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Be the Change

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One of the most tattoo-worthy quotes to ever emblazon a meme is, “Be the change.” Shortened from “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” the origin of this quote is apparently misattributed to Gandhi.

If you want to waste 20 minutes of your life as I did, you can read the raging debates among internet scholars to arrive at the same conclusion I did – who cares? The origin of this quote does not matter. It could have come from Dr. Phil, Forrest Gump or Miley Cyrus for all I care.

What matters is that it is a beautifully simple, profound suggestion. If you want to see change in the world around you, become an agent of that change. Duh!

It is so simple, yet putting this idea into practice seems too difficult for most of us to bother. After all, what can one person do to affect change? Can we really change the world?

The answer to that question is an unequivocal YES. We can absolutely change the world. Now we may not alter the course of human events or earn a page in history books, but we have the power to change the world of those around us.

We all have spheres of influence in which we can create change. I think of this sphere like a body of water.

Some of us live in small ponds where the shores of our influence might not be wide-spread. While some of our social circles are more like large lakes. Every action we take has some impact on that body of water, like tossing a stone into its depths.

Our more mundane actions cast pebbles into the water leaving little ripples that dissipate quickly. But some of the choices we make or the words we let fly are like boulders crashing through the water’s surface. The waves are large and far-reaching. If you are married, your spouse is probably most affected by your waves.

Within that relationship often lies the greatest opportunity to change the world. Over the last couple of years, I have had several men share with me that their marriages were hurting and heading towards divorce. Without fail, those conversations inevitably turned to complaints about what their wives do or don’t do to contribute to their marital strife.

My advice, without fail, is “you need to focus on you.”

If we want our relationships to change, we have to change. I can almost guarantee that those wives who weren’t living up to their husbands’ expectations could share similar lists about their husbands’ shortcomings.

Put another way, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” That line is a little too long for a tattoo, but the sentiment is similar.

We have the power to change our world for the better. But if we don’t change, we can’t expect our relationships to change.

You want to change the world? Do it.

Start today by being unexpectedly kind and gracious to your spouse regardless of how they act towards you.

Stop complaining. Drop an annoying habit. Pick up a healthy discipline. Pray for your spouse daily. Hug more. Go on more dates. Talk more. Be the change.

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My Kind of Minimalism

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Last week Jody and I watched a film called Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things. This was not a feel-good piece, but the movie was definitely thought-provoking.

At the film’s end Jody posed a simple question, “What are you going to do about it?”

I don’t yet know the specific answer to that question, but my general answer is ‘something.’ I want to do something about it.

For the uninitiated, The Minimalists are a couple of former corporate lackeys who exited the rat race, forgoing their six-figure salaries and their cocoons of comfortable possessions to pursue more meaningful lives.

According to their own words, Minimalism is, “a lifestyle that helps people question what things add value to their lives. By clearing the clutter from life’s path, we can all make room for the most important aspects of life: health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution.”

This was a fitting film to watch during Lent. The forty days we spend in this season are meant to be more intentional and more focused. We strip away the habitual and nonessential to clear the path to clarity during these weeks.

These 40 days represent the time Jesus spent in the wilderness enduring temptation. During his time in the desert, He was promised all the kingdoms and riches of the world if He would only compromise his principles. Yet He didn’t waiver to the allure of excess.

Before the documentary’s credits were even done rolling, Jody was ready to put a For Sale sign in our yard. While I am not quite ready to make that leap, the idea of stripping away unnecessary spending and the resulting clutter has great appeal to me.

As I traversed this Lenten season, stripping away the unessential was a focal point. But my brand of minimalism has been focused on mental and emotional clutter. I am thinking less of the things I need to remove from my life and more of thoughts that are weighing me down.

What lies are keeping me stuck?

What unhealthy mental patterns play out in my life?

What areas of my life have I put on cruise control?

Where do I need to grow? What is keeping me from growing?

What unimportant pursuits am I allowing to steal my time?

What habits should I let go of?

What thoughts should I let go of?

These are the questions that have been burning in my mind during Lent – questions further stoked by this documentary. What mental and emotional baggage am I carrying that is cluttering up my life?

