Tiger, Brands, and Integrity

The next point on our personal awareness continuum is around integrity. Integrity has a simple definition – being consistent in thought, deeds and actions, and having that consistency align with the values that we have developed throughout our lives.

Given the whole Tiger Woods situation, I’ve been thinking a lot about this component lately. I don’t think Tiger is necessarily out of integrity – I think his alleged actions support and are aligned with his true values. Think about it, even if 10% of what is playing out is true, you can’t behave in those myriad alleged behaviors without it being ingrained in your value system that those activities are OK. But I do think some (in not all) of the brands he’s sponsored are way out of integrity, and that’s the exact reason why you’ve not seen a Tiger ad since this thing broke. What that will ultimately mean will play out in the days, and perhaps years, to come.

We all fall, and we make choices that fail to live up to the values that we set for ourselves. But when we do live up to our expectations, and especially when we do so in trying situations, the reward is dignity, clarity, peace, and the self-respect that comes from being true to who we really are.

As I get older, I see this and appreciate this more deeply.

Honesty and Me

What happens when we’re not really honest? With me, the answer is pretty easy. I’m the world’s worst liar, as my wife will readily attest. The fact that I’m able to play some descent poker despite this “tell” is a wonder to me – I’m not sure of the difference between the game and the rest of my life for me, but there obviously is one.

The bottom line is that, as healthy, functioning adults, we’re not in the business of lying. We convey what we know to be so. But sometimes we choose not to convey everything. That isn’t necessarily a lie, but choosing to withhold something of which we are aware.

At the end of the day, it’s just as bad.

We all have examples of times in which we got sunshine blown up our skirts, and ended up getting hurt because of it. Contrarily, we also have friends or loved ones in our lives that we know will always give us the straight dope, and when we really need to hear it like it is, we seek those people out.

So why do we withhold? A quick answer would be “I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.” But if you really think about, whose feelings are really being spared? I think if deeper analysis is conducted, the feelings that are being protected are our own. Ultimately, withholding is selfish, counter-productive, and potentially hurtful.

Think back to those people that give us the straight dope. Do we love them less because of their candor? No. To the contrary, their unbiased counsel is exactly why we love them.

So curtailing my withholding is a new concept I’m trying to apply to my life. Note that this does not necessarily need to be solely an external exercise. For me, personally, my bigger issue is around what I withhold from myself.

This one will require a lot more work, but hopefully I’m on the path that will allow me to address this appropriately.

All of Life is a Choice. Really.

Perhaps the biggest revelation of all of this analysis is the concept of choice. My entire adult life, and much of my adolescent life, consisted of stuff I “had to do.” I was mired into a path in which I had very little control over my life. The result of this view was one of increased stress, feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy, and at times abject dread.

In reality, I always had a choice. In fact, I am the result of choices I’ve made in my past, and my path forward will be a result of the choices I make in the future. The challenge is in seeing that EVERYTHING is a choice. What a difference it makes to consider that “I choose to work on my personal relationships” instead of “I have to work on my personal relationships,” or “I choose to wake up early and work out” instead of “I have to wake up early…”

I recognize that this is somewhat a game of semantics, but if you consider the mindset shift required to get there, the result is so empowering. It has meant so very much to me to have my eyes opened in this way, and I’m a calmer, happier, and more optimistic person because of it.

I know I can’t control what life throws at me – that’s life, right? But I always can control what I choose to do with it. And that, to me, is a real gift.

Awareness, Or How the Present Is Way Cooler than the Crap in My Head

The start of my enlightenment at our retreat two weeks ago was around the concept of Awareness. Ever since I was a kid, I have been preoccupied with the tapes running in my head that covered my past, or in frivolous projections of possible futures. As a result, there have been so many times that I have been unavailable, either partially or totally, to those around me.

There are two big ramifications of this: 1) I missed a lot of life! I was simply too busy wrapped up with some crap that I had hauled into my head to enjoy/understand/feel what is happening right now. 2) I did a total disservice to those around me. I should have been fully engaged – fully in the moment and culling out that specific experience. Instead, I was only 90% there. Or 50%. Or 30%. How rude.

Too much of my life had been going on cruise control. What I did, what I felt, how I acted, what I ate, how I spoke, all of it was just so rote. I was not in tune with my environment – both internal and external. As a result, there have been ramifications. My relationships aren’t as close as they should be. My heath isn’t as good as it could be. And I’ve become withered by the nearly constant internal dialog that is perpetually dredged up about every negative thing that I did (or did not do) to myself or others. My God, it is a depressing and shallow way to live.

Hence I’ve begun a new path to be ever conscious of my immediate environment, my body, and my emotions (and their source). I’m more actively engaged and actually take physical stances to be more successful at remaining fully engaged and aware. While I’m not totally successful, I know that I am making significant progress from where I was before, and my interpersonal relationships are better than they were. I’m also not constantly kicking my own ass for stupid stuff I did in grade school. Oh yeah, it was that bad.

I have a long way to go, and much more to practice, but these last two weeks feel like I’ve lived my life far more fully, it seems, than I ever have. Let’s hope the progress continues.

The New Path?

I spent the last three days in an exhaustive team-building exercise in Chaska. I must admit that my thoughts going into the process were quite skeptical - I had done the "rah-rah" thing before, and given what was on my plate, I couldn't handle three days out of the office.

I could not have been more mistaken.

The process was an intensive one, with days starting at 6:30AM and finishing after 9:00PM with basically no time for breaks. It was built around a "ropes course," and leveraged the primal fear of heights to elicit human emotional reactions at the very core, and frankly, the incredible things I learned about others and myself through the process have the real opportunity for me to change my life. Yes, sports fans, I have drunk the Kool-Aid. And drunk deeply.

I'll be covering this subject in detail in subsequent posts under Performance Unlimited (also the name of the sports psychologists that conducted this training) and this coverage with be in part to share my experience and what it has meant to me, and part of it will be an attempt to keep me on this new path that I now tread. It may not be applicable to you, and if that turns out to be the case, I apologize. I have a small but loyal audience to this blog, and I do not take you for granted. However, one of the reasons I started this blog in the fist place is for me to have an outlet for what is raging in my head. And all of this is raging, and raging indeed.

The foundation of all of the training and the mindset, and the things which was so very revolutionary to me, is that in order to perform at the highest of all levels, either as an individual or a team, the following need to be present:

Awareness > Choice > Accountability > Honesty > Integrity > Trust

I present these the way that I do as I see these as a progression: One cannot really see choice unless they're clearly aware, one cannot accept full accountability unless they first recognize that there was indeed a choice, etc.

I intend to delve into each of these as subjects over the next months. I promise we won't load up too much on this, and there will be plenty of the other stuff you've come to expect. Also, I know I'm delinquent on my next installment on Blitz, and we'll be getting back to that soon as well.

Until then...