Picture Life As An Appletree

One of my favorite questions is ‘Are you living for one and a half days of the week?’

So are you?!

At the tender age of 18 I wrote a metaphor for life called ‘life as an appletree!’ It has pretty much turned into a way of life for me (www.appletreelive.com), and I guess has challenged me to make sure that the answer to that question is never ‘yes...unfortunately I am.’

The trunk is life. We move up the trunk through school, careers, family, assets and retirement, until we reach the top. We know there’s more than just the ‘ordinary’, and yet we cling to our comfort zone… our thick, safe, trunks.

Then there are apples. Apples represent the realities that we wish to create for ourselves; opportunities we know are for us. However, given that they lie at the ends of thin branches, we choose not to step out into a world of risk and fear to pick them. We stay on the trunk.

No-one wants to get to the end of their lives to find themselves sitting on top of their apple tree, looking down at piles of rotten apples lying on the ground, never picked.

Over the past 10 years I have realised that society seems obsessed with the trunk yet wants to step on to the branch. We are so focussed on ‘whats next’ - when are you getting married? when are you having kids? when are you having another? So it continues! The result is we are so focussed on the trunk that we miss apples. OR maybe we want to miss them... because they scare us. As much as humanity wants to be ‘happier’ they seemingly find it very difficult to break out of habitual patterns they find themselves in from too much time on the trunk.

Picking apples is scary business ... stepping out into new realities, trying new things, doing something that scares us, broadening our minds. Those that live for more than and a half days of the week seem to have something in common - they have taken risks, they are pushing through fear and they are challenging their comfort zones. It seems to be a rush!

How many times do we hear the eulogy message?? Someone wishes they had done more, lived more?

So heres the deal. Today I challenge you to step out onto that thing branch, to pick apples and to begin a journey that will change your reality. I challenge you to find an apple, no matter how small RIGHT NOW. I challenge you to look at what comfort zones you have found yourself in and look at ways to break out of them.

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Travis Gale has spent the last 5 years running his own development business in South Africa’s corporate world and is currently involved in various long term partnerships with clients across a number of industries. Furthermore he has travelled to conferences internationally hunting down latest trends and insights. Having cycled around the world and survived a tsunami, his passion for crossing borders often lends itself to an interesting blend of stories and insight. He sees himself as a ‘change catalyst’ and displays strength in facilitating insight into the right spaces. Find out more at www.appletreelive.com

Listen for the Whisper

God desires to lead and guide us, he wants to speak to us. As leaders it is essential that we hear him so we can effectively lead others.

But so often we struggle to hear.

Maybe it is because we are hoping that we will hear God’s booming voice loud and clear, telling us what to do.

However it never seems to be like that with God. But the promise is that God is speaking, so maybe we need to try things differently. Maybe God’s voice is drowned out by all the noise around us.

This scripture tells a similar story:
1 Kings 19:11-13: "The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

We have winds of work and stress, earthquakes of hurry, fires that burn with the desire for instant answers and solutions. But God so often comes as a gentle whisper, and these things drown out His voice. We can so easily miss it if we don’t take a step back, remove the noise and listen for the whisper...

Have you ever taken time out in silence and solitude?

In his book Leading On Empty, Wayne Cordeiro says that there are only four ways to live your life:

1. Reaction – passively dominated by urgencies and pushy people.
2. Conformity – succumbing to the fear of man and just being and doing what everyone else wants, which is not necessarily following God’s will for you personally.
3. Independence – nonconforming rebellion in the name of freedom, marked by doing only what you want and ignoring godly authority over you.
4. Intentionality – reverse-engineering your life and living it prayerfully and purposefully, journaling your thoughts throughout the day, and using silence and solitude to hear from God and organize your life.

How are you living your life now? Where would you like to be?

Why not try things differently from now on. Instead of wanting God to shout above the noise, why not try spend some time, turn off the noise and listen for the whisper...
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Don Muller has spent the last 4 years working into corporate and church leadership development and training both locally and internationally. He has a passion for and works towards seeing individuals live out their strengths and calling daily.

Pruning Tactics

Chapter 2 of the book Necessary Endings by Dr Henry Cloud is entitled ‘Pruning: Growth Depends on getting rid of the unwanted or the superfluous.’ I found this chapter both insightful and challenging.

Dr Cloud refers to the art of growing rose bushes. The Gardener who is skilled in growing healthy rose bushes intentionally and purposefully cuts off branches and buds that fall into the following 3 categories:

Healthy buds or branches that are not the best ones;
Sick branches that are not going to get well, and;
Dead branches that are taking up space needed for the healthy ones to thrive.