I struggle with self-inflicted anxiety and stress. I worry too much about what people think about me and often overcompensate as a result. These stressors lead me to be impatient and angry, sometimes with the folks I love the most.

These are just a few pieces of the baggage I carry – the clutter that creates discontent in my life.

What am I going to do about it?

Something…definitely something.

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The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Step – A Big Scary Step

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My faith journey has been a long, difficult road. I started out strong as a kid, but in my teen years I began a prolonged detour that lasted into my 30s.

One of my personality traits that has made this journey difficult is my fear of large tasks.

Whether it is home repair, work projects or self-improvement, I look at undertakings that require many steps and many hours of work, and paralysis sets in – keeping me from taking the first step.

Or I may take the first couple steps but leave the job undone. My wife loves it when I do that with home projects.

When it came to my faith, I saw the ideal state that I wanted to attain; I saw my broken state.  There was a light year between the two, and part of me thought, “I will never get there.”

But when I finally fully committed to this journey, I completely changed my view of the destination.

I used to look at Christianity like it was joining a karate dojo. I thought you mastered certain disciplines, demonstrated that mastery to your sensei and were awarded a new belt until you worked your way up to black belt status. There were so many belts between white and black that I couldn’t muster the energy to work on the first discipline.

Now I see my commitment to this journey much differently. To me faith is more of a compilation of many little choices that I make each day.

Every day I face dozens of decisions. The instant I wake up, I am presented with choices: Do I hit snooze? Do I exercise? Do I read the Bible? Do I go into work early? Do I write a blog?

Some of the decisions I face are significant, while most seem pretty mundane. But they all have the power to create change. All of my choices create some ripple in the universe, big or small, that will affect me and those around me.

What will I do next? What will I say next? What thoughts will I allow to take up residence in my mind? When I break my journey up into small decisions like this, faith seems a lot less intimidating.

I will be the first to tell you that I don’t always make the best decisions. Some of the paths I take are selfish or lazy. I don’t always think about what the impact will be to my wife or my kids.

Sometimes words escape my mouth that I wish I could take back. Sometimes I lose sight of the bigger picture.

But I choose more right paths than wrong. As a result, the overall trajectory of my journey is positive. I am continually moving towards growth even with all the backward steps I take. The man I want to become isn’t some far-off destination. He is here now – being formed one small decision at a time.

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On the Road Again

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As I write this, I am 35-thousand feet above the ground hurtling away from my family at a rate of 450 miles per hour, bound for Los Angeles.

I remember a time in my life when I thought this was cool – visiting far-off places, eating funky foods and breaking from the routine of life. While I still enjoy those things, they are most enjoyable when shared with my wife.

I am en route to a business meeting that will consist of around 60 of my peers. Confession time – I am not a fan of business trips. But I bet if I were to poll my peers on how much they enjoy business trips, I would get a variety of responses.

Some of these folks likely share my distaste for business travel. For some this trip is probably a welcome break. It may be an escape from a chaotic home situation.

There are homes filled with newborn cries. There is the stress of sick or aging parents. There are likely marriages in crisis. There are teenager troubles…terrible twos…teething tots. There is the lingering pain of lost loved ones.

I know this to be true, because my home has been filled with many of these same struggles. Our house is often loud. We often forget to be patient with each other. We fail to recognize that others in the house might have had an even worse day than we did.

On any given day, there can be all sorts of challenges awaiting me when I walk through the door.

But I love it. The highlight of most of my days is when I walk through that door.

As crazy as my home can be, it is also a source of peace in my life. It is the space where I get to fulfill my greatest calling. It is where I practice humility, patience and grace – where I can fail miserably at those traits and know I won’t be fired. It is where I am a respected leader and where I am being led.

It is my oasis. And I do everything in my power to ensure I spend as much time there as possible.

I work extremely hard to protect my time with my family. This means I can carry a lot of stress at work as I do all in my power to leave on time each day. Time management is essential in my life.

When it’s not possible to complete my weekly work within 40 hours, I go in early (versus staying late) to add productive time. If I don’t have minutes to spare, I avoid small talk and stay laser-focused on my tasks. I work through lunches, and I don’t schedule meetings that aren’t essential.

