It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)
Greetings to you!
Each week I send out a short leadership blog that's called "Tuesday at 2:00pm". The purpose of this is simply to provide a brief thought on leadership that you can read and think about in just a few minutes. I send it out every week at 2:00pm (PST) and encourage you to make an appointment with yourself to pause and think about the thing I'm writing about.
Russ...
LEADERSHIP QUOTE:
"True rhythm is often elusive, but so worth the effort!" Russ Cline
What does this stir up? Either write me HERE or comment at the end of the blog post HERE.
A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:
I officially became a drummer at the age of 9, taking a band class in elementary school, and then getting one of those practice pads to play on. The real thing was that I had always been a drummer... always tapping, pounding my foot, looking for a stick to hit. Drumming came natural to me, and once I joined the band, I found my spot.
Mr. King, my 6th grade band teacher at Sunflower Middle School said over and over: "The Drummers Set The Tempo and Keep The Rhythm".
He would then have the full drum core lay down the beat for whatever song the band was playing. It was the 70's, so we did a lot of the Beach Boys, Chicago, and Elton John. Pretty impressive for a middle school band!
"The Drummers Set The Tempo and Keep the Rhythm"
Last week, I celebrated 61 years of life while on a short vacation with my wife, and while reflecting on the year behind me and the year before me the word RHYTHM just kept "pounding on my soul". I couldn't shake it off.
I watched the sun as it rose and as it set. Perfect rhythm.
I watched the waves come crashing in, over and over again. Perfect rhythm.
I looked at my life.... NOT SO PERFECT RHYTHM!
It's been a season of starts & stops, running & crawling, winning & losing, celebrating & mourning... I could go on and on, but I just feel like I've lost my beat, my tempo, my RHYTHM.
I can blame it on all kinds of things...
To much work and some unreal expectations
To many people to communicate with and connect with
Not enough time to do the things I need and want to do
Not enough discipline to stay focused
There are all kinds of reasons, but it comes back to me.
I need to "Set the Tempo and Keep the Rhythm".
Over the coming weeks I'm going to talk about RHYTHM and share with you some things that I'm doing to help me find it again. This is an ongoing and real-time conversation.
Listen to these definitions of RHYTHM:
a stong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound
a regularly recurring sequence of events, actions, or processess
a harmonious sequence or correlation of colors or elements
the ability to perceive, create, and/or move in time with a regular patter of sounds or movements.
Join me in the conversation.
Have you ever lost your RHYTHM? How would you define that? What definition above do you resonate with?
DEEPER STILL:
My birthday was May 1st...today is May 6th.
DAY 6 OF THE JOURNEY:
When I've LOST that rhythm, that routine, that pace, what do I do?
#1) I DO AN PERSONAL AUDIT
I take some time to simply write down where I'm at. How do I feel? What am I missing? What's not right? I use a simple template called The Four Helpful Lists and I ask myself these questions:
What's RIGHT? (Optimize this & celebrate)
What's WRONG? (Fix and address this)
What's MISSING? (Find a way to Add this)
What's CONFUSING? (Find some Clarity)
It all starts by stopping for a moment and doing a simple assessment.
*I took some time the other day to work this process...
#2) I START MAKING TIME TO DO THE WORK
I hate identifying the things that need to be done, but then not having the time to do anything about it. Here's an example... something that is wrong in my work life is my email communication. I've had a hard time keeping up, keeping organized and replying to people. No idea why, I'll work to figure that out, but today, I simply need to schedule some time to address this, so I put 2 large blocks of time on my calendar this week to simply catch up with communication, specifically work email. It's on the schedule, I'll address part of this issue by making time.
*Yesterday, Monday, I created my calendar for the week...
#3) I GET SOME HELP
I need to bring some people in to help me figure this out. This includes some friends who will journey with me, it includes a doctors appointment for a full physical, and it means bringing Gina into the conversation. I need some people to walk with me, pray with me, encourage me and help me as I navigate this sense of being "out of sync". This week, I intentionally ask some people to join me for this journey.
*I have 4 conversations over the next 2 weeks with some of these people...
That's all I've got for today.
It doesn't happen overnight, but you have to start someplace. Where are you going to start today?
Things I'm Reading, Listening To and Watching This Week:
I like Michael Hyatts approach in this book, Living Forward. He and Daniel Harkavy have created some great tools to help people redefine purpose and create a plan to get there.
I watched a great documentary this past week called "It All Begins With a Song...it's a look at songwriters in Nashville. Really enjoyed it.
I read this book on vacation by David Baldacci and really enjoyed it. Very different than his other books: Strangers in Time
I watched the first episode of a Netflix documentary on Carlos Alcaraz called My Way, the tennis player. I look forward to watching the others.
I use these whenever I walk, travel or Zoom: Apple Airpods Pro