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:
"The rhythm of life is intricate but orderly, tenacious but fragile. To keep that in mind is to build the key to survival." Shirley Hufstedler
What does this stir up? Either write me HERE or comment at the end of the blog post HERE.
A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:
I'm on a real-life journey to understand more about the "RHYTHM OF MY LIFE" and over the next number of weeks I want to drag you on this journey with me. To read past posts, visit my full site HERE.
I've appreciated a number of notes from people reading this post over the past 2 weeks. Some of you have committed to praying with me as I process through this, and many have shared that you're in a similar space. There is something very comforting in simply being reminded that "It's not just me!". Thank you for the encouragement and the support.
This conversation about RHYTHM is simply a journey. We'll never arrive, never completely master it, but it's a process. Hufstedler's quote above captures that idea in that it's a balancing act of taking all aspects of rhythm and holding them, learning from them and applying them. She says that this leads to survival, but I say it leads to a fuller life!
I have a rowing machine in my office. I purchased it during Covid when my local gym shut down, and I had been enjoying the rower.
Last week I jumped on it (after some time) and it just wasn't moving right. I was working hard and I thought I had just forgotten what the regular back and forth motion felt like, but after about 3 minutes of steady rowing, I stopped, and did a search on rowers and found that most likely, the chain on my rower just needed to be oiled. I applied some 3-in-ONE oil, and immediately the rower was smooth, moving easily, exactly as it was built to do.
It took just a little bit of oil to get that thing moving right again, but what a difference it made.
You can see the application....
What's the ONE THING that you can do that will help you find your rhythm again, that easy flow from one thing to the next? What aspect of maintenance will get you moving again?
Think back on your life, what has helped you find your healthy rhythms? Are you doing those things or avoiding them?
DEEPER STILL:
DAY 19 OF MY JOURNEY as I navigate some thoughts around this.
Refueling My Soul!
There's a tool we use with the Paterson LifePlan that is simply called "Replenishment Cycle", and the idea is to identify some things in your life that restore your soul, your energy, your rhythm, and to make sure those things are happening regularly in my life.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend who I helped guide through this process hit the wall. He was struggling, and I sent him a text that just said: Don't Forget Your Replenishment Cycle. He had created a plan around this and had defined some things that he knew would fill him up.
This past week, he said to me: "I'm focusing on the cycle again!"
It's simple, but when we hit crisis we often run in the opposite direction of where we need to go.
When we're busy, we focus on getting things done.
When we're tired, we often focus on getting things done instead of rest.
When we're hungry, we often eat things that don't nourish us and build our body.
We just do the opposite of what we know we should do.
Even the Apostle Paul struggled with this when he said in Romans 7, "What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another..." (MSG)
Today, think about some things that you can add regularly to your life that will help you find that order, that rhythm, that balance.
Some examples from my life:
When I get out in God's nature, I see things more clearly, I hear things better and I find perspective.
When I walk, I think better.
When my wife and I walk at the ocean or paddle board on the water, I feel a sense of replenishment.
When I sit and read a book for fun, it fills me with energy
When I eat better, I feel better.
These are all things that I should be doing often because they make me better! These are parts of my replenishment cycle.
Can you identify 4 things that you can add to your normal cycle of life that actually replenish you, that fill you up?
Things I'm Reading, Listening To and Watching This Week:
The 4th motorcycle journey called Long Way Home with Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman came out on Apple. They travel through Europe on some classic bikes. I've seen all of these stories and enjoy seeing the world through their adventures.
This is the rower I have: Concept 2
Here are 2 podcasts I enjoyed listening to last week: First, on How I Built This: Substack: Chris Best & Hamish McKenzie. Second, on The Best Idea Yet: Google Maps: The Actual Everything App Both tell start-up stories and I found them really interesting.
Check out Aion Path: A Christian Rights of Passage program for fathers and their children.
A friend just sent me this book, and I look forward to diving into it later this week: Change the Recipe: Because you can't build a better world without breaking some eggs by José Andés with Richard Wolffe.