When Serving Gets in the Way of Serving

I remember a friend of mine told me a story once.

When I saw her she was really upset.

Being the kind, sensitive guy that I was, I said:

"What's your problem?"

She explained that, at her work, there were certain tasks that most people didn't enjoy doing. Since no one wanted to do it, her employer set up a rotation so that everyone had to do it, once a week.

On this particular day, my friend wanted to do something nice for one of her co-workers. So she volunteered to perform the undesirable task when it was her co-worker's turn.

"That's great," I said. "So why are you upset?"

"Well," says my friend, "He didn't even say 'thank you.'"

I thought about this for a second. I knew how that felt: to give to someone who didn't appreciate it. I could totally empathize. And I probably should have just nodded my head and said something like, "That must be really tough. I'm really sorry."

That's what I should have said.

That's probably what I would have wanted said to me. It's probably what, years later, my wife would have wanted me to say if she were telling me the same story.

I know this now. But this was a long time ago.

"I'm confused," I said. "Did you help him to be kind or did you help him to be thanked?"

She blinked at me.

I discovered later that this had never crossed her mind: the possibility that we serve sometimes not to give but to get.

Now, I hear sometimes people say that it's impossible to be selfless because if you get something out of giving then it becomes selfish. I'm not sure what making that particular point is supposed to prove, but I do know that there's a huge difference between giving and expecting something in return and giving something and expecting nothing in return.

And I know that when you expect something in return-- when there are strings attached to love--it actually ruins the fun of giving for everyone involved.

For me, being married has provided lots of opportunities for me to give without expecting anything in return.

Granted, I never take any of those opportunities...

But all joking aside, there is something incredibly refreshing (and unfortunately rare) when you decide in your mind that you're going to do something that you know someone else will benefit from without them ever knowing, or at the very least without expecting (or needing) any kind of reciprocity.

I've also noticed that the human spirit doesn't naturally drift into free acts of charity. It actually takes intentional choices to move us not only into the path of generosity, but of string-less generosity-- where we can walk away not needing anything in return.

It's not easy, but it's healthy. It's not natural, but it's good. So let's cut the strings, and what we'll realize is that those strings were holding us captive as well.

Danger is Good.

I read the most fabulous feature in Good Magazine a while ago.

They did a study on the evolution of playgrounds in the past 50 years. Turns out, that's all you can study because that's how long they've been around.

That's right: my DAD is older than the IDEA of playgrounds.

Most playgrounds today look something like this:

I think we can all agree that this playground completely sucks and is fun to play on for about...oh...5 minutes.

There's no risk playing on this thing unless you count dying from heat if you fall asleep inside it or the occasional static cling when you go down that infernal slide.

It's almost entirely safe, static and boring-- just how our soccer moms wish life was all the time.

And this was the point of the Good article, noting that these environments do not foster creativity nor a healthy preparedness for life after pastels.

But the article also pointed to a resurgence of ancient ideas of play being reintegrated into western culture. These new areas have hybrid names: Nature playgrounds, Loose Parts Playgrounds, Adventure Playgrounds, etc. But really they're just good 'ole fashioned dangerous places where entrepreneurs who care about kids let them do their thing.

They look like this:

Now, this picture is enough to make a soccer mom swallow her Doublemint gum.

These playgrounds do have supervision. But they also have completely modifiable environments and opportunities to get dirty, get hurt and the raw materials to create a whole lot of...whatever kids want to create.

Dovetail this with a conversation I had with a new friend of mine. He has had to work incredibly hard to get where he is in life and he was telling me about the tension as a father to provide a better life for his kids.

"I want them to be safe...but overcoming danger is what made me who I am today," he said.

"I love my life. I love who I am. But for some reason I would never let my kids have the same experiences I've had. It's almost like I think they can develop resilience without resistance. Or like they can become strong if everything comes easy."

He paused and then said: "I think I'm discovering that danger is good. But don't quote me on that."

Too late.

As leaders, what kind of environments do we create for others? Do we create static, safe, predictable environments or do we throw our people into the deep end with the right materials (or maybe the wrong ones?) and spend more time cheering them on as they create and less time turning them off as we micro-manage tasks that were too small for them anyway?

??? = Fun

Yesterday I was playing with my nephew, Xander.

We were in my parent's backyard (aka the Indian Ocean). The swing was a pirate ship. The dog was a dolphin. The evergreen tree was a Japanese commerce ship that couldn't carry weapons until an amendment to archaic laws crawled its way through their sluggish democracy.

(Who says you can't do current events and play at the same time?)

Needless to say, we were the pirates. And we do what all Somalian pirates do:

We make up songs that go to "A Pirates Life for Me."

As we were getting into the 32nd verse, I started to explain to him what it was like for me to play in the back yard when I was a kid.

"The trees were smaller...and there were no fences. So the ocean was like, 50 times bigger."

"Whoa," says Xander.

Whoa indeed. "A PIRATE'S LIFE FOR ME!!"

