The Future Belongs to the Brave

Don’t you just love watching a movie that “speaks” to you?  I just saw  Tomorrowland with Lynn this past weekend, and I loved the themes it highlighted. 

The central idea centers around the power to envision and create the future, and the courage of optimism.  (Spoiler alert) The George Clooney character represents a young boy genius full of inspiration and invention, but who gets cynical and jaded as an adult.  The Britt Robertson character is amazed at her first glimpse of the future and approaches it with wonder and hope.  When she meets Clooney, her optimism and his cynicism clash and sends them on some wild adventures.

Eventually they both meet the Hugh Laurie antagonist in the future.  His doomsday clock has the whole world convinced that the world is going to end soon and there’s nothing they can do about it. But eventually the good guys discover that the doomsday clock isn’t gaging the actual destruction of the world.  Rather it’s simply brainwashing people into giving up hope so that the forces of evil can take over (end spoiler).

I thought was a really great metaphor for how the mainstream media is affecting our culture -  trying their hardest to keep us feeling angry, victimized and fearful so that we have a diminished view of the future, and eventually lose hope.

I’m particularly concerned about the effect this has on young people.  If you believe in a fatalistic, doomsday scenario you won’t bother to engage in doing the hard work of building a better future.  Worst of all, the rest of us will never see the unique gifts that you have to offer. 

So what can you do to counter the negativity trap that surrounds you ever day?

1.     First of all, you need to recognize if you’ve developed a fatalistic worldview.  Do you think the Earth is going to be devastated because of global warming?   Are you convinced that racial tension is going to destroy your city?  Do you think the world is going to descend into chaos until you die or are raptured out of it?  If you think the future is pre-programmed and there’s nothing you can do about it, you won’t try to change things (after all they’re supposed to get worse, right?).

2.     Be careful regarding the media outlets you choose to receive your information from.  And yes, it’s always a choice.  Don’t be a passive consumer.  Start to question motives and agendas. 

3.     Pay attention to your emotional state.  If you find yourself getting consistently angry or afraid, then you’re being played.  That media company has found a way to tap into your core beliefs and manipulate you in order to increase their ratings.  Find a different news source, and do it soon.

4.     If the media you consume makes you feel like a victim that’s being oppressed by forces out of your control, they are coercing you so that you’ll depend on them to be your lifeline or your protector.  Very unhealthy.  Find another source.

5.     If the logic they feed you causes you to hate or distrust a particular group or individuals who don’t believe the way you do, they’re training you to be a hater and you’ve become part of the problem.  Find a better source.

6.     If some of the people you hang out with constantly rehash negative news, politely change the subject.  If they don’t take the hint, come right out and tell them that you hear enough bad news all day and you’re looking to enjoy some positive company, so let’s change the topic.

7.     Replace negative media sources with positive ones.  And if you hear some good news, repeat it.  Help spread optimism to others.  For example I love to read about scientific breakthroughs and inventions.  So when I read about one, I’m sure to post it on social media or talk it up with my friends.  You can do the same with stories and videos that highlight goodness.

So what news sources have you found that are balanced and don’t pull you into a negative mindset?  Please let the rest of us know in the comments section.  This is your chance to share it with others who could benefit.

Surviving your first year after graduation (or any relocation).

My first year out of college was one of the toughest that I faced up to that point in my life.

I started my first professional job as an engineer.  I moved to a different state and begin to carve out a life for myself.  But after a month or so, I was like, "Hey why is it so hard to make friends all of a sudden," and I really started to feel the loneliness.  And that actually got worse as the months went along.

My wife had a similar experience.  In fact a lot of people will tell you that their first few years out of school were really tough. 

Why is that? 

First of all, in school you were surrounded by people your own age, and you had a lot in common with them.  So it was easy to make friends.  When you get into the "real world" your peers in your age group is just a small percentage of the people you need to interact with, say, on a new job.  So making friends requires a lot more work.

