A Letter from Chris Suarez
IF THE WORLD WAS ENDING
Dear Partners,
My daughter and I will often sit in the same room while reading together. Somehow she has developed the art of reading a book and listening to music at the same time. I say “art” because it's definitely not a useful skill. As distracting as it is to me, I live with it, as I enjoy her company and the habit we have of reading together.
Today however a popular song caught my attention as the message is one that I had been both reading and writing about this week. In the song, JP Saxe and Julia Michaels continue to repeat the question, “if the world was ending…” and then go on to ask each other if they would think differently, act differently, in effect be different. Built into this question is a challenge as to whether or not we are living experientially. Built into this question is a challenge as to who is making choices for us. And built into this question is a challenge as to whether or not we would make changes if the world was…ending.
Let’s take on those three challenges together.
Challenge 1: Experience.
The phrase “if the world was ending” is a bit dramatic of course. With that said, I often describe life in phases. Phases come and go. They have a beginning and an ending. If we rephrase the question to be “If this phase of my life was ending…” it allows us to reflect on whether or not we really experienced that phase as we had intended to. As we reflect on our past phases, did we accomplish what we set out to do? Did we set aside the time to experience what we wanted to experience with those that we wanted to experience it with? I had a pre-child phase of my life and I of course will have a post-child phase of my life. I had a phase of my life living in New York, and I have a phase of my life currently living in Oregon. I had a phase of my life in school and college, and I have a phase of my life post college.
Author, Bill Perkins, writes about the importance of bucketing your experiences - planning out the experiences you intend to have in each phase of life. The important thing here is that as that phase “ends”, the opportunity to have any specific experience in that specific phase ends with it. We have a limited number of days to have experiences with our children while they are living at home for instance. If that phase was ending this year, or this month, or today, would you do something different this year, or this month, or today? If the answer is yes then the challenge is to think and act and be different now, instead of later. Make those experience happen now while you are still in that phase. If we keep putting off the experiences we intend to have, we will go thru phase after phase of our life without really living that phase, or more appropriately, without really experiencing that phase.
Remember we all have on average roughly 30,000 days to create and have experiences. The average person will live about 10,000 of those days in their single phase. Unfortunately the average American lives just 3,000 of those in their married phase. We will live 6500 days with our kids under our roof. We will live about 5000 days during our career phase. Build and create experiences in each phase strategically.
Challenge 2: Choose.
In the song, JP starts out by saying he "was distracted”. There is wisdom in that word. Too often the reason why our lives seem to go so fast (kids grow up, a decade of our career disappears, grey hair or wrinkles chase us down) is simply because we aren’t making choices. Too often the reason why we get to the end of a phase and wish it looked different is because we didn’t really make any choices before that phase started, nor while it was happening. We wind up doing something because we are “supposed to do it”. We build a business because it's just the next thing to do. We fall into chasing down “the American dream” and yet, who’s dream is that really? Which American dreamed that and chose that for you? Everyone else's opinions, suggestions, assumptions can be just distractions.
We counteract these distractions by ensuring that we are making choices. Choose the type of relationship you will have. Choose the way your children will be educated. Choose the schedule you will keep and the income level you will hit. Choose where to be, when to be there, and with whom to be with.
It is very easy to speed through different phases of our lives looking to please others, impress others, or meet other’s expectations. These others could very well be people you care greatly about. And these others can also wind up being people you don't know, you don't care about, or that don’t care about you. Ensure you have chosen the people in your world incredibly carefully. Next week I’ll share some thoughts on the importance of the people around us.
Challenge 3: Change.
In the song, Julia sings the words "it’s fine” multiple times. And maybe it is. It’s just..fine. There-in lies the problem. We settle for fine. We are unwilling or unmotivated to change directions, change our focus, change our habits, or change our environment because, well, “it’s fine”. Too easily, we convince ourselves that we are fine, things are fine, results are fine. Simply by the definition of fine - meaning “satisfactory” - we should avoid it. I assure you that if a phase was ending, or even if your life was ending, and in that moment you felt inclined to describe your journey through life as “satisfactory”, you certainly would be wishing you had made some changes earlier. It is of note that when we use that expression in the future tense - "it will be fine" - it seems to imply a calm or a hope for the future. Yet when we use that expression in the past tense - "it was fine" - it seems to imply that the phase that just unfolded was unimpressive, almost unmemorable. Beware of falling into the trap of fine.
Take inventory of anywhere in your life you feel things are just fine. Choose to change that. This isn’t built on the premise that we shouldn’t be satisfied. It’s built on the premise that living a mission driven, vision focused, and values grounded life and business is anything but “fine”, or “satisfactory”, or “average”.
Experience. Choose. Change.
A life filled with experiential choices is filled with change.
Chris
PS: You can listen to the song referenced in this week’s letter by clicking here.