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When I first moved into our new apartment, I recognized a gentleman who I had worked with 7 or 8 years ago lived in the same complex. Today I saw him getting out of his car, and stopped to say hello.

I’d forgotten what a joy it was to talk with him. He’s truly a gem of a man, and always inspires me to do great things. His gentle confidence is infectious, and his insights invaluable.

Age has crept up on my friend, and I’m sad to see him wrestling with challenges that aren’t fair for anyone to face. He’s got a smile still, though, and seems to be enjoying other aspects of life just the same. I doubt he’ll ever give up fighting, and know he’ll always be putting that great mind to use.

I promised to stop by the office where he works, and to see how my old co-workers are doing. He’d love to contract with me to redesign their web site. If the timing is right, I think I’d be willing to tackle the project. We’ll have to see what happens.

Friendships like that should be cherished, not forgotten. I’m sad to say I have not maintained this friendship well enough. I plan to renew it, and to be more diligent going forward to keep my end of the friendship going.

To Cherished Friendships,
JP

It’s hard to say I feel older today than yesterday, but glancing at the calendar tells me I should. I’ve heard age is a state of mind - you pick a favorite age and stick with it. For me, I think I’ll pick twenty-four. That was a good year.

Don’t get me wrong. Each year gets better and better, but twenty-four was a year that catapulted my growth as a person, as a Christian, as a friend, and as a husband into new heights. I love growth, even though sometimes it hurts. Twenty-four was a year of unequaled growth in so many aspects of my life.

To be honest, I anticipate twenty-eight to be a year of similar growth. Kristen and I will close escrow on our first home. We’ll watch new ministry efforts grow in maturity through our church. We’ll strengthen friendships that have been in the making for several years, and forge new ones that may last even longer. Many changes await us, but I’m excited for the opportunities.

Maybe in a year I’ll say I pick twenty-eight as my permanent age. The forecast is looking good.

I just finished the third book in Ted Dekker’s The Circle trilogy: White. My friend Laura recommended the series to me, and even let me borrow the first two books in the fall, Black and Red.

I thoroughly enjoyed the series, and would highly recommend it to those of you who enjoy a good fantasy read. The story follows Thomas Hunter as he tries to make sense of two worlds he somehow lives in — whenever he falls asleep in one world, he wakes up in the other.

I loved the premise for the two worlds colliding, and Dekker’s execution of the story is masterful and packed with suspense. Each book was a great page turner — I stayed up late into the night (well, OK early morning) to finish Red and White.

I have another of Ted Dekker’s books on my bookshelf, Thr3e, which I plan to read this year as well.

I’ve been a Lakers fan my whole life, and still remember when the Portland Trailblazers led by Clyde Drexler, Buck Williams, and Terry Porter ran us off the court — only to be thoroughly dominated by the MJ-led Bulls. Now the Trailblazers have a reputation for paying too much money for the “thugs” of the league. They finally got rid of Rasheed, and then this happens.

Some kid named Qyntel Woods goes and uses his pit bull in dog fights. If only he was high at the time… then he’d really trump Rasheed.

Maybe Paul Allen will finally get the hint and pursue some quality guys to play on his team. Or maybe not.

Every once in a while I get the urge to do some programming. These days my programming seems to be limited to PHP/MySQL web pages, but once in a while I like to write a quick windows utility to keep my skills up.

I’m thinking of writing an XMLRPC Blog client that takes advantage of Blogging platforms which support the MovableType and Blogger APIs.

In either case, good programming fonts are a must when using a code editor. There’s nothing worse than confusing a 0 with an O. Or an l with a 1.

I’ve been partial to Andale Mono for some time now, but I’m going to try Bitstream Vera Sans Mono to see what all the fuss is about.

Insights into our shortcomings are rarely pleasant. Insights that are painless are even more rare. This morning I’ve been struck by re-reading a bit by John Maxwell from his book, The 21 Most Powerful Minutes in a Leader’s Day. The passage I read today related to what John calls “The Law of Buy-In.” Basically, people will buy into the leader before they buy into the leader’s vision — in fact, they naturally follow in that order.

