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“I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?”  Psalm 121 

For the most part I’m a pretty sore loser.  That’s not to say I’m not gracious about it, it’s just that I don’t like to lose.  So what’s wrong with that, you ask, shouldn’t we all strive to win?  Perhaps, except I hate to lose so much that too often I refuse to accept challenges at all when it appears the odds are stacked against me.  If it doesn’t look as if I’ve got a good chance of winning I just don’t play. 

Now, that’s probably smart when it comes to things such as investing in the stock market.  Who, for crying out loud, would be foolish enough to buy a stock if the odds are stacked against it ever going up?  No, when we invest in the stock market we do so based on the odds on that our stocks will go up.  But let me ask you, have you ever taken on a challenge where logic says you have no chance to win, yet even under the slimmest odds you did it anyway because it was so worthwhile or you simply felt called to do so?  To be so undaunted by fear of failure or losing requires conviction and courage, doesn’t it? 

Here’s the point.  Sooner or later each and every one of us is going to be blindsided with some sort of overwhelming challenge anyway.  Disaster will strike, a crisis will emerge, and we will find ourselves face to face with Goliath – a giant twice our size.  So why not instead pick a few insurmountable challenges of our own rather than waiting for fate to choose for us – things that matter, that make a difference, that make the world a better place for others as well as ourselves?  Ask yourself these three questions.  What are my dreams that seem out of reach?  What passions do I keep locked away?  What footprints do I want to leave behind from my walk on this earth?  How you answer these questions will determine which insurmountable challenges are worth taking on. 

So then the question of courage arises, from where is it to come?  The psalmist wrestled with the same thing.  “I lift my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?” he asked. Then he answered his own question, “My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”  You’ll find your courage there, too.  Believe it – and go for it!

What motivates you more, the demands of others or desire for achievement?  My own response to the question goes back to my experience working for Bobby Fuller, the supervisor where I was employed part time during my last two years of college.  The job itself was more or less an assembly line operation that required only a moderate amount of skill all of which was learned on the job.  It was Bobby who taught me everything, how to operate all the machines in the plant and how to perform every job function, so that in a short time I became fairly proficient at most of them.  It was, however, boring work for the most part, not exactly what I wanted to do the rest of my life.  Yet, I can’t remember a single day I did not look forward to going to work.  Bobby was the kind of guy who just made you feel appreciated, and I worked hard for him.  Everybody did. 

At the same time I was working part time for Bobby I was spending the rest of my days across town on the campus of The University of Texas in Austin completing my degree in business and finance.   And it was, coincidentally, during those same years when Theory X and Theory Y management styles happened to be getting a lot of attention in business academia and corporate circles.  They were fairly new concepts back then (by that name at least) having been developed by Douglas McGregor of MIT’s Sloan School of Management in the 1960’s.  Essentially what the two theories suggest is this:  Theory X, which assumes people are inherently lazy and hate work, requires that managers must rely heavily on threat and coercion in order to motivate employees.  Theory Y, on the other hand, assumes people are naturally ambitious and actually enjoy work, thus respond well to positive motivation.  Using the metaphor of either the carrot or the stick, in other words, Theory Y might represent the carrot and Theory X the stick. 

I’m pretty sure Bobby Fuller never heard of Theories X and Y, maybe not even in the context of the carrot-or-the-stick.  What he did seem to instinctively understand, though, was the power of positive motivation, through which he became quite effective in raising the level of productivity  even in that rather mundane assembly line operation.  I loved working for Bobby Fuller.  Everyone did.  He instilled in all of us a desire for achievement, which would one day influence my own management style.  Like I said, I can’t remember a single day I did not look forward to going to work.  That says a lot!

“When I was a boy of fourteen,” Mark Twain once said reflecting on his adolescence, “my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” 

Of course, the comedy in this story lies in Mark Twain’s cleverness at self-deprecation, which was not at all aimed at his father’s ignorance but his own – or perhaps more politely his own immaturity.  I should sympathize with Mark Twain, for as a teenager I must have been guilty from time to time of sharing the same sentiments about my own father before experiencing at a more mature age an epiphany about his wisdom.  But even then my ignorance – or immaturity I should say – carried on in other ways.  For instance, when I was in my twenties and thirties people in their sixties and seventies were old.  You ever notice that?  But by the time I began to approach that age myself I was astonished how in a mere thirty or forty years that age group had become much younger.  I’ll bet you notice the same phenomenon as you mature.

