I find that a lot of people hold their head up just far enough to make it through the work week, one hour and then one day at a time.  This routine is somehow comfortable, reliable, and closely held by people to undermine what could be an expansive, but unknown future.  I’ve never identified with how it would be easier to not think about goals to attain, lessons to be learned, problems to be solved, new relationships to be made, and connected thoughts to be created?  I’m still learning about patience and pacing with leading others, but why set out to stand completely still?

Early in my professional career I worked quite a bit with a 40+ year employee named George.  He was very near retirement and sought to teach me a life lesson, which I vividly remember and still appreciate to this day.  He began by saying, “You’re always looking to stir things up.”  He added, “Let’s think of it this way.”  “There is a bucket of sh*t sitting in the corner, if you leave it alone, the smell will eventually go away.”  “But, if you keep stirring it up, it will smell every time.”

Leading a group of people requires a unique and often individualized balance between standing still and constantly stirring the bucket.  Seeking to find and sustain this balance with others dramatically improves overall productivity, goal attainment and professional enrichment for all that chose to learn and to progress into the future.

“It isn’t the past which holds us back, it’s the future; and how we undermine it, today.”

                                          —  Viktor Frankl  —