beBetter 

I turn 64 today! Yes, today is my birthday and as an introvert, I normally tell no one it’s my birthday. So odd how differently people react to this day. Many shout it out from the rooftops and we should as each one is a precious gift from God. When you are entering the fourth quarter, you tend to reflect more on things, you realize the clock might be running even faster than you think as we never know if we will get to the fourth quarter or how long we get to play.

This week, let’s continue our look back, this time revisiting what got our attention in the middle of the pandemic. 2020 may not have been what we planned. It certainly wasn’t what any of us wanted. But the lessons learned were pivotal and maybe just what we needed to set us on a better path ahead.

There’s an old saying, “When you see a turtle on top of a fence post, chances are he did not get there on his own.” In my case, truer words have never been spoken.

CeCe is feverishly telling some of our best friends about TJ, our neighbor’s long-haired Persian cat, who likes to roam our neighborhood. TJ is a big, beautiful cat. As I’m listening to the story, she shares that TJ has been missing for three days and this is very unusual. Our neighbors are naturally upset and beginning to put posters out, driving around the surrounding neighborhoods and asking everyone to be on the lookout for TJ. CeCe is wrapping up her story when I decide to pipe up with my knowledge of cats.

One of the MANY things I admire about CeCe is she never suffers from or allows her decisions to be influenced by FOMO. We recently had friends invite us on a trip, and I immediately started advocating for us to join in the fun. CeCe paused a moment and asked, “Do you think we will enjoy that trip? Lots of schedules. And it doesn’t sound like a lot of the activities that you and I really love. I don’t think we should go.” I knew immediately that she was right. I was letting FOMO get in my head. What is FOMO? Fear of Missing Out — a term I actually learned from Seth Godin’s blog.

We have all experienced those bad days when nothing goes right or we get bad news that seems to consume us and our day. Over the years, I have developed ways to reframe these moments that diminishes their effect on me and my team. Although no amount of reframing will make bad news good, there’s an opportunity for us to be at our best to deal with these bad moments or bad news.

This is Corinne Johnson who just celebrated her 98^th birthday (a day early by the way)—just as smart as she's always been! Corinne and her late husband “Shorty” Johnson have been friends with my parents my entire life and played a support role for me as I tried to find my way as a teenager. Whether it was hanging out to talk Ole Miss football or borrowing a gun to hunt, I was known to spend time at the Johnson’s house. 

Some people hate to get on a treadmill because you walk or run and never arrive anywhere. Sometimes, we get on a similar treadmill in life where we chase success (as we individually define it) in order to be happy. The problem with chasing success is that the bar is constantly raised as you arrive. And the effect is that we are never happy.

This past Saturday morning, the sun was shining and my wife, CeCe, and I were taking in the start of a slow weekend with coffee on the front porch. She shared that she recently ran into Father Camp (who is 85 and retired from the ministry) and they had an interesting discussion on life and death. He shared how seeing so much death and ministering to those in grief has been one of the hardest things in his ministry and that  we simply do not know the date we will meet our Maker. That is why it is so important to think about our dash—our legacy and how we impact others’ lives—today.

All I could do was laugh recently when I couldn’t see the big picture although it was literally right in front of me.  I was preparing for an interview and I had requested a PDF of a recent presentation I had given on connecting the dots.  I received the PDF and pulled it up, looking for the 19 dots it should have. As I clicked through the pages though, I could only see 10 dots.  So I sent another request for the presentation with ALL 19 dots.  I click through the latest version, I see the same 10 dots.  So now, I assume that my request is misunderstood.  “Please send me the PDF with all 19 dots that includes…” and I listed the missing dots.  I mean, how hard can this be? Right?

As you can tell by the fact that this is my third blog related to the College World Series, the entire experience really had an impact on me. But it wasn’t all fun.

Imagine: You are riding on cloud nine as your favorite school is playing in the most elite event there is for college baseball. The atmosphere is exciting, the fans are loud and energetic, and everyone literally feels the tension of every pitch. It’s electric to say the least. Then, the elimination loss comes for 7 of those 8 elite teams, and at the moment that last out is made, sadness overwhelms the losing teams and their fans.