It's not you, it's me - or, why I'm brushing you off

In a classic Seinfeld episode, George Constanza thinks he’s found the ultimate break up line, “It’s not you, it’s me.”  How can you argue with the logic behind “There’s nothing wrong with you – I just have some issues”? 

But the same thing can happen when you’re trying to build your friendships.

I recently published an ebook – “How to Make The Friends You’ve Always Wanted” (it’s free and only 19 pages).   It describes the process of how friendships are built, and gives practical ways to amp up your social life.  But every once in a while you’ll find someone who seems like they’d be a great close friend, and they just don’t take you up on your initiative.  You might even try three or four times with all of your efforts falling flat.

Depending on your level of security that could really set you up for some self-doubt.  “What’s wrong with me?”  “I really want to be friends with that person, but why won’t they reciprocate?”  “Am I coming across too strongly?”

The good news is that most likely it’s not you - it’s them.  Most people won’t come right out and tell you why they’re passing you by, but they could be dealing with any number of issues:

• Their schedule is just way too busy 
• Their capacity to handle meaningful friendships is full right now
• They may be dealing with an issue like a death, major illness, or a tough breakup
• They may be in a controlling/abusive relationship that limits their freedom
• They may have been burned by someone in the past and tend to keep people at arm’s length
• You might remind them of someone unpleasant from their past
• The “chemistry” might just be off
• _________________ fill in the blank with your own reason

If you’re truthful, you’ve probably dismissed someone else’s friendship forays at least once in your life.  Can you remember a time like that?  What was your reasoning?  It probably seemed justified to you at the time, just like it does for this person.

So how do you handle it?  What can you do?

1. Don’t take it personally – tell yourself that everyone has issues from time to time
2. Grieve about it if you need to
3. Try again in 1-3 weeks/months with that same person (depending on what they told you)
4. If your feelings got hurt in the process, forgive them
5. If they were outright rude, be intentionally kind the next time you see them.  You have no idea what they might be up against
6. Keep building up your acquaintance and peer friends pool so that you’ll have more candidates to pick from
7. Let it remind you to renew your commitment to be friendly to people at all relationship levels

When you work up the nerve to invite someone to hang out and they pass, it can be discouraging. But instead of letting the incident derail your other friendship attempts, use it as a reminder to practice empathy.  After all, it’s not all about you.  It might be about them this time.

Can you name a particularly poignant time when someone didn’t reciprocate your friendship?  How did you handle it?  I’d love to know.

You can learn from my mistakes

There are people in this world who are popular, naturally friendly, well-adjusted, and seem to make friends easily.  Socializing is one of their natural strong suits.  

I freely admit that I am not one of those people :-/    

I've had to learn to socialize the hard way - through trial and error, and along the way I lost potential friends because of the "error" part.   I had a sincere desire to be a friendly, positive person, but I also had unrealistic expectations.

For instance, in an effort to "speed things up" I had a tendency to reveal too much personal information too soon, and expected an acquaintance to reciprocate.  But the effect was that it just made people uncomfortable.

Somehow by the grace of God I did manage to pick up a few nuggets of wisdom through the years. So, in an effort to pass along the goodness to others, I went and compiled some of them into an eBook - "How To Make The Friends You've Always Wanted - and not lose the ones you already have." 

You can download it for free at https://www.petecoaching.com/friends-ebook

At less than 20 pages it's a quick read.

Let me know what you think.  Are there bits of wisdom that you could pass along to others?  What other topics do you think we should address in the future?  

Maturity - The good, the bad and the "Ouchy"

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11

Maturity is inconvenient.  

Maturity makes me face things head on and strips away my self-deception.  It’s like waking up on a cold winter morning wrapped in a snuggly blanket, but knowing you have to get out of bed.  Getting out from under that blanket and being embraced by the chilly air – yeah, it’s like that.   

For example, if I budget my time better, I have to say “no” to indulging my social media habit any time I feel like it.   

Confronting that coworker who disrespects me in front of my peers is uncomfortable.  I’d rather just smile and let it blow over and hope (aka “tell myself a lie”) that it won’t happen next time.  