I go to great lengths and shoulder a lot of weight to consistently walk through my garage door around the same time each evening.

And it is so worth it. My greatest achievements each day don’t happen at work. They happen in my home when I am present with my wife and kids. I cannot wait to get home!

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Sometimes I Need Smacked – Sometimes A Whisper Will Do

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stooges2A few days ago, my wife described to me a concept she’d read about called a ‘Sacred Echo.’ The idea is that when God communicates with us, the really important messages get repeated over and over – through books, songs, the words of a friend, TV, a sermon at church, a random email, etc.

I explained to my wife that I knew exactly what she meant, having experienced it several times in my own life. But I use a far less elegant term to describe it – ‘God Smack.’

God often has to smack me upside the noggin with a message before the light bulb clicks on above my head.

My life can get so busy, and I can get so focused on insignificant things that I sometimes fail to hear the information being communicated through the world around me. Can you relate?

Most of us have probably experienced moments when an undeniable thread runs through our lives, mending together a patchwork of seemingly random events or encounters. And when we take pause from the disarray of our days to process the pieces into a whole, we realize we are being called to action.

Most often it’s a subtle echo. Occasionally it’s a smack to the head.

One such undeniable calling in my life has been humility. I have been hit with this word many times, and for good reason. I don’t practice it nearly enough.

Like a stooge, I sometimes have to be dragged by the ear and receive a poke to the eyes before I take notice of the need for change in my life.

In the past decade, I’ve received a couple of messages so undeniable that only a fool would fail to heed them. My sister passing away at a young age and my wife telling me she thought we would be better off divorced shook the foundation of my world.

Both helped me see how little I sought to please anyone in this world other than myself. And both were catalysts for major life changes.

HUMILITY – right upside my temple – twice!

These events hurt deeply and led me to realize that I don’t ever want to sit around waiting for a blow to my dome to prompt me to grow.

I am reminded daily of my need for humility when I listen, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do more often -listen.

I tune into my wife’s needs, listening for unspoken cues. I look for how my actions are reflected in my children, for areas I need to change as a parent.

Perhaps most importantly, I respond to internal nudges towards more selfless acts. Well, sometimes I respond to those nudges, and sometimes I still pretend I don’t hear them.  I’m a work in progress.

The world around us whispers to us daily but often gets drowned out by our busyness and self-focus. My suggestion – be vigilant. Keep your ears and eyes open.

What instruction or calling is echoing through your days? Listen for it. Act on it. Save yourself from a smack upside the head.

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The Day I Wanted To Rip A Man’s Arm Off

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One of the most difficult things that I’ve ever witnessed, and felt powerless to do anything about, was seeing another man flirt with my wife.

I have seen it numerous times – another man showboating for my wife, laughing a little too hard at her jokes, overly excited to see her, intrigued by everything she has to say, lightly touching her arm or shoulder, stupidly grinning from ear to ear, unaware of (or at least unconcerned about) my presence.

There is a switch that flips in me in those moments where my nice guy façade is replaced by a man who believes he could literally rip another man’s arm from its socket. Now, I have never ripped another man’s arm off, but in those moments, I’d sure like to give it the old college try.

Over the past weekend, I attended a men’s conference where the speaker shared that he’d had similar experiences, minus the severing of limbs. He shared that from across the room he saw another man clearly flirting with his wife, and that anger began to well up. Then a small voice inside cut through the anger and said, “You should be flirting more with your wife.” Ouch!

That line struck me hard. I don’t remember everything that was said at the two-day conference, but those words are still ringing in my ears a week later. Thinking about how little I flirt with my wife made me want to rip my own arm off and smack myself with it.

So in the name of reducing severed arm injuries, I’m going to pass along advice that was passed on to me at that event. Here are 10 ways we can flirt with our wives:

  1. Spend time with her alone
  2. Listen to her deeply – without distraction (phone, TV, computer)
  3. Touch her – not as a means to an end, but simply holding hands or putting your arm around her
  4. Accept her unconditionally
  5. Be committed to her – especially with your eyes
  6. Encourage her with your words
  7. Take care of her financially
  8. Laugh with her
  9. After God, make her your top priority
  10. Be her best friend

In 15 years of marriage, if I’ve learned one thing about women, it’s that they want to feel accepted, loved and wanted just as they are.