Why this principle never stuck before is a mystery to me… but last night solidified it for me. In a meeting where I was trying to cast the vision for a new direction I’m trying to take our leadership team, I realized that a little over two-thirds of the team was tracking really well with me. A few were slow coming around, but got the vision in the end. But there were a couple of teammates who just seemed to struggle to see where we wanted to go.

While it is tough to not have consensus, I realize that in any group of significant size, consensus is rarely a reality we enjoy. However, now the challenge before me is to come along side those who are not grasping the vision and help them to see why we want to pursue this new direction. This is where the Law of Buy-In plays its part.

The teammates who grasped the vision the quickest are the ones who have known me the longest. I can remember this being the case in school projects as well. My teammates have to know me before they are really willing to follow me. That is a principle I recognized in the past, but failed to apply last night.

Moving forward, I’ll be certain to build relationships as a key step in the process of casting vision. Without the proper relational groundwork, I can see that my efforts will be less effective in the long run.

The upside? We’re still moving forward with the vision, and the team is excited to see new things develop as a result. I have a lot more work in front of me, but to be perfectly honest, I’m looking forward to the challenge.

We never keep our minds on the present moment. We remember the past, as if we wanted to slow down the passage of time. And we look forward to the future, as if we wanted time to accelerate. We wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think about the only time that does.

We dream of times past and future, and flee from the present. The reason is that the present is usually painful. We push it out of sight because it distresses us - only on those few occasions which are truly enjoyable are we sorry to see time slip away.

We try to reduce present pain with joyful hopes of the future, planning how we are going to arrange things in a period over which we have no control and which we cannot be sure of reaching…The past and present are our means, and the future alone is our end.

Thus we never actually live, but hope to live. We are never actually happy, but constantly planning how to become happy.

— Blaise Pascal, Spiritual Classics: Selected Readings from Blaise Pascal

 

Do your duty in all things. You can not do more. You should not wish to do less.
— Robert E. Lee

 

A favorite artist of mine — and one of the few that I’ve ever met in person — will be in Santa Barbara tonight. His name is Justin McRoberts.

He performed at an event at Magic Mountain several years ago — just him and his guitar, no band, no backup singers, no lip syncing. He rocked the stage, even though he was opening for another favorite band: Five Iron Frenzy. After the show, as I was walking out of the amphitheater, I caught him out of the corner of my eye, and went up and said hey. He was completely normal… and struck me as a guy I’d just enjoy hanging out with. Not a lot of those types around the music scene these days.

It was quite a night, and I’ve followed his career ever since. He’s in Santa Barbara tonight at Reality, the college group that meets at Calvary Chapel.

I’m not sure I’ll make it, but I’m going to try to be there if I can:
Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara
1 North Calle Ceasar Chavez
Phone: 805-455-7680
Web: www.realitysb.org
Time: 7:30pm

In my leadership readings for the week, I’m learning about reproducing leaders, or mentoring. The question for today is this:

Are you ready to begin thinking beyond your lifetime?

The truth is, I’m not. I continue to soak up leadership material, and to learn as much as I can from leaders who have been in the trenches of various organizations. But in the end, it is very difficult for me to begin thinking about my legacy when I’m so young.

Perhaps as I get older, or perhaps when I’m not in a startup organization, it will be easier to see that I have a legacy that is being created. For now, it is really hard. I’m surrounded by people older, more experienced, and in many cases wiser than I. How am I to mentor them? I really don’t have an answer yet.

In the Bible, there is a verse that says something like: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”

I think that’s my goal right now. People may look down on me because of my age, but if I live a life that is excellent in what I say, what I do, how I care for others, how I am consistent in what I believe and how I behave, and how strongly I hold to my convictions, I’ll eventually earn the respect of those who know me well.

For now, I feel like I’m still at the trail head, and have yet to travel very far down the trail. Eventually, others will follow, but today I’m hoping to just lead myself effectively.