the worst of reasons…

At times in our lives we might find a friendship of need, where the person or we (ourselves) have an emotional need for support, perhaps due to anxieties, insecurities, a broken heart, a divorce, break-up or whatever. Perhaps we open up in a different way to a person we don’t fully know, and a person who do not fully know us. We might find support from a good listener, and many things combined, perhaps things will get better, and perhaps a true friendship evolves from that. But I have also found that such friendships can also have a tendency to fade away in some cases, after all is getting better. I was always able to accept that, no matter how confusing and sad it made me – but at least with a feeling that perhaps I made somebody else feel better – and that makes me feel good.

As human beings we need friendships, true friendships. We need to associate on a deeper level, where we unite with people around us, people who understand where we are coming from, who we are, and people we understand well – and therefore can associate with on those deeper levels. Those friendships do make us happier – they truly do.

My best friend in the whole world (sounding like an excited 6-year old, while it’s actually an excited 67-year old) is my wife. Next month we have been together 30 years – and counting. No, it has not always been a smooth ride, as it has been a life, including kids, that has been and is full, therefor “smooth” is not a true description. As anybody else, we have also experienced some rough patches, but due to that ‘friendship”- thing, we have been able to stay the course, solved issues and overcome adversities. 

That’s what true friendships must also accomplish, because that is also how important a true friend is. I have never and will never take that for granted.

Claus & me around 1954

BE ASSERTIVE – be in control

We are put together by a lot of things; some we are breastfed with, some are drilled into us from early on, some we take to heart by the power of experience and some we ignorantly neglect and/or discard. Among the many things we should be: respectful, considered, appreciative, caring, honest, trustworthy and fair; these and many more are character building-blocks telling the world around us who we are; or are not. On top of my list, you ask? Being assertive – and I am not one bit wishy-washy about that.

To me an assertive person is one who is self-assured, confident, and communicative, which automatically creates a healthy level of self-esteem. And all this without any form of aggression, neither physically nor mentally; the ultimate way of being in control.

When we are not assertive in our relationships with people around us, we pretty much let them control us – so we must ask ourselves if that’s what we want. The control balance in our society as a whole or in whatever smaller groups is that there is a heck of a lot more followers than leaders – a huge load more.

But this is not the type of assertiveness I’m looking for; the assertiveness I’m promoting is the assertiveness we can all achieve on a personal level – you and I, seriously.

Walking the dog the other day, I ran into a friend of mine (coached him soccer many years ago). Let’s call him Michael to protect his privacy (though his real name is Alberta Schwartswold and he lives here in Santa Rosa). Unfortunately I have a tendency to talk “parent” to younger-than-me people; Michael got a bit of that. I had heard that he was pursuing a career change and asked him what he was doing about it. He told me that he had submitted an application for a job that he was interested in. He also told me that a friend of his knew the HR person and would put a “good” word in for him, to hopefully make the odds better concerning getting hired. In my grand wisdom I rolled my eyes and shook my head while making that irritating ‘clicking’ sound with my tongue (and in that order).

“Michael, YOU must do the follow up; trust nobody but yourself and YOU go after the HR person or whoever would do the hiring”. One of the things I have somewhat lived by: ‘You want it done well – do it yourself’ (for the most part…)

Applying assertiveness in a situation like this, include submitting the application and then follow up with a phone-call the next day to make sure the application ended up with the person who can do something about it. And then ask when a decision could be expected to come forth, etc. That is being assertive – being in control.

She looked cute and stunning. I thought about how much I would like to invite her on a date – I thought about it a lot. Perhaps I would run into her by chance – and then I’ll ask her out – perhaps. And that would go on forever till she married somebody else – and then I’d go: ‘oh well; can’t win them all’. No you won’t win anything if you don’t assert yourself. 

Life is also about taking chances, so we take one of those chances by approaching her and say: ‘I think you are beautiful and I also think that you are probably a nice and fun person, so I decided to ask if you would go out with me?’ And then you’ll get to know yes or no - on the spot. For the most part you will get ‘sure, that would be nice’ answers more so than you’ll be shot down. The simple reason is that assertiveness shows confidence, and we like people with confidence; and for some of us it’s rather sexy, huh? Being assertive – being in control.

Remember that what I am talking about is assertiveness on our level, as part of a very pleasant personality trait; remember the non-aggressive thing that exists within our kind of assertiveness; that’s the one I’m writing about here.

Being assertive makes us free and confident when we express feelings, opinions and thoughts. We are also considered of the people around us and we control any anger (why be mad at all when you are an assertive individual?) with compromise and ease – as we are confident that it is never a big deal, really.

Can we all become assertive? Of course we can, and of course it takes some work if you are not assertive as is. All forms of improvement call for effort – duh; so does this one.

What I’m concerned, our house must be clean, metaphorically speaking. We must be organized, have our stuff in order to the extent that we feel accomplishment beyond the norm; a satisfaction of a job well done, by our own person, physically and mentally, to what we do in the work-place, how we handle our social life and so forth. We must be respectful and considered and in that regard we must listen to the people around us and appreciate what they say, who and what they are.

Do I find myself assertive? Yes I do. Sometimes I can also be wrong (shocking as that may sound), and in those cases, I make sure that I’m wrong on the top of my lungs; assertiveness on an adorable level, I’d say – nah, not really.

When I was out in the real world (considering my present retirement a world apart – really) I applied many things to become more assertive. I was NEVER late to business meetings or appointments. I found that it showed respect and consideration, which added points to my assertiveness. I also found that people I was meeting who were late, some of them very late (pathetic ignorance working hard), declined in my estimation of them, which made it a lot easier for me to get the (assertive) upper hand during negotiations – true story.

