Happy Sunday Everyone:
I’m on a plane to Nashville, SW airlines. The guy in front of me, who is a full 12 inches shorter than me just pushed his seat back. Can you blame him? I can’t, but I’m reminded of my desire & dream to own my own plane someday (I’m a way off, just to be clear). As I’m typing, the guy to my back left just coughed up a loogie….I can’t make this stuff up, wow….he’s still going…..honestly wondering if he can read this as I type.
I’ll try to make an event that happened last week interesting to you. For me, it boggles my mind. I just finished reading a book for the 2nd time, The book is “From strength to strength”, written by Arthur C. Brooks. Phenomenal book, especially for us middle agers. The books is about the fact that we have a curve in our professional lives. We switch from what is called “fluid intelligence” to “crystalized intelligence”. I’ll skip the book report but think of a professional baseball player turned coach. As you age, your ability to play the game physically diminishes, and if you hold on to that thought, it can be depressing, but if you embrace it, and understand that your experience and knowledge grows, you have the ability to help others play the game, which is a massive strength. To embrace the transition is a fulfilling life, to not, you’ll die living in the past. There aren’t too many books I have on repeat, but this is one, and it will continue. I had my dad read it after I read it for the first time, he also loved it. One of the author’s last statements to summarize life, which were some of my dad’s all-time favorite words, and mine; “use things, love people, worship the divine”. For me, those 7 words summarize everything. I love the words, I love what they mean, I love that my dad and I shared the enjoyment of the wisdom that came from them.
So here is the crazy part. I finished the book up for the 2nd time before going to bed on Monday Night. As I finished reading the words, “use things, love people, worship the divine”, I had tears thinking of my dad, joyful, nostalgic, and sad tears. The next morning, I received an invite to a charity event from the CEO of a company my dad served on the advisory board of. As I read through the email about the event, I was blown away to find the keynote speaker at the event would be Arthur C. Brooks, the author of “From Strength to Strength” and creator of those amazing words “use things, love people, worship the divine”. I replied to let him know I couldn’t attend the event but how crazy the timing was. Move to Wednesday, I had the opportunity to interview our CEO (don’t mean to keep dropping titles) for a companywide zoom call. We were discussing a variety of topics on our industry, our company, lessons learned, and the path forward. I asked him about advice he’d give to the loan officers watching, he brought up a story of a kid getting advice from an old fisherman, explaining to the kid (who wasn’t catching anything) “you don’t catch fish by casting when the tide is coming in, you catch fish when the tide is going out, when the plankton is all stirred up, that’s when you catch the fish”. Point being, it’s about executing when it feels like chaos around us, and making sure you have a line in the water during those times. I knew the story; I had just read it. Arthur C. Brooks, same guy “use things, love people, worship the divine”, was the kid, and he told the story in “from strength to strength”. Ron (CEO) and I talked immediately after the call, although he didn’t read the book, he had received the story that morning in some form (email/txt), and liked it, and thought it worthy of sharing with our company based on a question I had asked him. How do I not contemplate those 48 hours?
I stay away from religion and politics on these, but I’ll leave you with another favorite quote of mine from Albert Einstein, known to be a relatively intelligent human, ” Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous”.
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!