Even though I know that to be true, I sometimes find it hard to translate that knowledge into action, but these 10 actions are pretty sound ways to make that happen.

I can’t control other men hitting on my wife. She’s beautiful and outgoing, and that draws men to her.

But what I can control is how I act towards my wife. I can build her up. I can show her how important she is to me and remind her how beautiful I find her. I can make another man’s flirting less of a threat simply by doing a little flirting of my own.

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My Dog Ate My Marriage

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Six months ago, my wife (Jody) and I decided that our lives were way too calm and predictable. We didn’t own nearly enough things that had been peed on or chewed on. So we decided to remedy all that by purchasing a Golden Retriever puppy.

The first few months of dog ownership were predictably tough. After a couple of weeks of it, I toyed with thoughts of ‘accidentally’ leaving the gate to our fence open so our puppy could answer the call of the wild.

But alas, I never gave into that temptation. I decided to ride it out, believing that he just had to get easier with time.

Our dog, Chewy, isn’t a puppy any more, although he still acts like one in many ways. He certainly lives up to his name, chewing on anything and everything within his reach. The lanky dog’s bite has left impressions on more things in our home than I care to count, including our marriage.

Before we got Chewy, we had developed some habits that helped us focus on our marriage, but those habits promptly evaporated as we had to dedicate time and effort to incorporating the new recruit into our clan.

For the past few years, Jody and I have had a ritual of getting up early to exercise and read. As part of her routine,  Jody would send me an email  nearly every morning, so the first thing I saw when I got to work was some insight into what was going on in her world. And I would respond, giving her a glimpse into my world.

This was a small, yet important, part of our communication that helped create closeness and understanding in our marriage. But the first few months of having a puppy are almost like having a newborn. Our sleep suffered, so we started getting up later to offset the loss of sleep. And Jody’s morning routine now included walking a dog, which meant there was no time to email me.

Another one of our disciplines that suffered was what we call ‘No-Tech Tuesday.’ One night a week we turn off the TV, phones, laptops and tablets and simply talk to each other. We usually have some questions in hand to guide our conversation beyond surface-level chatter, and through this process, we learn what is happening with each other.

This has been a vital way for us to create intimacy and to help me gauge the pulse of our marriage. I believe in this practice so much that I started a web site called no-techtuesday.com. Yet as our time and attention spans were spread thinner, this well-established routine fell.

Losing these two seemingly small practices from our marriage hurt our relationship. As the communication dropped, the distance between us widened. In the absence of intimate conversation, doubt crept it. And I was reminded of the years our marriage spent in the wilderness before we developed these habits.

We got back on the bandwagon recently, and almost instantly, I felt the temperature of our marriage change. It amazes me how we survived so long without these practices. But then, that pretty much sums up the first decade of our marriage – just surviving.

If that is where you find your marriage today, I would encourage you to develop new habits of your own. Find out what your spouse’s greatest needs are, and build new routines into your life that help you meet those needs. Small habits can truly be the difference between surviving and thriving.

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Why I Keep Going to Marriage Conferences

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megaphoneA couple weeks ago, my wife and I attended our fourth marriage conference. Having been to so many of these, I thought a free t-shirt might be in order. I was wrong.

One might think after my third conference, I would be a subject matter expert and wouldn’t need to attend any more of these events. But I am a slow learner.

Every time I leave one of these conferences, I take away something different, because the messages strike me differently depending on the context of my life. Each of the events met me at a different stage in my marriage, and each gave me different ideas for how to be a better husband.

This weekend’s message about the different communication needs of men and women struck me right between the eyes, because in the context of my own marriage, I still struggle in this area. The need for improvement really hit me on the car ride home after the first day’s session.

Jody and I had a small disagreement that led to a long silent car ride home.  A half hour feels like an eternity when you are in a car with your spouse who is giving you the cold shoulder.