Dr Cloud refers to this metaphor as a means to encourage us to look at these 3 categories of necessary endings in our own professional lives. What really struck me from the metaphor was the idea that category 1 that a rose bush has only enough resources available to it to bring a certain number of buds to bloom - not all of them!

It simply cannot bring all of them to full bloom.

In order for the bush to thrive, some of the buds have to go.

Dr Cloud says ‘the caretaker constantly examines the bush to see which buds are worthy of the plants limited fuel and support and cuts the others away... He ends their role in the life of the bush and puts an end to the bush’s having to divert resources to them... in doing so, the gardener frees those needed resources so the plant can redirect them to the buds with the greatest potential to become mature roses.’ (page 16)

We have resources which are both precious and limited. Are we treating them this way?

Where are we directing our resources?

If we had to examine them through the knowledge that our resources can only bring a limited number of ‘buds’ to bloom which areas would we put them into.

Which areas would we take our resources away from?

Dr Cloud goes onto say that without the necessary endings of these buds we simply don’t get the best roses. If we are aiming at the ‘best roses’ or the fullest potential of what we are putting our hand to, we need to examine everything else that we are putting our hand to as well.

Personally I found a few areas that probably need to be cut away so I can direct my resources into the best ‘buds’.

You?

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Travis Gale has spent the last 5 years running his own development business in South Africa’s corporate world and is currently involved in various long term partnerships with clients across a number of industries. Furthermore he has travelled to conferences internationally hunting down latest trends and insights. Having cycled around the world and survived a tsunami, his passion for crossing borders often lends itself to an interesting blend of stories and insight. He sees himself as a ‘change catalyst’ and displays strength in facilitating insight into the right spaces. Find out more at www.appletreelive.com

Yes!

There is a sign on the verge of our complex.

I hate this sign.

It says:
NO! Skateboards, trespassers, hawkers...

What a nice word to see as you enter our complex... NO!

I understand that the sign is functional, but I feel that far too often we stipulate what we can't do, or what's not allowed rather than what's possible.

Imagine the sign read:
YES! To community, fun, hospitality, peace and comfort. That's the kind of complex I want to live in!

Like our complex, most teams, companies and organizations have a "sign" - a set of rules - of how we are supposed to conduct ourselves. I believe that such rules are absolutely essential, without them there would be no structure.

But think about your team's sign.

Is there a big NO!?

Or is there a big YES!?

We seem to be so picky about the negative and this limits us from empowering those we lead to flourish in their unique styles and strengths. Our job as leaders is to develop others, to show them how to maximize their gifts and reach a common goal, but all too often the approach used is one of control.

We want to tell others how they should act, how they should work, how they should dress, when they must arrive and leave. Again, as leaders we have a huge responsibility to prevent chaos. But in essence our job is to empower, not control.

Think about the language we use in our corporate culture. Are we controlling or inspiring? Saying No or Yes? Stipulating what we can't do or what we can do?

Simon Sinek, author and speaker, has what he calls an Allowed list for his team. I found this inspirational. His list is as follows:

You are allowed to:

1.     Make the decision you think is the right decision to make

2.     Start something that needs to be started to help advance the cause

3.     Ask for help whenever you want it

4.     Help others whenever you can (even if they don’t ask for it)

5.     Take time off to do something that inspires, excites and energizes you

Everyone is expected to follow these rules and everyone is expected to hold the others accountable to them.

Imagine if leaders developed a list like this? Imagine if we developed a culture that empowers rather than controls? I think our teams would be transformed!
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Don Muller has spent the last 4 years working into corporate and church leadership development and training both locally and internationally. He has a passion for and works towards seeing individuals live out their strengths and calling daily.

What Must End?

Yesterday I walked into Exclusive’s and a book title immediately grabbed me - Necessary Endings by Dr Henry Cloud.

I am not sure why it did but as I picked it up and went through a few pages I begun to think about the questions this book may open up around what I am committed to right now. We naturally strive to take what we do to new levels, new phases or new seasons. We as human beings are excellent at jotting down a new idea, a new vision or screening pictures of ideals that we wish to achieve.

Newness is attractive.

But do we ever think of what of the ‘old’ must end?

Henry’s opening line is (I reckon authors must pour so much time into that opening line!)

‘Today might be the enemy of your tomorrow’

What you are doing today and how you are doing it may be robbing you of the tomorrow you desire.

Some things may need to end.

He goes onto say that endings are a natural part of the universe and challenges us to look at how we see the endings which we need to face up to. Life has seasons, phases and stages. Why then do we like everything to look and feel the same all the time in our businesses?

Growth can very often mean that we have to move on from something.

What really makes sense to me is that we may have had to do what we have needed to do to get us to this point but the success of that action does not mean the action should live into the future.