Second, because your pool of potential friends was large when you were in school, you didn't really need to deal with people that weren’t easy to get along with.  If someone has a difficult personality you just moved on to find a better friend.  But in the real world your pool of candidates is much smaller so you can't afford to be as picky.  And you’ll have to learn to deal with those difficult people.

And then third, in school you really didn't need to understand the basics of forming friendships.  The educational system is an artificial environment, and friendships just happen naturally.  Now that you're on your own you're going to have to be a lot more intentional, and learn those basic fundamentals.

So how do you do that? 

Well you’ll need to educate yourself.   I've made available a free ebook for you on this subject.  It's short (it's less than twenty pages so it's an easy read), and it's called, “How to Make the Friends You've Always Wanted."

When you read it, you’ll better understand how friendships progress and how to set appropriate expectations.  And it's loaded with practical tips to improve your social skills.  You can download it using this link http://www.petecoaching.com/download/friendship

It's going to take some work, practice, and adjustments on your part to build your friendship base up to where you want it to be.  But when you're armed with good knowledge it’s much easier. 

I want you to succeed and not make the same mistakes that I did.  So I'm wishing you all the best, and especially to the new class of 2015! 

Umm... Maybe it really IS you - how to tell if you're the cause of social missteps

In the last blog entry, we established that if people aren’t reciprocating your friendship attempts, they may be otherwise preoccupied so you shouldn’t take it personally.  They might be subconsciously saying, “it’s not you - it’s me.”

But what if it really is you?  What if the reason you’re having a hard time making friends is because you keep accidentally sending the wrong signals?

To get some background, download my free ebook, How to Make the Friends You've Always Wanted.  The last section has a list of practical tips you can use to improve your chances of social success.  

First, ask yourself if you’re doing any of these blatant no-no’s:

• You don’t properly introduce yourself
• You seldom smile.
• You have some bad manners
• Your breath is offensive
• Your grooming is sloppy
• You ask personal questions too quickly instead of warming up with small talk
• You have a self-pity complex
• Even if the chemistry is wrong, you still try to push for a connection
• You judge people and pigeonhole them
• You’re preoccupied and not engaged in the moment
• You dump your emotional baggage before you’ve earned someone’s trust
• You share inappropriate personal details
• You talk about sad topics like death, health problems, or your crummy boss
• You talk about yourself too much and don’t show interest in the other person
• You don’t talk enough about yourself, leaving the other person with no sense of who you are
• You come across as a braggart by only talking about your accomplishments

Second, if things seem to go awry again and again for you, try to look for patterns. 

• Do people typically lose interest at a certain point in your conversations (like when you start to go into too much detail about your work project or your geeky hobby)? 
• Do you notice that they tend to pull back when you tell them sensitive personal information?  Stop doing that - it's backfiring on you.
• Do certain types of people tend to pull away from you?  Perhaps you have some bigoted attitudes you’re not aware of.
• Do you feel an icy chill come over your conversations when you start to spout controversial opinions?  Keep it more neutral and reserve your venting for your closer friends.

If you can spot the root cause in a pattern and then adjust as needed, you’ll have learned a powerful skill.  But that’s not an easy task given that we all have blind spots.  That’s where a trusted third party can act like a coach.  Ask them to shadow you as you socialize and then give you honest feedback about ways you can improve.  And then _listen_ to their feedback without getting defensive.

And third, examine your overall state of mind and attitude. Don’t let these bad-boys continue to trip you up:  

• Self-pity - I'm just doomed to failure due to forces beyond my control
• Self-centeredness – your world revolves around only your thoughts and interests
• Lack of respect for peoples’ boundaries and comfort zones.

These take more time and deeper reflection to identify and root out, but don’t despair.  The fact that you’re reading through this shows your desire to grow.  Give it time, don’t quit, and continue to get feedback from some trusted friends.  They'll usually be more than happy to help you improve.

So be honest.  Has it really been you from time to time?  If so, what have you done to adjust your course?

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.