Success may come in that moment of emptiness … when there is a reserve to tap into!

Sometimes we need more than a New Year’s resolution to make the most of this one way journey called life. Most New Year’s resolutions are slight adjustments … just a tweak or fine-tun

ing of the path we are already on. For some of us, that may be all we need. For others of us, what we really need is nothing short of a turning point.

The bigger question might be, how would you know?

It begins by paying attention. It is the difference of being on the freeway or the highway. Freeways are pretty straight-forward. There are a few crazy interchanges along the way and when you approach them you need to pay attention. When the freeways work their way through crowded cities they demand your attention as well. Even the busiest of us know to stay alert to the interchanges and congested moments of life. We wake-up for the moment, watch the signs and keep on going. Freeways might even serve as a good example of how we live life today … but are not the best example of life itself.

Life more resembles a highway.

Highways are different. They demand your constant attention … especially the two-lane highway. Most impose a slower speed limit. There are times when you need to speed-up to by-pass a slower car. And there are other times when you need to be patient until it is safe to pass. The highway, with its yellow lines, won’t always tell you when it is safe to pass, but will definitely let you know when it is not. Most of us can navigate all of this with minimal attention.

What demands your attention are the directional signs of the highway. In a moment’s notice you can arrive at an ordinary intersection. The road ahead looks just the same as the road you have traveled. But a subtle highway sign, on the shoulder of the road, indicates you need to turn right or left. While the road you are on continues straight ahead … your highway doesn’t.

You are at a turning point.

There is no New Year’s resolution that will help you if you don’t turn. You can resolve to obey the speed limit, to be more patient with slower drivers, or to no longer text and drive. All of these may very well be good and necessary adjustments. But if you miss the highway’s directional sign and go straight … you are still on the wrong road.

Turning points don’t happen because it is time to hang a new calendar. And they don’t happen because all of the sudden you decide to stop and reflect (although that is a good start). If you missed the turn back in October, simply making a New Year’s resolution on the wrong road in December doesn’t necessarily help. Turning points happen because we pay attention. They happen when we understand that life is like a highway … designed with twists and turns rather than a fast and furious straight pavement.

The key is “staying awake” all along the way.

Highways have directional signs at every critical intersection. But we have to notice them before we can follow them. There was a time when they were probably the only signs … they clearly stood out. Over time, many other distracting signs have been added along these pristine highways. Yet, the black and white highway signs are still the same … still there to guide you if you choose to notice them.

I know what you are probably thinking … just get a GPS. If it were only that easy! Many audiences have heard me say that, although I spend a lot of time at Starbucks, I love the tag-line of Caribou Coffee: Life is Short. Stay awake for it.™ What great advice for the New Year.

I love the start of a New Year just as much as the next person. But the start of a New Year is not near as important as your sense of awareness throughout the whole year. Any hour of any day of this New Year has the potential to be your turning point.

You will know it when you get there.

That is, if you choose to make your New Year’s resolution to “refuse-to-snooze” along the way!

Sometimes the most basic question can give us more than a new beginning … it can give us a renewed perspective!

What stands in the way of your 97% today?

The best I can remember, I have never discussed an actual current event in a feature article of The Front Porch. And maybe I shouldn’t. But sometimes there are lessons upon lessons. There are times when the alarms in our lives are silent … and other times they are screaming for our attention.

Penn State is a screaming alarm.

It is the perfect lesson when it comes to core values. And not only a lesson for those at Penn State … although most would prefer to see it only as a lesson for those involved. It is much less demanding to see it that way. After all, it is their problem. But it may very well be our alarm.

When it comes to the “problems” of others, I have come to realize the truth is rarely what it appears to be on the surface. And it certainly is never as easy or clear as it would appear to be either. I don’t know what the truth is at Penn State. I must admit that my first (and second and third) reaction was to question how so many good people could have missed this … or ignored it. It is easy to rush to judgment because 20/20 hindsight is always … well 20/20.

It is also easy to see, so clearly, if you couldn’t care less about Penn State football … or anything else about Penn State. Everything is so much clearer when you are 100% objective … independent. Where you have nothing at stake. Where you have no cost to pay for seeing things exactly as they are.

Passion is truly a gift but can sometimes be a curse.