One time for a date with the lady who is now my wife, I bought a kids board game and some legos. Now, that might not sound very romantic...but it was totally awesome. I think she had a good time...and I KNOW I did.

YO HO.

And it reminded me of when I was a kid. When I was a kid, we made cross-bows out of legos. We rode our bikes for miles without touching the handle bars and we made (really bad and rarely finished) short films (complete with Miles Davis soundtracks).

In short: we played. We played a lot.

And I was wondering why I don't play as much anymore.

When was the last time we played? When was the last time we left the edit button behind and spontaneously sang whatever came to our minds?

My roommates (before I got married) would unexpectedly burst into song when one of us was in the shower while the other two got ready to go...wherever it was we might be going. Mostly Oldies. It was awesome.

I listen to NPR a lot...but sometimes I just gotta put on John Mayer Trio and turn my steering wheel into a drum set and the stopped traffic on the 110 into a captive audience.

Recently I got to write and direct two short films. I gotta be honest: I have not had that much fun in a long time. I mean, my job is a lot of fun. But storyboards, working with amazing people, laughing, telling stories. It was fun.

Legos with my wife = fun.

Short films with friends = fun.

Improv Pirate songs with my nephew = fun.

What goes on your list? And how can you add to it and live with it more often?

Serving the Future You

About two years ago a friend of mine was going through a really hard time. He was busy but not feeling fulfilled. He was surrounded by people but didn't really feel known by anyone. It's a really common place to be...

It's a really dangerous place to be.

My friend is young, uber talented, a good-looking dude. He creates a lot of positive energy when others are around him. When he moves, people follow him. But sometimes the pressure gets too high or the loneliness goes too deep, and we start making decisions that go against the grain of who we want to be.

So I found myself sitting across a table from him in a cafe near LAX. It was late.

But it's never too late.

"Right now," I said, "Your actions only affect a small amount of people. Your friends, your family. Some of the people you lead. But that's now. And now turns into tomorrow quicker than you think."

He looked at me and I remember thinking, "I love this guy so much." I know it's weird to say, but hey-- if Jason Segel and Paul Rudd can say it, so can I.

And then, before I could stop it, these words escaped from my mouth:

"You are destined to lead. It's in you and I know it's kind of a crappy deal sometimes, but that's the way life goes. So although it seems your life is small right now, your influence is going to get bigger. Probably a lot bigger. Which means the mistakes you make are going to get bigger, too. Which is why we're having this conversation now."

"These issues in your life, it's time to start working through them. The You 20 years from now needs you to. You don't want to be 40-years-old with these choices to wrestle with. The 40-year-old You will have way bigger problems, way greater challenges to deal with. He'll have a wife and kids. He'll have responsibilities that would scare the hell out of you now if you knew it, and he won't be ready unless you start serving him now."

"For the sake of the Future You, and the thousands of people you will be leading, fight this. I believe in you. I know you can do it. I know you want to do it. So do it, and know that you've got a friend for the journey."

We finished our coffee (I got orange juice because I hate coffee) paid the waitress and went our separate ways. I drove home that night with the Los Angeles cityscape reflecting off my beat-up car wondering if I said too much or if I didn't say enough. It's hard to know, sometimes.

But can you relate to my friend? Can you relate to his sense of destiny? That fragile whisper that you protect and rarely talk about that says you were meant for something extraordinary? Maybe you can relate to his loneliness or his subconscious drift into a life he would never consciously choose.

For you, it may already be late.

But it's never too late.

Cheers to Movements!

Bloggers note: I actually like the show Cheers.

But this blog isn’t really about that.

It’s about the counter intuitive emotions we feel that get in the way of what we really want.

For example: the feeling we feel when we walk into a space and we don’t know everyone. Some people walk into that environment and they think, “Great! New people to meet!” These are the more entrepreneurial types. They’re more extroverted, inclusive, generally fun. These people are more precious than gold to social movements.

Then there are others [often times like me] that have this thought, “There’s so many people here. I don’t know everyone.” It’s not social anxiety disorder…it’s something else. These people enjoy smaller groups, deeper conversation. They are more precious than gold when it comes to

slowing social movements down…

So many groups, clubs, and teams all hover around the 30-people mark because [among other reasons] there’s this innate feeling that can be articulated by people in the group that sounds something like this:

I have to know and be known by everyone in the room.

And this thought is [one of] the kisses of death for any movement.

It's not that our desires for intimacy are bad. It's that we sometimes try to meet our intimacy needs through large group gatherings.

Movements don't move forward unless those of us who long for deep connection realize that it’s actually good that we don’t know everyone. It’s good that this room is crowded. It’s good that our community is shifting from a group to a crowd.

Leaders often times need to dispel the myth of Cheers: that it's good when everybody knows your name. Cheers was a great show about an incredibly dysfunctional small group of people. [but even they had to introduce new characters to keep the show interesting].

If you're part of a any community, the challenge is to shift it from a group of friends to a culture of friendship, not where everybody knows your name but where everybody knows somebody…

…and are looking for more ways to invite others in.