It may be time to kill it.

Given I am only on chapter 1 perhaps this blog can offer no finality on how you go about figuring out what must end and how to end it.

But perhaps, like me, you can begin to have a look at what is taking up your time right now and ask yourself the question:

If this were to end what could it potentially mean personally and professionally?

Your answer for each area / action / relationship / strategy / project may just open up a window to dealing with what needs to be dealt with in order to take yourself to the next level.

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Travis Gale has spent the last 5 years running his own development business in South Africa’s corporate world and is currently involved in various long term partnerships with clients across a number of industries. Furthermore he has travelled to conferences internationally hunting down latest trends and insights. Having cycled around the world and survived a tsunami, his passion for crossing borders often lends itself to an interesting blend of stories and insight. He sees himself as a ‘change catalyst’ and displays strength in facilitating insight into the right spaces. Find out more at www.appletreelive.com

References

You can’t take people where you have never been before.

I heard a leader say this a few years back and that sentence still sticks with me today. It is amazing how one sentence can change the way you think, speak, lead and even live your life.

What this sentence did was provide me with a reference as to how I approach my life and leadership. It is an essential truth, if we want to continue to increase our influence and effectiveness we need to be intentional about our personal growth. We need to increase our references so we can continually take ourselves and others further.

If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you’ve always got.

That’s another one of my favourite references. It is stupidity to think that if we continue to do the same thing over and over again we will get a different result. It is thus extremely important for us to continue to build up our references so that we have unique and fresh ways to approach similar issues.

But how do we build these references? I believe the starting point in about being intentional. If we understand the importance of growing our references we will make sure it happens.

I have personally found these tools incredibly beneficial for me in growing my reverences:

Reading: You can’t beat the age old way of transferring knowledge – the written word. Books are a great way to learn new ideas and gain insight from stories. What are you reading at the moment?

Online: There are numerous websites dedicated to leadership and personal development, my firm favourite is Ted.com. If you haven’t already, go check out this inspiring resource, it will provide you with great insight.

Podcasts: Numerous authors and speakers have free podcasts where you can download free audio files of them sharing their pearls of wisdom. Get onto iTunes, search for your favourite guru and start downloading.

Conferences: There are many conferences run nationally and globally around leadership and development. When last did you attend one?

Mentors: Or how my friend Trav likes to call them, Primary Influencers. Who are you hanging out with and who is speaking perspective into your life? Having the right mentors can often be a powerful tool to build up your references.

We can only take people where we have been before. So where are you taking yourself?

Ideas

Why didn’t I think of that?

What is the one thing people say most often after they stumble across a great idea?

For instance, have you come across Groupon yet? If not have a look at what they are doing as they have been the center of attention lately. I recently came across this innovative eventing idea recently called Pecha Kucha and look forward to attending one of their events this week alongside what seems like a bunch of others according to their facebook invite. On a recent fishing trip I was awed at a very vibrant bar in the middle of nowhere which was in essence a converted shipping container.

All great ideas.

And the one thing I hear from peoples mouths when discussing these ideas is...

'It's so simple... why didn't I think of that!'

And its true isn't. None of these ideas are overly complicated! Yet we kick themselves for coming up with it in the first place...
But it's the lines that follow that interest me.

'Man, I had a similar idea!' or 'I have this idea which has been on my mind...'

It seems we don't have a shortage of ideas. It seems we have a shortage of execution on ideas. The frustration expressed in the 'why didn't I think about it' line is actually more about a lack of execution than a lack of coming up with an idea...

Its not that these great ideas are simple, its that they are now out there! And as similar as they might be to ours, the fact is someone took the risk and we didn't!

The problem seems to be something I could call 'layering'. Ideas are simple, we have established that already. But what we tend to do is layer the idea with all sorts of complications around the probability that the idea will succeed.The running of future scenarios tends to keep us away from kicking off in the first place.

Perhaps we take simple ideas and make them complicated?

Perhaps those that execute on ideas keep reminding themselves to just keep it simple?

Or perhaps they just know they would rather execute even if they were to fail than be one of those who wishes.... that they had 'thought of the idea in the first place...'

I hope we will be talking about your idea around the fire sometime soon...

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Travis Gale has spent the last 5 years running his own development business in South Africa’s corporate world and is currently involved in various long term partnerships with clients across a number of industries. Furthermore he has travelled to conferences internationally hunting down latest trends and insights. Having cycled around the world and survived a tsunami, his passion for crossing borders often lends itself to an interesting blend of stories and insight. He sees himself as a ‘change catalyst’ and displays strength in facilitating insight into the right spaces. Find out more at www.appletreelive.com