If I forgive the person who hurt me, I might have to consider that he/she really isn’t full of evil and out to get me.  It takes effort to be gracious when I’d rather mentally rehearse revenge scenarios.  It also hurts my pride because I have to admit that there’s a possibility that I could be partly to blame. 

What might you need to deal with?

    Chronically making excuses
    Time management
    Money management
    Forgiving others
    Forgiving yourself
    Sharing credit
    Taking responsibility instead of blame shifting
    Confronting difficult people
    Asking others if I am the difficult person
    Being honest about your own prejudices
    Accepting limitations
    Putting others’ interests before your own
    (Fill in your immaturity blank here) __________
    (Go ahead - add another) ___________
    (And one more for good measure) __________
    
OK, the bad news is we all have areas where we get stuck.  But here’s the good news…

You get to decide how quickly you want to mature.

That’s right.   You can choose to prolong the process, hope other people will somehow pick up on your passive/aggressive “hints,” be overly sensitive, whine about it, and announce to everyone around you how your situation is so tough.  Or you can deal with your difficulty head on, face the pain and get it over with quickly. 

It’s kind of like removing a band-aid.  If you peel it off slowly it just prolongs the “ouch” factor.  You might as well just yank it off.  Yeah it hurts a bit more, but you get it over with all at once and then you move on and forget about it.  

Funny how when we face down our fears, they rarely amount to the disasters we thought they would be.  And then we just move on to better things.

So, what are some of the band-aids that you need to remove?  Do you have a story of how you avoided a maturity area, but when you finally acted it was far easier than you thought?  Let me know.  I’d love to hear from you.

Are you updated?

Just a friendly reminder to make sure you have anti-virus protection that is ACTIVE and UPDATED on the computers that you use.

Did the trial subscription that came pre-loaded on your machine expire?  Time to do something about it.  

Here's an article with links to free programs that work well http://www.zdnet.com/pictures/free-antivirus-scanners-for-windows-pcs/

The stakes are too high (both to yourself and the other users that you might infect) to ignore this.

Added bonus: you'll be a good Internet citizen.

Video and pics from the Sleepout

Video coverage   

Photos - no pics of my team, but you can get a sense of the event and the companies that were represented.

And, because so many of you asked where I actually slept, check out the following (that's 10th Ave. right above us, and 41st Street to the right).  

This is a little more than half the group.

If it seems surreal, that's because it was.

Homeless business leaders

Sleepout Night 2014

Settling in for the night

I rode into the city on Thursday with team members and Sleepout veterans Richard Seidler and Dion Morreale.  We arrived at Covenant House (CH) around 4:30 PM, checked our bags, and got ready for the long night.

First up was a walk to Times Square for the vigil event highlighting the issue of teen homelessness.  Lynn was in the city that day and met me there.  After grabbing some pizza and great conversation with the new Goodwill Rescue Mission director, Dave Jones, we headed back to CH for their main presentation.  Stirring video testimonies, great stories, and a lot of positive energy really helped me capture what CH was all about.

But the best part was when they separated us into small groups to spend time with CH kids and staff workers where we heard their stories and asked questions.  This was the real deal - first hand accounts of kids who were living on the street, but now have hope, goals, and are moving forward with their lives.

I was most impressed with the amazing dedication of the outreach workers in NJ.  They literally search the highways and byways (and under bridges and boardwalks) looking for homeless youth, building up trust with them, and introducing them to a host of supportive services (not just shelter).

Each kid has a different story. They are people first, and each has unique dreams and goals just like the rest of us.  But they lost their housing along the way and went into survival mode.  I was surprised at how many of them were simply victims of tough situations.  Examples:

• Both parents died so she was out on her own
• Parents had too many mouths to feed so she had to make it on her own.
• Foster care situation was unbearable
• Both parents were drug addicts

All in all, it was probably the most impactful part of the evening.  But then is was time to gear up and change into warmer clothing.  The 251 other business execs and I claimed our patches in the small CH parking lot on the corner of 41st and 10th for the sleepout. 

Business execs sleeping out in a NYC Parking lot - surreal!

CH gives you a sleeping bag and flat cardboard box as a barrier to the pavement.  Even though it was 28 degrees out, I kept relatively warm, but then the freezing wind would gust into my sleeping bag opening and wake me up. Over and over and over and over and over... until I figured out (4 hours later) to flip the direction of my sleeping bag so the wind was at my feet 

It was also very loud - New York truly is a city that doesn't sleep, and it doesn't halt construction projects happening right across the street either. Fortunately I brought earplugs.