I felt so ashamed to be that couple that gets in a fight on the way home from a marriage conference…to be the husband who still doesn’t get it. So I thought, why not put it in writing and share with anyone interested? This is who we are, warts and all. My hope is that sharing our junk with others will give hope to someone somewhere.

This particular tiff started over something so small, but don’t they always? I won’t go into all the details, but non-verbal communication was at the core of the disagreement. Because I am so quiet, my wife is often left to guess what my actions mean. And my socially-awkward actions sometimes conspire to convince her that I’m not happy with her when that is truly not the case.

So I have to fight against my instinct for quiet solitude and remember to regularly reassure my wife, letting her know that I love her and that I think she is beautiful. Even though I know this to be true, I still struggle to transform this knowledge into action. It just doesn’t come naturally to me.

When the speakers got on stage Saturday morning, they shared that every woman needs this reassurance. To paraphrase the words of Jeff and Shaunti Feldhahn, your wife may know you love her, but there will be times when she needs to be convinced and reminded – sometimes repeatedly.

According to the Feldhahns’ research, most women worry that their relationships may be 3-4 arguments away from ending. They need reassured that we would choose them all over again and that we don’t see divorce as an option.

When my wife and I have disagreements like the one we had this Friday night, it’s easy for me to think that the issues stem from her neediness. But this weekend pointed out that my wife’s needs don’t spring from some personality flaw or deficiency. I learned that many of the things that perplex me about my wife are signals that she is feeling insecure about our love or the relationship.

That is why I keep coming back to these conferences, not looking for a free t-shirt, but because I continue to learn how to be a better husband. These events spark dialogue between us, and they increase my understanding of the fairer sex. What man couldn’t use that?

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The Customer Is Always Right

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For the 2012 model-year, Honda pulled the wraps off an all-new Civic, and consumers politely asked them to put the wraps back on. Automotive journalists were much less polite, using words like bland, cheap-feeling, unadventurous and lackluster to describe the car.

The most-oft critiqued aspects of the model were the exterior styling, cheap interior, harsh ride and excessive road noise. Honda took notice. But they didn’t just take notice, they took action.

Major changes in automotive design usually move at glacial speeds, taking around three years from conception to implementation. However in an unprecedented 18 months, Honda released a refreshed Civic that addressed the major quips from naysayers.

One of Honda’s most meaningful measures for success is what they call “Lifetime Owner Loyalty.” In other words, are their customers coming back to buy their products? To achieve this loyalty, they continuously gauge their customer’s satisfaction with their products and with their service experiences. And they take the customer’s opinion of their product seriously.

What would it look like if we all did the same thing in our marriages? What if we treated our spouses as if they were our customers, and we actively sought to understand and exceed their expectations?

Marriage will be the most important contractual agreement that most of us will ever enter into. Yet we will spend more time researching and buying our next car than we will dedicate to reading up on how to be a better spouse.

Many of us act like salesmen when we are dating. We polish ourselves up, put on our best behavior and shamelessly promote our selling points. Then we close the deal and eventually stop caring about whether or not the customer is pleased with the product.

There’s no lemon law in marriage. You can’t take back a dud spouse once the deal is penned. But divorce has become a viable option for many as the luster of a new marriage fades. I would venture to say that most marriages that end in divorce do so largely because of dissatisfaction caused by unmet needs. My marriage almost ended for that very reason.

It took me more than a decade to ask my wife, “What are your top ten needs?” I made assumptions about her needs and how she received love based on my needs and how I receive love. I used to always wash our dishes, thinking I was showing love through my act of service. But Jody wasn’t receiving love. She needs to hear that I love her and that I find her beautiful – needs that I was woefully inept at filling.

If I were to run a business this way, dishing out a product based on assumptions and failing to keep my finger on the pulse of the customer, the business likely would have collapsed in much less than a decade. And yet, I pushed through a decade of marriage without once truly seeking the input of my sole customer.

If you are in tune with your spouse’s needs, good for you. I am too…finally. But if you have never asked your spouse to identify his/her top needs, do it today. Have them write the needs on paper, and you do the same with your own needs. Then carve out an hour when you won’t be distracted by kids, work or electronic diversions, and talk through your list, sharing what each need means and specifically how it can be met. I promise, your spouse will be glad you asked.