Maturity is always life’s best teacher, and in fact the only source for gaining true wisdom.  The problem is there are no shortcuts for accumulating it, only time and experience.  Too often we lament the mistakes and missteps of our youth.  “Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways . . .” King David once begged of God in a prayer recorded in Psalm 25.  Yet while David’s sins and rebellious ways as well as our own mistakes and transgressions may remain regretful to us, they are nonetheless stepping stones along our pathway toward maturity. 

So we continue to travel down that pathway toward maturity, yet we never quite arrive, do we?   But we do often travel far enough where we must suffer the indignities of ignorance and old age . . . . until, like Mark Twain’s father and the sixty, seventy year-olds and beyond of today, we too are eventually redeemed as younger and wiser.

Do results matter?  Ask any corporate executive, professional sports team coach, or almost any fiercely competitive person and they would no doubt answer that results are the ONLY thing that matter.  Either play to win or don’t play at all, they would say.  What then about the other old adage that claims it doesn’t matter if you win or lose but how you play the game?  Are those who subscribe to this simply destined to be gobbled up by the play-to-win crowd in the survival of the fittest game?  Truth is, results DO matter but achieving them – over the long term that is – requires a balancing act between play-to-win and how-you-play-the-game. 

Consider the farmer who labors tirelessly tilling the soil preparing it for planting, sows the seed then does whatever else he can that is within his control to help the seed sprout and grow.  The problem is there are many forces over which the farmer has no control whatsoever – the wind, weather, too little or too much rain, and even the price he might receive for his crop at harvest time.  Do results matter to the farmer?  Absolutely!  But farmers know better than anyone that results are no sure thing, thus they plant – over and over, year after year with the ultimate confidence and assurance that even if the seed does not grow to fruition this time, seeds do eventually grow and come to fruition.  Farmers understand the balance between play-to-win and how-you-play-the-game. 

Results DO matter.  They are our incentive for doing what we do.  But focusing totally on results can distract us from the task at hand and adapting to conditions we cannot control.  Companies focused totally on profits can be distracted from recognizing and adapting to new trends in the marketplace.  Sports teams focused totally on the championship can become distracted and overconfident in facing the next opponent.  Today our education system risks being so focused on standardized test results that teachers become distracted from providing the broader education our children need.  It is a balancing act that educators are currently challenged to resolve. 

Results do matter, but achieving them – over the long term – requires a balancing act between play-to-win and how-you-play-the-game.

As a young man Nicolas Herman (1614-1691) had little choice except to join the army, that is if he had any hope of regular meals or collecting even a modest stipend.  Born in eastern France to poor parents and with limited education at best Herman’s options were few, thus he remained in the army for several years where in fought in the Thirty Years’ War and later served as a valet until an injury rendered him unfit for military duty. 

Following his release Herman entered the Discalced Carmelite Priory in Paris as a lay brother, not having the education necessary to become a cleric.  There he spent the rest of his life within the walls of that priory assigned to working in the kitchen, a lowly position, tending to mundane chores of cooking and cleaning at the constant bidding of his superiors.  Such was the life of Nicolas Herman, quietly serving God and mankind expecting no acclaim whatsoever. 

No acclaim indeed!  Whoever even heard of Nicolas Herman?  No one I suspect . . . unless you are perhaps familiar with the man better known as Brother Lawrence, the religious name Nicolas Herman took upon entering the priory, where in spite of his lowly status he touched so many lives with his wisdom and spiritual guidance that after his death his letters and conversations were compiled in a book called The Practice of the Presence of God, which for centuries has remained one of the most widely read books among Christians.  Yet Brother Lawrence simply spent his life serving God and mankind expecting no acclaim whatsoever. 

We all hope to leave some sort of legacy, don’t we?  But are we willing to do so without some hope of acclaim for our deeds?  “Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in the bucket,” Oswald Chambers challenges, “to be hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served?  Are you willing to spend and be spent; not seeking to be ministered unto, but to minister?”  Brother Lawrence was.  Are you?  Am I?  Yet, isn’t it ironic that among those within the priory during that time only Brother Lawrence, the lowliest of servants, is the one so famously remembered?