I was always well prepared, and in many cases only got to use perhaps 10% of the knowledge I had gathered. But the other 90% made me feel secure in my approach and asserted more control as it was.

There are so many ways we can gather ammunition to load our assertiveness, simply by being more respectful, considered, appreciative, caring, honest, trustworthy and fair. As we keep activating these items, we find that we actually improve the way we feel about ourselves, coming from that wonderful feeling of being respectful, considered, appreciative, caring, honest, trustworthy and fair – just to name a few.

Assertive behavior has a lot to do with what we do and how we do it. We cannot sit there and wait for ‘things to happen’, because those ‘things’ will rarely happen the way we want them to and especially when we want them to. So we must take care of ourselves and MAKE things happen, by being assertive and therefore being in control.

Now go do it, okay?

PS. For those of you who know soccer a bit; one of my (many) issues during my coaching-life was that when a teammate passed the ball to you, you NEVER waited for the ball – you should ALWAYS move towards the ball (yes, I used to call it ‘meatball’). If we don’t move towards our goals, somebody will for the most part intercept – get in between and take it away. Assertiveness in a nutshell – don’t you think?

PROMISES – and then we break them

We might not live in the Promised Land, but we do live in the land of promises, where vast quantities of said promises are broken at about the same rate we make them – and we are all guilty. Yes, I generalize, because it is fast and easy. When we take stock and think about how many promises we make every single day, our collective heads will twirl full speed – and yes, yours too.

A promise is a commitment by somebody promising to do or not do something; rather simple. But the second we start promising left and right, the ‘broken’ part pops up rather often, more than is comfortable. I’m not talking the biggies as in solemn promises of marriage vows, military oaths and legal contracts, though they are also broken, and I’m not even going to mention the election promises politicians are burping up until they are elected, as I will giggle too much and roll my eyes till it hurts.

How about the everyday promises; how about the many promises we in many cases roll out because we can’t keep our mouth closed? Why do we promise so much? You might still think: ‘where the heck is he going with this?’ so I’ll enlighten you.

When we try to kiss somebody off (meant in a nice way) we use so many different tools and they all fit into the promise category, something we would normally not think about as a promise – but it is. “Okay, I’ll call you later…” – “I’ll have it ready…” – “meet you at 6:30…” – “it’s in the mail… (Though soon an outdated promise – but say it anyway, nobody is listening), etc. You see, all these things are promises, like a million others. 

Though I hammer on broken promises, and do NOT like being promised something that is not being kept as stated, I am also afraid that we are utterly numb concerning the fact that so many promises we are given are being broken. It’s like we have accepted it as a ‘broken’ fact – don’t you think that’s sad?

I’m a healthy 67, so I have been around the block a lot, so I should by now have come to the conclusion, that taking ANY promises serious, actually expecting said promises to be honored, is stupid, pathetic and ignorant. No, that doesn’t mean that I condone the thought of whatever, it’s just that I don’t understand why I still believe that when you tell me that you will call me later, you’ll actually call me later, as I (duh) expect that you will do precisely as you promised.

Another side to this, as pathetic, is the deal that when we promise something to somebody we kind of already have the feeling that we ain’t gonna live up to what we just told you we would do. So we not only break a promise to that other person or persons, but we already broken that promise to ourselves – and that’s where even the true meaning of ‘pathetic’ is too weak. Does this ring a few bells?

I have always believed that for each of us to have a grand relationship with others, we are in dire need of having the best relationship with ourselves first. But when we are not fully honest with ourselves, how will that translate to somebody else, somebody we want to, or perhaps are forced to and need to build a healthy and solid relationship? That’s a good time to reconsider what kind of promises we want to burp out – so casually.

Early on in my career (management / production) I was extremely cautious concerning ‘things’ being done in my departments. I underlined that we all had to trust each other concerning what we said, what we planned to do, etc. Getting a large group of employees to produce at top level, it was necessary to coordinate all resources to perfection to excel and profit. One of the issues became apparent in the start, and that was the many ‘promises’ made, but not kept; and I had to find a solution fast.

I ended up asking every project manager to communicate with me directly and several times daily. I had decided that each of them making statements at production meetings about WHAT they were GOING to do and by when, did not hold water – okay, sometimes, but too often not. So I worked with all of them seeking the direction and action needed to be followed, what we (the company) had in mind. So instead of telling me WHAT they were going to do, now they only informed me WHAT they had DONE. That way our meetings became much more effective, a lot more positive and energized. Instead of pushing the issues and the work-load we were pulling them – a much healthier proposition.

Some dude named Immanual Kant stated that “promises should always be kept”. I’m so totally with him on that. My beef is that if you already know you won’t be able to keep whatever promise is nearly crossing your luscious lips, then don’t make it a promise – make it a statement instead. I prefer that you don’t tell me that you’ll call me later. I much more prefer that I get a call from you out of the proverbial blue; and I wouldn’t have wasted time sitting by my (mobile) phone waiting for your call.

Some consequentialists argue that promises should be broken pretty much whenever it benefits you… egotism at its best. Would lying also be okay – when it profits us?

I’m still promising things to my wife and I do my very best to keep and do what I promise. At times I don’t find the time to iron her clothes, clean the house, do this or that, but she knows that it’s not because I promised something empty, it’s just a matter of fitting everything in time wise.

I do not like to negate on any promises I make, so instead, I try to remember to do what I preached for so many years: Don’t tell me what you are going to do; just tell me when you have done it. If I wobble around the block a few more times, I might actually end up living by that wise statement, huh? So if I hear from you, out of the blue, would beat a broken promise anytime – don’t you think?