You could go into the CH building if you got too cold, needed the restroom, or wanted a snack.  I took advantage of that twice.  And the space where we slept had barriers and security guards, so we felt safe.  We learned that's one aspect of teen homelessness that never quits - they are often taken advantage of and can never just relax or let their guard down. One girl told us how her "home" for a number of months was sleeping on subway trains.  She did this for months while attending high school and still managed to graduate. Amazing.

Rich woke us up to rise and shine at 5:45.  In all, I figured I got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep.  We packed up, grabbed a bit to eat, listened to personal reflections by the other volunteers, then headed back to Newark.

Some random observations:

• There were A LOT of participants from NJ.  I'd guess we were in the majority. Jersey!!
• Brian Cashman (NY Yankees GM) was sleeping out with us.  He's been a long time covenant house supporter, and just a regular guy - no celebrity aura there.
• Yes, you can hear the Lincoln Tunnel traffic (quite well) while trying to sleep there
• Yes, you can also hear the Port Authority buses (also, quite well) while trying to sleep
• CH really stands out as a top-notch shelter program.  And it boils down to the love of God working through people dedicated to serve.

Again, many thanks to all who supported me on this event.  It really changed my perspective, and I'm glad I was able to introduce many of you to the CH mission.  Overall, the group of 252 volunteers raised over $1.6 Million dollars to help homeless kids.  That's great!

Lynn and I at the Times Square vigil.  Note the nifty Covenant House souvenir hat!

My sleepout for the homeless

So tonight I'm going to be sleeping on the street in NYC as part of an teen homelessness awareness event for Covenant House.

Here are some pre-event observations. 

1) Some of you know that I was a professional fundraiser for seven years at Paxton Ministries. It's interesting to be on this side of the fundraising process.  I used to tell my volunteers that the main reason people give time or money is because they are asked.  My involvement with the sleepout is bearing that out. 

The trigger for me to sign up was simply that my friend and mentor, Rich Seidler, invited me to be part of his team.

I was a little reluctant (rain, freezing, physical safety concerns), but since moving to New Jersey in 2008 my giving portfolio hasn't included enough focus on poverty issues. So I saw this as a chance to get off my butt, face the unknown, and finally do something about it.  

2) I have been BLOWN AWAY by the generosity of my friends, coworkers, and family in supporting this effort. Both in the size of the gifts and the number of people contributing.  It's very encouraging. 

3) Fundraising has come a long way since I was involved (pre-internet).  Covenant House has a nice website that makes it easy for volunteers to promote the event, send emails, collect and process donations, track progress and thank people.  My daughter had a similar experience when she set up a personal campaign for Charity: Water.  

4) I'm a little anxious (OK, more than a little) because the temperature is predicted to go down to 28 degrees tonight. So I'm obsessing over clothing layers, and what creature comforts to bring or leave home.  Then it hit me - these homeless kids have to face this every night!  Whoa, I feel like a whining baby.  So I'm even more eager to meet some of these kids tonight to hear their stories.

I already started to notice homeless people more when I was in Penn Station on Tuesday. Instead of ignoring them (for anyone about to get judgy on me, it's part of living in a major metro area - it happens - you get desensitized) I started reminding myself that each one is a real person with a back story.  I'm looking forward to a deeper dive tonight.  I need to be re-sensitized. 

5) Covenant House says the event is completely full and they have a waiting list.  Rich tells me that's a first!

Have you ever done anything like this?
Have you had an experience that sensitized you to poverty and gave you a new perspective?

OK, enough for now.   My next post will be post-event. 

Priorities and Purpose

Here's a fascinating article from WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/business-graduates-show-least-interest-in-their-work-poll-finds-1412222464

It's a quick read, but has big implications about life purpose and choosing what really matters. 

Summary quote: "My advice to Americans, especially young people, is that if you make a decision about what to major in based on how much money you want to make, you might end up disappointed, not only with your first job but with your overall career," said Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup Education.

Advice?  Instead of only thinking about money potential, discover your passions and talents and apply yourself there.  The money will follow.