A Walk in the Woulds'
(Unknown Author)
I was doing well, running a district office in Denver for a Fortune 500 company. I had
a company car, was making good money, was my own boss and could come and go as I pleased.
And I was bored.
I was discovering the stress associated with doing something that neither held my
attention nor gave me pleasure. I found myself getting into the office by 10:00 a.m. to
avoid the rush hour traffic, and leaving by 4:00 p.m. to beat the traffic home. Subtract
two hours for lunch, an hour for whatever, and I was working three hours a day.
My wife suggested that I go back to school to get a graduate degree. I took her
advice, and my future was forever changed. I was well-schooled in the world of business,
comfortable with a spreadsheet and calculator. But because I had found people so different
and so unpredictable, I'd stopped worrying about the people involved in a project with me
and focused on just moving forward.
Enter Leonard Chusmir, a former executive with Knight-Ridder and a formidable
instructor. Leonard taught me that people DO matter. He taught me to look behind the drama
in people's lives. He helped me to see better the "why" in what people do or
don't do. The power of his teaching lay not in the ability to analyze others, but in the
ability to analyze myself.
Then I met a fellow night-scholar named Bruce Fitch. He ran the Professional
Development Program for the Colorado Outward Bound School, and he asked me to participate
in an upcoming program. He had a "Rolex" group coming in - senior executives
making lots of money. Bruce felt my business background would help supplement the staff's
professional background in mountaineering.
So there I was with a group of "go-getter" executives and managers from a
Fortune 500 organization. We're out in some of the most beautiful land in the world. We're
hiking, were climbing, we are having the time of our lives.
I became friends with the group's senior ranking executive. "Would you like to go
for a walk?" he asked me one night. We walked through the clear, star-filled night
with a full moon as our guide.
I was as content as a person can be, when suddenly, this senior executive started to
cry. Then his shoulders started to heave and he appeared to be unraveling. I was schooled
in business, not the human heart. We were miles from base camp and I was at a loss as to
what to do.
After a while he began to speak of a life lived with no relationship with his wife,
his children, or even with himself. "Do you want to know what a day in my life is
like?" he asked. "When I finally get home, I have two or three martinis and fall
asleep in front of the television, only to wake up and start over the next day. I've been
dead from the neck down for as long as I can remember. For the first time, on this trip, I
feel alive."
And then he thanked me.
I realized that this man's awakening to the poverty of his life was what my
experiences, friends and wife had been telling me. With that insight, I sat at the
crossroads between "could" and "would." I could continue to live my
life as I had been, or I could choose a life that would make a difference in someone's
life, such as this man's.
Today, I only work with clients on what they would like to do, not on what they could
do. I invite everyone to take a walk in the "woulds."
"According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I
laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But let each man be careful how he
builds upon it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is
Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious
stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it,
because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will test the quality of each
man's work. If any man's work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a
reward. If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be
saved, yet so as through fire.
"Do you not know that you are a temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God
will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. Let no man
deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become
foolish that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God.
For it is written, 'He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness'; and again,
'the Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless.' So then let no one
boast in men." ~1 Corinthians 3:1-21~
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