I’m thinking of creating a frozen custard stand in a foreign country.Talk about random thoughts, right?I may not ever do it, but I wanted to explore the thought.  I also thought I might share the thought with you.  Here’s my thinking:Not many people outside my state know about frozen custard. When I lived in Miami, I had to drive almost more than an hour away to get some!“What is Frozen Custard for?” I think it’s for community connection, and communities are for support. The frozen custard stand is a living legend - generations upon generations still enjoy their custard.Something this unique with beautiful associated nostalgia is a compelling product.Perhaps this frozen custard stand would be built in a country that places a strong emphasis on community culture, similar to the small community where I grew up?  Maybe we’d find we have more in common than not? Maybe that would inspire generations upon generations of people to create new traditions? On the contrary, maybe it would spur a culture of overfed and obese citizens? Anti-United States imperialist rhetoric?  Truthfully, I might not ever make a frozen custard stand. But, I can create a culture where people share intentions and ideas that might be random, off-the-wall, thought-provoking, or downright crazy.  Hopefully, sharing these ideas will beget the creation of more ideas.When we share and listen to more ideas, we step into a posture of possibility and creating culture.Also, Learn what Ulysses and frozen custard have in common.By the way, if you’re from the Milwaukee area, I don’t care what you say, and I’ll debate you to the cows come home, Gilles is the best. Hands down and without question.Also, I am aware that the photo might look more like “ice cream,” which I know is different than custard! I humbly request you to suspend your judgment and embrace the spirit of the photo.

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.” - Viktor Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning"Way to start the post on a positive note, right? Quite honestly, yes.  A while ago, when I first started this blog, I wrote a post on Legacy.  After doing more reading, I wanted to re-share some of my thoughts but with a refined lens.Is the work we’re doing, so important, so valuable, and so needed by the people we serve that they’ll miss it when we’re gone?As you think about the question, try not to think about it from a surface level, “well, of course, someone will miss me when I leave for another company.“Think about this question from the position of your mortality.The genesis of this blog started from a rethinking of my mortality. Additionally, I believe there’s a kind of hope that ignites when we think about the mark we leave on the world.That hope is magnified when the mark we leave is needed.  So, think about the question I proposed. Think about what you’re doing now - parenting, learning, creating, performing, or any work that matters to you. Will people miss the work you do after you’re gone?How can you make what you’re doing last beyond you?

We’re quick to name things.

• We’re quick to understand what something does.
• We’re quick to understand how it does it.
• We’re quick to understand when it does what it does.
• We’re quick to understand who does it.  
• We’re quick to understand where it is. And,
• We’re quick to try and understand why it’s in our life.  

But, and here’s the big but, we’re slow to understand, if ever, what it’s for.  

The window is open this morning. It’s 8:06, and the room is filled with the sounds of keyboards typing and birds chirping with one another.

Imagine if we only ever heard one type of bird sound?  

That when we walked outside and listened for the birds, you only ever heard one type of sound - “tweet tweet tweet tweet.”

Ravel, a composer, understood the beauty of bird calls. In Act II of “Daphnis and Chloë,” you can hear the sounds of piccolos and three violins mimicking birds’ sounds atop a bed of lush chords.  

I see a framework as a structure of support. A paradigm is a framework.A system is a framework.As is a relationship.Like any structure, frameworks can change.Kids misbehaving at a gathering?The framework that a parent operates by might suggest a form of discipline (negative reinforcement) is appropriate. What about, “We were invited here because our friends felt we were the kinds of people that showed respect, care, and love to others. They talked about how much they enjoyed spending time with us and how much their kids loved you. What else did you come here to offer our friends?”  Your kids might answer, “respect, fun, and friendliness.” Then you could answer, “does running around their house, which caused this item to break represent the gift we wanted to give our friends?“I’m not a parent, and I’m not offering parenting advice (I’ve learned not to do that from my sister, who is a parent). But, I am offering a way to adjust the framework of “discipline.“What other frameworks, or structures of support, exist in our lives?How we do our work.How we show up for others.How we lead.How we follow.Adopting a posture of possibility means adjusting the frameworks that support how and what you do.  If you’re stuck in the slog we’re in, and can’t find a way out, rethink how you’re thinking about it. Perhaps there’s an opportunity in areas you never thought possible?  At the end of the day, what’s built can easily be changed.You just need to have the guts to do it.

