View from the Summit

Let me be the first to raise my hand on lessons learned the hard way. I got married early, 19 years old; Robin was 18, two weeks out of high school. I don’t need to tell you how selfish most young adults are at this age. 

As I think about relationships, and the importance of them, my relationship with my wife is only second to my relationship with Christ. This took me years to finally understand and fully comprehend the full impact of putting my wife in the correct order. I openly admit that my personal desires trumped everything early on. 

I have chosen “relationships” for the month of August.  When we normally discuss relationships, we immediately think of another person.  However, we have relationships with many things outside of individuals. This post is not going to resonate and be received well by many people, and I want to go ahead and clear the air and say, I’m okay with that.  I also want to say that I’m not being condescending, condemning or judgmental. 

Every single day I get the privilege to coach men, locally and abroad.  I have built relationships as a result of this profession that I could never have had if I had stayed in a traditional bricks and mortar business.  I’m so grateful for this tremendous blessing.  There is one glaring obstacle, hindrance, addiction, habit, and desire I see all the time, alcohol.  As the title of this post so eloquently says, “every fiber of my body hates alcohol” is the strongest, truest, and most deliberate title I could muster up.  I suppose I could have inserted the word “loathe," and this may have described my disdain more adequate.

Relationships are the number one key to success both personally and professionally. Taking the time to invest in long-term relationships have paid the most dividends repetitively of any tactical move I could have performed. I look back over time and see the countless lives I have invested in and come to appreciate even more the value those relationships have afforded me. 

When you take the approach of what you can give 

to the relationship rather than what you can get, it works. 

I had breakfast this morning at Panera, and as I was leaving, the cashier told me to “have a good day.” I hear that phrase repeated countless times a day everywhere I go. I’m not sure why today it struck me differently. I go through most days myself extending well wishes to others and honestly make that same comment, “have a good day.” It’s funny to me that we are so conditioned to automatic responses that we often reply, “I’m good,” and “how are you,” when we’ve yet to be asked. I pondered the question and realized that I’m guilty as the next person often running on auto pilot.

How would you know when you have had a good day? What is the recipe for a good day? What are the chain of events that must happen for you to have a good day? What metrics are you using that will mark this day in history as a good day? 

If you were to mark off each day on the calendar as to

 whether it was a good day or a bad day, how would you decide?