Jim and I spent last week travelling to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.  We drove there from our home, taking time to enjoy the adventure of the journey.  With two weddings fast approaching in our house, we thought that a little getaway to celebrate our wedding anniversary was just what we needed.   Jim and I have had a visit Mount Rushmore (and The Little Bighorn on the way) on our list for years.

As you can imagine, there is more to this mountain than the rock.  The story of Mount Rushmore is incredible.  The idea for a sculpture in the side of a mountain originally came from a visionary who thought that this would bring people to the area, thus helping with the economy.  Presidents were not the original idea; rather western icons were in the first plans.  However, the sculptor who was commissioned to do the work had a dream that the faces carved in stone should be faces that molded the country into the grand place it had become.  It was the sculptor who chose the presidents who would be represented.  Many people thought that the whole idea was absurd; that it could not be done.

What struck me most as we arrived at Rushmore, besides the high school choir singing the Star Spangled Banner, the perfect blue sky and the majesty of seeing the stone faces, was the incredible attention to detail that had been given to each of the Presidents faces.    The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, had carefully constructed a model, from which he worked, and he used the measurements from this model to create the mountainside treasure.  Many men, including Borglum’s son, worked on this project that spanned 14 years.  We learned that each morning Borglum climbed over 700 stairs to get to the area where the carving (and blasting) was being done.  He oversaw the fine details of each of the Presidents faces while he was there.  But at the end of each day, and at the beginning of the next day, he would look at the mountain from below to get a good view of the total picture.  The result is truly a masterpiece. 

This fine dance of Borglum’s, that of paying careful attention to detail while not losing the perspective of the ‘big picture’ was what created this iconic national treasure.  Borglum understood that the dance consisted of learning all of the specific steps, and then putting them together to create the beauty.  Truthfully, this is the same dance that each of us is given the opportunity to participate in each day of our lives.  We do need to pay attention to the details that fill our days.  However, some of us get so caught up in the details that we forget to notice the big picture that is being created.  The truth is that it is the big picture that will be on display in the end.   If we never stand back to observe our work and to notice how each of the small acts that make up our days, over time also create the story of our lives, then we miss the opportunity to create our own masterpiece.

This week I challenge you to do two things.  First, attend with diligence to the details of your life.  Second, step back and take a broad view, so that you are able to see the masterpiece that you are sculpting.
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Have a great week.

Last weekend the golf world was fixated on the Master’s Tournament.  Jordan Spieth was the reigning champion and right up until the final 9 holes in the tournament he looked like a sure thing.  However in sports, as in life, “It’s not written until it’s over”.  Unexpectedly at this year’s Masters, one bad hole turned Spieth’s game on its tail and the outcome was not what had been such a sure thing only hours prior.

In life, a similar game often plays out for each of us.  We are so certain of an outcome that we feel that there really is no other possible conclusion.  Perhaps we slip into ‘cruise control’, assuming that there is no point in imagining different endings since the ending has already been established.  But what if this was not the case?

Think, for example, of a situation at work or in your personal life where the same script predictably plays out repeatedly.  You might say, “I’ll mention it but I know they have their mind made up already”, or “ I might as well just do it, no one else will take this on”  or “There is no point in hoping for that; that isn’t the way it happens here”.

Some people actually use this mentality, not only for things in daily life, but also in the way that they picture their ‘Big Life’.  They are so certain that they know exactly how it will turn out that they stop noticing possibilities. 

I imagine that Danny Willett, the unexpected winner of the Master’s Tournament this year, is pretty thankful that as he headed into the final 9 holes of golf, he did not simply assume that Jordan Spieth would be the winner and that he would be second.   Despite the solid lead that Jordan Spieth had, Danny Willett dared to work with the possibility of ‘what if’.   And he continued to play his absolute best.  Against many odds, he ended up victorious.

I wonder what possibilities have escaped each of us because we were so willing to allow prior expectations to dictate our willingness to try something again – even when we had plenty of evidence that the outcome would likely not change.
If it is true that “It’s not written until it’s over”, then the story of our life is not yet finished.  The most wonderful news is that we are the author of our story and we get to choose exactly what that story will be.
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My challenge for you this week is to look for a possibility of an outcome that you would not normally expect, and to ‘go for it’.  I’ll bet that Danny Willett is very glad that he did!  

​This week I’ve been busy preparing a workshop that I am going to facilitate late next week.  The topic for the workshop is Communication – in particular, how to become an effective communicator in the workplace.
 
A statement that tends to really help me frame communication is one that I read quite some time ago.  I wish that I could remember exactly where I read it so that I could reference it here, but even though I don’t know the exact source, I clearly remember the sentiment.  It is that all relationships are based on communication.  And even more important, that all relationships are strengthened OR destroyed, one conversation at a time.
 