Can you remember a time when someone ignited your passions?  Perhaps it was a trolling post on Facebook?Maybe it was an inspirational speech?Seeing your friend survive cancer?In some way, these stories inspire us - their gifts. They disrupt our expectations in some way, and from that, they give us the gift of possibility. Consider the trolling post on Facebook.Let’s say you see a friend post about a moment that’s happening now. A friend comments on how your friend is blind to what’s going on - they’re naive and stupid. Now you’re upset, and you’ll do what you can to prove the commenting friend wrong.  The gift is a disrespectful comment on Facebook.The disruption is an expectation go awry. You expect people to treat each other with respect, and your friend was not.Within you, a passion for avenging the unfair treatment of your friend erupts.You give way to passion and enroll in the journey of proving your friend wrong and showing them a better way to comment.Enrollment is a commitment that occurs when passion inspires action. And, when we enroll, we’ll remain committed to the very end.Once you’ve adopted a posture of possibility, you’ll need to enroll in the journey. That’s what makes possibility a reality.

It was the fall of 2001.I sat outside a Starbucks with my Carnival Stritch University music school classmates, and two of my professors. We were gathered to discuss a book we were supposed to have read, “Who Moved My Cheese?“Here’s the thing, I never read it.  I underlined one passage from the intro, but when called upon to share my insight, I dodged and pivoted an answer in the way only a lawyer’s son could.  (Side note: Given that I am no longer in school, I feel comfortable disclosing this deception to the professor currently subscribed and reading this post. Sorry, Charlene!)Back to the point - I finally read the book today. Wow.  This is not a book review post, it’s a post about serendipity.We are in rapidly changing times at the moment. Many people have lost careers, evidence to suggest spikes in COVID-19 in different states, and civil unrest. We’re all trying to figure it out. The thing is, change happens - the cheese moves, and we need to move with the cheese (as the book would have you believe.)We can’t expect tomorrow will be like today or yesterday, it can’t because it literally isn’t - it’s tomorrow.  I made mistakes in college. Quite honestly, I don’t think I was an individual ever cut out for college - that’s another post. But, I’m glad that I came across this book and decided to read it. In fact, I almost feel this book was meant for this moment.  For that, I am thankful.To all of the teachers out there, thank you for being an inspiration.

“The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.“Jonas is best known for creating the Polio vaccine. You can read more about him via Wikipedia. This post isn’t about Jonas, though he has quite an interesting background, it’s about his quote as he received the Congressional Medal for Distinguished Civilian Achievement.The artist’s reward, and you’ve heard me talk about this often, is not to fame or fortune. It’s also not about creating a body of work comprised of their own statements. It’s about receiving the opportunity to do more.If you write music for others, your reward is being invited to write more music.If you recruit others for an employer, your reward is recruiting more people.If you develop code for software, your reward is creating more code.If you are a raiser of children, your reward is that you get to raise your children again the following day.And every time you get to do more of what you love doing, you receive an opportunity to do it better.The ability to do more of the things that make you come alive is, to my mind, the greatest reward. Why?Because that’s where change happens.  If you do more, you create change, creating change is a gift for others, gifts create meaningful and positive change.  And,That’s creating culture.

They’re invisible. A few days ago, I wrote about how glasses create clarity. “But, put on a pair of glasses, and those problems become solutions. The metaphorical glasses I’m referencing are the mindset of possibility. When you adopt the posture of possibility, the path to a solution becomes clear.” Here’s what’s interesting to me, the lenses that we use to create clarity are invisible to us - you don’t know they’re there, but they are. Be aware that you might be seeing the world through a lens of limitation, frustration, and resentment. Take off those glasses - you don’t need them. Put on something that will help you see things for what they are, find clarity, and come alive.HT to Gib Gerard, Rob Scott and the Intelligence for Your Life Podcast for offering the idea that lenses are invisible.