Rather than spending our time and conversations rushing to judgment about the story of Penn State, I believe we would be better served to ponder the lessons it provides and how it might be triggering silent alarms in our own experience.

First, I am reminded that passion can blind us to the alarms ringing in our life. Rather than judge, I would suggest we would better be served to question our own blind spots. If you don’t think you have any … you have, by definition, just discovered your first. We all have them and some are more dangerous than others.

Second, I’m more convinced than ever that organizational core values are important … but they will never substitute nor replace the essential need for well-defined personal core values. Organizational core values give us a framework for thinking. Personal core values give us courage in the moment. Regardless of the cost. The more clearly we understand the specifics of our personal values, the deeper our courage is likely to run. Penn State’s “success with honor” was a well known organizational value. But it, like any other organizational value, is only as valuable as the connection to our individual personal core.

Third, personal values are anything but personal. They are systemic … and so is the shrapnel damage when something goes wrong. We depend on each other to have them, to know them and to live them. Personal and organizational core values are a must … and executives who are not clear about this are simply playing an organizational version of Russian roulette.

New York Times writer, David Brooks, recently asked an important question on Meet the Press:

Have we lost our sense of right from wrong?

It is a powerful question to ponder. It eventually becomes a stark reality when you are just “winging” your personal or organizational values. The hard part about having core values is they will cost you. The ultimate truth of not knowing your core values is that it will destroy you. It is just a matter of time.

This past year I had the opportunity to meet-up with Jerry Porras, co-author of Built to Last. We were talking about values and he made an excellent point: We truly understand our core values when they are put to the test. I believe he is right on-target. I also believe “the moment of the test” is a really bad time to start figuring them out.

There are always numerous lessons we can learn from the tragedy of others if we choose to reflect rather than judge. No matter the details of the truth, it appears many things went terribly wrong at Penn State. They need to take a really hard look deep inside.

As do all the rest of us.

Ironically, your questions are the answer!

They were up on the roof and under the boardwalk always creating this magic moment. The songs of The Drifters bring back a rush of memories. If only I could sing … it sure would have been fun to be a Drifter. Well, at least that kind of drifter!

But we are far more likely to become a different kind of “drifter.” One of the great joys of writing GOOD to the CORE has been the opportunity to speak with many organizations who have become dead serious about building value with values. Consistently, presentation after presentation, participants will inevitably come-up to me afterwards to discuss one specific quote from my book:

“We don’t go running away from our values, we go drifting away. And one day we wake-up in a place we never meant to be … drifting in a direction we would have never chosen.”

They generally will say … “it’s really about the drift, isn’t it?” It is the one thing that seems to resonate with so many people when they begin to focus on core values … both personal and organizational values. We are all vulnerable to the drift whether we have intentionally chosen our core values or whether we have let our behaviors unintentionally choose them for us.

Last week I had the opportunity to present the opening keynote for the University of Alabama’s Annual Human Resource Management Conference. After my presentation, a participant approached me and had her own version of focusing on the drift. I found what she said to be both simple and profound:

If you don’t know your core values, how would you know you ever left?

That is precisely the value of intentionally knowing your core values. Knowing your core values doesn’t guarantee you from drifting. In fact, you can pretty much be sure you will drift with daily demands, demanding relationships and the reality you are human. But when you drift, intentionally knowing your core values will let you know you have left … your core.

This is true for personal and organizational core values. And for business professionals, knowing one without the other is not enough. Personal and organizational values work systemically to let you know when you have left.

You might think of your core values as the “drift busters.”

But even that is not enough. Sometimes you need others to tell you that you have “left.” Typically, we want friends who “get our drift” … but what we really need are friends who “catch our drift” and bring us back! I touched on this in the “DRIFT“ episode of JOHN-TV. I think The Drifters knew all about this in their singing Stand By Me!

I think of these friends as your “life guards” but could just as easily be considered “drift guards.” These are people who love you enough to tell you the truth and you love them enough to accept the truth when they tell you what you don’t want to hear.

Having core values and drift guards may be the best defense you have against the inevitable tide that is destined to send you drifting.

It really is about the drift, isn’t it?

The path to bad choices and behaviors is typically not a short one. It is an incremental, likely non-detectable, road. It serves us well to know the very moment we “leave.” That is the magic moment!