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When I first read that statement, I was very humbled.  I thought back to three or four recent conversations that I had had and I assessed whether they had been building or destroying conversations.  I would love to say that I have only had building up or strengthening conversations.  However, that is not true for me. This is a very good mini exercise to do.  It’s a great snapshot of life. 
 
 I suspect that all of us have had several (dozen perhaps?) tearing down conversations.  Sometimes these happen in the midst of heated discussions.  But there are other times when they simply happen because of carelessness.  We may be distracted and not give our full attention to the other person.  This often sends a message that we do not care; the reality may be that we do care but that our attention is simply somewhere else.  However, the result is the same – a relationship destroying conversation.
 
If we only have one of these conversations every so often, there is not very likely permanent damage to a relationship.  However, if they become a habit, if we become careless with our conversations, the end result is often not what we hope for.
 
Lately I have heard about a number of long term relationships that have come to an end.  Some of these were professional, most were personal.  Most of them have not ended because of one defining moment or action.  On the other hand, most have ended because bit by bit, over time, the relationships were destroyed one conversation at a time. 
 
The relationship that conversations have to relationships over time can be compared to the similar effect that water or wind has on the landscape over time – no visible change on a daily basis, but huge change over the years.  Several weeks ago, Elephant Rock, one of the more famous flowerpot rock formations, in Hopewell Cape, NB, came crashing down, erasing a landmark that had brought tourists from around the world to see it.  There had been no catastrophic event to precipitate this.  No doubt there had been some cracks in this rock.  And one night in March, the regular action of the tide was too much.  If water was a voice,  I wonder if this final wave was a shout or just a thoughtless remark.
 
In the upcoming week, I imagine that each of us will have hundreds of conversations.  My challenge for you this week is to choose one of those conversations, preferably one that has the potential to become a ‘destroying’ conversation, and consciously create a ‘building up’ conversation.  Take a minute to observe the effect that it has –both on you and on the other person.

For some reason, this week I was thinking about the trip that Jim and I took to the UK to visit our daughter Kaitlyn when she lived there.  Jim just loved riding ‘The Tube’ in London and he especially loved seeing the “Mind the Gap” signs that were posted frequently to remind riders that there was a space between the subway cars and the subway platform.
There is often some wisdom to be found in the simple things in life.  So it is too with “Mind the Gap”.

There are two fairly simple ways in which I see this being applicable to our lives.  First, there are many times in our days when we have partial information to work with.  For instance, we might be expecting someone to come home at a certain time and they do not arrive as expected.  Or, we might send an email hoping for a certain response and no email arrives in the time we had expected.    In the absence of information, our mind fills in the gaps.  I wish that we had some mini “Mind the Gap” signs that could be implanted for such occasions.  It would save us a lot of angst!  The “Mind the Gap” signs posted in London are not there to tell commuters to not step off or on to a subway car.  Rather they are there as a reminder to simply be cautious.  To not make forward motion without being mindful of what we are doing.  The Gap is simply the unknown space between two known things.

 So it is with our minds.  In the above example of sending the email, the known thing is that we have sent an email.  We also know what the content is.  Until we receive a reply email, we do not know the second thing.  And so, there we stand at the edge of the platform, looking at the gap in front of us that seems to get bigger and bigger.  The problem is that we have a tendency to fill this information gap with any possible number of outcomes.  We tend to turn to our biases of how we see the world to help us with this.  Often the possibilities we choose to focus on really just amount to ‘awfulizing’.  For instance, we may think that the person who received the email has been offended.  We may surmise that they are waiting to respond because they do not know how to let us down easily.  Or perhaps they are now having a good laugh at our expense.   On and on we go, not minding the gap, but simply filling it with our thoughts.  The little “Mind the Gap” signs that I wish we could put into our minds would remind us that we are simply in that space between two things, one that we know and one that is yet to be revealed to us.  These little signs would remind us that the gap is simply that:  a gap.  It is a space in time.

A second way that mini “Mind the Gap” signs could benefit us is when we are the ones responding to something or to someone.  Stephen Covey speaks about our ability as humans to be response-able.  That is, we have the ability to choose our response in any given situation.  There is always a gap in between the time that a comment is made to us and our response.  If a mini “Mind the Gap” sign popped up right before we responded, it would serve to remind us to use caution when responding.  To take a few seconds and make sure that our response is reflective of what our intention is.  Just as on the subway in London, the sign would not tell us to not step forward.  It would simply remind us that there is a space, or a time, that we can use to decide where to plant our foot. 

Your thought for this week is to “Mind the Gap”.  Notice all of the little opportunities there are for you to make a decision about where you step.   You will be amazed at what a difference these little signs can make.